a journey of transformation
January 9, 2015: Strike 1 It always feels like one step forward two steps back and a whole lot of anxiety. I feel like I should just always carry around copies of the stacks of documents proving that Efrem has the right to do things and be places. The general population is incredibly ignorant of what…
Read More
December 16-17, 2014 Besides the obvious requirement of getting married within 90 days, part of the K1 visa also requires you file for the Adjustment of Status (AOS) within that same period of time. After that, you’re good until the bureaucracy decides to get around to your application and grant you, first, an employment authorization, and then…
Read More
Stop for a moment and think about all the personal encounters you’ve had in the U.S., or have witnessed, with non-English speakers. Think about the level of impatience had with, or complete dismissal of, that non-English speaking person. We are, as a nation, pretty ridiculous. As are some other nations when it comes to non-speakers…
Read More
This Horne character (state superintendent in Arizona), I believe it was him I saw on TV next to Michael Eric Dyson sounding like a FOOL! He exhibits all the classic symptoms of a closet racist: he has black friends, he marched on Washington, he knows ONE soundbite from MLK, he doesn’t think white privilege exists, he calls people of color who are educated about their history and conscious of the glossed over and heroized “American” history-angry and hostile, he adamantly believes that self-segregation is a thing, solidarity is bad, being numb to social wrongs is good, that the pedagogy of the oppressed (a book he’s never read and couldn’t understand if he did) was written by a communist whose name he cannot pronounce, he speaks Spanish therefore can understand their point of view, and the list just goes on and on.
It really disgusts me to see the same tactics and rhetoric being used on Mexican-Americans with the same violence and menacing tone that would’ve been used on African-Americans decades ago (not to say that it’s stopped with Afro-Americans, it’s just that they feel they have to tread more lightly with African Americans—some of that probably has to do with our status as legal citizens, esp. in Arizona, and that we speak English, even if it is sometimes “black english,” and maybe because some of us who have been turned activists aren’t seen as a threat the way “activised” Mexican Americans may be perceived, because we’ve already been written off as loud, complaining, angry people who can’t focus our efforts into a successful revolution, because we’re too busy still feeling the effects of latent racism and self-hatred and thus too busy pulling each other down—though that’s somewhat of an over-generalization). Either way DAMN DAMN SHAME!!
Arizona is RIDICULOUS!!: Rift in Arizona as Latino Class Is Found Illegal
TUCSON — The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American.
For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.
