Love & Migration: Migration is Beautiful & Natural. So is Solidarity.

Febuary is here and with it, a month to celebrate Love in it's Many Forms.  While February is sold as the month for romantic love, there is no reason to limit ourselves to this one form.  There's self-love, community-love, family-love (chosen family &/or blood family),  community work/labor-of-love, and global/universal/solidarity-love, to name of few.  These forms of love are not separate and exclusive.  There's overlap.  Our romantic and/or family love can feed our community work/labor-of-love.  Our self-love is vital in order for us to be fully engaged and healthy in that community work.  And that global/universal/solidarity love feeds our day-to-day community activism love.  And there's so many ways to celebrate these all - ie. reflecting upon and appreciating the love in our lives, cultivating more, sending love notes to friends and family near and far, breaking bread together, creating a culture of love.  

I strongly believe in Khalil Gibran's quote "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."  I take great comfort knowing that a broken heart is an open heart.  And a vital way for my heart, in all it's battled and bruised glory, to keep open, and for me to be and feel fully alive, is being part of movements for social justice.

In celebration of Love in it's Many Forms, let's focus on the global, take-action! love.  We're beginning with migrant justice, a movement that's near and dear to my heart.  I am so heartened by the courage and creativity of everyone in this movement that are working not only to change policy, but to liberate our minds from racism, xenophobia, and other divisive forces that create a climate of violence, target communities, separate families, and break hearts.

Favianna Rodriguez is a fierce creatrix of community and art.  She's co-founder of Presente.org, is a national organization that amplifies the political voice of Latino communities (on Facebook here).  Migration is Beautiful: Voice of Art is a recently-released program that shows how artist-activists are creating a culture of resistance and transforming conversations and perceptions  around (im)migration in the U.S.

 Also, check out Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration between Oakland-based artist-activists Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes, as well as the art of undocumented, queer artivist Julio Salgado.

I love when artists, actors, musicians, politicians and others use their influence to send a powerful message of truth and solidarity.  Wisin & Yandel take a romantic-love song, 'Estoy Enamorado' (In English: I'm in Love), and using powerful images, create a video that's a call to action.  While mainstream US culture often clumps all Latin@ cultures together, I think it's important to note that while the images in the video are most likely of people originally from Mexico and Central and South America, Wisin & Yandel are Puerto Rican.  Mainstream US culture often portrays Puerto Ricans in "those people" terms, and many people don't realize that Puerto Ricans, either living in the US or on the island, are US citizens.  Sometimes Puerto Ricans and other Latin@s with US citizenship/papers are pitted against others who lack documentation, or are perceived to lack documentation.  For this reason, Wisin & Yandel using the video to send a clear message about inhumane immigration law in the US is a blatant refusal of divide and conquer tactics and beautiful act of solidarity!




The message at the end of the video is: 
"Creemos en la protección de los derechos de todo ser humano. La Ley SB1070 representa una violacion de esos derechos y una injusticia contra la integridad de nuestras comunidades. En nuestra unión esta la fuerza. Unámosnos. Recuerda en este mundo TODOS somos iguales!"

In English: "We believe in protecting the rights of every human being. (Arizona) SB 1070 Law represents a violation of those rights and an injustice to the integrity of our communities. In our union there is strength. Unite. Remember, in this world, we are ALL equal!"


Activists and artists are making it so easy and so beautiful to become educated and get involved.  Through this movement, I am continuing to unlearn racism, reclaim my humanity, and know true solidarity.  As a white, English-speaking U.S. citizen, and with respect for my ancestors and their journeys from Ireland, Scotland, and England, I feel so blessed to be on the right side of history and part of such a creative, beautiful, loving, and fierce movement.  


Please see National Day Laborers Organizing Network's arts and culture page for more powerful videos (in English and Spanish).

image by Julio Salgado

Other good resources:
Drop the I-Word
No More Deaths/No Más Muertes
(Im)migration and Lip Balms for Social Justice?! blog post

Justicia Migrante/Migrant Justice 
National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Puente
Standing on the Side of Love

Heart Elixir: to open, heal, and protect the heart   Info here

Other Valentines-inspired blog posts:
Valentine's Aphrodisiac Recipes
Love is a Verb: A Valentine's Post
V-Day: One Billion Rising and Man Prayer (Un Billón de Pie y Oración de un Hombre)

ICE Is Drawing the Line, Which Side are You On?

This is definitely the team I'm playing on! For more info, see:
Standing on the Side of Love: Harnessing Love’s Power to Stop Oppression

Today I was on a conference call with over 100 people from all over the country who are outraged with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and their “Secure Communities” (S-Comm) program. S-Comm is a fingerprint-sharing program that turns law enforcement officers into immigration officials. For example, a woman called the police for help. Rather than protecting her as a victim/survivor of domestic violence, the police turned her over to ICE as part of the S-Comm program and now she faces deportation. (For more info on this case, see Victim of “Secure Communities” Program Who is Now a Vocal Critic and Abused and Deported: Immigrant Women Face Double Disgrace.) However, this program is so much more than individual’s heart-breaking, unjust stories. The program fuels distrust of law enforcement officials, creates fear, and forces communities into silence. Victims and witnesses of crimes don’t feel safe stepping forward, and this in turn further endangers already-vulnerable community members and our communities as a whole. For those interested in learning more about the multiple forms of trauma that results from deportations in our communities, please see "The Effects of U.S. Deportation Policies on Immigrant Families and Communities: Cross-Border Perspectives." Though ICE claims to be making our communities safer, it actually itself creates a huge threat to public safety. The program is separating families, perpetuating violence, and pushes forward the very racial profiling that communities have been organizing against for years.

While ICE and state governments like Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama actively push forward racist and anti-immigrant policies, others are standing up. Communities are organizing, politicians and religious leaders have been arrested for engaging in non-violent protest, and New York, Mass, and Illinois have all opted out of the S-Comm program. Two weeks ago, during the one-year anniversary of the passage of Arizona's anti-immigration law SB1070, I was heartened to hear interviews with Rep. Luis Gutierrez and Rev. Peter Morales about their separate arrests while protesting inhumane state and federal immigration laws. Individuals and organizations are taking a stand and calling on their elected officials to take a stand, especially those who were elected on a platform of progressive immigration reform. As President Obama feigns concern over the immigration policies that cause people to live in fear, tear families apart, and promote violence, he's deported over a million people during his two years in office, all while continuing to assert that his hands are tied.

This past Friday, amidst scheduled community forums organized to receive public feedback about the program, ICE announced that its program will now completely override agreements between its office and individual states, as it is now making its program mandatory. ICE is undermining local, democratic process and forcing all states to push forward its agenda, despite the program currently being under investigation by the Office of the Inspector General, as well as the subject of intense criticism. ICE claims that S-Comm targets dangerous criminals, but in actuality, it has created an enormous dragnet that’s separating families and imprisoning those who’s only crime is having crossed a border into a country with a broken immigration system.

ICE is drawing the line. Meanwhile, the people are organizing!

What can I do?

The Migrant Justice and the Vermont Worker’s Center have collaborated with community groups to create a petition calling for Vermont to officially opt-out of “S-Comm.” On today’s nation-wide conference call today organizers were happy to hear about Vermonters taking action to speak out against S-Comm, since VT is one of the last states where the program hasn’t been activated. Though this petition was created before last week’s announcement that states cannot opt out, a strong show of support will encourage the Governor and our other elected officials to speak out against S-Comm. Please sign the petition by clicking here.

Great, what else can I do?

*Tell your friends about this petition! Email/post the link. Print the petition out, carry it with you, and collect signatures.

*Speak up! Write a letter to the editor for your local paper. Talk with your friends, family, co-workers, and with others in community organizations, at your place of worship, and other groups you’re a part of. Join the National Day of Action against S-Comm by clicking here and contact your elected officials (for an example of a letter written by NY Rep. Serrano, click here.)

*Organize! Migrant Justice will be organizing actions in the coming weeks. You can join their email list by contacting them at info@migrantjustice.net

*For more info on actions happening nation-wide, including in Chicago, Boston, Providence, NY, NJ, CA, TX, AZ, KS, D.C., see the National Day Laborer Organizing Network’s website

For more information, please see:

National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Migrant Justice

Presente.org
Alto Arizona

Migrant Workers Lobby (VT) Governor to Speak Out Against Federal Immigration Program

Statehouse Adventures: Immigrant Rights are Human Rights and Healthcare is a Human Right blog post

(Im)migration and Lip Balms for Social Justice?! blog post
The organization Cuéntame has created a video, Immigrants for Sale, outlining how private prison corporations and politicians are locking people up for profit: