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)

Scapegoating Disguised as Sustainability

My recent letter to the editor:

I must admit that I was surprised to read that immigrants are to blame for the US’s supposed population problem in Mark Powell’s Nov 17-30, 2011 letter to The Bridge (Montpelier, VT's free independent local newspaper). I assume that when the author, representing the New England Coalition for Sustainable Population, declared that immigration is the cause of our problems, he was not talking about college-educated, white British people or English-speaking, middle-class Canadians. While less explosive than the dehumanizing and racialized terms like “illegal aliens,” use of “documented and undocumented” still conjures up images of people of color, specifically those crossing the militarized border between Mexico and the U.S. That the people who have been impoverished by U.S. policy and multinational corporations to the point that they are forced to leave their families and communities to work tirelessly to harvest our crops and keep our dairy farms alive is disgraceful. Europeans who colonized the Americas, including my own ancestors who came as Pilgrims without invitation, were undocumented, as it were. They proceeded to enslave the people indigenous to this land and later stole and enslaved people from Africa. Their descendants have benefited from such genocide and some seem to feel entitled to determine who belongs in this country and who doesn’t. We need to take a long look at our nation’s history, our personal ancestry, and the sustainability of our own lifestyles. This is not a time for pointing fingers, nor for perpetuating racism and classism by scapegoating groups of people. This is a time for solidarity. This is a time for identifying and unlearning narrow thinking that divides us, seeking creative solutions, and working together for justice.

This letter to the editor is in response to this:
"Uncontrolled Population Will Lead to Famine" Page 26, Nov 17-30, 2011

Trust Your Struggle graffiti art in Brooklyn, NYC.
Speak the Truth, Even if your Voice Shakes.

New Year's (at least in the Gregorian/Western/Christian calender) Resolution:
Write more Letters to the Editor. 300 words or less?!


Click here to Take the Pledge!

Please see previous Dandelioness Herbals blog posts:
*(Im)migration and Lip Balms for Social Justice?!
*Statehouse Adventures: Immigrant Rights are Human Rights and Healthcare is a Human Right
*Migrant Farmworkers in VT Stand Against inSecure Communities
*ICE Is Drawing the Line, Which Side are You On?
*Challenging Columbus Day

Challenging Columbus Day

I probably shouldn't be surprised that Columbus Day is still celebrated. I think it's important that he be remembered. What completely shocks and appalls me is that he is still celebrated as a hero, that internet searches turn up biographies that are straight out of 3rd grade book reports that are regurgitated from history books written solely from the colonizer's perspective, describing this "explorer" as the forward-thinking man who proved that the world was not flat (while people had known the earth was round for centuries). The cycle of misinformation continues and continues, warping our perceptions of the foundations of the United States. If any of the very words of Columbus and his crew are even included in textbooks and history classes, they're cherry picked for condescending, dominating, assumptive descriptions of the land and people that he supposedly "discovered." The tales of rape and enslavement of the indigenous people of the lands he invaded are not mentioned. The mass genocide and torture don't make it into the book reports.

Being in grade school in 1992, bombarded by "500 years of Discovery!" in class and the "500 years of Catholicism" Boy/Girl scout retreat, there was no acknowledgment of the of what these five centuries have meant for the many indigenous nations that were in the Americas and Caribbean long before European invasions. I happened to be in eighth grade that year, the year when an entire quarter of the school year was devoted to Christopher Columbus. My classmates studied and presented on the music and fashion of that time. My friend (who has indigenous ancestry on her mother's side) and I (who's Pilgrim ancestors enslaved indigenous peoples) collaborated to paint another perspective. We created a mural and painted it at the front of our history class, where all the students could see. Rather than the common Eurocentric view - from the boat's vantage point, perceiving the exoticized lands and peoples that they encountered, we showed an indigenous person with the boats arriving behind them, and lined either side of the mural with bloody handprints. Somehow, despite what we were learning in school, we knew that what we were being taught was not the truth. Somehow, we not only designed the mural, we were allowed to paint it and I believed it stayed up for a few years, too.

This mural's image (and its message - that there are other perspectives, more stories than what we're commonly taught) that my friend and I created should not be a tiny current against the glossed- over miseducation we receive in our culture and its schools. While I'm glad that we offered another, more accurate perspective to what we were surrounded by, this pro-conquistador misinformation is unfortunately what is still being taught and celebrated twenty years later. While it's important that the teachers, parents, mentors, and other adults in childrens' lives who are concerned with truthful history and challenging racism speak up about the truth about Columbus, it's not only youth that need to be schooled.

The mainstream history taught in schools and the media glorifies and justifies (both through its lessons and its omissions) racism, imperialism, genocide, rape culture, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of oppression. Unless we consciously and collectively re-educate ourselves, listen to our elders and learn history from those who lived it, seek out the voices of those who are systematically silenced, and share truthful, inclusive information with each other, we will continue to hold, and be held-down by, misinformation that seeks to divide us.

Below I've included some of my favorite truth-about-Columbus resoures - an article, video, and many images. Please share these resources with teachers, students, neighbors, classmates, parents/guardians, children, youth, co-workers, and others in your life. Please also leave comments with other resources that you've drawn upon and would like others to know about and share.

Columbus Day Celebration? Think Again article 

Reconsider Columbus Day!

In these time of racist anti-immigrant laws running rampant through our country and creating inSecure Communities, asking questions about who "belongs" here, whose land this is, the history that we're taught about the past and the present, becomes more and more important. Where are your ancestors from? If they are not indigenous to this land then how did they get here? Why did they come? How were they received? What laws discriminated against them or benefited them? What laws discriminate against you and your family and friends or benefit you and your loved ones? How many generations have you been on this land? How does the history of colonization in the US affect you? How do militarized borders affect you? What peoples in your communities are silenced due to racism, colonization, and militarized borders?

Please see previous Dandelioness Herbals blog post:
*(Im)migration and Lip Balms for Social Justice?!

_____________________
Invaders Weekend/ Day of Indigenous Resistance additions:

Transform Columbus Day Alliance site.
Unitarian Universalist Associations' Indigenous Peoples Day site.
A Guide to Celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day by Taylor Payer
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2015/10/a-guide-to-celebrating-indigenous-peoples-day/

Mural by: MEChA, University of Wyoming, from Frank's wall, depicting the effects of the invasion of Mexico by Spaniard Hernan Cortes. Effects which continue today across not only Mexico, but all of the Americas.

Venezuelans in Caracas tear down the statue of Christopher Columbus on Columbus Day and rename it the Day of Indigenous Resistance.

                   

English-Only what?! Check out this map of the major linguistic groups in what is now known as North America (Canada, US, and Mexico) and the Caribbean.  (See 'So You Want to Learn Spanish?! Hooray! English-only, No Way!' post)

Additional Images and links posted Oct 2012 and 2015

http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2015/10/a-guide-to-celebrating-indigenous-peoples-day/http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2015/10/a-guide-to-celebrating-indigenous-peoples-day/