31 Days for 31 Years: Free Oscar López Rivera!

I am heartened to see such creativity and solidarity - youth and elders, Mexican and Muslim, students and organizers, poets and relatives - joining together to support and raise awareness about Puerto Rican US Political Prisoner Oscar López Rivera.  Thank you to all the organizers and participants for all their work and energy in creating this.  If you're in Chicago, go witness and be a part of this!  Please see the press release from the project and some of the short videos documenting it below:
  
“31 DAYS FOR 31 YEARS”
A Multimedia and Interactive Exhibit for the Release of Oscar López Rivera

The National Boricua Human Rights Network (NBHRN), Batey Urbano and Latin@ Coalition have commenced “31 Days for 31 Years” in which 31 activists and community residents will spend 24 hours each in a makeshift storefront cell with guard, for a total of 31 days. The exhibit, starting April 29th, also features an exhibition of Oscar’s artwork (he is a prolific painter) as well as literature and posters from the campaign to free Puerto Rican political prisoners for the past 30 years and a wall of Oscar’s letters to his supporters as well as a station where people may write to Oscar, in the Batey Urbano, located at 2620 West Division St. Chicago, IL 60622. Batey Urbano is in the heart of “Paseo Boricua” in Chicago’s Humboldt Park Neighborhood.

The purpose of this is to call attention to the continued unjust incarceration of Oscar López Rivera. The ambitious joint effort of the Latin@ Coalition, Batey Urbano and NBHRN will culminate in a major event commemorating his arrest and 31 years of imprisonment on Tuesday, May 29.

Oscar, a decorated Vietnam veteran, has been imprisoned since his arrest on May 29, 1981. Subsequently, he was charged and convicted for seditious conspiracy and minor arms charges and sentenced to 55 years. The other Puerto Rican political prisoners of his generation, arrested in 1980 and 1983 and also convicted of seditious conspiracy, were released in 1999 by President Clinton, due to mass international and domestic pressure. Oscar rejected the offer at that time because 2 others, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydee Beltrán, were not included. Both of them have since been freed on parole.

Another creative way folks have organized to show Oscar support and educate the people about his incarceration and Puerto Rico's struggle to be free:

Not yet fluent in Spanish?  You can learn more about the mural here.

For more information, please see:

National Boricua Human Rights Network 

Previous Dandelioness Herbals blog posts about Oscar López Rivera, including his artwork:

Freedom for Oscar López Rivera!

The Campaign to Free Oscar López Rivera Continues!

Keep on Calling to Free Oscar López Rivera!

Interested in writing to Oscar López Rivera?  Please see: 

Writing to (Political) Prisoners

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

Report back: Empowering Media!

Much appreciation to Danilo, Sarah, Mercedes, Natalia, Denise, and Megan – representing the Vermont Migrant Farmworker Solidarity Project and Vermont Workers’ Center - for creating this videoblog to document their experiences at the 2011 Allied Media Conference. Check out how they're bringing their experiences from the gathering - through the skills they learned and connections they made - back to our communities and creating empowering media for the people! Way to report back and bring it home!