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doozies

Published at June 17, 2006 in boricua/latino, gentrification, racism and Uncategorized. 5 Comments

Wow, I woke up to some doozies this morning. Check out the most recent comments by LOLA and Jack Alouet who are, of course, all up in a tizzy about my posts about gentrification. LOLA’s are especially enlightening, especially when LOLA says that Puerto Ricans are the most racist people in NYC.

LOLA also took the time to write to me this morning, grilling me about whether I endorse violence because I approved Tenda’s comment in “innate charm, my ass,” – newsflash, I don’t endorse that sort of violence, as you might have gathered if you read the comment directly below Tenda’s. LOLA also writes that my blog is bordering on racist against white people – yeah, um, no, sorry!

And, the icing on the cake – LOLA is apparently a freelance reporter who was going to write a story about Puerto Ricans are misrepresented in NYC, but after reading my blog, is reconsidering. LOLA even seems to threaten me, writing: “do you think that comment will represent your community in a positive light if it were publicized or made publicly evident for that matter? ” LOLA, I sincerely hope that you reconsider so much that you don’t write that article at all, because I think it would pretty much be guaranteed to suck.

My pride cup overfloweth…

Published at June 11, 2006 in boricua/latino, me, nyc and queer. 8 Comments

Puerto Rican Day Parade, painting by Martin Wong
Puerto Rican Day Parade by Martin Wong

This weekend was a little overwhelming with the pride in my various identities. On Saturday, Brooklyn Pride exploded in all its queer glory. Me, my girlfriend, and Bessie the dog went out and were queer. This basically consisted of walking up and down Prospect Park West, getting about ten steps at a time before stopping to greet people we knew (Bessie got pet a lot), dodging the countless solicitations from Democrats and assorted mainstream queer organizations like HRC (we didn’t dodge the coller organizations, though they were also far less in-your-face), and eating overpriced, greasy street fair food. Later that night, we attended the somewhat abbreviated night parade, which was a lot of fun and had much more of a neighborhood, chill feel than the craziness that is the big Pride march in Manhattan.

OMG, speaking of pride, I need to interrupt myself to CHEER via blog because Cynthia Nixon just won the Tony award for Best Performance by a Lead Actress in a Play. My girlfriend and I were hoping that she’d thank her girlfriend in her speech, which she did not, but she did something even better – she kissed her! On camera! Woohoo!

Today I found out that Cynthia Nixon and her partner were at Brooklyn Pride. And I missed them. This, my friends, is a tragedy indeed. I met her once; she actually knew my name and used it a few times over the course of said night. This tells me that maybe I could have said hi to her without seeming overly “Hi I’m a huge fan of yours and I’m going to bother you at this random event!” Maybe she would have even pet my dog. Le sigh.

Anyhow.

Today was the Puerto Rican Day Parade. An estimated three million people attended. I was not one of them. I had to speak on that panel (which I’ll write more about tomorrow, hopefully); afterwards, me and a few of my friends tried to catch up to the parade, but we thought it was travelling south when it was actually going north, so we wound up quite far from the tail end of it. I could have hopped on the subway and gone uptown, but we were hungry, it was getting late, and the crowds seemed far too daunting. So I did not go. I didn’t even get to watch it on TV, as I usually do.

On my train ride home, I saw tons of people coming back from the parade, entire families bedecked in various renditions of the Puerto Rican flag. A Mexicana friend of mine always says that we Boricuas love our bandera more than anything, and with all the flags I saw today, that seems quite true. It made me happy to see so many proud Boricuas all over the place, but sad that I’d missed all the festivities. I was, however, wearing my own Puerto Rican flag armband, have worn my Puerto Rico World Baseball Classic t-shirt all day yesterday and part of this afternoon, have my big flag flying outside my apartment window, and have had my ringtone set to “Que Bonita Bandera” all weekend. So I’ve celebrated in my own little way, but next year, I’ve got to find some other Boricuas to celebrate with.

As an aside – maybe only other Puerto Ricans will find this as amusing as me – today on the train I saw this guy wearing a t-shirt that said “Boricua” and featured a big cartoon coquí, standing upright in front of a flag, wearing shades, a PR flag do-rag, and a tank top that exposed its muscley, green, tattooed bicep. ¡Que loco!

P.S. I finally got around to responding to many comments that had been lingering for a few days. So, if you’ve written one recently, check back, I’ve probably responded.

Mi Puerto Rico

Published at June 5, 2006 in boricua/latino, colonialism/imperialism, film and Uncategorized. 6 Comments

My dad called me up earlier tonight and told me to switch on channel 13, which is PBS here in the NYC area. I thought he was trying to tell me, yet again, that In the Life, a lesbian and gay news show, was on; my dad loves to tell me about every single remotely gay thing he sees, watches, or hears about.

But this time, he was calling to tell me about a film that was on, Mi Puerto Rico. I’m really glad he called me about it; it was an excellent film, all about issues of cultural and political identity in Puerto Rico, centered around US colonialism and the question of Puerto Rico’s political status. While presenting all sides of the debate, the film had what I thought was a decidedly independista slant, which, of course, I greatly appreciated.

I’m sad I didn’t get to watch the whole thing from the very beginning, and am tempted to get in on DVD. Only thing is, you can only get the DVD for either $295 from the independent film distributor, or for a $75 or more pledge to Thirteen, the PBS station here. Even though I really need not spend that sort of money, I’m so tempted.

If you’d like to watch it, are in the NYC area, and are the early riser sort, it’ll be airing again at 7:30am this Saturday.

jury duty, part deux

Published at May 11, 2006 in (in)justice system, boricua/latino, me and nyc. 7 Comments

First off, a quick note: my letter on gentrification to Time Out New York was published in this week’s edition. And they didn’t edit all that much out, though they did leave out the sentence about poverty and neglect in Bushwick. Ah well, that they published it at all is somewhat surprising!

So – my jury duty experience lasted only one day, but I did get my wish. After lunch, the lawyers for the plaintiff and the defendant (it was a civil case, a lawsuit around an injury) picked three more people to interview at random. These three came off as being much less prejudiced, in the “having a prior opinion” sense of the word, than the three who went before lunch. They were three men, two white, all very quick and eager with the “right” answers that made them seem fair-minded and lacking prejudice. Part of me couldn’t help but suspect that they were giving what they knew to be the “right” answers without thinking very deeply about the questions being asked. They were also grilled a little less than the first three folks who were up there (two women, one white person.) I wonder what it was about them, or what they had on their juror survey ,that maybe reassured the lawyers. Anyhow, in the end, they were quickly chosen as the other three jurors; they’d picked the first three the day before.

I was a little disappointed until the lawyers said that they were then going to pick two alternate jurors, who would attend the entire trial just like the regular jurors and would fill in if one of the jurors became ill or otherwise unavailable. They picked two more people at random to interview for those seats, and I was one of them! I tried to avoid grinning too broadly as I took my place in the front row of office chairs that were crammed into our little empanelling room (as they are called.) It was me and another woman of color. They asked us way more questions than they asked the previous guys. There’s a section of the form that asks questions like, “Have you or anyone close to you ever been accused of a crime, convicted of a crime, victim of a crime, witness to a crime, filed suit against someone, been sued?” I checked almost all of them, so they got to ask me about the lawsuits; neither bore any resemblance to the lawsuit at hand. They asked about my technology work and about the other woman’s work as the principal of an elementary school in Harlem (she seemed like she’d be a good principal.)

They then asked if we’d be prejudiced against either of the parties in the lawsuit – ConEdison, or the policeman who claimed he was injured due to ConEd’s negligence. They specifically asked if it made a difference to us that the man was a police officer. That gave me a bit of pause, but in the end, I said that it wouldn’t sway me either way. Having heard the background of the case, I thought I’d be able to be balanced. After all, big corporations and the police are kind of on the same level of undesirability, aren’t they? Heh. I wonder how my personal preconceptions would have played out as I observed the trial. I mean, sure, I’d have attempted to be as impartial as possible, but come on, I don’t really believe in objectivity and I know that certain preconceptions would have lurked in the back of my head. Class issues (police officer vs big corporation), issues with the police, any other buttons that might’ve been pressed during the trial… anyhow, regardless of all that, I really thought I’d be able to be an impartial juror, and so said I.

Both the other woman and I were picked as alternate jurors! First, I was excited. Then, I felt a sense of dread at the possibility of having to spend five days at court. One day of jury duty is one thing, many days in a row is a whole other ballgame. But in the end, I wound up being excused – I’m going out of town next Friday, have a reservation made and everything, and they weren’t sure that the trial would definitely be over by then. So, they excused me, after which I waited around for around two more hours until I was finally discharged from jury duty. I’ve now fulfilled my civic responsibility (as they described it, my right and privilege) for the next six years, in Kings County, at least.

*****

At the beginning of the day, when we were being instructed as to how to fill out our juror cards, a woman sitting near me asked me if I spoke Spanish and could help her with her card. I said yes, with the caveat that my Spanish kind of sucks. She was an older Mexicana woman who had somehow managed to not be called for jury duty in her 20-something years of citizenship. In my broken, half-assed Spanish, I helped her with her card, but also told her that she might not even need to serve because of her limited English comprehension. Indeed, after a while they asked folks who did not speak English to come up to the front to be excused. She went up, but came back not too long after – apparently she spoke just enough English to get to sit around in the main jury room all day, which she did. I saw her at lunch time and came to sit with her again when I was excused from my case. She was really nice and didn’t make me feel more ashamed than I already was about my Spanish. When she finally got called up for her jury discharge, she touched me on my shoulder as we said goodbye. That small gesture, combined with her departure, made me unexpectedly sad. I think I miss the presence of older Latina women in my life. Since my grandmother died almost three years ago now, I haven’t seen much of my family; I have my mother, but even she lives far away from me, and I only get to see her two or three times a year, tops. I think that Silvia reminded me that there’s something really special about older Latina women, something that I can’t really put into words; just a warmth, a familiarty that I miss.

*****

Having jury duty got me to thinking. I know lots of folks around my age and of my general political persuasion who hate jury duty, or at least the idea of it, and would be happy to get out of it. I’ve heard some people talk about playing up their lefty tendencies in the hope that no jury would want them.

This strikes me as a bad attitude and a worse strategy. Yes, the tedious, immensely boring ordeal of court sucks. Yes, the (in)justice system in this country is majorly fucked in twenty million ways. But I think it’s important for folks like us to get ourselves on juries, especially in criminal cases. I do believe that it’s important for jurors to be as impartial as possible, but do I think that most jurors really leave their personal and societal prejudices at home? Hell no. Have many people (especially people of color and poor folks) been royally screwed by juries stacked with people almost guaranteed to look upon them unfavorably? Hell yeah. So, even though the whole carcereal system (as one friend so aptly put it today) probably needs to be done away with, it’s here now, and as long as it’s effecting people’s lives in a very real and often very harmful way, we social-justice-minded folks should try to participate as fully as possible. At least then, the juries might be more likely to be prejudiced towards true justice than against it.

“innate charm,” my ass.

Published at April 28, 2006 in boricua/latino, economic justice, gentrification, mainstream media, me, nyc, people of color and racism. 34 Comments

A letter I’ve written to Time Out NY in response to a recent article about finding apartments in NYC:

The low-income people of color and immigrants who live in “on-the-verge nabes” (“Apartments 2006,” TONY 552) are being pushed out of these “hot” neighborhoods by a wave of gentrification that TONY seems to be endorsing. The article speaks of neighborhoods like Bushwick being “widely discovered”; however, just as with the “discovery” of the Americas by white Europeans, there are already people there. Your article completely ignores the negative impact that gentrification has on these residents, focusing only on the self-interest of people who can afford the ever-rising rents. While these neighborhoods may seem affordable to some, they are rapidly becoming too expensive for their current residents, who are forced out to make room for the relatively wealthier swarms searching for a good deal.

The “innate charm” of such neighborhoods fades when contrasted with the harsh realities of life for many current residents. Bushwick has some of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the city, as well as sub-par and landlord-neglected housing. Innate charm, indeed.

The background:

My girlfriend and I subscribe to Time Out NY; I’m not really sure why, given that we barely ever make it to any of the events that they list, nor can we afford to dine at many of the restaurants that they review. It can be good for movie reviews, though. Anyhow – this week’s issue arrived and the cover announced the Apartments 2006 feature; one of the blocks of text read something about giving the scoop on five “on-the-verge” neighborhoods where one could get great deals. Immediately, I knew this couldn’t be good. I flipped open to the article and, lo and behold, those five neighborhoods were much what I expected them to be: East Harlem, Bushwick, Sunset Park, Inwood, and Hunter’s Point. Aside from the last neighborhood (which is in Queens, and I know very little about Queens), I know that all of these areas are populated largely, if not primarily, by low-income people of color, many of whom are Latinos, many of whom are immigrants.

The language used to speak of these neighborhoods was classic, a thorough embracement of gentrification, quite reminiscent of colonialism. Here’s some gems:

About Inwood: “Another gentrification indicator: the emergence of a visible gay population.” Right. Because gentrification by (white) queers is GRRRRRREAT! I mean, they actually speak about gentrification by a “gay population” as a good thing! And, of course, there wasn’t a visible gay population there before, because visibly gay means white and gay, not Latino and gay (unless, you know, there were absolutely no queers living in Inwood before white people moved in.)

About Bushwick: “…or that sit next to hot spots, like Williamsburg’s neighbor to the east, Bushwick (this one’s been widely discovered, so move fast).” Oh yeah, discovered – kind of like america was discovered when the white Europeans arrived, right? Because you can’t fucking discover something if there’s already people there. Back then, it was the Native people who got robbed; now, it’s Latino immigrants who are getting pushed out. Different brown folks, same white folks, same mentality, similar effects.

Also about Bushwick: “By now you’ve surely heard the hype, but even a “Sunday Styles” article can’t spoil this Brooklyn area’s innate charm. Besides the giant lofts that can hold a bunch of friends (and their turntables), there’s more traditional housing stock to be had. Near the Jefferson Street stop on the L, you’ll find industrial infrastructure and family houses—a mix that adds up to a pretty cool vibe (though the area definitely still has dangerous pockets).”

Un-fucking-believable. Has the writer ever been to Bushwick, aside from dashing between one of the L stops and their hipster friends’ lofts – because who else are they talking about with those turntables? Does the writer know anything about Bushwick besides the fact that it’s “cheap” and near Williamsburg? I bet they don’t know these facts about Bushwick, lifted directly from the website of Make the Road By Walking, an awesome organization based in the neighborhood:

  • Over 40 percent of Bushwick residents live below the poverty level, and almost 40 percent rely on means-tested government benefits.
  • Median family income in Bushwick is less than half the national average while the official unemployment rate in Bushwick is over 10 percent, which is more than double the national rate.
  • The percentage of children born into poverty in Bushwick is 75.8 percent, the highest rate in Brooklyn. (as I copied and pasted this statistic I started crying)
  • the high school dropout rate in Bushwick is close to 70 percent.
  • Sixty-five percent of the community is Latino and almost half of these Latinos are legal permanent residents who cannot vote.
  • Bushwick’s housing stock comprises many old and deteriorated buildings, mainly tenements with absentee landlords or tax-foreclosed properties owned by the City. These buildings are contaminated with lead paint, and lead paint violations number 64.4 per thousand children, twice the Brooklyn average.

I lived in Bushwick for two years before moving to my current neighborhood in Brooklyn. And while living there, I agonized about the gentrification that I could see happening around me. Over those two years, I saw more and more white hipsters getting off the L train alongside me and scurrying to and from their lofts. Let me tell you, I saw far more white people within a one block radius of the subway stop than I ever did just a couple more blocks into the neighborhood, as if they were afraid to venture any deeper. And you almost never saw them in the local supermarket right across the street from the lofts, either; most often, they were toting their Whole Foods bags from Manhattan. The more of them I saw getting off at Dekalb over time, the madder I got.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t absolve myself, either. Sure, I’m Latina, as was my roommate at the time. But we were both also college-educated U.S. citizens with white-collar jobs, and no matter what our race or class backgrounds or how little extra money we had, those things made us decidedly more privileged than many of the people in the neighborhood. Our privilege was ultimately most evident in our move out of the neighborhood, both of us to more expensive apartments in “nicer” (read: less poor, lower crime rates, prettier) areas. That’s an option that most of our neighbors didn’t have. Despite the obstacles we face because of our race, our genders, our sexualities, we were both upwardly-mobile in a way that most of our neighbors were not. We left Bushwick for greener pastures; if these folks move out of Bushwick, many of them will have been forced out by rising rents, and many of their destinations will not be any greener.

My roommate and I spent a whole lot of time seething over the very visible evidence of gentrification in our neighborhood. When it’s white folks moving into a primarily POC neighborhood, it can look and feel very much like an invasion, all these white faces popping up where you used to only see brown ones. But we also spent possibly an equal amount of time thinking and talking about our own participation in the gentrification of Bushwick, and how to be more accountable for that culpability. I was as guilty of shopping at Whole Foods as those white hipsters, but I also knew that supporting local businesses was important and tried to shop in the local supermarkets as much as possible. When my white girlfriend moved in with me for a while, I felt intense guilt and inner conflict about basically bringing yet another white person into the neighborhood.

And you know what pissed me off the most? My roommate and I, neither of us being white, neither of us being rich, thought about this shit all the time, and did what little we could about it. But how many of those young white hipsters we saw moving in spent a fucking second worrying about what negative impact they might be having on the community? Did they even have a moment’s hesitation before signing those leases on those “amazingly cheap” lofts they were moving into? Did they try to find out more about their darker-skinned, poorer neighbors, about what they were facing in the neighborhood, about what they could do to somehow help and somehow try to lessen the impact of their own presence? Probably not. That was the kicker. But that’s always the case, isn’t it – people who have less privilege, who experience more oppression on a first-hand basis, are always going to think more, care more, and do more about the oppression of others than folks who don’t experience very much oppression at all.

I know that there are no easy answers here. I know that gentrification seems to sweep across the city like an unstoppable wave. I know that rents in NYC are fucking insane, and that many of those young white folks I saw moving into Bushwick probably don’t have a whole bunch of extra money to spend on rent. But it’s this attitude of entitlement, of selfishness, of ignorance and blindness to what’s happening to people around you, of making up excuses to save a little money – that’s what really pisses me off. I know it can be hard to find affordable housing in NYC. But can you at least try to move somewhere where you won’t be pushing people of color and poor folks out, instead of jumping at the next hot deal? And if you absolutely have to move there, can you at least try to do something to lessen the blow or to work for the people living in the neighborhood? At the very least, can you acknoweldge that you and your ilk are probably screwing a whole lot of people over? Is that too much to ask?

migraphobia

Published at April 11, 2006 in boricua/latino, civil rights, colonialism/imperialism, economic justice, global/international, immigrants rights, mainstream media, nyc, people of color, politics/government and racism. 2 Comments

Today’s post title comes to you from this funny and smart animation by Mark Fiore, which I discovered by reading a great post of the same name by Junichi over at Poplicks. Check that blog out for good reasons why we should be thankful that the immigration reform “compromise” bill wasn’t passed (and hopeful that something that actual resembles justice does get passed in the end.)

Yesterday’s rally was actually one of the best, most fun, and most inspiring I’ve ever been to. When my girlfriend and I arrived at Canal and Broadway, the end of the protest was right there on that block – very impressive, though possibly also a partial result of the weird spacing that the police caused with their stupid penning tactics, now familiar to any New Yorker who has seen or attended protests in recent years. The going was slow but eventually we made it down to City Hall, lots more people still flowing in behind us even though we’d gotten to the protest pretty late.

Part of the effectiveness of the protest was that it was felt very focused – it really did feel like we were all raising a unified cry for justice and immigrants rights. The mood was optimistic and almost festive – yes, there was the gravity of the matters at hand and the anger and frustration at how immigrants are abused in this country, but there was also the high energy and high spirits of many peoples gathering together to fight for something that they really think they might get – that hope is really important and I think is often less evident at many protests.

Also, Latinos know how to make just about everything more fun than anyone else (hehe, sorry other folks, gotta have the Latino pride here.) Other than the Still We Rise march back during the RNC (which probably ties this one for Jack’s Best Protest thusfar), this was probably the most people-of-color-dominated protests I’ve ever been to. Even though me and my girlfriend (who is white) were lost in a crowd of strangers for most of the protest, I felt really happy and all warm and fuzzy inside, surrounded by so many proud Latinos, yelling “¡Sí se puede!” and “El pubelo unido jamás será vencido!” at the top of our lungs.

Speaking of that, though, the overwhelming number of Latinos at the protest made me pissed off at NPR’s local NYC coverage this morning, in which three people with white-sounding last names and american accents were interviewed. Like, come on, they must have worked really hard to find those few white folks swimming in a veritable sea of brown. (Yes, I know, it might’ve been a fluke, and I can’t really say for sure that those people were white or non-Latino, but still.)

One thing that was weird for me was the amount of american flag-waving going on at the rally. Maybe it was in response to the kind of bullshit criticism of the presence of other countries’ flags that I wrote about yesterday, or maybe it was all really genuine sentiment, but either way, there were tons of ’em, everywhere. I’m not much of a fan of the american flag, since to me it can’t be anything but a symbol of the centuries of genocide, land theft, slavery, imperialism, and other assorted oppression that has been wreaked in the name of the good ol’ u.s. of a. And most of the protests that I attend are critical of the u.s. in ways that don’t seem to prompt a lot of flag flying. I know that immigration protests are a different story – the whole point is about people wanting and deserving to live in this country, so it makes sense that they should carry the flag as a symbol that they, too, are americans. But american patriotism, in any form and for any reason, still kind of icks me out.

On that topic, here’s a good look from the folks at Media Matters at the inanity, the bigotry, and the hypocricy being spewed by some conservatives over protestors carrying the flags of Mexico and other countries. One particularly obnoxious comment from Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review:

Well, aren’t there plenty of Irish flags at St. Patrick’s Day parades, and Italian flags at Columbus Day celebrations? What makes the Mexican displays more ominous is their hint of a large, unassimilated population existing outside America’s laws and exhibiting absolutely no sheepishness about it.

Hmm… now, come on, Richie, is that what really scares you about those Mexican flags? Let’s see… Irish and Italians… ethnic groups who used to be persecuted in this country but have now been well assimilated into the white ruling class. Mexicans… SCARY BROWN PEOPLE AUUUUUUGH! And look – they’re not just serving your food or cleaning your house – they’re all together! And proud! Empowered, even! Yes, for much of white america, I bet that’s a very frightening spectacle, indeed.

All right, back to the protest. About an hour or so of slow as molasses marching (thanks, NYPD!) we reached the point where speakers and screens were set up so that we could take in the speeches going on down by City Hall. We’d missed many of the speakers by that point, but two of the ones I heard – Roger Toussaint of the Transit Worker’s Union (who, in yet another travesty of “justice,” was sentenced to ten days in prison and $1000 for defending his workers’ rights) and a Filipina woman whose name I didn’t catch but who spoke before him (if someone knows who she was, please tell me!) – reminded us of something that I think many americans, especially those who are anti-immigration, tend to forget: america’s role in creating the conditions that force people to leave their home countries in search of a better life in this one. Democracy Now! provides this quote from Toussaint:

Everyone here should think long and hard about what is happening in America today. We have a government that creates immigrants by the millions and then mistreats them. I say the U.S. creates immigrants the old-fashioned way. If you have tyranny and oppression and famine and poverty around the world, you are going to have immigrants coming to the U.S. No wall is going to stop them. No fence with barbed wire on the Mexican border or no frozen moat on the Canadian border is going to stop them. It will just make it easier to arrest and brutalize them. We don’t need a wall. We need a new foreign policy, so people can make a decent living and live in peace in their home countries.

That’s crucial to remember: the u.s., along with other western powers (though I think that no one does it quite like the u.s. does), is directly culpable for the decimation of Third World economies and social structures. In turn, the u.s. is directly responsible for the tide of immigration, legal or not, to this country. Should we, as a nation, wring these countries dry for the profit of u.s. interests, then give a big ol’ fuck you to their people when, out of sheer desperation, they come to the u.s. for the only shot they think they’ve got? Apparently, there are lots of people out there who think that’s precisely what we should do. But anyone with a whit of decency and sense should, when presented with the facts, realize that such actions are irresponsible and morally inexcusable.

no one is illegal

Published at April 10, 2006 in boricua/latino, civil rights, colonialism/imperialism, immigrants rights, people of color and terrorism hysteria. 9 Comments

let’s try that blog revival business one more time…

The current weather in New York City: sunny, not a cloud in the sky that I can see, 57 degrees.
Sounds like good weather for a protest. Soon as I am able, I’m leaving work and heading down towards City Hall for what will certainly be a massive demonstration of support for immigrants’ rights and condemndation of the racist, xenophobic, perhaps less obviously but still certainly homophobic, and just generally fucked up attitudes towards immigrants and immigration that pervade the US government.

It’s inspiring and exciting to see such a massive mobilization occuring in cities and towns across the country. I know that many years and countless hours of work have made such a mobilization possible. But in some ways it has this magical feel of coming out of nowhere, a popular uprising of people who may not share all of the same politics, philosophies, histories or ideologies but who are suddenly banding together to speak out against the disgusting legislation and its weak derivatives currently being considered and debated by the US Congress. (Well, not quite currently, as they’re in recess right now, but, you know.)

One thing that I’ve found unsettling, though, in listening to coverage about the protests thusfar, is this “good immigrant/bad immigrant” rhetoric that’s present in what some people are saying, protesters and organizers alike. This morning, while listening to NPR, I heard one woman speak about how Latino immigrants aren’t doing anything to harm this country, that they “love America” and just want to become good, hard-working Americans. Then I heard one organizer, speaking at one of the rallies, say something like this: “Nineteen people hijacked planes and participated in the 9/11 attacks, and not one of them were named Gonzales, Rodriguez, or Santiago. But you can bet that many of the people dying serving their country in Iraq are named Gonzales, Rodriguez, and Santiago…” so on and so forth.

I understand that much of this is in response to the whole immigration debate getting wrapped up in worries about “national security” – how the specter of terrorism seems to make allowances for all manner of discrimination, racism and xenophobia, and how countless immigrants are nonsensically made to suffer because of it. However, it definitely seems like a very bad, very problematic move to buy into this sort of dichotomy that pits “good” immigrants or “good” brown folks (here, Latinos) against “bad” ones (apparently people of Arab or Middle Eastern descent – because, you know, the actions of individuals become the responsibility, the fault, the burden of their entire race and religion.) Latinos, like all other immigrants to the United States, deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and are entitled to certain rights and protections because they are human beings, not because they’re good, flag-waving*, American-loving immigrants. No one is illegal, no matter whether your name is Juan or Mohammed, Gonzales or Atta.

* And speaking of flag-waving, apparently you’d better be waving the right flag at these protests, because waving a Mexican or El Salvadorean or other foreign flag might be perceived as “a slap in Americans’ faces.” Apparently, some people were actually insulted to see flags of Latino countries being carried in the protests. It’s gotten to the point where some of the groups organizing these protests are actually asking people to bring American flags instead of their own countries’ flags, which is ridiculous to me. Why should immigrants – or any Latinos or other people of color in this country, frankly – have to kiss the collective ass of a country that’s been doing its best to treat them like total shit for centuries on end in order to “earn” their human and civil rights? It’s beyond me.

Also, the picture of the Mexican flag flying over the upside-down American flag that has Michelle Malkin and all the other conservatives frothing at the mouth – well, I’ve got to say, it warms the cockles of my little anti-American heart. Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest political tactic, but I can’t say that I disagree with the sentiment in the least.

Fuerza Bruta Imperialista: FBI abuse and intimidation in Puerto Rico

Published at February 16, 2006 in boricua/latino, civil rights, colonialism/imperialism, mainstream media, me, police state and terrorism hysteria. 5 Comments

FBI agent sprays Puerto Rican reporter in the face with pepper spray

This is slightly old news, but still probably news that far too few have heard. On last Friday, February 10, FBI agents raided six private homes and one business in Puerto Rico in an attack of intimidation and repression against the Ejercito Popular Boricua (Boricua Popular Army). The raids were conducted under the pretense of a “terrorist threat,” though no arrests have been made. People’s homes were ransacked, and files, computers, and other belongings were seized from the homes and office.

When the press attempted to observe and record the raids, the FBI clashed violently with them, spraying many in the face with pepper spray, as in the picture above. The use of excessive force by the FBI has been widely decried, by media and journalism outlets and organizations, Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila, and US congresspeople, who are demanding a federal investigation into the FBI’s actions.

Of course, the mainstream media is primarily spitting out the spin they’ve been fed by the FBI, saying that the FBI thwarted a terrorist attack. How, exactly, did they do that? By making no arrests and producing absolutely no evidence of any sort of planned attack? But see, the FBI knows that it doesn’t have to answer those questions. In our current political climate, one only need conjure up the specter of Terrorism to justify any excessive force, any civil rights violations, any complete and utter trampling of that worthless stack of papers called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

It seems to me like all the FBI has done is to continue their campaign of terror, violence and intimidation against those people and organizations who are trying to rid Puerto Rico of their imperialist, oppressive colonizers. These most recent actions are completely in line with the September assasination of nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios, comandante of the Ejercito Popular Boricua. The FBI (or Fuerza Bruta Imperialista, as I read on the Indymedia PR website) continues to crack down on the independence and nationalist movements in Puerto Rico with absolutely no regard for the civil rights of the Puerto Rican people, further driving home the US’s attitude towards the Puerto Rican people as second class citizens. Also reflecting that attitude, the FBI neglected to inform any Puerto Rican authorities, such as the governor or the island’s chief of police, of the impending invasions. As reported in the NY Sun article on the call for an investigation from US congresspeople,

“In our democracy, the most fundamental obligation of law enforcement agencies is to uphold the constitutional rights of citizens as well as to protect the freedom of the press,” the congressmen wrote to the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller. “Even in Puerto Rico, where the Bureau and its agents have a reputation for behaving as if they are above the law, the FBI is not exempt from these duties.”

If the US government is going to continue its colonization of Puerto Rico, shouldn’t it at least treat the Puerto Rican people as true US citizens, enjoying all civil rights and liberties therein? Oh, but wait, that respect isn’t even present on the mainland, at least not for people who have ideas or identities that the government doesn’t like, so I suppose I shouldn’t expect it to be present on the island, either.

All of this is frightening, infuriating and disgusting. It makes me really fucking angry. It also makes me reflect more on my own activism, the places where I devote my energy. Right now, I mostly do my work around issues facing queer and trans people of color. Issues that are obviously very important, both in the grand scheme of things and personally in my own life. But, more and more, I think that my struggle – or at least, a larger part of my struggle, my energy, my work – should be for the liberation of my people. Incidents like this only make that feeling stronger.

More info:

One of the most thorough accounts of the FBI invasions that I’ve found so far, from the Monthly Review Zine

Pictures from the FBI raids, from Indymedia Puerto Rico

An article from Prensa Latina about Puerto Rican Association of Journalists President Oscar Serrano’s challenge to the FBI to prove that journalists were breaking the law and that any force against them was justified.

more info from the UrbanGuerrilla blog

An account from Infoshop News

I was happy to see this article in the Swarthmore Phoenix (my alma mater’s newspaper), about the long history of political repression in Puerto Rico, right up to the FBI’s most recent acts.

Puerto Rico’s fate, decided by Puerto Ricans?

Published at January 2, 2006 in boricua/latino, mainstream media and politics/government. 14 Comments

taken from worldclips-stock-footage.com

The above flags fly from El Morro, one of the oldest Spanish forts in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I see them as a visual representation of Puerto Rico’s long history of colonization: the white flag with the red cross is an old Spanish military flag, the US flag represents the current colonization of PR, and even the Puerto Rican flag in the center was altered from its original state: the original sky blue color was changed to a darker navy blue, to match the blue of the US flag.

News on Puerto Rico is quite sparse in the mainstream media. I have my Google News page (my home page) set up to display all articles with “Puerto Rico” in them so that I catch as much as possible, yet really informative, interesting articles are still few and far between.

But today, two articles from the Miami Herald (here and here). They tell of the December 22 release of the Interagency Report by the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status, an effort initiated by President Clinton in 2000 and renewed by Bush in 2003. The report recommends that Congress approve a federally-mandated plebecite, to be held this year, allowing Puerto Ricans to vote on the issue of the island’s status.

Currently, Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, which is something of a political limbo. Puerto Ricans born on the island are US citizens by birth and thereby possess certain Constitutional rights; however, they cannot vote in national elections (like the presidential one), nor do they have voting representatives in the national legislature. They are exempt from certain taxes (income tax among them, I believe.) They can be drafted and otherwise recruited into the armed forces, and are subject to all federal laws despite not being able to have a say on their passage.

A plebecite is held on a somewhat regular basis in Puerto Rico, in which voters are asked to choose among three status options: independence, statehood, and the status quo of the commonwealth. In the past, the status quo has always won out, followed by statehood. Independence always garners a very small percentage of the vote, never surpassing 5%.

The new federal plebecite, if approved by Congress, would be conducted in two steps. The first vote would only ask voters to choose between two options: to maintain the status quo, or to choose a non-commonwealth status. If Puerto Ricans voted for the latter, a second poll would be conducted, again with only two choices: either independence or statehood.

I have very mixed feelings about all of this. At face value, it seems like a good move, because it is absolutely essential that Puerto Ricans be given the right to determine their own national status in a meaningful way. As Maurice Ferre writes in a commentary in the Miami Herald:

Until now, the political debate has been based on the rhetoric of the colony and of the territory, ignoring the principal philosophical argument: Democracy. How can there be a capital D, Democracy, for 4 million people on the island if they do not elect their chief executive and legislators, who determine the vast majority of matters that rule over all their lives? When in 2006, after Congress authorizes the plebiscite, Yes or No, the people of Puerto Rico, by voting nonacceptance of the current territory, will then move on to the main event: deciding how they want to elect their national leadership, be it in Washington or in Puerto Rico.

Now, that last bit is the tricky part, the part that makes me wary. If the combined vote of pro-statehood and pro-independence Puerto Ricans surpasses that of the status quo supporters in the first round of voting, then polls indicate that statehood will win over independence two to one in the second round. And that is a scary proposition to me. The thought of Puerto Rican – a nation of people that has been colonized, first by Spain and now by the United States, for centuries – becoming just another state – well, it disgusts and angers me. I strongly believe that Puerto Rico should be a sovereign, independent nation, but I would far prefer the current commonwealth status to statehood, despite the glaring inequities and injustices therein. At least, with the status quo, there’s still some hope that at some point Puerto Rico could attain full independence from the US. If it became a state, all hope for independence would be lost.

Of course, I’m a mainland Puerto Rican. I was neither born nor have ever lived on the island. I do not experience Puerto Rico’s imperialized status like residents of the island do, and I do not understand how it feels to be a second-class citizen (at least, not in that particular respect.) So I feel like my opinion is of somewhat limited importance; clearly, it’s up to Puerto Ricans who live in Puerto Rico to decide their own fate, right?

Only thing is, I worry about how they’ll make that choice. I worry about the reasons behind choosing statehood, or even preferring the status quo.

My mother, who was born in Puerto Rico and lived there until she was seven, thinks that Puerto Rico should remain a commonwealth. She wouldn’t want to see it become a state, either, but feels that, without the United States, Puerto Rico would be crippled as a nation, and that its people would suffer tremendously. She doesn’t think that Puerto Rico could survive without being part of the US.

I think that many on the island share that opinion, and that it drives them to either choose to stay a commonwealth despite feeling in their hearts that Puerto Rico should be an independent nation, or that they fall hook, line and sinker for the whole American Dream bullshit and want to become a state. And that last part saddens me most – that my people have been so demoralized, have been made so dependent, have been so brainwashed by the United States that they have lost their sense of national and cultural identity to such a degree that they’d rather become just another state than find a way to succeed as an independent nation.

Additionally, I can’t help but be suspicious of a plan that’s coming from the Bush administration and that seems well-designed to make a state out of Puerto Rico. Yes, I want the people of Puerto Rico to have self-determination, but I don’t want it to be orchestrated in such a way that forces what I see as an ultimately undesirable outcome.

So, I guess we’ll have to just wait and see what Congress decides to do. Who knows – they might decide to ignore the proposal entirely. And while, in some ways, that wouldn’t be in the best interests of true democracy and self-determination for Puerto Rico, I still wonder if it might be better to just leave well enough alone – at least, until the slim possibility for Puerto Rican independence becomes more of a probability.

Una gran pendeja en Kansas City

Published at December 9, 2005 in boricua/latino and people of color. 6 Comments

It’s been a long time / I shouldn’t have left you / without a dope blog to … step to?

Anyhow.

I’ve been brought out of my blogging sabbatical by this article from the Washington Post this morning, which discusses how a Latino student in Kansas City was suspended from school by his principal for speaking a few words of Spanish in the hall.

Being the angry brown butch that I am, I decided that I need to give this sinvergüenza of a principal a piece of my boricua mind. So I did a little google research, found an email address, and sent the following off:

To Jennifer Watts:

I read about your suspension of a student for speaking Spanish in the hallway in this morning’s Washington Post. After reading the article, I felt compelled to write to you to express my utter outrage and disgust for your actions. The suspension of this student for speaking his native tongue was not only completely baseless, but also a thoroughly ignorant and racist act.

Like Zach Rubio, I am Latino, and I can barely speak my own language. It pains me to see that a boy like Zach, who actually can still speak his own language, is being discouraged from doing so by the very people who are supposed to be nurturing and educating him. I have been robbed of an integral part of my culture because of the insistence of Americans like you that I am in America and should therefore speak English.

Using that logic, I put forth to you that you are living on land that has been stolen from native peoples, and that you should therefore be speaking -their- languages, not English, a language that was foreign to this land before white Europeans came and colonized, pillaged, and wreaked genocide on the native people. Of course, since the United States has succeeded fairly well in its aim of total destruction of Native languages and culture, you might be hard pressed to find a tutor of one of the true native tongues of this country.

I sincerely hope that, if nothing else, you learn from this incident that blatant racism and discrimination is unacceptable in our schools. If you aren’t able to learn that, I hope that the school board of Kansas City is wise enough to remove you from your position as principal, since you are clearly unfit for the job.

Enojado y asqueado,
Jack …
Brooklyn, NY

Who knows if this woman will care about what I wrote, or if this email won’t just go off into the abyss of some unused email inbox. Regardless, it was very satisfying to hit the send button on this one.

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