feminist blogs

Introductions aside, I want to start with an informal poll. Because I run what is essentially a blog for English-speaking queer and/or women travelers (and the occasional ex-pat) in Mexico, I want to ask people what they think about the politics of travel and tourism, specifically travel from the “first world” to non-”first world” countries.

• What do you perceive are the ramifications of that type of tourism? (Broad question, I know.)

• If you have participated in that kind of tourism, how did those potential ramifications affect the choices that you made as a tourist? What choices have you made to be a more “responsible” tourist?

• Do believe there is such a thing as feminist tourism, and, if so, what does that look like?

• And, finally, how do the politics of a country affect your desire/willingness to participate in that country’s tourism? What about their human rights record?

I’m interested in hearing about specific suggestions (like those Jill was receiving about not taking “hill tribe village tours” during her current trip to southeast Asia in this post), as well as more general strategies/analyses. Needless to say, comments are not limited to those who have had the economic privilege to travel, but to anyone with constructive comments and thoughts on the subject of ethical tourism.

I suppose it’s only fair if I try to answer my own questions, so here goes…

With regard to the ramifications that “first world” tourism can have on “second” and “third world” countries, I’ll admit that I am learning more about this with every trip I take, every conversation I have on the subject. A friend of mine first brought the issue to me when we were in college, when she questioned the ethics of the “junior year abroad” program in northern Indian that she had participated in, wondering what would happen to the local economy (that had grown considerably around the program site) when the program no longer existed?

I don’t know enough about that specific situation to know if her particular concerns were warranted, but at the root of her point was the fact that these types of study abroad programs, as well as other organized tours, guide books, and other tourist infrastructure, contribute to bringing a large influx of money and spending power into local economies. Needless to say, this has positive and negative effects. Positive in the sense that the money someone makes in an afternoon selling something to a tourist might put food on the table. Negative in the sense that tourist-driven economies are often unstable (depending on the setting of whatever Leonard DiCaprio movie has just been released, what exotic locale has just been featured in the New York Times travel section, the fluctuating strength of various currencies, where a natural disaster has just killed dozens of tourists) and have the potential to seriously disrupt local traditions, economies, land-use.

So then, what choices do I make as a tourist, taking all of this into account? I try to avoid staying at big hotel chains, owned by multinational corporations, and instead try to stay at locally owned hotels, bed and breakfasts, or casas particulares, so that at the very least, my money is going into the local economy. When shopping, I try not to haggle excessively over prices, especially when buying something that was made by the seller. The five dollars I am saving is the cost of a subway ride and slice of pizza in New York, but could feed an entire family in some parts of Mexico. I think alot of times we get over-invested in the “romantic” process of haggling over prices, especially when traveling on a budget, without really considering the other “budgets” involved. I always tip the housekeeping staff. Really, everyone should do this, no matter what country you are traveling in. And if you haven’t signed (or don’t abide by) the ethical travel pledge, please do.

But seriously, it’s a drop in the bucket to say, “I gave that woman an extra five dollars. I made a difference.” I’m not saying don’t give the five dollars; I’m just saying don’t stop there. In my own travels, I’ve tried to research ways in which my own country/government/lifestyle routinely fucks over whatever country I’m traveling to. Planning a trip to Cuba? Take the time to get involved (on whatever level you can) in opposing the Helms-Burton Act. The Latin American Working Group has a lot of information about the United States’ policies in Latin America and is a good place to start before, during, or after a trip to a Latin American country.

I’ll admit that I’m not 100% sure what feminist tourism looks like. I think when a lot of feminists and other progressives travel, we often don’t stay in large hotels, go on organized bus tours, and other mainstream modes of tourism. Instead, we seek out more “authentic” experiences. We want to talk to locals, we want to eat local cuisine. We have good intentions; we want to learn as much as we can about whatever culture we are visiting.

But the problem is, our good intentions usually stop there. We have these amazing experiences traveling that “change” us so much, but unfortunately, that’s all we change. What was the result of that last trip I took? I had these experiences, I have good and interesting stories to tell, I might even be a more interesting person. But if the only person benefiting from the tourism is the tourist, then I don’t think we can call that “feminist” tourism (outside of the idea that women traveling by themselves, un-chaperoned, is still a radical act).

I think what would constitute a more substantial feminist tourism is using the experience of tourism, of being in someone else’s country, as an opportunity to network with feminist organizations that already exist there, to ask them what kind of support a foreign tourist can offer. That support might be a donation of time, money, or expertise. It might mean setting up lines of communication between feminist organizations in different countries. It might mean publicizing their causes along the lines they deem most appropriate. Whatever form of support or networking the local organizations would find most beneficial.

In terms of the last question of my “poll”, I don’t yet have an answer. In fact, in terms of all these questions, I’m still forming opinions and strategies. I figured that since I participate in “first world”/non-”first world” tourism, and run a website that is (in its small way), part of that tourism industry, I would use this forum as a place to discuss some of the issues that have been on my mind recently. For that reason, I’m incredibly interested in hearing from readers about their thoughts on all these issues, and for people to help brainstorm different strategies around ethical tourism.

Hey, everybody. I’ll be guest blogging here for the next two weeks.

Coincidentally, the timing of this guest blogging stint will expose the somewhat fractured (maybe “varied” is a better word) focuses in my life right now, which currently span a time-zone, language barriers, and a wide array of interests.

For the next week I’ll be blogging from here in Mexico City, where I live for two months out of the year, and where my girlfriend and I write Macha Mexico: A Lesbian Guide to Mexico City. It’s an English language blog meant to provide a more indepth look at dyke life in Mexico City than Lonely Planet can provide and we try to grow it little by little each week. (We also have to update old entries constantly to note which of our favorite venues have been shut down as police crackdowns and gentrification change the queer landscape here in the Distrito Federal.)

After this week I’ll be back in Brooklyn, New York, preparing for my fourth year as a math teacher in a “small” public high school where I am also a “health resource teacher,” a college counselor, and the advisor to an ever-growing gay-straight alliance.

I’m also a burlesque performer, have taught several burlesque workshops here in Mexico City, and just got back from a mini-tour with the burlesque troupe that was formed out of one of those workshops.

The content of my own blog is rarely explicitly political, but I hope to crosspost some interviews I’ve been doing with some interesting queers, feminists, and activists here in Mexico City. (Of course, I have to transcribe and translate them first…) I’m a relatively recent reader of Feministe, so feel free to link to older posts that address similar topics. Also, I apologize in advance for my terrible spelling.

I’ll start by plugging Generación Y, a Spanish-language blog that my girlfriend referred me to and that I’m just starting to read. It’s one of the only blogs being written in Cuba, where internet access is severely restricted. The English language version can be found here, plus a short article that the New York Times did about the role of the internet as a political tool in Cuba.

By limiting access to emergency contraception. And they’ve got the Constitutional court on their side this time. Women’s eNews has more background; Radio Cooperativa broke the story; and there’s a Spanish-language article here.

I’m a little confused about the details of all of this. English-language reports are saying that the decision was only about free emergency contraception, but some Spanish-language sources (and the person who sent me the link) say that the ban is on medicines that contain Levonorgestrel, which is in a lot of birth control pills — effectively illegalizing the birth control method of choice used by about a third of Chilean women — as well as on Postinor-2, an emergency contraceptive.

Abortion is also illegal in Chile under all circumstances — even to save the pregnant woman’s life.

Pro-choice activists in Chile made significant strides in the 1960s, because so many Chilean women were dying of illegal abortions. They introduced family planning tools, which were widely accepted in the mid-60s — and deaths from illegal abortion declined from 118 to 24 per 100,000 live births between 1964 and 1979. But even with that victory, abortion complications still account for about 40 percent of all maternal deaths.

Chile has a feminist-minded president and a thriving reproductive health activist base. But this is a huge step back, and a major disservice to Chilean women.

Thanks to Catrala for the link.

I feel like I’ve written this a million times, but the bodies keep piling up so I’ll say it again: “Pro-life” policies kill women. They killed Olga Reyes. And they’ll kill tens of thousands of women this year, just like they did the year before and the year before that.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Two weeks after Olga Reyes danced at her wedding, her bloated and disfigured body was laid to rest in an open coffin — the victim, her husband and some experts say, of Nicaragua’s new no-exceptions ban on abortion.

Reyes, a 22-year-old law student, suffered an ectopic pregnancy. The fetus develops outside the uterus, cannot survive and causes bleeding that endangers the mother. But doctors seemed afraid to treat her because of the anti-abortion law, said husband Agustin Perez. By the time they took action, it was too late.

Nicaragua last year became one of 35 countries that ban all abortions, even to save the life of the mother, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. The ban has been strictly followed, leaving the country torn between a strong tradition of women’s rights and a growing religious conservatism. Abortion rights groups have stormed Congress in recent weeks demanding change, but President Daniel Ortega, a former leftist revolutionary and a Roman Catholic, has refused to oppose the church-supported ban.

Evangelical groups and the church say abortion is never needed now because medical advances solve the complications that might otherwise put a pregnant mother’s life at risk.

But at least three women have died because of the ban, and another 12 reported cases will be examined, said gynecologist and university researcher Eliette Valladares, who is working with the Pan American Health Organization to analyze deaths of pregnant women recorded by Nicaragua’s Health Ministry.

Sure, abortion is never medically necessary — except for the women who die when they can’t access it.

The Roman Catholic Church mobilized nearly 300,000 people to march and sign petitions in support of the ban.

“A child is not a sickness,” said Henry Romero, a priest who helped lead the campaign. “When two lives are in danger, you must try to save both the woman and the child. It’s difficult to say now that it isn’t possible to save both.”

A child isn’t a sickness, but a pregnancy can make you really fucking sick. It can complicate existing conditions. As Olga Reyes’ family now knows, it can kill you.

So no, it isn’t “difficult to say that it isn’t possible to save both.” It only gets difficult if you think that pregnancy is punishment, and women should have to die for their embryos. And women are dying, from ectopic pregnancies and from botched illegal abortions — and they aren’t being treated for those, either:

Some doctors privately admit to carrying out what they believe are illegal procedures, while others say they won’t jeopardize their careers.

“Many are thinking that instead of taking the risk, it is better to let a woman die,” said Dr. Leonel Arguello, president of the Nicaraguan Society of General Medicine.

Doctors frequently see women coming in with infections, many likely brought on by illegal abortions that they refuse to disclose for fear they might be punished, said Dr. Carla Cerrato. Because the people with some medical training who used to do illegal abortions have disappeared, Cerrato said, women more frequently take drugs or pull the fetus out on their own using wires or other crude objects.

“What we are seeing are complications that before we never saw,” Cerrato said, sitting in the dingy pre-labor room at a crowded public hospital in Managua.

She added that she sees hysterectomies and severe infections that leave women sterile or dead because obstetricians can’t take any action that might harm a living fetus.

“We have to wait until the fetus dies,” she said. “But often, for the woman, it’s too late.”

Thank your friendly neighborhood pro-lifer.

(Thanks to Mnemosyne in the comments for the link)

Thank a pro-lifer today

In November of last year, Nicaragua outlawed all abortions, even those deemed medically necessary. The Nicaraguan abortion ban was celebrated in “pro-life” circles, and supported by the Catholic Church.

The law has also killed at least 82 women since its institution.

María de Jesús González was a practical woman. A very poor single mother, the 28-year-old’s home was a shack on a mountain near the town of Ocotal in Nicaragua. She made the best of it. The shack was spotless, the children scrubbed. She earned money by washing clothes in the river and making and selling tortillas.

That nowast quite enough to feed her four young children and her elderly mother, so every few months González caught a bus to Managua, the capital, and slaved for a week washing and ironing clothes. The pay was three times better, about £2.60 a day, and by staying with two aunts she cut her costs. She would return to her hamlet with a little nest-egg in her purse. She bought herself one treat - a pair of red shoes - but she would leave them with her family in Managua, as they were no good on the mountain trails she had to go up to get home.

During a visit to Managua in February she felt unwell and visited a hospital. The news was devastating. She was pregnant - and it was ectopic, meaning the foetus was growing outside the womb and not viable. The longer González remained pregnant, the greater the risk of rupture, haemorrhaging and death.

What González did next was - when you understand what life in Nicaragua is like these days - utterly rational. She walked out of the hospital, past the obstetrics and gynaecological ward, past the clinics and pharmacies lining the avenues, packed her bag, kissed her aunts goodbye, and caught a bus back to her village. She summoned two neighbouring women - traditional healers - and requested that they terminate the pregnancy in her shack. Without anaesthetic or proper instruments it was more akin to mutilation than surgery, but González insisted. The haemhorraging was intense, and the agony can only be imagined. It was in vain. Maria died. “We heard there was a lot of blood, a lot of pain,” says Esperanza Zeledon, 52, one of the Managua aunts.

(more…)

Argentine priests are speaking up about the role of the Catholic Church in their country’s “dirty war.” And they’re indicting other priests who were complicit in atrocities:

Some three months of often chilling testimony in the trial illustrated how closely some Argentine priests worked with military leaders during the dirty war. Witnesses spoke about how Father von Wernich was present at torture sessions in clandestine detention centers. They said he extracted confessions to help the military root out perceived enemies, while at the same time offering comforting words and hope to family members searching for loved ones who had been kidnapped by the government.

His lawyer, Juan Martin Cerolini, said Father von Wernich was a “Catholic scapegoat” for those who wanted to prosecute the church. “The witnesses did not say that he tortured, kidnapped or murdered,” Mr. Cerolini said in a recent interview. “Nobody said he participated in any act of torture.”

Well, so long as he didn’t torture, kidnap or murder anyone with his own hands, then he’s totally innocent, right?

In Argentina, however, there was a much tighter relationship between the clergy and the military than existed in Chile or Brazil. “Patriotism came to be associated with Catholicism,” said Kenneth P. Serbin, a history professor at the University of San Diego who has written about the Roman Catholic Church in South America. “So it was almost natural for the Argentine clergy to come to the defense of the authoritarian regime.”

Those days may be over. After he finished his testimony on Monday, Father Capitanio was surrounded by a sea of elderly women from the Mothers of May Plaza, a group that has pushed successive Argentine governments for answers since the dirty war began in 1976. They wore white scarves in their hair bearing the names of family members who disappeared. Dabbing away tears, they clung to the priest, kissing him on the cheek and whispering their thanks.

Father Capitanio said that he felt that a weight had been lifted — and that he was not alone. “Many men and women of the church, bishops as well, have come to agree with my way of looking at the reality of the church’s role,” he said. “We have much to be sorry for.”

Good on Father Capitanio for owning his Church’s mistakes, and making an effort to bring about justice. That takes a lot of courage. Too bad we don’t see the same from those in the highest positions of power.

Dead or not, the whisper of his name always reminds me of this:

Hyman Roth: If I could only live to see it, to be there with you. What I wouldn't give for twenty more years! Here we are, protected, free to make our profits without Kefauver, the goddamn Justice Department and the F.B.I. ninety miles away, in partnership with a friendly government. Ninety miles! It's nothing! Just one small step, looking for a man who wants to be President of the United States, and having the cash to make it possible. Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel.

[...]

Michael Corleone: I saw a strange thing today. Some rebels were being arrested. One of them pulled the pin on a grenade. He took himself and the captain of the command with him. Now, soldiers are paid to fight; the rebels aren't.

Hyman Roth: What does that tell you?

Michael Corleone: It means they could win.

And sometimes this:

And every once in a while, this.

THESE DAYS, a good way to fall out of favor with the Reich Wing is to treat Mexican Migrant Homelanders (or “ALIENZ”; “Migrant Homelanders” is my papás phrase) as if they are human beings. That is just not cool, and you will be castigated and cast out for it. Guess Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) of is figuring this out. But the man doesn’t care, apparently.

WASHINGTON - Democrats are praising Sen. Jon Kyl. Republicans are damning him.

This topsy-turvy political scene would have been unbelievable a year ago, when the conservative Arizona Republican was facing his toughest challenge yet in his bid for a third term.

But Kyl’s key role in this year’s failed immigration compromise has former supporters howling, foes taking a second look and everyone re-evaluating his record and his legacy. [… ]

Immigration is the No. 1 problem bedeviling Arizona, and despite the Senate’s rejection of his bipartisan prescription, Kyl says he has no intention of leaving the resolution solely to the majority Democrats.

‘Obviously, I wasn’t thinking of my political career when I took the leadership role I did in the immigration debate,’ Kyl said during a recent interview in his Capitol Hill ‘hideaway’ office beneath the Senate. ‘Sometimes you do what you have to do.’”

—How migrant-reform effort changed the image of a powerful conservative, http://www.azcentral.com

Ouch. Hideaway office! Nice sly phrasing. Too bad he wasn’t speaking from his “Master” suite or “Central office,” or something a bit more leaderly. (Must remember, no matter what. Never give interview from Hideaway office.)

Don’t get me wrong. Reading the whole article, I doubt that most of Kyl’s motivation is thinking of immigrants as “human beings.” He’s probably just a bit more politically savvy than his brain-frothy compatriots, who have lost all sense of balance and reason in the storm of racism that has also lately swollen the ranks of the KKK, the Minutemen, and other rabid non-thinking segments of America.

Along with McCain, Kyl has infuriated many Republican activists and bloggers, some of whom have painted him as a turncoat with insults such as ‘Judas’ and ‘Benedict.’

At the same time, he has earned respect from the other side of the aisle.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat running for president, praised both Kyl and McCain for their work on the immigration bill.

‘That’s leadership from the Southwest,’ Richardson said during a recent visit to Phoenix. ‘I don’t want to say too many more nice things about McCain and Kyl because that won’t help them, but I commend both of them for their efforts.’

—How migrant-reform effort changed the image of a powerful conservative, http://www.azcentral.com

How do these anti-immigration advocates see these Mexicans who work so hard to gather a bit of food and money with which to live? It’s easier for me to think of them with a human angle, of course. My father and Mama Lucha, his mother and my abuelita made their way working the fields in the American Southwest. Mama Lucha came to El Paso from Mexico City and that’s why I exist as a human being deemed citizen of one United States of America. (One of the reasons!) They were able to come because cousins Beto and Vicente Quintana joined the U.S. Army so that they could all be citizens. (These types of sacrifices and contributions to the U.S.A. by Latinos is exactly why Ken Burns’ omission of us in his The War documentary was so offensive and remains an important issue.)

But…green card, no green card. I don’t see these people as different, so different. We all want to eat, we want to grow, we want to prosper and not be ill or dying, and be able to take care of those we love. All of our economies and lives and means are influenced and limited by the political powers that be, moving things behind the scenes, opening up opportunities, or closing them down, and almost always as a consequence of them shoring up their own coffers. For Mexican immigrants, it is not so simple as “Stay in Mexico and make it better.” It is not so simple as “you are criminally invading our land.” Oh, if it were only so simple. But in our soundbyte society, these juvenile non-arguments actually have legs. Who cares about systematic economic war waged on a nation? Who cares to look up the history of Mexico and the U.S.A.? Who cares to understand more than the headlines they dump on our benumbed brains? And who cares for what the whole idea of the U.S.A. was once advertised to be.

Somehow, I do. I know many of you do. And if it’s too hard for some of today’s politicians (some on both “sides,” but it seems mostly from the Right) to frame this issue in human or empathetic, compassionate terms? Then use self-interest. You still have some of that, I take it?

A registered Republican, Bermudez predicts that Arizona eventually will be a Hispanic majority state and says that Republicans such as Kyl and McCain are crucial to the party’s continued vitality. The strident anti-immigrant commentary from other Republican segments turns off many Hispanics, he said.

That wasn’t always so. President Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli legislation that granted amnesty to more than 3 million illegal immigrants. Immigration restrictionists look back at the law in horror, but many Hispanic Americans see it as a breakthrough.

‘There are a lot of Hispanics who remember President Reagan as the person who came in and solved at least some of the problems for 3.5 million undocumented immigrants in this country in 1986,’ Bermudez said. ‘We consider him to be a hero, and he’s the reason why I became a Republican, for instance.’

—How migrant-reform effort changed the image of a powerful conservative, http://www.azcentral.com

Oooh! Sing it: Wouldn’t ya like to be a Reagan, too?

I know these politicians who condemn Kyl for his latest shift in outlook or behavior are in denial, but let me help you out (because I know you are reading this, ése). The “Hispanic” voting block/buying block/population? It’s not a joke. It’s not hype. It’s not a threat, or some radical Xicano activist pump-the-first bravado-inspired phrase. It’s simply reality. We are large, and we are growing at faster rate. And cálmate, porque it’s not about alienz flooding your borders. Natural born Latinos are the ones mostly swelling the census ranks. We are simply growing at a faster rate. High population numbers are a manifestation of the Latino destiny.

So, por favor, think hard on the human angle, or at least making friends with your fellow humans and citizens, Right Wing and anti-immigrant factions. Before long, it will be inarguably and utterly self-defeating to position the Hispanic/Latino population as adversaries. It actually already is. Just scope out the mass of corporations and merchants responding to the new markets. That’s all you have to do to sniff the maize-wild wind.

In a month or so, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City will unveil its new Web site, which for the first time will be bilingual. And the chamber’s meetings also are now in Spanish. […]

In addition to building a Web site, Gomez has been busy making sure that every one of the chamber’s publications is bilingual.

‘We’re making a concerted effort to embrace bilingualism and also focus on small businesses,’ Gomez said. ‘We had a series of lunch-and-learns we did in English. Now we’re doing them in Spanish. The response we’ve been getting from the Spanish-speaking community has been tremendous.’

Gomez believes he got involved in the chamber at the right time.

By the end of this year, one of every 10 small businesses throughout the nation will be owned by a Hispanic, Gomez said. […]

‘After a year of lobbying, I convinced the vice president of marketing to test it,’ Gomez said. ‘It went over so well, they decided to put it in every Best Buy store.’

—Bilingual push is part of Hispanic chamber outreach, kansascity.com

With harsh, unforgiving, or punitive conditions in your immigration bills or a hostile attitude toward Mexican@s, you can punish all those Mexicans who are not citizens, if this speaks to your fear and sense of territory. But you can’t deport us all, as is said (and in a fun and spicy video, even). And even after you’ve been intractable on this issue, or even if you manage to stuff the bill full of obstacles or fire up the hate and ignorance that is already sadly raging and having very real effects on many of us, remember: the rest of us live here. We do feel connected to their fate. Very often we are connected to their fate. We do see them as human. And we do care about what laws are now being passed, ignored or manipulated. And we do buy things. And vote.

We’re the passionate ones with the long, long memories right? I mean if you’re going to buy into the old stereotypes, go all the way, vato!
Continue reading at Feministe …

THESE DAYS, a good way to fall out of favor with the Reich Wing is to treat Mexican Migrant Homelanders (or “ALIENZ”; “Migrant Homelanders” is my papás phrase) as if they are human beings. That is just not cool, and you will be castigated and cast out for it. Guess Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) of is figuring this out. But the man doesn’t care, apparently.

WASHINGTON - Democrats are praising Sen. Jon Kyl. Republicans are damning him.

This topsy-turvy political scene would have been unbelievable a year ago, when the conservative Arizona Republican was facing his toughest challenge yet in his bid for a third term.

But Kyl’s key role in this year’s failed immigration compromise has former supporters howling, foes taking a second look and everyone re-evaluating his record and his legacy. [… ]

Immigration is the No. 1 problem bedeviling Arizona, and despite the Senate’s rejection of his bipartisan prescription, Kyl says he has no intention of leaving the resolution solely to the majority Democrats.

‘Obviously, I wasn’t thinking of my political career when I took the leadership role I did in the immigration debate,’ Kyl said during a recent interview in his Capitol Hill ‘hideaway’ office beneath the Senate. ‘Sometimes you do what you have to do.’”

—How migrant-reform effort changed the image of a powerful conservative, http://www.azcentral.com

Ouch. Hideaway office! Nice sly phrasing. Too bad he wasn’t speaking from his “Master” suite or “Central office,” or something a bit more leaderly. (Must remember, no matter what. Never give interview from Hideaway office.)

Don’t get me wrong. Reading the whole article, I doubt that most of Kyl’s motivation is thinking of immigrants as “human beings.” He’s probably just a bit more politically savvy than his brain-frothy compatriots, who have lost all sense of balance and reason in the storm of racism that has also lately swollen the ranks of the KKK, the Minutemen, and other rabid non-thinking segments of America.

Along with McCain, Kyl has infuriated many Republican activists and bloggers, some of whom have painted him as a turncoat with insults such as ‘Judas’ and ‘Benedict.’

At the same time, he has earned respect from the other side of the aisle.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat running for president, praised both Kyl and McCain for their work on the immigration bill.

‘That’s leadership from the Southwest,’ Richardson said during a recent visit to Phoenix. ‘I don’t want to say too many more nice things about McCain and Kyl because that won’t help them, but I commend both of them for their efforts.’

—How migrant-reform effort changed the image of a powerful conservative, http://www.azcentral.com

How do these anti-immigration advocates see these Mexicans who work so hard to gather a bit of food and money with which to live? It’s easier for me to think of them with a human angle, of course. My father and Mama Lucha, his mother and my abuelita made their way working the fields in the American Southwest. Mama Lucha came to El Paso from Mexico City and that’s why I exist as a human being deemed citizen of one United States of America. (One of the reasons!) They were able to come because cousins Beto and Vicente Quintana joined the U.S. Army so that they could all be citizens. (These types of sacrifices and contributions to the U.S.A. by Latinos is exactly why Ken Burns’ omission of us in his The War documentary was so offensive and remains an important issue.)

But…green card, no green card. I don’t see these people as different, so different. We all want to eat, we want to grow, we want to prosper and not be ill or dying, and be able to take care of those we love. All of our economies and lives and means are influenced and limited by the political powers that be, moving things behind the scenes, opening up opportunities, or closing them down, and almost always as a consequence of them shoring up their own coffers. For Mexican immigrants, it is not so simple as “Stay in Mexico and make it better.” It is not so simple as “you are criminally invading our land.” Oh, if it were only so simple. But in our soundbyte society, these juvenile non-arguments actually have legs. Who cares about systematic economic war waged on a nation? Who cares to look up the history of Mexico and the U.S.A.? Who cares to understand more than the headlines they dump on our benumbed brains? And who cares for what the whole idea of the U.S.A. was once advertised to be.

Somehow, I do. I know many of you do. And if it’s too hard for some of today’s politicians (some on both “sides,” but it seems mostly from the Right) to frame this issue in human or empathetic, compassionate terms? Then use self-interest. You still have some of that, I take it?

A registered Republican, Bermudez predicts that Arizona eventually will be a Hispanic majority state and says that Republicans such as Kyl and McCain are crucial to the party’s continued vitality. The strident anti-immigrant commentary from other Republican segments turns off many Hispanics, he said.

That wasn’t always so. President Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli legislation that granted amnesty to more than 3 million illegal immigrants. Immigration restrictionists look back at the law in horror, but many Hispanic Americans see it as a breakthrough.

‘There are a lot of Hispanics who remember President Reagan as the person who came in and solved at least some of the problems for 3.5 million undocumented immigrants in this country in 1986,’ Bermudez said. ‘We consider him to be a hero, and he’s the reason why I became a Republican, for instance.’

—How migrant-reform effort changed the image of a powerful conservative, http://www.azcentral.com

Oooh! Sing it: Wouldn’t ya like to be a Reagan, too?

I know these politicians who condemn Kyl for his latest shift in outlook or behavior are in denial, but let me help you out (because I know you are reading this, ése). The “Hispanic” voting block/buying block/population? It’s not a joke. It’s not hype. It’s not a threat, or some radical Xicano activist pump-the-first bravado-inspired phrase. It’s simply reality. We are large, and we are growing at faster rate. And cálmate, porque it’s not about alienz flooding your borders. Natural born Latinos are the ones mostly swelling the census ranks. We are simply growing at a faster rate. High population numbers are a manifestation of the Latino destiny.

So, por favor, think hard on the human angle, or at least making friends with your fellow humans and citizens, Right Wing and anti-immigrant factions. Before long, it will be inarguably and utterly self-defeating to position the Hispanic/Latino population as adversaries. It actually already is. Just scope out the mass of corporations and merchants responding to the new markets. That’s all you have to do to sniff the maize-wild wind.

In a month or so, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City will unveil its new Web site, which for the first time will be bilingual. And the chamber’s meetings also are now in Spanish. […]

In addition to building a Web site, Gomez has been busy making sure that every one of the chamber’s publications is bilingual.

‘We’re making a concerted effort to embrace bilingualism and also focus on small businesses,’ Gomez said. ‘We had a series of lunch-and-learns we did in English. Now we’re doing them in Spanish. The response we’ve been getting from the Spanish-speaking community has been tremendous.’

Gomez believes he got involved in the chamber at the right time.

By the end of this year, one of every 10 small businesses throughout the nation will be owned by a Hispanic, Gomez said. […]

‘After a year of lobbying, I convinced the vice president of marketing to test it,’ Gomez said. ‘It went over so well, they decided to put it in every Best Buy store.’

—Bilingual push is part of Hispanic chamber outreach, kansascity.com

With harsh, unforgiving, or punitive conditions in your immigration bills or a hostile attitude toward Mexican@s, you can punish all those Mexicans who are not citizens, if this speaks to your fear and sense of territory. But you can’t deport us all, as is said (and in a fun and spicy video, even). And even after you’ve been intractable on this issue, or even if you manage to stuff the bill full of obstacles or fire up the hate and ignorance that is already sadly raging and having very real effects on many of us, remember: the rest of us live here. We do feel connected to their fate. Very often we are connected to their fate. We do see them as human. And we do care about what laws are now being passed, ignored or manipulated. And we do buy things. And vote.

We’re the passionate ones with the long, long memories right? I mean if you’re going to buy into the old stereotypes, go all the way, vato!
Continue reading at Feministe …

THERE IS A CONTEXT AND A BACKGROUND and a larger picture to many of today’s events that those in power would not have us access. They forcefeed us fistfuls of pseudo-truth shards and a flurry of information-flakes; just enough to fetch the fear and loathing to the surface of our minds but not enough for us to see the larger pieces come together. While we are focusing on Keeping the Alienz Out, there is great unjustice to the South, and a great unrest growing. The people in Mexico are acutely in touch with the same shapes of injustice we know here in the U.S.A., except in many cases they are engaging them in a very direct manner. Those corrupt forces they wage a very righteous war with are in league with many that have power over us, as well. Those who misuse that power. And none of these forces want us to understand the interplay, nor to slow down long enough to speak to each other, collect our information, or remember the power of so very many people, undivided.

This post is lengthy, and contains a lot of links and background, though it is not complete (There is so much more context that should really be added to this: NAFTA, GMO corn, the privitazation of ejidos, the EZLN, but it can’t be a book!). Understandably, you may not have time or energy or focus for all of it at once. And I hope you find it interesting enough to hold on to and take time later, if need be.

More and more news of Mexico will come to us here in the States, but as it gets through, it is inevitably well stripped and spun and anti-contextualized. I have taken this time not only to pass along the knowledge of recent explosions (sabotage) of some of Mexico’s gas lines, but have surrounded the event with some context, as I know that the regular readers of Feministe may not focus as heavily on Mexico as I do, and have less background as it is than my regular readership. I also present related information in order to empower a reader to think on it on their own, if they care to. Because “background” doesn’t mean “definite answers.” I don’t know exactly what the next move is going to be, nor what the last one meant. But what is happening is surely riveting, and clearly important.

THE LAST TIME EXPLOSIONS ROCKED MEXICO, they were, with little doubt, a tactic used against the Mexican people. The bombings, oddly arranged so as to minimize damage, were blamed on the Oaxacan Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO), and were aimed at eroding their momentum and support in resisting the police occupation of Oaxaca. It was a terribly cynical and violent (and transparent) way to steal back the news cycle, which would otherwise have been filled with news of megamarches in support the ouster of the corrupt Ulises Ortiz Ruiz.

Now, there is more violence. Five explosions in gas pipelines central Mexico have been reported by PEMEX, Mexico’s oil monopoly, in the last week. PEMEX originally (as recently as yesterday) claimed that three of the blasts were due to “a reduction of the pipeline pressure that caused an implosion.”

Mexico, Jul 10 (Prensa Latina) The Mexican Oil Enterprise (PEMEX) reported a gas pipeline explosion today in the central American state of Queretaro, forcing authorities to evacuate hundreds of families from two neighbouring communities. […]

This is the fifth incident of this type in less than a week and PEMEX has shut down gas supply while several teams of the public sector were trying to control the flames over 100 meters high.

—Prensa Latina, English Version, July 10, 2007

That was PEMEX, yesterday. Today, the Mexican government is reporting that the blasts are, and have been, acts of sabotage by groups acting for the very same reasons that the Oaxaca megamarches took place.

The group that has (allegedly) claimed responsibility for (all five of) the blasts is El Ejército Popular Revolucionario, or the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), and according to their released statement (via XP), they will not stop their “surgical harassment actions” until Mexican President Felipe Calderon (FeCal) and the governor of the state of Oaxaca, Ulises Ortiz Ruiz, release two “political prisoners” being held by the government since their May 2006 arrests.

Not everyone is convinced of the EPR’s culpability or of the validity of the claims posted on a website that “serves as a clearinghouse for bulletins from armed groups” [abc news]; a group the New York Times classifies as “long dormant,” and abc news as “a tiny group that has largely been inactive in recent years.” An editorial in El Universal.com.mx, Aquí no cabe la violencia (Here, the Violence Does Not Fit) advises keeping an open mind and investigation until the truth can be ascertained:

Tampoco podemos ser ingenuos ni descartar a priori otras líneas de investigación, desde el sabotaje interno hasta quienes desde el exterior desearían afectar el suministro de energéticos a Estados Unidos. Es correcta, entonces, la posición inicial de las autoridades competentes de mantener abierto el expediente, a pesar del comunicado del EPR.”

Neither can we be naive, nor discard a priori other lines of investigation into the internal sabotage until [we know] who from the outside would wish to affect the supply of energy to the USA. It is correct, then, the initial position taken by the competent authorities, to keep the files open, despite the statement [of responsibility] offered by the EPR. ” [Nezua translation]

—Aquí no cabe la violencia eluniversal.com/mx, 11 de Julio, 2007

Wait until you see where those lines of thought are leading. But maybe you’ve already guessed. I’ll come back to this.

So, all claims of pressure-loss and implosions forgotten, the Mexican government and the statement allegedly released by the EPR frame these explosions as retaliation by the APPO for the violence visited upon the striking teachers during the 2006 Oaxaca police and Federal crackdowns, which came in response to Oaxaqueños rising up and rejecting the corrupt rule of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

The New York Times intends to further erase any lingering doubt about the origin of the three blasts that had originally been announced by PEMEX as accidents, and imply—by means of paragraph juxtaposition—that the explositions were, in fact, a result of Mexican citizens protesting the recent decision by Mexico to allow foreign interests to invest in Mexico’s petroleum resources:

Last week, Mr. López Obrador called for mass protests if Congress approves Mr. Calderón’s bill to allow some private investment in the state oil monopoly for the purposes of exploration.

The oil monopoly, Pemex, said there had been three large explosions at natural gas pipelines in Guanajuato recently, one Tuesday morning and two along a second pipeline last Thursday. No one was injured in either explosion, though they caused large fires and forced the evacuation of thousands of people from nearby villages.

—Mexico Increases Pipeline Security After Recent Rebel Bomb Attacks nytimes.com, July 11, 2007

ABC also connects these explosions to the APPO and the striking teachers in Oaxaca, but goes one further, and smoothly connects them to “guerilla groups in Columbia”:

The rebel statement said ‘three combined squads of urban and rural units … have carried out surgical harassment actions by placing eight explosive packs on the Pemex pipelines.’ Posted on a Web site that serves as a clearinghouse for bulletins from armed groups, the statement demanded the release of two men detained in southern Oaxaca state in May, and others it identified as ‘political prisoners.’

The city was seized by leftist groups for five months in 2006 before federal police broke up barricades and protest camps in October and arrested dozens.

While guerrilla groups in Colombia have regularly attacked energy facilities, the tactic hasn’t been used much in Mexico until now.”

—Mexico Confirms Attacks on Pipelines abcnews.com, July 11, 2007

Time for some needed contextualization.

“The city was seized by leftist groups.” See how artfully the U.S.A. “News” outlets spin the very concept of Power to the People—striking teachers (Teachers Union Section 22—mostly women—who were fighting for better working conditions and wages!) facing off armed police and Federal Forces (who had tear gas and helicopters and riot gear) with sticks and crude barricades and vast stores of corazón (a resistance that is not yet to fade away so easily). How easily the “Fourth Estate” of this democratic republic turns teachers bravely facing corruption and violence into some type of violent takeover by guerrilla groups. The APPO? The APPO were formed in reaction to the police intrusion and abuse of the peaceful protestors. And why did they terrify the State so much? Why do our own “News” outlets reduce them to “leftist groups”?

Because they are dangerous.

In the light of [the corrupt governor situation and raid on striking teachers], and the impression that the state government was repressive and had become effectively powerless in governing, the APPO was created and convened for the first time on June 17, 2006. It declared itself the de facto governing body of Oaxaca. […] It encouraged all Oaxacans to organize popular assemblies at every level: neighborhoods, street blocks, unions, and towns. The APPO took the slogan that it was a “movement of the bases, not of leaders” and asserted the need for common civilians to organize and work beyond the scope of elected officials.

—Wikipedia

Dangerous to a certain power structure. Or a certain dynamic of power.

Union busting? Undercounting protest numbers? Attaching the notion of “filthy invaders” to massive May Day parade numbers too large to undercount? Keeping a wall of ignorance and hate up between large masses of citizens, or different races of people? Anti-net-neutrality? All these things are about control of truth. They are specific anti-democracy, anti-knowledge, anti-Power to the People, anti-freedom devices.

The New York Times discusses, in their writeup of the explosions, the “backdrop” amid which this violence occurs. If you follow Mexican politics regularly, and through U.S.A. news outlets, you’ll see that word a lot. It’s a way of saying “unrelated related.” It’s a way of avoiding commenting on the obvious connections.

The Times mentions President Calderón’s (FeCal’s) support for the corrupt Ulises early in his own presidency, calling the move that solidified suspicions of FeCal’s presidency as installation-rather-than-election, a “crackdown on protestors”:

Mr. Calderón’s crackdown on left-wing protesters in Oaxaca last fall also contributed to the alienation of those on the far left of the political spectrum. Several of the protest leaders were jailed pending trials and have not been released.”

—Mexico Increases Pipeline Security After Recent Rebel Bomb Attacks nytimes.com, July 11, 2007

For clarity’s sake, let’s briefly recall a few details of a life that has been touched by this so-called “alienation”:

A second woman, fuming because her car has been blocked by an illegally parked Nissan, screams at a speeding motorcycle cop to rescue her but the officer only laughs and zooms off to ferret out APPO subversion. ‘Pinche policias!’ she snarls, ‘they only work for the killer Ulisis.’ The irate compañera explains that a cousin disappeared last June 14 when the governor dispatched hundreds of police to push the striking teachers out of the plaza and concussion grenades rained down on the demonstrators from low-flying helicopters.

‘He never came home. He’s dead. I just want his bones now’ she mourns.

—Counter punch, via Aztlán Electronic News

Ah yes. Alienation and Crackdown. Such dance-y words for State Violence, Oppression, Murder, and Corruption.

The New York Times also mentions the unrest that still throbs like a wounded heart just under the skin of Mexico’s movement, due to the way in which FeCal gained his power—the same way one of his heros, George W Bush, did, incidentally. It’s getting popular these days. It’s called Theft and Obfuscation and Using the wheels of bureacracy and people’s fear of instability to steal elections.

The attacks come against a backdrop of acute political polarization in Mexico stemming from last year’s presidential elections. Election officials say Mr. Calderón narrowly won that race, but his leftist opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO], has never conceded defeat.”

—Mexico Increases Pipeline Security After Recent Rebel Bomb Attacks nytimes.com, July 11, 2007

There’s the word! All the violence occurs amidst a “backdrop” of corruption—of “alleged” corruption, that is. Kidnappings occur in relation to a “backdrop” of “cries of Fraude.” Torture and murder occurs against a “backdrop” of teachers and their familias refusing to back down to corrupt government. Yes all just a “backdrop” of various crooked plots and oppressive actions by the State…but no connectedness, no cause and effect. No Big Picture. You don’t need a Big Picture when you can just drape a bloody backdrop over everything.

Amigo Richard at the Mex Files is not quite ready to go along with the official story.

[G]iven that there have been manufactured “terrorist” acts in the past to justify police crackdowns on dissent (last year’s bombing of the PRI headquarters in Mexico City, a dubious bank bombing — carefully designed to minimize damage — in Tlanapantla, Morelos following a stolen municipal election in 2005 — and an earlier bombing blamed on the Zapatistas — this one blowing up a trash can in front of a bank at 3 in the morning — again in Mexico City), I’d want more information before I draw any conclusions.

—PEMEX, AMLO and ERP… it’s a blast, The Mex Files

Of course, some voices are already working in the ubiquitous and all-powerful Al Qaeda angle. You didn’t think it would take long, did you?

Pudiera, asimismo, tratarse de un problema que trascienda nuestras fronteras. En febrero pasado, La voz de la Guerra Santa, un sitio en internet de Al-Qaeda, hizo un llamado para “atacar intereses petroleros en todas las regiones que sirven a EU, no sólo en Medio Oriente”, y se refirió en específico a México..”

This could also be a problem that goes beyond our own borders. Last February, The Voice of the Holy War, an Al Qaeda websitemade a call for “attacking the petroleum interests in all the regions that serve the EU, not only the Middle East.” [Nezua translation]

—Aquí no cabe la violencia eluniversal.com/mx, 11 de Julio, 2007

That’s the “line of thought” I mentioned earlier—that Al Qaeda is erecting its explosive caliphate of Holy IED from Mexico to the UK to Iraq, just like certain judicially-installed nonelected officials always dreamed. Blowing up Mexican natural gas lines and writing passionate (Spanish) statements demanding the release of APPO members. And…unable to make it across the border to the USA. Don’t be surprised if this little fearnugget gets caught between the chattering teeth of the Bush cultists, however ludicrous it might be. We know, sadly, that there is a faction of deranged US citizens who long, finally, to lump Iraqis and Mexicans together and just get it over with already so the Hate ‘N Fear can all be rolled into one, nice, fat cigar that can be smoked and stoked and thrown on the smoldering remains of Bush’s imploding quagmire bonfire Freedum pyre.

Others, like Blogotitlan, wonder if it’s simply a coincidence that these explosions happen so closely after Mexico’s decision to open Mexican petroleum assets to foreign investment.

As amigo XP puts it:

What makes EPR[’s] statement interesting, they said the bombings were the signal of the beginning of its campaign against the interests of “the oligarchy and of this illegitimate government.” The word “illegitimate” echoes presidential contender Andres Manuel López Obrador [AMLO], who lost the 2006 election to Calderon by less than 0.6 percentage point, and uses the same term for the current administration. After leading two months of post-election street protests culminating in a self- inauguration, López Obrador continues his claim to be the rightful head of state.

Earlier this month, more than 300,000 people filled the giant Zocalo plaza in downtown Mexico City for the third National Democratic Convention (CND) called by López Obrador.

—The Natives Are Getting Restless Down In Mexico, xicanopwr.com

And what did AMLO (Mexico’s “Al Gore,” in essence) tell the mass of hundreds of thousands of gente who were gathered to hear his message?

‘Zero negotiation. I repeat, zero negotiation with those who carry out policies against the people,’ said López Obrador. He said he will mobilize the masses should Calderón attempt to privatize the oil industry or open it to foreign investment.”

—Hundreds of thousands rally in Mexico City - Keeping the struggle in the streets, Party for Socialism and Liberation

So, who knows exactly what is going on? A lot of backdrop out there. And a lot of spin in between. No single news source can be trusted, a network of sources one can use to compare reveals some of the basest moves immediately. Again, I go to the “overlap”, that fractal-icious shape that reoccurs and reconfigures itself over so many behaviors/processes. The portable Venn Diagram. Like when I ask for directions and ask two or three people the same thing to compare!

I haven’t been following Mexican politics all that long. Less than a year, though close. Maybe a year. I’m no expert by any means. Just starting to get a feel for things. But it is dramatic and sometimes scary. And yet, very hopeful. Of course, I feel tied to Mexico for (I hope) very obvious reasons. But I think following the story of Mexico’s situation is important for us for a few reasons.

In the place we call “Mexico” is right now gripped with much turbulence and oppression and beautiful resistance (I italicized “hundreds of thousands of people” for a reason), and all so close to us. This chaotic map below intends to show—over and over again, via arrowmania—the short distance between these explosions/massive Federal invasions and police presences/major historical events, and a major city in the U.S.A.

From San Antonio, TX to Oaxaca is about the distance between Miami and New York. From San Antonio, TX to Querétaro is about the same distance between Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA. This isn’t a country around the world. It’s right next to us. We even go to the land of Alienz on vacation. That yellow line on the map above doesn’t even exist. Yet, most US citizens remain unaware of most, if not all, of what is happening in Mexico. And how very closely it is related to us and our fate. How integral. Like a partner dancing in the shadow, reacting and acting in concert or in conflict with our moves.

The USA papers and “News” sources like to remind us of violence in Mexico at every turn. Violence, gangs, drugs. Old story. And like the ubiquity of the black and latino male visage ala “WANTED” mugshot appearing eternally in city newspapers near you, this barrage of factoids telling of violence and crime and contextless danger is preached to us, of course, for very specific reasons.

Is the drive against the Spanish language larger than just elements of White America fearing a cultural makeover? Is it on some level in place to prevent communication between Them and U.S.? I say it is, in part. I say that the towering wall of ignorance erected between us and our close neighbor (and really, we overlap, when you consider familias and lineage on both sides, hello!) has been built as symbotic to many U.S.A. desires and agendas. But we need to compare notes, us and Mexican citizens. Even with the limited amount I can pay attention to both “worlds,” it is clear that the crooks in both cases greatly benefit from our not comparing notes. Greatly. And this is true, of all nations and ourselves. Whereas we normally have lived on the notes our own media has handed us, that day is over. We’ve seen evidence of this in the Photoshop™ wars spawned from the Israel/Palestinian conflict recently, the psyops and psyops accusations that stirred as much fever as the news of the falling bombs themselves did.

The boundaries are falling. Around the world, information and means of communication and media are springing up. The wall of ignorance is crumbling. The divisions are falling, and those who would contain us to live off of our negative emtions and fuel and coin feed us fear and propaganda to make us afraid of the falling boundaries, as well. THEY want it both ways. THEY want to knock down boundaries between money and any place in the world and themselves, but to keep the walls up around information and truth and knowledge of various peoples. They want us to be enemies with other populations. They want us to OTHER them. This division grows increasingly clear: this line between those who would exploit, use, fear and harm those without power, and those without (apparent) power.

But we do have power. Power to read our news sources utterly skeptically, and to test them against other sources, and to report our own. Power to speak to each other to determine truth. Power to say your oppression does not exactly look like mine, but we are both being used. And we are both being lied to. And the lies are just the same. And I want to be part of your freedom.

And, not least in importance, we have the power in numbers. Oh, in great numbers. I say this because I feel that this is a needed reminder at times. I feel those people with the most power concentrated in the smallest amounts do not tell us the truth, and they do not mean us well.

Around the world, the violence rages on. Our weapons and protections now are knowledge, truth, each other.

Crossposted at The Unapologetic Mexican