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January 6, 2020

“Yo tambien tengo sueños”

This drawing is a celebration and honoring of *all* forms of labor that I created for International Workers’ Day. By “honoring,” I mean that we must advocate for laws and policies that allow us to work with dignity and safety. On October 12, 2019, the Hard Rock construction project collapsed in New Orleans, killing three workers and injuring many more. Workers had been warning management for time that labor conditions were unsafe. One worker who spoke out about the collapse to news media was deported to Honduras recently. His name is Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma and he has lived in the United States for almost 20 years. He has a family here. He has a life here. He has dreams too. Always, but especially now, we must fight for working conditions that allow us to realize our dreams and do not punish us for demanding just treatment.

December 31, 2019

by Blas Reies

Las masacres de Gilroy y El Paso: Trump y la larga historia del racismo anti-mexicano en los Estados Unidos

Es triste decir que, al enterarme del tiroteo masivo del 28 de julio de2019 en el Festival del Ajo en Gilroy (“Gilroy Garlic Festival”), cometidopor un supremacista blanco, estaba desconcertado y enfurecido, mas nosorprendido. Días más tarde, mi conmoción, ira, y aprehensiónaumentaron cuando supe de otro tiroteo, también a manos de unsupremacista blanco, esta vez en El Paso, Tejas. Nuevamente, no mesorprendió que algo así pudiera suceder hoy en los Estados Unidos.

December 22, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Keep families together/Cages are cages

These prints were created in support of undocumented folks as well as being a criticism of the United States. Amerikkka has spread fear, weapons, corruption, and violence across the world, creating conditions that force people to risk their lives to escape in search of survival. Folks migrating to the United States continue to live in fear and are being persecuted, put in cages, and killed. As an artist and a formerly undocumented person, I create art that helps undocumented folks heal and calls for their protection and for solidarity with their fight. I will never stop fighting for the safety, happiness, and rights of undocumented people.

December 21, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Support all undocumented youth

This print was created in support of undocumented folks as well as being a criticism of the United States. Amerikkka has spread fear, weapons, corruption, and violence across the world, creating conditions that force people to risk their lives to escape in search of survival. Folks migrating to the United States continue to live in fear and are being persecuted, put in cages, and killed. As an artist and a formerly undocumented person, I create art that helps undocumented folks heal and calls for their protection and for solidarity with their fight. I will never stop fighting for the safety, happiness, and rights of undocumented people.

December 20, 2019

by Lupita Romero

Bernie Sanders’s immigration plan: a response from the front-lines of struggle

I live in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse areas in the country. I arrived from Mexico as a child in the post 9/11 period of social militarization, carried out under the veil of “national security”. This era has been marked by scapegoating and repression. Between Republican’s nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support of establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is ignored in elections if it does not fall in line behind the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely focusing our efforts to register our documented community to vote “blue”.

Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fund-raise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and in no state or federal elections. For this reason, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to waging limited legal challenges and legislative reforms that rely on building alliance with Democrats at the cost of independent action and accountability to the larger community. This marginalization in the electoral arena

December 17, 2019

by Blas Reies

The Gilroy and El Paso massacres: Trump and the long history of anti-Mexican racism in the United States

It’s sad to say that I was shocked and angered but not surprised when I heard of the July 28, 2019 mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which was carried out by a white supremacist. I felt more shock, anger, and apprehension a few days later when I heard of yet another mass shooting carried out by another white supremacist, this time in El Paso, Tejas. Again, I wasn’t surprised that something like this could happen in the U.S. today.

Trump started his campaign for president about three years ago by calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals.” He has called us “enemies” of the U.S. and promised to build a wall to keep us out of this country. Once in office, he has called Central Americans “animals,” and their nations “shithole countries.” Political pundits like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have followed suit by claiming that immigration from poor countries makes the U.S. “dirty” and are “destroying America.” They have called Mexico a “hostile foreign power,’ implying that Mexicans in the U.S. are subversive agents. They have said that immigration is a threat to the U.S., which will lead to a less safe country and that it will result in the death of “America.”

November 24, 2019

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Luchadores para el control de rentas

La Union de inquilinos surge a traves de la necesidad de evitar mayor desplazamiento en comunidades de bajos recursos Personalmente como organizadora comuniaria por mas de 15 anos en City Heigts en 2003 trabaje arduamete organizando a mas 300 padres de familia por una major educacion incluyendo respeto a nuestra lengua maternal; debido a que City Heigths es una comunidad con una diversidad multicultural, esto nos llevo a enfocarnos en la problematica de vivienda como un derecho humano y de salud que estaba altamente conectado a la desercion escolar, donde los estudiantes se sentian inseguros al sentir que cada 6meses o cada ano se tenian que ir a vivir a otro barrio e incluso a otro Estado.

Entonces iniciamos un proyecto al cual llamamos PCS (Proyecto de Casas Saludables) el cual fue patrocinado por California Endowment, esto nos dio la oportunidad de evaluar 300 viviendas en CH de las cuales mas del 80% resultaron con problemas realmente graves de humedad e infestaciones de ratas,cucarachas, chinches y otros graves problemas que iban desde tuberias rotas hasta techos rotos, ante este grave problema

November 22, 2019

by Blas Reies

Lessons from the coup in Bolivia

What is happening in Bolivia is a coup d’état by the racist, right-wing, and fascist forces
of the country. These are forces that are working to facilitate the attempts of the Anglo-
American imperialists to exploit Bolivia’s resources.

This coup is a threat to the peasants, workers, poor, women, and indigenous people of
Bolivia. It is an undisputed fact that the social programs implemented by the government of Evo
Morales have improved the lives of these people. For example, it has greatly decreased the
percentage of people that live in poverty, it has diminished the level of economic inequality, it
introduced the teleférico public transit system in La Paz, it has built new roads, and it has given
economic aid to the most vulnerable sectors of society.

November 19, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

De nopal y espinas

“Nopalito de mi corazón, quiero besarte pero mis labios no saben cómo recibir tu amor.” (Little nopal of my heart, I want to kiss you but my lips do not know how to receive your love.)

I open my artist statement with a line of prose written by spoken word artist, Chris “L7” Cuadrado, because his vision sparked intrigue in me. I want to dig deeper about the ways in which a person, especially as one who self-identifies as Xicana, navigates their relationship with others and how they sustain their well-being in a white supremacist capitalist Imperialist hetero-ableist Patriarchy. The imagery or symbol that is of interest to me and in my work is the cactus, as a Mexican cultural symbol, and the human body. This body of work illustrates the human body as a site of oppression and the mind as a site of resistance to systems of patriarchy.

November 19, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Mother nature is on fire

This piece reflects how there is mass forest fires occurring everywhere, especially in the Amazon Forest. I read an article about if more of the forest were to burn, it won’t be able to recover and will continue to die. The woman is center is suppose to be a native woman, who are often the leaders for environmental movements and for reclamation of indigenous land. Her hair is the smoke from the forest of the earth burning.