Thursday, March 07, 2013

Message to Online Connects via @Peta_de_Aztlan

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I love the power of the Internet and its potential to connect with all others who are on the Internet on a global scale. This connectivity power has the potential to help bring us all closer together as one family of humanity, not as separate individuals, but as a common family with common basic survival needs and common dreams. We need to come together and create a new world of peace, harmony and justice.

My main platform for advocating and transmitting a basic humane rights agenda for Global Liberation, my personal interests and individual insights is via Twitter ~though I also use Google+, Facebook, Blogs and Yahoo Groups. We need to utilize all forms of communications with common sense wisdom, not childish cowardly paranoia.

In order to combat Corporate Media Power each of us, on an individual basis, needs to become our own creative channel to more and more create an active online presence, promote alternative social media sources and help liberate our collective consciousness together.
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My main Internet connection is on Twitter ~

https://twitter.com/Peta_de_Aztlan @Peta_de_Aztlan

I also have an Alternate Account ~
https://twitter.com/Humane_Being @Humane_Being

When I first got onto Twitter I was working as a Case Manager and Counselor at the local Salvation Army Emergency Shelter. In order not to have any hassle with the Salvation Army bigwigs I created my first Twitter account using my Dad's ol' Pachuco nickname 'Peta'. My Dad or Padre Pete M. Lopez was in the Cherry Gang as a youth in Logan Heights, San Diego. My Dad told me that 'Peta' means 'a rope hard to cut'. Thus, came about my Twitter user name of @Peta_de_Aztlan.

I still identify at least the U.S. Southwest as Aztlán. I no longer consider myself as a patriotic American, though I am still technically a U.S. citizen. I do not subscribe to any form of nationalism. Any patriotism I have is to all the world's suffering peoples. I am a global citizen.

I will not waste time here going into the whole truth about the U.S.A. being the result of a double genocide waged against its original indigenous natives and Black Africans during the Slave Trade. If you really wanted to know about it chances are you would know already, unless you are a young student still open to learning the truth.

For further study go to ~
A People's History Of The United States by Howard Zinn
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html ~
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In a way, the Internet with its zillions of web pages, discussion groups and online social media platforms has become a new Tower of Babel. The attention span of people online is usually a short-attention span of a few minutes at most, if not only several seconds. For those of us online activists, there are changes occurring in the neuoplasticity of our brains, especially our cerebral cortex. There is a lot going on here when we are online that involves our natural cognition, mental capacity, processing of incoming information, especially our neurotransmitters.

It is easy to suffer from Internet addiction because our dopamine can get hyped up when we are online. We get an actual dopamine 'turn on' when we receive feedback or our name is mentioned online. This can easily become chemically addictive with harmful consequences without the ingestion of an external substance.

An addiction results in negative and harmful consequences. It impacts on our daily functionality, certain matters we need to attend to are neglected and our own personal relationships in life can be damaged. Keep in mind that the wide spectrum of addiction varies from use, to abuse, to addiction. There are many kinds of addictions. We live in an addicted world. Having a beer on a daily basis does not mean one is an alcoholic. It is a matter of degree, intensity, focus and preoccupation.

We need to see our right to Internet access as a part of our right to freedom of speech. We have the right to express ourselves as we see fit whether anyone else approves of our creative expressions or not. At the same time, we need to not create a separate high-tech caste of people who are online and divorced from the masses ~divided from those who are not online. We need Internet access for all and must help others come online.

We need to avoid information overload when we are online, if not in our interpersonal communications in general. We should communicate with conscious intention and purpose, not just babble whatever comes up to mind to take up space. Before we say something of importance to us we should think first. Sharing is caring, but share with a higher level of consciousness. We live in an era when many are dying because of a lack of basic information and others who are online are overwhelmed by information. Thus, we need to be mindful of keeping a balance in our lives in the trinity of the mind, body and soul. Express your love for your loved ones with genuine affection. Feel it and show it!
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I am a straight up hard core radical. Most of the folks around me in my existential life are apathetic conservatives (if not fools and drug addicts). I am not a co-dependent here to help enable the dependency of others. Each of us should strive to be as independent as we can in life. Naturally we must admit our natural dependency in the world in terms of being dependent on the air we breathe, the need for human contact and the need for being in an environment within which we can evolve as humane beings. The ideal here is that I am my own man with my own philosophy on life among the living. I do not require your approval or validation. I am a liberated being.

Let us do what we can to express ourselves freely without fear. Honor and share your truth as you know it. Amerikan Fascism has a comprehensive psychological program in place to inhibit your freedom of expression. It has manufactured censors in the repressed mentality. Even if I languish in chains in a filthy prison cell I can remain free and liberated in my mind. Cosmic consciousness cannot be censored, curtailed or crushed.

Venceremos! Peter S. López AKA @Peta_de_Aztlan ~
Email= peta.aztlan@gmail.com

http://help-matrix.ning.com/ ~
c/s
 

Declining interest in 'Chicano Studies' reflects a Latino identify shift +Comment


Declining interest in 'Chicano Studies' reflects a Latino identify shift ~
http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2013/03/07/30817/declining-interest-in-chicano-studies-reflects-a-l/ ~

Declining interest in 'Chicano Studies' reflects a Latino identify shift

Chicano Studies

Adrian Florido/Fronteras Desk

San Diego State University Chicano Studies Professor Isidro Ortiz said many young Mexican-Americans no longer identify with the term 'Chicano.'

Children of Mexican immigrants are going to college in record numbers, but they see themselves differently from earlier generations of Mexican-Americans. That's posing a recruitment challenge to university programs that were established to meet the needs of an earlier generation. From the Fronteras Desk, Adrian Florido reports

On the campus of San Diego State University recently, Sandy Chavez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, said, without hesitation, that she thinks of herself primarily as American.
Yes, she is Latina, of Mexican heritage. She's visited family in Mexico, and on weekends as a child she woke up to her parents playing Mexican music on the stereo. But she's never described herself principally as Mexican or Latina, much less Chicana, a term preferred by many young Mexican-Americans in the 1960s and 70s.

"A lot of people say Latina, Chicana. I don't even really know the distinction between them," Chavez said.

By official projections, next year, Latinos will surpass whites as California's largest ethnic group. This is due in large part to young people like Chavez, the children of immigrants from Mexico, who are also landing on college campuses in record numbers.

But these students see themselves differently than earlier generations of Mexican-Americans.

And on campuses like San Diego State University and others, that shifting sense of identity is posing a recruitment challenge to Chicano Studies programs that grew out of the Chicano political movement of the Civil Rights era.

Last semester marked a milestone at San Diego State University. The Chicano Studies Department failed to meet its enrollment target. It's falling short this semester, too, having enrolled just two-thirds of its target of roughly 1,300 students.

"It's a small crisis, in terms of the department's history," said Isidro Ortiz, a longtime professor of Chicano Studies.

Ironically, the drop in enrollment coincides with record numbers of Latino students on campus, a large proportion Mexican-American. Last year the university was recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the federal government, a designation that qualifies it for grant funding because its undergraduate student body is at least 25 percent Latino.

Professors and administrators are trying to figure out why the record number of Latinos on campus hasn't translated into more interest in Chicano Studies courses. One theory is that a growing number of them think of themselves like Sandy Chavez does.

"Students in many cases don't identify as Chicanos, as did the generation that created this department," Ortiz said. Many more identify as Mexican, Mexican-American, or simply American.

Chicano Studies departments at San Diego State and across the West grew out of the Mexican-American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Its members rejected the term Mexican-American and instead adopted the term "Chicano," which is thought to derive from the indigenous pronunciation of Mexicano.

Identifying as Chicano symbolized solidarity with a proud, sometimes even militant, struggle against second-class status — a struggle by Mexican-Americans to be recognized by politicians, employers, and by academia.

That led a group of Chicano academics to call a summit at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1969. There, they drafted a plan to begin establishing university Chicano Studies curricula and departments. Within a few years, they were established at universities in California, Arizona, and Texas.

At San Diego State University, the department flourished well into the 1990s, and even the last decade. But in recent years, Ortiz said, the declining enrollment became apparent, and last year, the missed target. That has forced a conversation within the department about how relevant the term Chicano — with its political, even radical, connotations — is to young Mexican-Americans today.

Continued, even unprecedented, civic engagement by Latinos suggests it's not mere apathy driving them away from an interest in studying the Mexican-American community in an academic context. Take the ongoing movement in support of immigration reform, driven in large part by young Mexican-Americans, and voter turnout in the last election.

"But maybe that term," – Chicano – "is not what's appropriate for unifying a mobilization of young people in 2013," said Jorge Mariscal, a professor of Chicano arts and humanities at UC San Diego.

He said understanding the community's demographic evolution is key. The Latinos on university campuses today are the children of the large wave of immigrants who came to the U.S. in the 1980s and 90s, well after the Chicano movement's heyday.

"It means that many of these young people don't know what the term Chicano means in the U.S. context," Mariscal said. "So it's really the demographic change, and the culture that those new young people bring, that is slowly moving off center stage the term Chicano, and therefore Chicano Studies."

Unlike the Chicano generation, which saw itself outside the mainstream and was clearly a minority, today's young Mexican-Americans increasingly are the mainstream. Many are voting, participating in the political system from within. The four-decade-old Chicano movement is increasingly a vague memory, the term imbued with nebulous meaning.

"I don't know, when I think of a Chicano I think of somebody who grew up in the streets of East LA," said Ernesto Limón, an undergraduate at San Diego State.

The declining enrollment is not true everywhere. At San Diego City College, a community college, the Chicano Studies department is requesting more capacity for its courses because of saturation, professor Elva Salinas said in an email.

Mariscal, of UC San Diego, said the decline in interest tends to magnify as an institution becomes more selective and elite. There is even less interest in Chicano Studies among students at UC San Diego than at San Diego State, he said.

At San Diego State, Ortiz said Chicano Studies faculty recently held a first meeting to discuss the decline in enrollment and how the department might address it. Chicano Studies departments at other universities have retooled the curriculum to include classes reflective of the greater diversity within Latino communities.

Several university departments have changed their names to include "Latino" or "Hispanic," in an effort to give the department broader appeal among the large and still growing Latino student population.

"We should be in a position to be able to capitalize on those numbers," Ortiz said. "And I think we will be able to, provided we can solve this puzzle

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Comment: We should now see that the Chicano Movement has pretty much died out. Where is it on the world scene? When any valid thrust towards Liberation fails it is always that result of the vanguard leadership elements, not the people.

At most, Chicanos are a lost tribe. Neither Mexican nor not fully American. Hell, we still argue over what the hell to call ourselves! For sure, Chicano cultural nationalism and the false belief in an actual autonomous Chicano nation was a major derailment. Then we have some who refer to Chicanos are Xicanos! Another distraction.

Chicanos are a lost tribe of La Raza Cosmica, not a separate nation. I can relate to the concept of Latinos from a political-cultural perspective and for mobilization purposes.

Eventually we need to evolve beyond mere racial-ethnic politics and join the mainstream of the People's Global Libertion Movement. Those of us, such as myself, who still consider ourselves as Chicanos need to get out of the past and come into the 21st Century!

On Being A Chicano de Aztlán: Update: 12-6-2012
~ http://wp.me/prH9G-a3

Venceremos! We Will Win! Educate to Liberate!
Peter S. Lopez AKA @Peta_de_Aztlan
Sacramento, California

c/s

Monday, March 04, 2013

Re: [NetworkAztlan_News] Why Make Mexican American History Month In LA (and beyond)

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A great idea Hermano Rosalio ~ At least a Mexican-American month, if not a Chicano month. I am not really a Mexican being born and raised in the U.S.A. nor do I self-identify as an American with its genocidal history.

Venceremos! We Will Win! Educate to Liberate!
Peter S. Lopez AKA @Peta_de_Aztlan
Sacramento, California

c/s


From: Rosalio Munoz <chalio.munoz@yahoo.com>
To: Aztlan News <networkaztlan_news@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 4, 2013 5:58 PM
Subject: [NetworkAztlan_News] Why Make Mexican American History Month In LA (and beyond)

 

Compas, I am working on a project, a long term desire for having a Mexican American History Month.  It has served the African American and broader community well as have National Hispanic Heritage month.  So I have initiated a FB group to commemorate it this March its web address is


Here are some thoughts on it I posted today.  Comments.

Why Mexican American History Month - More Reasons 
Establishing a focus for greater awareness of Mexican Americans and Latinos is very important for reversing the evils of Manifest Destiny. Eurocentrism, Anglo Supremacy, US racism and imperialism is based in large part on assuming the civilized world is based in Europe and New England and progress is in it s expansion west. Go west young man Go west was its racist and male supremest slogan. Today still economic, cultural, social and political standards are set in New York and Washington DC, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Wall Street.. But now politically and economically, demographically that is changing at the base and a a progressive diverseness is moving West to East from the West to East in the US as world development is becoming multipolar and the Asia, the Pacific Rim and Latin American are playing greater roles globally.

Our Mexican American community in the Southwest is at this time in a pivotal place as a key part of minority communites ,labor and politics. Not because we are civilized and whites are not, its that we along with African Americans have cut our social teeth opposing injustice and have greater identity with the overwhelming majority of the world population. This is not THE determining factor but its an important one. 

A greater awarness of our histrory and trajectory, if we can own our humanity and share it in solidarity with others we can play a very important role for progressive trends locally, nationally and globally. Thats why the idea of a Mexican American History Month is an attractive challenge to me.
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Saturday, February 23, 2013

See: THE BEGINNING-STREET MARCHES FOR LEGALIZATION AND IMMIGRATION IN AUSTIN AND SAN JOSE

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Gracias Javier ~ Will share with others! Will blog it and thereby get a web address to post on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Venceremos! We Will Win! Educate to Liberate!
Peter S. Lopez AKA @Peta_de_Aztlan
Sacramento, California

c/s


From: javier rodriguez <bajolamiradejavier@yahoo.com>
To: nair_cc@googlegroups.com; networkaztlan_news@yahoogroups.com; occupyla@lists.riseup.net; occupylageneralstrike@lists.riseup.net; c-mx@googlegroups.com; networkaztlan_action@yahoogroups.com; LARED-L@LISTSERV.CYBERLATINA.NET; beto@unt.edu; historia-l-bounces@mail.cas.unt.edu
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2013 8:26 AM
Subject: [NetworkAztlan_News] THE BEGINNING-STREET MARCHES FOR LEGALIZATION AND IMMIGRATION IN AUSTIN AND SAN JOSE


 
Manifestantes exigen en Texas una reforma migratoria
POR: Gustavo Rangel / RUMBO | 02/22/2013 | Rumbo
Cientos de personas marcharon hasta el Capitolio de Austin para pedir un cambio justo e integral al sistema de inmigración.
Cientos de personas marcharon hasta el Capitolio de Austin, Texas, para pedir un cambio justo e integral al sistema de inmigración.
Foto: Gustavo Rangel / RUMBO

Los rayos del sol aún no se acariciaban en los edificios de Galleria, en Houston, pero Verónica Taboada, Agustina Juárez y Yesenia Romero ya conducían por la calle San Felipe para llegar a las oficinas del Sindicato de Trabajadores del SEIU Local 1. Allí les esperaba una nueva lucha y aunque apenas hace unos meses estuvieron en huelga para conseguir mejores condiciones en sus trabajos llegaron dispuestas a entregarse una vez más por otra causa que afecta a sus familias y a millones más por todo el país: la necesidad de una reforma migratoria integral.
Igual que ellas decenas de miembros del sindicato morado acudieron al llamado y armados con sus pancartas, matracas, altavoces y espíritu luchador se subieron a un viejo autobús escolar que andaba tirando agua para viajar el viernes a Austin, la capital del estado de Texas, y exigir en los propios escalones del Capitolio un cambio justo y de fondo de las leyes de inmigración del país junto con cientos de texanos que llegaron de diferentes partes del estado para protagonizar un marcha.
No les importó viajar tres horas y media para estar presentes y luego regresarse el mismo viernes para trabajar por la tarde: "era necesario alzar la voz".
"Nos preocupan las deportaciones que están separando a tantas familias", dijo Romero.
"Queremos vivir con más tranquilidad en este país y tener las mismas oportunidades que todos los demás que están legalmente en este país", comentó Taboada
"Cuando comenzamos nuestra lucha con el SEIU mucha gente decía que no íbamos a poder lograr nada pero luego de luchar y luchar hoy podemos decir que tenemos mejores salarios, vacaciones y seguro médico. Tenemos que tener esa actitud luchadora para ayudar a que se apruebe una reforma" de inmigración, explicó Juárez.
A los miembros del SEIU de Houston los estaban esperando cientos de personas para marchar por las calles del centro de Austin rumbo al Capitolio. Algunas organizaciones llegaron desde El Paso, Texas.
"Viajamos casi 12 horas para venir y exponer los problemas que estamos sufriendo en la frontera y los efectos negativos que tendría la implementación de más seguridad. Se están violando los derechos humanos de mucha gente", dijo Cristina Parker, portavoz de la organización Border Network for Human Rights.
"Ya no se puede usar como excusa la seguridad en la frontera para no aprobar una reforma migratoria. El gobierno tiene en la frontera 22,000 agentes de inmigración, se construyeron casi 600 millas de muros a lo largo de la frontera y hay cientos de cámaras instaladas. Ya basta de buscar peros para no sacar de las sombras a los más millones de personas indocumentadas que viven en este país", agregó Parker.
La comunidad hispana de Texas se reflejó en los cientos de manifestantes que a pesar del frio y las miradas raras que recibieron de algunas personas en el centro de la capital llegaron a su destino y les pidieron a los senadores Ted Cruz y John Cornyn que apoyen la aprobación de una reforma migratoria.
"Cruz dice que es hispano pero sus acciones dicen todo lo contrario, ya ha dicho que no está muy a favor de una reforma migratoria. Pero una cosa sí le puedo decir al senador: si no ayuda en este tema que afecta a tantas familias texanas va durar muy poco en el puesto porque en las próximas elecciones la comunidad hispana le va a dar la espalda", dijo José Reyes, manifestante que llego desde Dallas para participar en la manifestación.
Las organizaciones houstonianas Mi Familia Vota, Houston Unido, SEIU, CRECEN, FIEL, Texas Organizing Project y NALEO llegaron a la capital en apoyo de la Reform Immigration Texas Alliance (RITA) y en conjunto entraron al Capitolio para presentar pidiendo que los legisladores apoyen una reforma migratoria.
Marchan por la reforma migratoria en San José
POR: Rosario Vital / Especial para El Mensajero | 02/22/2013 | El Mensajero
Decenas de estudiantes y activistas salieron a las calles para exigir una reforma que fortalezca a las familias, a la comunidad y a la economía
Decenas de personas marcharon en San José a favor de la reforma migratoria.
Foto: Rosario Vital/El Mensajero
SAN JOSÉ.- El Movimiento de Inmigrantes Unidos (UIM por sus siglas en inglés) organizó el 21 de febrero la primera acción del año en el condado de Santa Clara por la lucha de una reforma migratoria integral.

Con la frase "reforma migratoria, el momento ha llegado", decenas de estudiantes y activistas salieron a las calles de San José a exigir una reforma que fortalezca a las familias, a la comunidad y a la economía mediante una vía justa, equitativa, que los lleve a obtener la residencia permanente y la ciudadanía.

Los activistas están dispuestos a luchar por una reforma que sea igual para todos. También se rehusan a pasar a la última fila, esto en relación a una propuesta que tendría la Casa Blanca sobre la espera de ocho años para que los indocumentados se hagan ciudadanos.

"No tenemos que ir a la última fila, y debemos decirle al presidente, gobernador, alcalde y todas nuestras autoridades que nosotros no quedamos al final", dijo Tony Alexander, director de políticas del sindicato UFCW 5 (United Food & Commercial Workers).

Desde el punto de vista legal, el abogado de inmigración Bernardo Merino, explica que para que esto sea factible deben haber más visas disponibles.

Merino sugiere que una reforma integral requiere un camino claro para que los indocumentados puedan hacerse ciudadanos. El abogado pide un sistema en el cual ciudadanos y residentes que pidan a parientes no esperen tanto tiempo.

César Juárez, activista y líder del grupo SAHE (Student Affairs in Higher Education) explica que en el condado de Santa Clara, diversos grupos están trabajando en los puntos de unidad para que el contenido de la reforma migratoria sea justo.

Mientras tanto el Movimiento de Inmigrantes Unidos pide una legalización asequible, confidencial y compasiva. "La propuesta de espera hecha por el presidente Barack Obama y la propuesta del Senado es intolerable", afirmó Juárez.

"Pedimos plenos derechos para los trabajadores, para los actuales inmigrantes y para los futuros inmigrantes", Juárez explicó que el uso del E-Verify creará una subclase permanente explotada para aquellas personas que no pueden obtener en el futuro un permiso de trabajo.
Otro de los puntos que el movimiento apoya es la inclusión de familiares de las personas homosexuales. "Queremos ser tratados de la misma [manera] y queremos que la comunidad gay sea considerada en la reforma", dijo Tina Fernandez, estudiante de la Universidad de San José

Por su parte, la asesora del grupo SAHE, la profesora Julia Curry explicó que pasamos por un momento político y oportuno que la comunidad inmigrante debe aprovechar. "Hay que presionar más que nunca. Hoy es la apertura, ahora nos escuchan y nos toman en cuenta tal vez por el asunto demográfico y porque es el momento", dijo Curry.

En tanto el Coordinador de la organización CHAM (Community Homeless Alliance Ministry), Sandy Perry aseguró que debe haber ciudadanía para todos. "Han esperado 20 o 30 años ¿por qué tendríamos que hacerlos esperar más? No podemos ganar nada sin la unidad, debemos pedir algo justo", declaró Perry.

"Es injusto que se pongan a los inmigrantes en última línea, somos tan iguales de contribuyentes en este país como cualquier otro ciudadano", dijo Ketzal Gómez, representante de South Bay Dreamers.

La marcha se inició en la Biblioteca Martin Luther King Jr y culminó en las afueras del edificio federal de la ciudad de San José. Se sumaron a esta acción organizaciones pro inmigrantes, líderes religiosos, sindicatos y activistas de la comunidad del Sur de la Bahía.
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