365 Days of Latino Heritage

Latino Heritage Month has been commodified and commercialized with the real meaning behind heritage and history lost in a push to make Latinos spend and make us a brand. We are not a brand. We are not a marketing demographic. We are a complex mescla of people, culturas y lenguas.

Originally this started as a project for Latino Heritage Month, 2009 pero because our lives as Latinos, Latin Americans and the other names we respond to in our hearts are live every day, this is 365 days of Latino heritage.

Compiled and Curated
By Maegan la Mamita Mala Ortiz of VivirLatino
thinkmexican: Trans Activist Agnes Torres Murdered In Puebla Trans activist and respected counselor Agnes Torres Hernández was found dead this past Saturday near the town of Atlixco, Puebla. Reports indicate she was tortured before being killed. Friends and supporters gathered to mourn and pay tribute to Agnes this evening in Puebla, the state’s capital city. Earlier today, the hashtag #AgnesTorres was a trending topic on Twitter, with thousands posting messages of support for Agnes, her family, and the LGBT community. Former colleagues of Agnes Torres are demanding a thorough investigation and calling for a special department within Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission dedicated to cases of hate crimes against lesbians, gays, and transsexuals. ¡Justicia Para Agnes Torres!

thinkmexican:

Trans Activist Agnes Torres Murdered In Puebla

Trans activist and respected counselor Agnes Torres Hernández was found dead this past Saturday near the town of Atlixco, Puebla. Reports indicate she was tortured before being killed.

Friends and supporters gathered to mourn and pay tribute to Agnes this evening in Puebla, the state’s capital city. Earlier today, the hashtag #AgnesTorres was a trending topic on Twitter, with thousands posting messages of support for Agnes, her family, and the LGBT community.

Former colleagues of Agnes Torres are demanding a thorough investigation and calling for a special department within Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission dedicated to cases of hate crimes against lesbians, gays, and transsexuals.

¡Justicia Para Agnes Torres!

(Source: thinkmexican, via mayachapina)

Gabriel García Márquez turns 85 and celebrates going digital

univisionnews:


The iconic Colombian author celebrates his 85th birthday on Tuesday. (Photo: Facebook.com/Los85deGabo)

By CONZ PRETI
Channel: Entertainment

We’ve all come across Gabo’s work at some point in our lives. With over 20 pieces published — between fiction, novels, non-fiction and journalism — and a Nobel Prize under his arm, Gabriel García Márquez is one of the most significant authors of our time.

Read More

(via quetalcabrones)

PUERTO RICO: FILIBERTO OJEDA RIOS WAS PLAYING THE TRUMPET WHEN THE FBI KILLED HIM

By Jesus Davila

Emailed to me January 30, 2012

 
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, January 30, 2012 (NCM) – Two of the participating agents involved in the assault on the residence of Filiberto Ojeda – Commander of the Boricua Popular Army – The Macheteros – declared that the sniper [who is referred to by the pseudonym] “Brian” fired the fatal shots while the veteran guerrilla played his trumpet, according to an official report that concludes that the death was illegal and requests a reopening of criminal investigations into the matter.
 
The testimony, which remained in secret for more than five years and is now known due to a new report by the Commission on Civil Rights (CDC), supposedly took place at the scene where the incident took place one day after a commando unit headed by the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) attacked Ojeda’s house and killed him on September 23, 2005.
 
There existed against Ojeda an arrest warrant for the $7 million robbery of Wells Fargo that was to fund the operations of The Macheteros, and the official version of the incident is that as agents arrived on the scene, Ojeda opened fire first against the agents, hitting three of them, one of which needed surgical attention.  According to this version, “Brian” fired his shots after seeing Ojeda once again point his 9mm handgun, but this was placed in doubt when it was learned that the sniper’s position prevented him from seeing Ojeda.
 
This uncertainty has led to speculation that he had used a thermal scope, but this was not among the weaponry that was reported to have been used. 
 
The new evidence would establish that “Brian” pointed his rifle in the direction of the sounds of the trumpet being that he could not see Ojeda.  It is also indicative of the fact that the sniper and other agents within the perimeter knew at that moment that the fugitive did not represent a threat being that his hands were occupied with the musical instrument rather than pointing a gun. 
 
The information is contained on pages 128 and 129 of the 238 page report submitted by the CDC regarding the deadly incident, after the Office of the Inspector General of the FBI absolved the agents of the HRT that took part and after Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice closed the case after not finding evidence of “negligent homicide”. 
 
The new report, however, concludes that the contingent of the FBI-HRT, without documented justification, arrived on the scene shooting and that Ojeda opened fire in self-defense with a handgun against a group of attackers that fired more than 100 shots with automatic rifles in just under two minutes.  The report also affirms that after Ojeda was injured there was sufficient opportunity to offer him medical assistance and save his life, but instead the team opted to let him slowly bleed to death. 
 
The next day, the FBI allowed entry to Puerto Rico’s investigative authorities only after having moved the body using a cable, and then the body was sent to the Institute of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy.  The report also indicates that what remains are important analyses to determine the hour at which he died, if the body’s position was changed in order to alter the scene, and the exact trajectory of the shots fired, among other things.
 
When the forensic team began their investigation that day of the 24th, they noticed that Ojeda’s trumpet, instead of being locked away inside the house as the prized possession it was, instead was lying at the foot of the rustic stairs of cement blocks and dirt at the entrance to the house. 
 
According to the report, faced with this development, the investigative director interrogated two of the participating agents which are identified in the document.  He reports that they told him that Ojeda was playing the instrument at the moment in which “Brian” shoots him and that he fell to the floor with the trumpet, which fell further to the bottom of the stairs when they pulled his body with the cable. 
 
The forensic team took various photographs of the instrument and its location, as well as marking it as evidence.  However, “Report ICF A-4622-05” does not include the trumpet as among those confiscated from the scene.
 
The report informs that the official’s declaration could not be corroborated because the FBI prevented the agents from being interviewed by the CDC.
 
For his part, Luis F. Abreu Elias, one of Ojeda’s lawyers, reported that after receiving a tip that one of the FBI agents attempted take the trumpet as a trophy, a supervisor took it away from him and had it put away.  Ojeda lawyers waged a long battle to be able to recuperate the trumpet, without the FBI explaining why it held on to it if it was an object that had nothing to do with the incidents investigated.
 
According to that interview, the FBI never revealed that the trumpet was incriminating evidence against this “Brian”, who refused to testify based on the constitutional right against self-incrimination. 
 
After the first volley of shots on the day of the incident, Ojeda’s wife, Elma Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, surrendered as per his instructions and before being taken away she heard  her husband declare that he would surrender himself as well but to a journalist as witness.  The negotiations continued for some time and, waiting on an answer that never came, must have been when Ojeda began to play his trumpet.
 
What tune Ojeda played is unknown.  But way before that time, he had mentioned that if the FBI ever arrived at his residence to kill him, he would receive them with theSuite of the Americas, composed by Damaso Perez Prado “The Mambo King”, in homage to the “Heroic Guerrilla” Ernesto “Che” Guevara. 
 
The report by the Civil Rights Commission, a copy of which was obtained by NCM News, recommends that the Puerto Rico Justice Department and the Division of Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice in Washington be required to investigate the case.  The report is dated March 31, 2011, revised September 22, 2011, approved October 13 and certified last December 5th. 
 

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I’m pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I’m also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now.

—

Sherman Alexie is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and filmmaker. His book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto’s Fist Fight in Heaven,” was on the banned curriculum of the Mexican American Studies Program.

http://progressive.org/sherman-alexie

(via chicanainchoos)

(via latinosexuality)

lati-negros: latinegro: More Murders And Attacks Against Colombian Indigenous People The Colombian National Indigenous Organization (ONIC) made up by the native peoples of the country is denouncing and rejecting the serious attacks and human rights violations suffered by their communities. Several leaders were murdered these past days, following an end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 with many murders and attacks. On January 15th, members of the Embera community Herminson and Alexander de Jesus Morales Zamora were murdered in Riosucio, Caldas department. “We reject this act of violence and demand that our rights and integrity as human beings, as communities, as peoples representing different cultures are ensured”, reads a statement by the Indigenous Government Council of ONIC. The denunciation by indigenous organizations is addressed to different justice and human rights advocacy groups, NGOs, the civil society and international organizations. According to the statement, the Embera people is one of the most affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. According to authorities of the Indigenous Council Nuestra Señora Candelaria de la Montaña, Herminson and Alexander de Jesus Morales Zamora (29 and 24 years old respectively) disappeared on January 14th. They were members of the Ubarbá and El Rebaño communities. On January 16th, the families of the victims received a note indicating where they were. Their bodies were found n Cerro El Tigre, La Palma community, in a common burial site. They had been shot several times. More Murders And Attacks Against Colombian Indigenous People

lati-negros:

latinegro:

More Murders And Attacks Against Colombian Indigenous People

The Colombian National Indigenous Organization (ONIC) made up by the native peoples of the country is denouncing and rejecting the serious attacks and human rights violations suffered by their communities. Several leaders were murdered these past days, following an end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 with many murders and attacks.

On January 15th, members of the Embera community Herminson and Alexander de Jesus Morales Zamora were murdered in Riosucio, Caldas department.

“We reject this act of violence and demand that our rights and integrity as human beings, as communities, as peoples representing different cultures are ensured”, reads a statement by the Indigenous Government Council of ONIC.

The denunciation by indigenous organizations is addressed to different justice and human rights advocacy groups, NGOs, the civil society and international organizations.

According to the statement, the Embera people is one of the most affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. According to authorities of the Indigenous Council Nuestra Señora Candelaria de la Montaña, Herminson and Alexander de Jesus Morales Zamora (29 and 24 years old respectively) disappeared on January 14th. They were members of the Ubarbá and El Rebaño communities. On January 16th, the families of the victims received a note indicating where they were. Their bodies were found n Cerro El Tigre, La Palma community, in a common burial site. They had been shot several times.

More Murders And Attacks Against Colombian Indigenous People

(Source: socialuprooting, via youlikemealready)

As the nation watches the Tucson Unified School District’s spiral into disarray, hundreds of students have walked out of their Tucson schools today in a coordinated protest against the banishment of the district’s acclaimed Mexican American Studies program.

Pouring into the downtown Tucson area from Pueblo, Cholla and Tucson high schools, among other institutions, the students brought their march to the offices of floundering Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) administrators. In recent days, administrators and board members have issued a series of conflicting and inaccurate statements and carried out the extreme actions of confiscating books in front of children. Last week, a recently hired assistant superintendent from Texas made a troubing call for the deeply rooted Tucson students–many of whom trace their ancestors to the town founders– to “go to Mexico” to study their history.

Supporters of the Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies program, which was terminated indefinitely on January 10th by the school board, launched walkouts last week and have vowed to step up their actions for a large-scale walkout, teach-in and launch of a “School of Ethnic Studies” on Tuesday, January 24th.

milkeemountainmama: biilo: PACHUCA– a type of woman who knew how to look glamorous in red lipstick and victory rolls, but also hid razor blades in her perfectly-coiffed bouffant (and was not afraid to use them).  a type of *chicana*. straight up chicana. macha/femme at it’s superb finest.

milkeemountainmama:

biilo:

PACHUCA– a type of woman who knew how to look glamorous in red lipstick and victory rolls, but also hid razor blades in her perfectly-coiffed bouffant (and was not afraid to use them). 

a type of *chicana*. straight up chicana. macha/femme at it’s superb finest.

(via so-treu)

Martes Media Minute : Roe v. Wade Anniversary, Medicaid Mama y Midwife Victory, Cervical Cancer Awareness month, & Mala’s Mami Closeup

Following last week’s liveblog of a conversation on cervical cancer and Latin@s, Bianca Laureano shares her ideas for Cervical Cancer Awareness Month 2012 onwhat really needs to happen to end the disease.

We are celebrating along with Mamas of Color Rising in Texas the decision of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to make a rules change that adds Licensed Midwives as health care providers under Texas Medicaid. All mam@s deserve the birth experience they want regardless of income.