Yesterday, feeling angry, horrified, and ashamed and, with less than a week’s notice, 50+ citizens of the USA gathered on the sidewalk below the U.S. Consular Agency office in Oaxaca to protest the inhumane, unconscionable, and illegal actions by “our” government regarding refugees seeking asylum.
Yes, illegal actions! The following is courtesy of Fact Sheet No.20, Human Rights and Refugees from the United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner:
These rights are affirmed, among other civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, for all persons, citizens and non-citizens alike, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which together make up the International Bill of Human Rights.
(a) “No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 9);
(b) “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 14);
(c) “Everyone has the right to a nationality” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 15);
(d) “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State” (Universal Declaration of Human rights, article 13; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 12).
What is even more heartbreaking and infuriating, is WHY asylum seekers feel they have no choice but to leave the only homes most have ever known to make a perilous journey of thousands of miles to present themselves at the U.S. border. Hint: It’s not “the economy, stupid!”
And, lest you fear that these refugees are MS-13 wolves in sheep’s clothing:
1. MS-13 Is Not Organizing to Foil Immigration Law
2. MS-13 Is Not Posing as Fake Families at the Border
3. MS-13 Is Sticking Around, but It’s Not Growing
4. MS-13 Is Preying on a Specific Community, Not the Country at Large
5. Immigration Raids and Deportation Can Only Go So Far
From the recent article published in ProPublica, I’ve Been Reporting on MS-13 for a Year. Here Are the 5 Things Trump Gets Most Wrong.
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Mighty women of Oaxaca’s walls
Posted in Celebrations, Creativity, Culture, Politics, Travel & Tourism, tagged art, Día Internacional de la Mujer, International Women's Day, Mexico, Oaxaca, political commentary, stencil art, street art, urban art, wall art, women's faces, women's rights on March 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »
March 8 is International Women’s Day. In the words of a recent article by Nancy Rosenstock, a woman I knew back in the day, “In these challenging times, all women — from those of us who were involved in second-wave feminism to those just entering the struggle — need to come together as equal fighters and chart a course forward.”
We may have come a long way, but the struggle for equal rights, respect, freedom from violence, and control of our own bodies continues and the women of the walls of Oaxaca are not silent.
Many of the images also carry a written messages. Below, Nuestros sueños no caben en sus urnas / Our dreams do not fit in their ballot boxes carries an indictment against the capitalist political parties.
The next one lets the symbols of the ancestors speak.
From a women’s graphic campaign that seeks to express “what our bodies go through every day and what we are seeking when we scream: Vivas Nos Queremos / We Want Ourselves Alive.”
And, a promise that women will not be silenced and will march forward Sin miedo / Without fear.
Then there is the mural, La Patria / The Homeland, which adorns the wall of a school in Barrio de Jalatlaco. La Patria, originally a painting by Jorge González Camarena of an indigenous woman surrounded by patriotic imagery, graced the covers of textbooks from the 1960s into the 1970s.
To honor and celebrate International Women’s Day, on March 8, La Mano Magica Gallery/Galería inaugurates an exhibit of women artists, Exposición de Arte Colectiva Mujeres Artistas, curated by Mary Jane Gagnier, at their gallery in Oaxaca and online on their Facebook page.
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