Hola, buenas tardes, ¿cómo está Ud.? Lo veo siempre
trabajando.
Pues, no, solo los jueves
por la tarde me puedo quedar aquí trabajando hasta tarde.
Bueno, ya mañana es viernes y se puede descansar el fin de
semana, va a hacer algo divertido?
Voy a pasar el día del
padre con mis hijas y amigos.
Ay sí, como no tengo padre ya, no pienso en el día del
padre.
Lo siento! ¿Ud. tiene
hijos? Les debe ayudar a celebrarlo con su padre.
Si, tengo un hijo, varon, esta con su papa el Domingo. No
estamos juntos su papa y yo, pero llevaré a mi hijo al mall para que le compre
un regalo. Pero los hombres son muy malos.
Hay de todo, ¿no?
Es que he tenido muy mala suerte con los hombres. Me casé en
Méjico a los diecisiete años.
¡Uyy que joven! (En este momento empezé a apuntar.)
Lo conocí un sábado y
para el martes ya nos habíamos casado. Quería huir de casa, no podía mas. En
casa mi padre y mis hermanos me pegaban. Golpes muy fuertes. Yo sólo quería ir a
vivir con él, como pareja de hecho, pero él insistio que así no, nos teníamos
que casar, entonces nos casamos por lo civil y fui a vivir con él. Era un
celoso, me empezó a pegar, me golpeaba, me rompió la clavicula intentando
sofocarme. Yo era muy pueblerina, le preparaba la comida, lavaba la ropa, planchaba,
limpiaba la casa. Le servía la comida como a un rey. Y el me pegaba, era un
celoso, también pegaba a los perros. Como niña veia a mi padre siempre pegar a
mi madre, pensaba que, verdaderamente sin pensar, así es la vida. Mi esposo me
mantenía, y entonces yo pensaba que él tenía el derecho de tratarme como esclava,
de pegarme, pertencía a él.
¿Y qué pasó?
Un día me fui. Decidí venir aquí y cruzé la frontera.
¿De que parte de Méjico
es?
De Pachuco.
¿Pero está en el sur,
no? ¿Como llegaste hasta aquí?
Es una larga historia, lo pase muy mal … pero logré llegar
aquí.
Me la puede contar?
Es para otro día. A las niñas y las mujeres nos pasa lo peor.
No puedo aguantar que me toque nadie, que me abrazen.
Si le resulta dificil
hablar podemos dejarlo, perdone que le haya obligado a contar su historia tan
dolorosa.
Me interesa que Ud. tiene interés en mi historia. Ahora la
puedo contar, con la ayuda de la comunidad y los medicos.
Aquí conocí al padre de mi hijo, es de Guatemala. No me pegó,
pero, me ponía los cuernos, Ud. Lo entiende, los cuernos?
Sí.
No solo una vez, muchas veces, lo cache con mujeres, yo le
amaba, estaba enamorada de el, lo cacheaba, lloraba, pensaba suicidarme. Le digo
a Yésica, la muchachita, ella me pregunta sobre mi vida, que hubiera preferido
no haber nacido, los males que me han pasado en la vida. Tengo un hermano mayor
y una hermana menor, y los dos me trataban mal.
Quizas ella tomaba la
parte de su hermano y no el suyo para protegerse, para que no se convirtiera en
victima ella misma le victimizaba a Ud.
(Ignoró mi comentario teórico y --me doy cuento ahora-- estúpido
e insensible)
Ella le chismeaba de mí, que había salido con el novio,
entonces cuando volvía a casa mi hermano me pegaba. Mi mamá era como sirvienta
en casa, siempre trabajando, pero yo pensaba que era justo, ya que mi padre le
mantenía. Mi familia no tiene educación, pero yo no quise vivir así. Estudiaba
enfermería por las tardes, despues de trabajar durante el día como sirvienta. Mi
hermano mayor se dedicó a robar, mi hermana se casó, se ha llenado de hijos,
muchos hijos. Ahora me tienen envidia, de mi vida, de que viva aquí. Mi madre
era muy cruel, pero la mantengo, tiene ya ochenta y cuatro años. Ahora no les
guardo rencor, les ayudo economicamente, soy la única de la familia que vive
aquí y cuando necesitan dinero se lo mando.
He vivido una vida muy dura, me han pasado cosas muy malas,
estaba al borde de la muerte, me he pensado suicidar, si tuviera otra oportunidad
de vida no lo querría. Pero soy afortunada, vivo aquí, aquí hay leyes, no como
en Méjico. He tenido un hijo, mi hijo es un milagro, un milagro de Dios porque
yo no podía tener hijos. …
No le quería dar pena a Ud.
Perdoname a mi que le haya
hecho revivir esos asuntos. Quiero pedirle permiso para escribir su historia y quizas publicarla en un blog para amigos, cambiando el nombre, pos supuesto. ¿Le parece bien?
¡Claro que sí! No hace falta cambiar el nombre.
¡Muchas gracias! ¿Se la mando para que la lea y redacte?
(Una pausa, y luego penosamente dijo:)
No, no la quiero leer, confío en Ud. Me ha gustado platicar con Ud. Voy a seguir con la limpieza de la oficina.
Nikunj, MM1, MM2, Aji, Krishanu and all the GA attendees who ate a bit and donated what they could - Thank you.
(List of donations. I'm at a break even point right now, haven't been to Oakland in a month, and with produce being donated, will not need cash donations to cover my expenses for a while. If you feel moved to do so, please donate directly to OccupyOakland.)
Leila, one of the OccupyOakland Kitchen coordinators, wrote this to the cooks and donors. I want to share her expression of gratitude with you. (Business stuff redacted.)
"hi everyone. i just wanted to give a shout out to all the amazing and
powerful food people. I would love to make the email list more
accessible to anyone that wants to write something and/or reach out to
the whole kitchen crew. please let us know if you're inspired. The BBQ
crew has been on it! We also have a ton of occupy oaklanders helping at
the farm in the kitchen...yahoo, also thanks to the crazy autonomous
cook and his huge meal actions all over town.....you know who you are,
suspenders and all. its such hard work and we all know what it takes to
cook for dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of people.
I wanted to touch base with everyone and see if anyone wanted to do food
for an upcoming action, or had other food related ideas? i have been
getting a ton of produce donations and have been processing a bunch. I
would love to get some continuous weekly food actions going....similar
to food not bombs but Oakland style! Maybe at a park, a big
intersection, a hospital or community center.......at least a few days a
week. we need groups of people who want to cook certain days and
kitchen space offered to cook in.
Most of all i want you all to know how important you all are, and how
much i love working with you. Food justice is a passion we all share.
These are the relationships we build for the future we are creating. I
did an interview recently for occupy oakland and as interviews generally
go, my description of the kitchen process was sized down from 25mins to
30seconds. It did not convey in the slightest my appreciation and
admiration for everyone involved in the kitchen, from people who
transport and set up, to cooks, to people who donate, to people who come
and serve at events, or to people who eat and are grateful. i hope we all can see and
feel how much love exists in the work we do and with each other.
Let's organize, open food centers and continue building for the future! food revolution! food Sovereignty!
That
being said if you haven't been to the farm in Albany (san pablo and
marin) please go see it! I would like to talk about getting Oakland
farming as well. setting up more and more gardens. pot luck soon to
insight ideas further?! love, Leila "
The march began at Market and Montgomery, I walked east from Van Ness along Market in order to meet them. On the way I saw a guy wearing a 99% sticker and we fell in together. This was Leo, an early member of EarthFirst!
On market, nearing Van Ness. The atmosphere is sunny, windy and festive.
The nice SFPD has sent the nice police people to escort us. I wonder why they have their riot helmets? I greet some of the cops and thank them for being there.
Lily had just been to the OccupyThe Farm plot in Berkeley/Albany, where there were a lot of families and programs for kids. Various established community gardens in SF are donating starters to the farm. See a great article on the Gill Tract Farm.
Extract from the "Occupy The Farm" site above: "
Occupy the Farm, a coalition of local residents, farmers, students,
researchers, and activists are planting over 15,000 seedlings at the
Gill Tract, the last remaining 10 acres of Class I agricultural soil in
the urbanized East Bay area. The Gill Tract is public land administered
by the University of California, which plans to sell it to private
developers.
For decades the UC has thwarted attempts by community members to
transform the site for urban sustainable agriculture and hands-on
education. With deliberate disregard for public interest, the University
administrators plan to pave over this prime agricultural soil for
commercial retail space, a Whole Foods, and a parking lot."
Faces in the march:
The picture depicts farmers protesting against Monsanto.
This Colombian had just attended the AM's rally for immigrant rights in the Mission. He'd been at the pre-rally the evening before, which was supposed to have been an opportunity for Occupy and Immigrants' Rights people to get together, but, as many of you have seen, it ended up getting hijacked by violence on Valencia.
THIS MEANS YOU!
Heading north on Van Ness
Eduardo Galeano cameo appearance in the crowd.
By the way I should mention that one of the leaders of the rally and march was a South Asian bro, a young Bangladeshi-American. The first time I met him after an OccupySF GA, he very nerdily, like a well-brought-up Indian boy, pulled out his laptop to do some classwork!
The cops lined up on the sidewalk, and didn't interfere with
the takeover of the abandoned ArchDiocese building. This is not a Liberation Theology church, it doesn't seem.
Long video (almost 4 mins) of walk through the building.
During the march, there was a police escort of 3-4 motorcycles in front, and a single file of about 30 cops on each flank of the marchers. Soon after the building had been taken over, most of the cops seemed to disappear, there were about 15 left milling about and videographing the entrance and crowd from the opposite sidewalk. But cops never mill about, they never just disappear, and I'll confess to being nervous.
The feeding of the people.
This man brought 8 trays of food to the commune.
The chain link fence was taken down peaceably, not torn down.
Why we do this: Jim Dorenkott, of VeteransForPeace. The T-shirt states "One of three homeless adults has served our country. Help house our homeless veterans." This is the practical meaning of "support our troops".
Of course, many other vets become MERCENARIES, or whatever you want to call BlackWater/Xeon and other "private security companies". Some of you raised concerns about the amount of "my tax-money" cities are spending on Occupy related events. Do you have any idea how much money is pouring into the coffers of Mercenary companies? All are privately owned, and most are more profitable than even your most profitable SiValley Tech companies. Google the info. I find articles and post them later.
A poster inside the building, Top
Bottom.
I just loved this! You can add Bhagat Singh, Tupac Amaru, Steve Biko ...
The woman on the right is a what-passes-for-a-journalist for KGO/FOX, who went around asking what I considered antagonistic and provocative questions.
At one point I asked her why she didn't engage with the cops and ask them why they were there, to which she responded with "Can you say 'Below low BlueBook Value' thrice?". I'll be prepared for that next time. There were multiple signs and posters designating the 2nd floor as media free, and she insisted on trying to bull-doze her way through. Yet another Anne Coulter clone, perhaps not as vituperative.
The entrance.
People on the second floor, playing music. Yes, I do realise its similarity to Munich Olympics 1972. Without comparing or judging the causes, one difference is M/C gun vs. laptop.
I did a walk through the place: there was electricity, running water in a sink in a utility room, a reception area, multiple classrooms and smaller rooms on the 1st floor, a kitchen and various sized living space on the second floor.
Puerto Rico Libre!
Messages on the sidewalk
and on the chain link fence.
Uh-oh! Front.
Right.
Left. They cleared and barricaded the sidewalk.
The black beetles had been hiding in the lobby of the posh apartment building opposite! The official SFPD resting posture - right hand playing with mouth or chin. Doesn't it indicate they are hiding something, lying? I have to say the SFPD is more racially (but not in terms of gender) heterogeneous than the Occupy movement.
Reinforcements.
The SFPD periodically would block-off the road and then open it up again, it seemed to me just so they could practising pushing people around when they opened the street up and wanted to clear it.
The embedded journalist again.
Videographer for CBS I think.
This guy's TV-journalist stated on TV that "they were right there in the midst of the Occupiers." I pointed out that just from the footage (showing the backs of the cops or with the cops off to one side, and mostly frontal, affronting shots focussed on the Occupiers and the building, no footage taken of the police preparations and the threatening atmosphere it was beginning to create) and thier physical location it was clear that they were NOT with the occupiers, they were already biased towards the cops. This was also apparent from the general big-press/police bonhomie.
An Occupier asking the police to leave.
The street was blockaded and cleared, but most of the Occupiers seemed insouciant of the (what I felt to be ominous) police build-up. I asked some of them about it, and they responded that they knew they weren't doing anything wrong, and they had been facing this since November and had become used to it, and this played down the police threat.
More barricades.
Moving in for action from across the street.
No order to disperse had been given, but the cops were moving people around, from one side of the street to another, then they would all move in against us really quick and squeeze us into narrow spaces against the building, and move in really quickly so people were tripping over each other. There were a couple of people in wheelchairs who couldn't move fast enoiugh and the pressure from the cops led one in a wheelchair to fall over, the cops heeded no entreaties and their pressure caused another walker to also fall over.
Since the cops were using the barricades to encircle the occupied building (I'll confess to not having found the courage to stay on the inside.) and pressing people on the inside, confrontations were increasing. The cops would push the barricades in and then say, "Don't touch the barricade!". Batons were lifted and brought down on people who tried to push back against the barricades. I admire the cops for their bravery against overwhelming odds: against colorful skirts, hoop ear-rings, tattoos, masks, bandanas etc. any sane person would go armed with flak jackets, helmets, face shields, batons, guns, tear gas, rubber bullets. Did I already mention that they outnumbered the people by 2:1? To defend an unoccupied building? In a city with numerous homeless and a 60% ILLEGAL foreclosure rate? Of course "Occupy is costing the city millions.".
"Our security depends on regulation but the police have turned bandits. They don't obey the rules. (Nor their own mission statement.) They are swarming into civic life. ... The security forces have rebelled. The people are the victim of a coup. ...
Who comes here? Let me hold up my lantern. It's only the police ... just a few of them as always whistling as they go.
The faithful body public has made a mistake. ... Coming up behind are hundreds of them. Hundreds too many, armed to the teeth for a job that doesn't need doing. Not needed? With all that weaponry?
Here they come, hurtling through the lifestream trying to pick a fight. There's no one to fight but you. You're the foreign body now."
-- paraphrased from pg 115, Written on the body, Jeanette Winterson
Bad stuff goes down. Someone on the inside of the building climbed onto the top of the roof and stood there crowing. At some point he picked up some bricks, and periodically held them aloft. The cops took no action, they did not respond to this (for at least 15 minutes) leave alone anticipate this - there were numerous higher vantage points on buildings the cops could have climbed up onto.
We were in the street, facing the building, with the cops lined up 1-2 deep in front of us, any observer would have thought they were protecting us. There were people in the crowd who were shouting to the guy on the roof to get off, that he was not one of us, that he did not represent us. At some point the idiot on the roof, with no warning, threw a brick, I would assume at the cops. The idiot aimed high, the brick sailed over the impassive cops' heads, but only a couple of feet over. I could see it coming in, in seeming slow motion, rotating slowly, I seemed to think there was plenty of time to react, to yell a warning to the guy one person removed from me in the crowd, to move around and push him out of the way. In that millisecond after I spotted the brick over the heads of the very very smartly dressed cops, it was over! The brick smashed into the face of the guy, he fell down, unconscious, two people in the crowd quickly grabbed him, supported his head and dragged him to the sidewalk and started aiding him, with his head on one person's lap.
I didn't have time to respond, I was frozen, didn't see the brick until it was above the cops. Q: Weren't even some of them looking up at the roof, at the idiot in plain sight? A: They hadn't been ordered to. Q: Could none of them, with all their training, have anticipated the brick, responded to it by trying to block it? A: They hadn't been ordered to. Q: Could none of them, helmeted and flak jacketed (and nattily dressed) as they were have thrown their body on the line to save a fellow citizen, as the soldiers in the war movies seem to throw their bodies on a grenade to save their comrades? A: We aren't their comrades. A cop who'd done any of the above would have deserved a commendation for bravery, but ...
Someone in the crowd had called an ambulance, but the surrounding streets had been blocked by cops. It took the cops themselves two minutes to realise someone had been hurt, and one turned around and asked me whether the victim was okay and where he was. I said, "He's right there on the sidewalk.". Five feet away.
In the meantime, an experienced occupier had climbed up on the roof, disarmed the brick-throwing idiot and gotten him to disappear. The crowd yelled deprecations up at the brick-thrower, one young woman next to me was crying, "He doesn't represent us, he's not one of us!" See also OccupySF's response to the violence on Valencia.
So now the cops pulled out their guns (tear-gas and rubber bullets, I was told) and aimed them at the Occupier who'd controlled the brick-thrower. Some of the cops then lowered their sights and aimed them at the people in the windows on the second floor. I and others yelled at the cops to please lower their weapons, that the guy now on the roof had eliminated the cockerel brick-thrower. No avail.
Soon we were herded onto a street corner, and then off the sidewalk onto the street! Just earlier, I'd noticed the motto on the arm-badge:
ORO EN PAZ, FIERRO EN GUERRA
(GOLD IN PEACE, IRON IN WAR).
I'd started shouting their motto back at them, repeating it three times, sometimes in English, and then adding, "ESTO NO ES GUERRA, ESTO ES PAZ, QUE SEAIS DE ORO." (THIS IS NOT WAR, THIS IS PEACE, BE GOLD!)
A police higher up approached me, I told him, "You are stronger than us, hold your peace." He said he was only moving us off the street (?), "Everything had changed."
The civil suit is a reporter.
The senior officer approached me again, put his hands on my back, and when I turned around, said, "You seem to be a leader, call that guy off the roof." What is it about me that makes me such an obvious "leader"? My grey hair? My age? My green kurti? My sloganeering?
The brave, the few.
You've watched it on the news, you know how it ended. Homeless individuals and homeless families were evicted from what could and should have been a safe haven.
So an empty building has been rescued from use by homeless via the massive deployment of police force. Was that expense necessary, given the situation of the homeless in SF?
After reading this, I hope you will be motivated to understand why we should act for judicial justice and some very simple examples (inform yourself, stand up and be counted, donate your time or money) of what you can do.
I do NOT endorse the original appeal! I am including it for completeness, so people can see the original appeal and I can explain why it bothered me:
1) Utter triviality of this individual case (which doesn't mean that DR shouldn't get a fair trial, but that there are 100,000 others who should, which means we have to reform the system).
2) Dissipation of energy and political capital on isolated case of otherwise privileged Indian-American whose parents can probably afford a decent lawyer. If it shouldn't depend on being able to buy a good lawyer then reform the system and in the meantime contribute to the SouthernPovertyLawCenter.
3) Anti-"activist" attitude, that only serves to display the political ignorance and conservatism of the Indian-American community. Case in point, the most name-recognizable Indian-Americans are Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal!
4) Lack of meaningful action on any other "justice" issue indicates motivation from narrow, parochial, communitarian interest.
5) I don't understand what "tough decision" (one that is tough on us) we are making, nor showing "compassion, understanding and sympathy" for anyone in less privileged situations than we are in, other than for a straight, Indian, brown, Hindu, child of privilege, apolitical, male, "fool when young" like us.
Contrast: We need your help to get charges dropped against Dharun Ravi and his 400 fellow-citizens who were wrongfully arrested by the Oakland Police during a peaceful (non-violent until the cops showed up in battle gear) exercise of free speech. The marchers were attempting to take over an underused public building paid for with tax dollars so they could continue to provide food, shelter, education and healthcare to those who most need it. The marchers were given illegal and inadequate warning to disperse, were physically constrained so they couldn't disperse; they were beaten, tear-gassed and smoke-bombed till they had to be hospitalised (numbers are unavailable because they were taken by friends to diverse locations and many were simply treated at home). They were falsely accused of breaking and entering etc (no evidence of damage to locks or doors has been found, the one flag some protesters tried to burn, they took it outside in order to prevent property damage!). Many were held in prison for more than 3 days without access to a lawyer or charges being filed (How did that happen? While we were pissing around with the "copyright act" so we coud still download music for free, some legislation passed which gives from Obama down to local cops quite a free hand in incarcerating any American.) As of now, it is clear that 388 were wrongfully arrested for no cause, since only 12 have been charged. The actions of the Oakland Police are under review.
Of course, the above didn't happen - NO young Indian-Americans participate in social justice movements. (I do wish to be corrected, so stand up and be counted.)
Update on May Day: One of the leaders of OccupySF's May Day attempt to make a community home, and as I learned, a long-time participant in OccupySF, was a young Bangladeshi-American. I've met four other Indian-Peninsulars at various Occupy related events, two Bengali men and a couple of Gujarati women. Of our IIT-classmates, I know of only two who are actively involved in social justice issues.
Just yesterday I heard an Indian proudly proclaim that the Indian-American community is the richest and most educated ethnicity (or whatever) in the US. If our definition of ethnicity is loose, I recall that the honor actually belongs to the Jewish-American community. You don't need actual numbers to contrast, qualitatively, the difference in participation rates of the two communities in civic life in general and social justice movements in particular. How many Indian-Peninsulars do we know who've marched in favour of human rights, attended anti-war rallies or defended a PP clinic?
---------------------------------------
Original Appeal:
We need your help ASAP in support of Dharun Ravi by signing this petition ASAP. Please share with as many friends as possible:25000 signatures in 2 wks gets a response from Pres Obama.
In
2010, Dharun Ravi, an 18 yearold Rutgers student, secretly recorded his
roommate Tyler Clementi while he was with another man and posted it on
the internet for everyone to see. For the next two years this is what
the world was told by every media outlet, politician,
activists worldwide and we accepted it as the truth. He was prejudged.
Two
years later, we know none of this is true, nothing was ever recorded,
nothing was broadcast over the internet. Yet Ravi was robbed of one of
the most fundamental rights guaranteed by the United States
Constitution: presumption of innocence. No one treated Ravi as though
he was innocent until proven guilty.
The
prosecutor's office has taken advantage of a faulty law that can
prosecute any citizen for the thoughts of others along with misplaced
political pressure from activist groups to convict Ravi on Bias charges,
a law that even the judge admitted was muddled.
He now faces up to 20 years in jail.
Every
single witness testified unequivocally that Dharun Ravi had absolutely
no hatred towards with gays/homosexuals, however the prosecution decided
that he did, they decided what was in his mind despite all the evidence
saying otherwise.
This is not the precedence we want to set.
Instead
of drawing lines in the sand and taking sides, let's come together as
people and prove that we can make tough decisions and show some
compassion, understanding, and sympathy.
Please
sign this if you believe that equality and tolerance should be achieved
through honest, open communication and not through a vicious and
vengeful prosecution that only serves to fuel tempers and alienate us
even further.
