Where will you be the first of May?

Join Jobs with Justice and El Comite Pro-Reforma Migratoria Y Justicia Social for the 2008 Immigrant Rights March and Rally!

Date: May 1st
Time: 4:30pm
Location: Beginning at St. Mary’s 611 20th Ave South, Seattle

This year’s theme is “We are not illegal, we are not undocumented, we are workers.”

History:
May 1st has many histories of celebration around the world, currently; it’s globally celebrated as International Workers’ Day. Seattle has a rich history of marching for immigrant/worker rights on May 1st. In 2006 the first massive immigrant rights march took place in Seattle. It created history by mobilizing approximately 60,000 people in protest of House Resolution 4437, debated in Congress, which would have instantly criminalized all undocumented persons, as well as persons who offered them humanitarian aid. Last year, despite the federal government’s harassment of immigrants, thousands of immigrants and allies came out in support and to protest the draconian policies the federal government is enforcing. El Comite, Jobs with Justice and many other community, labor, faith and student groups continue to fight for immigrant/worker justice.

[The text above copied from Jobs with Justice, wsjwj.org. For information in Spanish, click the headline to go to the Comité website.]

Photos from "The Party of the (18th) Century"

On April 5th, I had a party, originally meant simply to raise funds for a research trip to Spain, but it turned into a farewell bash once I decided to leave Seattle. My friend Carina was there, and took some fantastic photos ...

[click headline to see them]

Healing across the divide of war

I find Robert Jamieson's columns to be a mixed bag, at times insightful, other times smug. In this one, about two veterans, one pro-Bush, the other anti-war, I think he has done justice to a an important story.

(Click on the headline for the link to the article.)

Remembering Abe Osheroff

When I first met Abe Osheroff in 1996, he said something I will never forget.

At the time, UW professor Tony Geist (and surely others) organized a film festival and exhibition of posters from the Spanish Civil War. During these events and some classroom chats, I got to hear many of Abe's impressive stories, such as when he and other activists in Depression-era New York broke open chained doors to move families and their possessions back into the apartments from which they had been evicted. Later, when the U.S. banned Americans from going to Spain, he tried to sneak into the country, to fight against Franco's coup and the larger wave of fascism that was gathering across Europe. His ship from Marseille to Catalonia was torpedoed by an Itaian submarine, and Abe and his fellow volunteers had to swim to shore.

Around the time I met Abe, I was studying labor history, doing an internship with the United Farm Workers, and participating in a campaign to win family housing and health insurance for gay UW students' partners, equal to those which heterosexual students' spouses already received. It was a transformative time for me, and Abe was part of it. His stories inspired me to be bold, and his practical philosophy of "radical humanism" was equally compelling. His words I will never forget: "We are all a part of history. Every single one of us. It's up to you to decide whether you want to be a participant, or a spectator."

Two years later came the 60th anniversary of when the ALB left Spain. A plaque was placed in front of the UW student union building to commemorate the students who had joined the fight, and Abe and other ALB veterans from across the country reunited in a moving ceremony. I was one of many who shed tears to hear the veterans' tales of valor and humor. I felt their stories had infused into me, somehow becoming my own.

That same autumn of 1998, I graduated from the UW. Developing a roll of photo film from my graduation party, I came up with some great shots of family and friends. I tucked these into my wallet, including one of Abe and fellow ALB veterans Bob Reid and Dutch Schultz, posing by the UW memorial on the day of its unveiling. I carried these photos with me for the four months in 1999 I reported on the massive student strike at its National Autonomous University, and during the rest of the year, while I and every other activist in Seattle was frenetically organizing the historic protests against the World Trade Organization.

Abe's memorial will take place May 25th in Seattle. I am sad to say that I will be out of the country, but I will remember him, always.

To read more about Abe Osheroff, a lion of a man:

AbeOsheroff.org

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer obituary: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/358021_obitosheroff07.html

The New York Times obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/us/11osheroff.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


[This post was revised 4/23/08, after receiving a couple of historical corrections from Gunnel Clark, Abe's wife. Thanks, Gunnel.]

A Village Away from Home

From KUOW.org ...



"Imagine what would happen if you picked up a village in rural Mexico and transplanted it in Seattle's suburbs. Something similar is underway in South Seattle – a village within the city is emerging. The Seattle area has recently become a top destination for the indigenous Purepecha people from the rural hill–towns of central Mexico. Their native language, culture and traditional lifestyle are vanishing in parts of Mexico, but reappearing here. In this five–part series, A Village Away From Home, Reporter Liz Jones traces this migration trend from the Mexican sierra, to Seattle's fast–paced suburbs."

[I'm quoted in one of the segments, in my capacity as a Spanish interpreter, because I interpret for many Purépecha people at White Center Public Health.]

Rally to End the War, Bring the Troops Home!

Wednesday March 19th at 6pm, Westlake Plaza
4th Ave & Pine St. in Downtown Seattle
Join Jobs with Justice and our other membership organizations to mourn and protest the 5th Anniversary of the Iraqi war.

The U.S. Government has been at war in Iraq since 2003. In these five years our government has spent over $400 billion on the Iraq war. Tax dollars that normally would have gone to healthcare, education and affordable housing instead are being diverted to pay for this war. In Washington State over $10 billion have been diverted to the war. In

Seattle alone almost one billion dollars has been diverted.

That means that Washington residents are losing out on affordable and quality healthcare, education, housing and living wage jobs.

End the War Now! Bring Home the Troops Today!

Honk Fest West!

THE RADICAL MARCHING BAND FESTIVAL


COMING TO SEATTLE MARCH 21 - 23

Jake in Algeria

My friend Jake is doing research in North Africa, and has posted a fascinating summary and photos of his recent trip through the Sahara. Here's a snippet of his writing:

To get by, Tuaregs have had to adapt their traditional practices of trans-Saharan trading to the new globalized economy. Instead of salt, cigarettes now come across the open desert, often in small convoys carrying a million dollars of the contraband. Instead of gold, drugs are coming from South America to West Africa through the Sahara to Europe; a billion dollar trade, and every local official up to the highest generals has a finger in the pie. Instead of slaves, waves of desperate African youth try to reach the shores of Europe on their own, via long and perilous journeys through the Sahara. They work their way from desert town to desert town to make enough money to pay for the deadly passage to Europe, either the straight of Gibraltar from Morocco or Italy from Libya.

Click on the headline above for more.

RAFFLE TICKETS! GREAT PRIZES!

To raise funds for my upcoming research trip to Spain, I have put together a raffle that will be drawn on Saturday, April 5. The prizes include:

Latest additions:

The Spanish Table Cookbook, from the delicious store by the same name

Bicycle tune-up (an $85 value!) ~ 20/20 Cycles (Central District)

Chocolate bars from Theo Chocolates ~
all locally produced & Fair Trade Certified
* One Origin Ivory Coast 75% cocoa bar
* One organic Coffee & 65% dark chocolate bar
* One organic Fig, Fennel & Almond 65% dark chocolate bar

One hour massage ~ Elizabeth Chaison, LMP (Capitol Hill)

Pitcher of sangría ~ Gaudí, a Catalan restaurant (Ravenna)

$20 gift certificate ~ BluWater Bistro (five locations)

"This Is What Democracy Looks Like" DVD ~ Corrugated Films/Jill Freidberg

"Grain of Sand" DVD ~ Corrugated Films/Jill Freidberg

"A Little Bit of So Much Truth" DVD ~ Corrugated Films/Jill Freidberg

Crab enchilada dinner for six, with wine, delivered ~ Bernal

Two hours of Spanish lessons ~ Natalia Morales

Two hours consultation and help in organic gardening ~ Backyard Bounty/Leonard Wainstein

Photographic print, "Cairn" ~ Carina del Rosario

"Who Are We? Investigations & Findings. A Workbook with 7-inch record"
~ Vis-À-Vis Society

Tea and handcrafted mug by Barbara Dunshee ~ donated by Shelley Gillespie

Bound story-collage, "Jenkins' Memory Store" ~ Shelley Gillespie

$20 Gift certificate ~ Café Rozella (White Center)




Tickets are $2 each. More prizes may be added before the drawing date, so check back here. Some restrictions apply (e.g. many prizes must be redeemed in Seattle). Please email me for details at jeremy at riseup dot net.

I'm headed to graduate school.

Six weeks ago I had no plans to attend graduate school. Then one sunny, chilly Sunday afternoon, after sharing Ivar's fish & chips with my friend Trevor down on the waterfront, he asked me whether I had considered reapplying to UCSB's Latin American & Iberian Studies program, which I almost attended two years ago. Yes, I explained, I had thought about it, but the deadline was coming up in just two days, on January 15, and it was too late to prepare another application.

Then it struck me that perhaps the program would consider my previous application, if indeed they still had it on file. I called, and they said yes, I could throw my hat back in the ring. By the end of January, I had received word that I had been accepted again, and two days ago, I learned that I have been awarded a generous UC Regents Fellowship, covering nearly all of my first year's expenses.

Incredible. I guess the research I've done in my free time over the last three years is paying off! Now I have just over a month to wrap up my life in Seattle before going on my planned research trip to Spain and family trip to Turkey, and then moving to Santa Barbara in the summer. Life has suddenly taken a very interesting turn.

Seattle screenings of "A Little Bit of So Much Truth"

If you haven't seen it, go see it!

When the people of Oaxaca decided they'd had enough of bad government,
they didn't take their story to the media...they TOOK the media!

"A tour de force of documentary filmmaking.
Brilliantly conceived and executed."
-David Barsamian, Alternative Radio

"I love this movie.
And Jill put my name in the credits!"
-Jeremy O. Simer

Special Jury Prize
International Documentary Film Festival Tres Continentes
Caracas, Venezuela



February 20th
Seattle University
7:00 PM
Wyckoff Auditorium
Engineering Building Room 200

February 25th
University of Washington
5:00 PM
Ethnic Cultural Center
3940 Brooklyn Ave. NE

In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century.

But it was the people's use of the media
that truly made history in Oaxaca.

A 90-minute documentary, A Little Bit of So Much Truth captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

From the producer of the award-winning films, This is What Democracy Looks Like and Granito de Arena, comes this intimate, breathtaking account of the revolution that WAS televised.

More info: www.corrugate.org

LitFuse revisited

Last summer I participated in LitFuse, a first-time poetry gathering in Tieton, Washington, outside of Yakima. It was a fantastic two days of workshops and readings, including the open mic at the closing. It was Sunday afternoon. The sun leaned down into autumn gold, light streaked into the warehouse where we read and listened. You can hear snippets from that reading and catch glimpses from the rest of the weekend in a slideshow, at http://www.mightytieton.com/tieton_arts-humanities.html. And if you watch 'til the end, you'll hear me have the last word.

Thanks to Tieton Arts & Humanities for the scholarship that made my participation possible.

PS Although the photo above makes it look as if Paul Nelson is haranguing his "Organic Poetry" students, it was actually a good workshop.

OBAMA.

I have a hard time getting excited about any presidential candidate, because I believe an elections system that allows so many millions to be spent, and denies much intelligent debate, is profoundly corrupt.

I believe that social movements -- unions, civil rights groups, the grassroots -- are the engine for major social change, and that it is a mistake to hang too many hopes on one federal official, no matter how charming or influential.

HOWEVER, I must say that I am beginning to get excited about the spirit and the strategy of Barack Obama, and I invite you to ..

watch a rockin' music video, at http://www.dipdive.com/

and read some analysis from my man Paul Loeb:
A Dozen Reasons Why This Edwards Supporter is Backing Obama
How Obama Could Create a Long-Term Democratic Majority

The Mouth Revolution

Who's reading?

Sometimes I wonder how many people read this blog. I can think of half a dozen friends and family (hi mom!) who have referred to something they saw here in the last year or so. Perhaps this half dozen constitutes the entire readership. Honestly, that's fine by me, especially after my good friend Jo reported the other day that she spent a good long while sampling Engaged while nursing Ruby, her beautiful four-month-old daughter. Poems and politics for friends, moms and babies. Absolutely, yes.

Wednesday night in White Center

Spanglish Potluck at Cafe Rozella:
una noche de palabras y música
an evening of words & music

with Wendy Call and Maria de Lourdes Victoria
with music by Charanga Danzón, led by Irene Mitri

Co-sponsored by Hedgebrook & Supported by 4Culture
part of Hedgebrook's Women Authoring Change series

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
7:00 pm
Café Rozella
9434 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, Washington 98106

MLK Day listening parties

Do you have plans for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day?

A few nights ago, I heard a broadcast of his 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.” I'd heard it before, but once again I was floored by this powerful statement against the war and for a radical transformation of American values and policy.

I was driving when it came on the radio. As I approached my neighborhood, I took a few detours to pass through busy pedestrian areas, with the windows rolled down despite an icy chill, hoping that others might catch a spark from hearing the sound of his voice. In the final minutes of the speech, I was sitting in the car outside my apartment, when a friend called. I answered it but simply put the cellphone down on the seat so whoever was on the line could listen, if they chose not to hang up. Luckily, once the speech was over, I found that the friend on the line was as awed as I was. We began to brainstorm ways we could get others to listen to the recording, such as hooking up a public address system to a car or cart and amplifying it in parks, parking lots, street corners. We began to lay plans.

These plans fell by the wayside during the busy week, but here's what I am going to do instead: I posted a flyer at the entrance of my building, inviting my 20 or so neighbors to join me Monday night to listen together to this moving address. Then we'll see where the conversation takes us. Then we'll eat some food.

Doesn't that sound great? Don't you want to set up a listening party, too?

Alternative Radio sells the recording as a downloadable MP3 file, at
http://alternativeradio.org/programs/KINM003.shtml. (They also sell CDs and cassettes, but it's too late to order one for MLK Day.)

It's also available to listen online at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm.

If you put together a listening party, please let me know.



PS If you're in Seattle and you have Monday free, don't forget the annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration with Workshops (9:30am-11am), Rally (11am), and March (12pm) from Franklin High School to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. (Free food and refreshments served afterward in Franklin's lunch room.)

Jan. 31: "Media Coverage of US-Iran Relations"

A forum at the University of Washington, Kane Hall. (Click the headline for details.)

Playfield at T.T. Minor

Four friends, women and men
run football drills on the muddy field.
Quarterback looks to the runner
who fakes left, breaks right.
The pass flies a rifled line
straight to her, ‘til she’s tripped up
and tackled by the cornerback,
who slobbers, ears and jaws flapping:
a joyful three-legged dog.

Dear sir,

I didn’t catch you name, as the rain was falling hard
and the heater fan was blowing. I shook your hand,
admired your smile, the glint in your old blue eyes.
I was glad to point out to you the skyline,
honored to pronounce a name you had never heard:
Duwamish. Welcome to Seattle, sir, from Arizona,
whence you came by the will of God, so you said.

You charmed us with your gift of gab, your snow-white hair,
the knowing wink that came along with jokes,
your shiny sateen jacket
from another generation. You start a conversation,
compliment the young banker and his comfy running shoes,
well-deserved, having stood all day in loafers. Your words
were sparks, striking up smiles between strangers,
we who normally ride in silence.

I’m very sorry, sir. Usually I do not yell,
I do not swear at elders.

I began to wonder
when you said calcium was bad for women’s bodies,
that it killed them, but I didn’t blame you.
Each report about our health
is bought and paid for.

The bus arc’d around onto 99
and I felt the conversation turn. Did I hear you right?
That America has prisons prepped
for all the Muslims? I wouldn’t put it past this cowboy in chief,
but I think that’s a little much.

The al-Qaeda, they’re out to get us, just like that September,
only next they’ll go for Arizona, Boston, and every other town.
They’re all around us.

No sir, I tried to say, but I couldn’t get a word in.
It’s all in their religion, you said.
And that’s when something broke.

I’m sorry sir, you’re mistaken.
Al-Qaeda’s just a fraction,
the very smallest portion
of a peaceful people.

No, they’re killers, you said, it’s because of their religion.

How many Muslims do you know?
You only dodged the question.

You, sir. You are al-Qaeda.
You are not like them,
but one and the same, those who only speak of threat,
of danger. You fear your neighbors
but never meet them. You fan the flames
that fuel the tanks. You throw stones
that pave the road to empire. You do not plant,
but only cut the branches
of olive and of laurel. You feed them to the fire
that may broil us all.

Skagit river revising

I use this blog, in part, to let new poem drafts breathe a little, and later I go back and revise them online. I recently revised "Skagit River rising" enough I think it deserves a fresh posting.

Waters swell, silence
rapids underneath,
spread beyond the banks,
turning grassy paths into marsh, indistinct,
erasing boundary between the river and the land.
Eddies churn in circles
and crows watch the eagles skeptically.

Warnings buzz around our heads—
the list of tasks, reminders shouted from room to room,
radio waves and newsprint chattering predictions:
The river will overspill.

The woodpile by the barn, we tie it down
to stop the river lifting it, piece by piece,
to carry out to sea.
We move furniture and handtools
to higher ground, beyond floodwaters’ reach,
and stop to make a pact
with neighbors: our hands
are theirs.

Mount Sauk – its snowfall feeds the river –
lurks invisible behind the house,
behind the clouds we breathe.
Sadie barks. The air is cold and still.

Then the first fat drops
start a clatter on the corrugated roof,
falling heavy on our heads.

As waters gather,
mice abandon burrows, squealing
into open jaws of field and sky,
and the sky begins to sing
its ancient lovesong to the river.

Burroughs Peak

August in Seattle.
“Chance of showers”
turns to dismal drizzle.
Some summer, this.
I’d rather curse the darkness than light a damn candle
so I rev the engine,
head for the mountain in the clouds.

Driving the lonesome road,
living an ad for Rai-
nier
Beer.
I wish Amanda were here.

Past the tollbooth, the winding curves
to the parking lot at the end of the road.

Boots crunch on gravel.
Cool air, matterhorn peaks.
So steep, treetops nearly kiss the slope.
From the water bottle a breath escapes.

I climb and climb,
find little lakes
hear marmot squeaks
stop to sample pine needle scents.
Fingers sticky from a snack.
Chipmunks nibble and scamper.

Boot steps fall to the rhythm
of syncopated strings–
a Turkish diva sings
pop songs in my head.
And I haven’t broken a sweat yet,
stopping so damn much to scribble!
But I came here to get away.
Keep going,
keep breathing.

Path rises into tundra,
steeper now, and narrow.
Water droplets on my cheek
but it’s not rain –
it’s a cloud
carressing the ridge,
the mountain's skin and my own.

Two fingers on my jugular vein
feel the blood course;
red and orange flowers
burst among fragile grasses,
give way to wet black stone
adorned with green lichens’ glow.

Nothing now, but breathing shrouds,
the narrow path, and stones,
all else disappears at a short distance
‘til the sky throws down
a shaft of sun,
falling on the Emmons Glacier
rolling off the shoulders
of these hulking wonders.

Is that rushing sound
the wind
or the river?

I wonder.

At the stony peak
I find the answer.

What I did for the holidays

Leapt down the coast in jetplanes
to a young lover in Oakland
who kept her socks on.

Leapt out of her bed
before dawn, over Los Angeles,
muscles moving with love, blood-deep
and dread of my father's bitter rancor.

Over dinner of crablegs
and sunset, he hands me bricks
one by one, complaints
and ancient grudges
to build a cozy fortress
around us.

I set them aside,
climb down the bluffs.
The tide is low and the moon
is full. I leap from rock
to rock, over tidepools

to touch mottled starfish arms,
run through tresses of ocean grass
with my fingertips, kissed
by the thousand numbing lips
of anemone
folding inward.

the Gringo-thon

A friend just turned me on to this short movie, Gringotón (Gringo-thon), both an amusing spoof on Mexicans' and Americans' perceptions of each other and a biting critique of U.S. militarism. Check it out, if you are amused by the idea of a gringo washing windshields and selling chewing gum in Mexico City to raise money for an armed insurrection against Bush ...

FedUp with FedEx

FedEx is aggressively violating its employees' rights to form a union, firing and harassing those who support the idea. Please click the box above to send FedEx a message, and pledge not to use FedEx services this holiday season. (Both UPS and US Postal Service employees have union contracts and are companies more deserving of your business.)