Feature Archives

On the July 25th indynewswire on Freak Radio, danielsan spoke with Carmina Eliason, curator of the multimedia exhibit Remembering the Struggle, opening August 1st in Watsonville, which showcases art and history about the Watsonville Cannery Strike of 1985-87.

On the July 18th indynewswire, danielsan of 101.1 FM Freak Radio Santa Cruz spoke with Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC), to discuss a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in an attempt to learn more about the Homeland Security agency ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE and its supporters consistently say that round-ups and raids are conducted for reasons of national security because they prioritize immigrants with criminal backgrounds. However as Mass explains, the reality is far different.

On the heels of the largest and most aggressive immigration raids in northern California to date, Santa Clara County supervisors voted to oppose a federal immigration measure that they say would affect all workers adversely.Provisions in the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act of 2007 would expand an electronic verification system that Santa Clara County supervisors say would adversely affect all workers.

Post-Katrina reconstruction is still in progress throughout the Gulf Coast, with much of the City of New Orleans still in ruins. Dos Americas: The Reconstruction of New Orleans is a documentary focused on those rebuilding the city through interviews with some of the estimated 100,000 Latino migrant laborers who have converged in the area over the past two and a half years. Despite terrible working conditions, massive fraud, a housing crisis, severe harassment by law enforcement, and very limited resources, New Orleans’ Latino community has mushroomed since the storm and is establishing an infrastructure proportional to its size.

Seventy years ago this month, Mussolini's government published a "Manifesto of Race", which lead to racial laws persecuting Jews, Roma and members of other ethnic minorities groups. Now, the country's rightwing government has again stepped up special measures against an entire ethnic group. In late June, the Italian Interior Minister announced that a file is to be drawn up containing a DNA data base with digital fingerprints and photos of every Roma in Italy, irregardless of their citizenship. One popular Italian magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, denounced the move as "an indecent and racist proposal" reminiscent of "when Jewish children were identified with a yellow star on their sleeves".

A traveler who spends most of his time in SF and NY is being held at the Northwest ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. He is known locally from Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, and various tenants' rights, homeless rights, bike rights and animal rights activities among other things. He was arrested at the end of May for trespassing to watch the sunset from a roof of a building in Seattle and spent some time in county jail. An ICE raid took place at the jail and he was transported to the Northwest Detention Center because his citizenship status is in question.

On May 22, more than 2,000 Berkeley High School students of all different nationalities streamed out of class and formed a human chain around the school to protest the escalating attacks on immigrants. As they linked arms, they chanted “Immigrants are people!” A young woman with the group Fighting for Immigrants’ Rights and Equality (FIRE), which organized the protest, said, “Most of the school went out with us… Ooooh it made the whole school feel good, like we were a family, no matter what race you are or nothing, like we were together.”