Editorial
Esta editorial ha sido escrita por una compañera inmigrante en CCWP con comentarios y reflexiones de otras mujeres no-inmigrantes.
La situación para mujeres tambien inmigrantes que estan en prisión ha sido siempre difícil pero se torna aún peor cada vez. En los últimos doce años el número de presos no ciudadanos en California ha ido aumentando. Casi la mitad de la población penal en la prisiones Federales de Estados Unidos no habla inglés como primer idioma.
Una mujer en prisión que no habla inglés en las prisiones de ?solo inglés? de California tiene problemas buscando ayuda médica o legal y ciertamente no le es posible funcionar plenamente a diario.
Con frecuencia familias inmimgrantes tienen que utilizar la ayuda de menores para poder entender estipulaciones legales complicadas de un sistema penal que no esta diseñado para ayudar a nadie.
La terrible situación para mujeres inmigrantes en prisión refleja la brutal realidad que enfrentan miles de inmigrantes en los Estado Unidos cada día.
Los inmigrantes en este país ya sean documentados o indocumentados viven en un continuo estado de lucha por la sobrevivencia y tambien de resistencia.
El acoso, racismo, y explotación no estan lejos de ninguno de nosotros. Nuestros derechos humanos son violados constantemente. Ni siquiera tenemos el pleno derecho de caminar libremente por las calles sin temer que la Migra, la polícia o los ?Minutemen? tomen la primera oportunidad para ponernos en prisión, deportarnos o golpearnos a muerte.
Cuando el Gobernador Schwarzenegger incentiva a los Minutemen a ayudar controlar la frontera nosotros vemos que el paramilitarismo se convierte en una política aceptada que a cambio promueve otras formas de racismo por igual.
Dejamos nuestros paises de origen a causa de las políticas exteriores de Estados Unidos que debastan nuestra economía y política, forzandonos a abandonar nuestra familia y tierra. Comunidades enteras son separadas y sujetas a doble explotación.
Nuestra situación es consecuencia directa de políticas como el Tratado de Libre Comercio, el Fondo Monetario Internacional, guerra, ocupaciones, sanciones, bloqueos, y la explotación de nuestros recursos naturales.
Una vez que llegamos a los Estados Unidos somos tratados como criminales. Ahora un muro esta construyendose en la frontera sur de lo que hoy es llamado Estados Unidos, este muro divide a familias mexicanas y tiene como intención encerrar a Mexicanos y Latinos dejandolos afuera.
Su motivación racista es similar al del muro que se levanta en Palestina para encerrar a los Palestinos y dejarlos fuera de su tierra, que es lo que hoy se llama Israel. Que coincidencia que ambos muros son llamados: ?Muros de seguridad?.
Pero la seguridad no existe para los inmigrantes en los paises que han ocupado y colonizado su tierra. Mas en cambio desde que la infame guerra contra el terror comenzó hemos visto una oleada de ataques en contra de la comunidad inmigrante-no blanca, y cada vez más y más inmigrantes son encerrados por ?razones de seguridad.?
Libertad murió y Democracia explotó cuando Estados Unidos envió basado en mentiras a soldados inmigrantes a destruir las vidas de miles de Iraquíes.
Necesitamos entender de manera profunda la situación en que las mujeres inmigrantes estan siendo mandadas a las prisiones a la vez que estan viviendo bajo violencia, pobreza y abuso de sus derechos humanos cotidianamente.
Necesitamos condenar y levantarnos en contra de los ataques másivos hacia nuestra comunidad inmigrante.
Aunarnos a la lucha por los derechos de los Inmigrantes es la lucha por la liberación de la gente de color al rededor del mundo y nuestro levantamiento es la batalla que libramos para vencer a la bestia desde su propia pansa.
Alto a la guerra en contra de los inmigrantes!
Abajo todos los muros!
Category: Issue 30 – Spring/Summer 2005
Editorial
This editorial was written by the immigrant women of CCWP with input and commentary from other non-immigrant women.
The situation for incarcerated women who are also immigrants has always been difficult and becomes worse all the time. The number of people locked up in California who are not citizens has been on the increase for the past dozen years. Almost half of people incarcerated in United States Federal prisons are not native English speakers. An incarcerated woman who does not speak English in California?s English-only prisons has trouble seeking medical or legal help and certainly cannot fully function within the prison system on an every day basis. Often, immigrant families must use the translation help of young children in order to understand complicated legal intricacies of a prison system that is not designed to be helpful to anyone.
The nightmarish situation for immigrant women in prison reflects the brutal realities which immigrants face in the United States every day. Immigrants in this country, documented or undocumented, live in a continual state of struggle for survival and also of resistance. Harassment, racism and exploitation are not far away from any of us. Our human rights are constantly violated. We don?t even have full freedom to walk around without fear that the Migra (now Homeland Security), the police or the Minutemen will take the opportunity to put us in prison, deport us or beat us to death. When Governor Schwarzenegger encourages the ultra-right-wing Minutemen to help patrol the border, we see paramilitarism becoming an accepted policy in California which in turn promotes other forms of racism against immigrants.
We leave our home countries because of U.S. foreign policies that devastate our economy and politics, forcing us to leave our family and land. Entire communities are separated and subjected to double exploitation. Our situation is a direct consequence of policies like the Free Trade Agreement, the International Monetary Fund, war and occupation, sanctions, blockades and the exploitation of our natural resources.
We are forced to leave our countries because of these exploitative policies and when we do get to the United States we are treated like criminals. Now an actual wall is being built across the southern part of what today is called the United States but is land which used to be part of Mexico. This wall divides Mexican families and is intended to lock out Mexicans and other Latinos. It is similar in its racist purpose to the wall which has been erected in Palestine to lock Palestinians out of land which is theirs but is now called Israel. What a coincidence that both walls are called ?security fences?.
But there is no ?security? for immigrants in the countries which have conquered and occupied their land. Instead, since the infamous WAR ON TERROR started, we?ve seen an intense wave of attacks against non-white immigrant communities, and more immigrants are being locked up for ?security reasons?. Freedom died and democracy exploded when the U.S. sent immigrant soldiers to destroy the lives of thousands of Iraqis based on wholesale lies.
We need to understand in more detail the ways in which immigrant women are being railroaded to prison and once there are suffering in specific, terrible ways. We need to condemn the mass targeting of immigrants because it is an injury to all of us. The struggle for immigrant rights is a struggle for the liberation of people of color around the world and is our uprising here in the belly of the beast.
STOP THE WAR AGAINST IMMIGRANTS!
TEAR DOWN ALL THE WALLS!
Diana Block
Since September 11th, attacks against immigrants have grown fast and furious and people from the Middle East, South Asian and Muslim communities in the United States have been especially targeted.
In a recent shocking case in New York City, two 16 year old Muslim girls, one from Bangladesh, Tashnuba Hayder and the other from Guinea, Adama Bah, were detained in April 2005 for six weeks based on flimsy reports, later proven false, that the girls were potential recruits for a suicide bomb plot.
Shortly after the father reported that his daughter had stayed away from home overnight, two investigators, who later turned out to be FBI agents, appeared at the family?s home and claimed that they worked with a youth center and wanted to talk with the daughter. Twenty days later, immigration agents arrived at dawn and took the teenager away.
Tashnuba met Adama for the first time at an immigration detention center. When they gave each other a traditional Muslim greeting federal agents assumed they were friends and linked them both to the alleged plot to become suicide bombers. The Tashnuba told her mother during a brief detention visit that FBI interrogators warned her that unless she confessed to terrorist ties, her two youngest siblings, who are American citizens, would be placed in foster care and her parents would be sent back to Bangladesh without them.
After six weeks, no evidence was produced linking the girls to any type of plot and the girls were finally released. Following her release, Tashnuba, her mother and two brothers left the United States.
Adama?s schoolmates at the Heritage School in East Harlem decided to make a public artwork project about her case last spring. Many at the school viewed Adama?s detention as unjust and incomprehensible and the project was ?a way for the students to use art to speak out at a time when a lot of people, including adults, were afraid to do anything? according to an art teacher at the school.
The art display has been exhibited at Columbia Unviersity?s Teachers College. According to Adama, the students said ?they just wanted to let my story be heard and help me out.?
In another outrageous case, 11 year old Maribel Cuevas of Fresno was jailed for throwing a rock at an 8 year old boy. A group of boys were harassing Maribel and her 6-year old brother by throwing water balloons and rocks. Maribel picked up one of the rocks and pretended to throw it but it slipped out of her hand and hit a boy, cutting him in the forehead. Police handcuffed Maribel and she was kept in juvenile hall for five days before her hearing. She was finally released on the condition that she wear an electronic ankle bracelet all the time and observe a 3 pm curfew. She was scheduled to go on trial on felony assault charges but due to widespread support from people around the world, including a large vigil in front of Juvenile Hall led by Fresno?s Rev. Floyd Harris Jr., Maribel will go through a mediation process with the boy and his family instead. Her father, Martin Cuevas, a fieldworker with six children, thanked all the people who offered support.
ABC, CCWF
Aliens? Why not human beings? What a term Americans use when it comes to hard working immigrants who are only looking for an opportunity to better themselves! Americans, don?t judge all ?aliens? as drug dealers or some kind of monsters.
What about the undocumented workers working in sweat shops manufacturing the beautiful garments or shoes that Americans pay more for than any one of these same workers can make in one week? How about the poor women, men and kids who pick fruit and vegetables, all the goods that other Americans enjoy, not knowing how much undocumented farm workers have sacrificed and in what conditions they live? The small, shared sleeping spaces, and the families they left behind; the low pay in exchange for not being reported to Immigration.
The USA is a country built by immigrants. Why only target Spanish speaking immigrants? No one should be denied basic human rights.