Macondo writers' workshop fundraiser

founder Sandra Cisneros:
"The Macondo Foundation works with dedicated and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change. We are poets, novelists, journalists, performance artists, and creative writers of all genres whose work is socially-engaged. What unites us is a commitment to serve our under-served communities through our writing."

Pajama Pachanga-Sandra Cisneros's 56th Birthday Party Fundraiser

Sunday, December 19th from 6 to 11 p.m.
At LUNA, 6740 San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio, Texas

ATTIRE: Pajamas

6:30 Krayolas

8:50 Mariachis/Conjunto Taller

9:40 Chayito and Teresa Champion and El Curro

10:00 Agosto Cuellar- Jive Refried

Featuring special guest performances by Janis DeLara and S.T. Shimi.

We request a minimum donation of $56 (Sandra’s age) per person if you plan to attend the party. Even if you can't come, please consider making a donation to help make our important work with writers possible. Because this is a small lounge venue, we aren’t selling the traditional table seating, but please don’t let that stop you from giving more. Seating will be limited and on a first-come-first-serve basis. The venue is intimate and the party is all night with different bands and people come and go during the evening. There will be a cash bar. Click here to make your donation: http://www.macondofoundation.org/home.html All donations are tax deductible.

For more information call Roland at 210-432-9098.

UTPA students to go on hunger strike in support of DREAM Act

HARLINGEN, Nov. 20 - University of Texas-Pan American students supporting the DREAM Act plan to go on a hunger strike beginning Monday until U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn declare support for the bill.

“While everybody else will be celebrating Thanksgiving we are going to join in solidarity for those who were not fortunate enough to have been born in the United States; for those who are trapped in a legal limbo right now and cannot enjoy the fullness of Thanksgiving,” said Jose Alexandro Garrido, UTPA Dreamer and member of the Coalition for Educational Opportunity Dream Act Project.

Students at the University of Texas at San Antonio have been in a hunger strike for over a week and more strikes are expected to spread across universities in Texas by students in support of the DREAM Act; a bill that if passed will grant conditional residency to undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as minors, if they attend college or serve in the military.

The decision of UTPA students to go on hunger strike was announced Friday after Garrido and nine other students from UTPA, South Texas College and the University of Texas at Brownsville and Southmost College met in Harlingen to speak with the Rio Grande Valley district directors for Sens. Hutchison and Cornyn.

click link to read whole article on the Rio Grande Guardian website

Bilingual Interview w/ Lila Downs

thanks to Nancy G. for sending the link

Environmental Justice Poetry

Environmental Justice Poetry

Who: Dr. Kamala Platt

What: “Environmental Justice in Food Production Systems and Related Poetry”

When: 6:00pm

Where: Texas Lutheran University Schuech Fine Arts Center & Wupperman Theatre

Monday eve, September 13th, 2010

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Siempre Sustainable Network's Monthly Meeting will be held Monday, 8/13 beginning
with an advocacy letter writing campaign "on the patio" in front of the Schuech Fine Arts Center at 6:00pm (tea/cookies served and produce from community gardens available) followed by a special evening of poetry at 7:00pm in the Wupperman Theatre on the campus of TLU by Dr. Kamala Platt, university professor, poet, author. Her program is entitled: Environmental Justice in Food Production Systems & Related Poetry." Please join us.
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Dr. Kamala Platt received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University
of Texas, Austin in 1997. Her dissertation, "Women Write Environmental Justice:
the Literary Tradition in India and Greater Mexico" and a subsequent book
manuscript,"Environmental Justice Poetics: Cultural Representations of Environmental
Racism from Chicanas and South Asian Women" investigate the practice, theory,
and aesthetics of women generating cultural poetics that promote environmental
justice. "influenced by their socio-historical terrains." www.artco.org/sa/kamala/
index.html