AIM West this week

Nov. 23 -- 27, 2009
By Mark Anquoe
Photo: Mark Anquoe/by Brenda Norrell

Brothers and Sisters,
Lots of things happening this week in San Francisco. If you're interested in the American Indian Movement and want to be more involved, come to one of our meeting days (monday and wednesday). If you want to see and be seen, please join us for a public feast on Tuesday or the Alcatraz Sunrise Ceremony on Thursday morning. And PLEASE join us at the Emeryville Shellmound Protest on Friday. Details below. See you there! --
MONDAY, November 23, 2009
10:00am - 5:30pm
Koret Auditorium, SF Main Public Library 100 Larkin St. San Francisco, CA Opening ceremonies for anniversary week events. Speakers include Bill Means, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Mike Flores and Mark Maracle. Also special screening of AIM-West film production "El Salvador: I Want My People To Live".
TUESDAY, November 24, 2009 12:00pm - 5:00pm
Bahai'i Center 170 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA Potluck feast, speakers, singers and traditional dancers from all over Indian Country! Special program starts at 12:00pm. Speakers will include Mary Jean Robertson and Clyde Bellecourt. Bring food to share! Food prep starts at 10am WEDNESDAY, November 25, 2009 10:00am - 5:00pm
Bahai'i Center 170 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA A full day of topics led by a panel of distinguished community organizers: Sacred Sites; Immigration and Border issues; Environment and COP-15 in Copenhagen; Treaties, and Mineral Resource and Mining Extraction; Prisoner Rights and strategy campaign for Leonard Peltier’ Executive Clemency; Federally Recognized, Unrecognized and Disenrollment; Building AIM chapters and defining role of supporters, coalitions, alliances, and capacity building; Youth and International Solidarity with Liberation Movements.
THURSDAY, November 26, 2009
5:00am - 9:00am
Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Annual UnThanksgiving Sunrise Gathering on Alcatraz Island. Board ships from Pier #33 - Hornblower Alcatraz Tours, purchase tickets online, $14 kids under 5 free! The sunrise program will be broadcast from THE ROCK live on radio KPFA 94.1 starting at 6am to 9am with Miguel Molina, and Co-Anchored by Tony Gonzales of AIM-WEST with Mary Jean Robertson, DJ of KPOO radio. For those of you too far away to attend, this event will be audio broadcast live at http://www.kpfa.org/
FRIDAY, November 27, 2009 11:00am - 2:00pm
Bay Street Mall Ohlone and Shellmound Way Emeryville, CA Annual Black Friday protest at Emeryville's Bay Street Mall. The Bay Street Mall was built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site after years of protest actions by the local Native American community. The construction of the mall unearthed HUNDREDS of human remains, many of which were taken away to landfill in the name of consumerism. While the construction of the mall couldn't be stopped, we in the Bay Area Native American community ask the non-Native community to join us in protesting this obscene structure. On "Black Friday" every year we remind the public that this is sacred Indian land and the Bay Street Mall should be boycotted.
FRIDAY, November 27, 2009
6:00pm - 10:00pm Bahai'i Center 170 Valencia St San Francisco, CA Benefit fundraiser at the Bahai’I Center, 170 Valencia Street in San Francisco! Tickets $10-20 donation, no one turned away for lack of funds. Doors open at 6 pm until 10 pm. Music by Bob Young Project, Local Artists, special guests and much more!! Please bring cans of food for Inter-Tribal Friendship House in Oakland. -- Mark Anquoe AIM-West http://www.aimwest.info/

California Shellmounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZenzsAWMvE
Footage from the 2006 Emeryville Shellmound Protest including that evening's news story. When Native American protesters decided to walk away from their secluded "protest corner", the police tried to stop and intimidate the protesters. The walkers refused to stop. Video shot by Perry Matlock end edited by Mark Anquoe.
PLEASE JOIN US THIS YEAR! 11am, Friday, November 27, 2009. Meet at Shellmound and Ohlone Way in Emeryville, CA. For more information visit :
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/20/18629643.php
http://www.aimwest.info/
California shellmounds are massive ancient structures built by Native Americans that were used as human burial sites. The Bay Street Mall in Emeryville, California was built on the ruins of a 3500 year old Ohlone Shellmound. The construction of the shopping mall was strongly opposed by the local Native American community, who wanted the sacred site to be left undisturbed.

Despite their opposition, the mall was built in 2001. During the mall's construction, hundreds of human remains were found and visibly removed as waste in front of protesters. Since that time, the Native American community in the San Francisco Bay Area has held annual protests on Black Friday ("The biggest shopping day of the year") to ask the non-Native community to boycott the shopping center that has permanently desecrated this unique and irreplaceable sacred Ohlone site.

The number of burials found [...] still remains a mystery.

"We did find a lot of intact burials," said Oakland archeologist Sally Salzman Morgan, who was hired by Emeryville to study the site. "Its too inflammatory to say how many there were. But most (burials) were disturbed."

Rosemary Cambra, tribal chair of the Muwekma Ohlone, calls the citys new, culturally-sensitive development the legally-permitted erasing of a culture. "Were still living in the world of politics of erasure," Cambra said. "Its just an old way of racism. Nothing has really changed for tribal groups in the Bay Area."

--Mark Anquoe
AIM-West
http://www.aimwest.info