Tucson Meet Yourself: The beauty of cultures

'Tucson Meet Yourself,' a celebration of beauty

Article and photos by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON -- This is what Tucson does best, it celebrates itself. With Turkish coffee, Southern catfish, Yaqui fry bread and Colombian empenadas, once a year the people of Tucson come together to celebrate the beauty of their cultures, with food, art, music and dance.

This is no ordinary celebration.

There's O'odham horsehair basketry and Yaqui carvings in the Sonoran Pavilion, with crafts from around the world in the Folk Arts Demonstrations. There's Bhutanese tailoring, Buruni basket weaving, Dine' flute and drums, Indian rakhi bracelets, Japanese calligraphy and Ukrainian wood carving.

On the many stages throughout downtown, the music changes from waltz to tango, then to old time fiddlers and jazz. There's the Latin Funk Project, hip hop, Pacific Islanders hula hoop and bagpipes -- not all at the same time.

Yaqui musician Gabriel Ayala was featured this year, after just being awarded Artist of the Year at the Native American Music Awards 2011. The Native music included W:ak T:ab Basket Dancers of the Tohono O'odham Nation and Trio Sure from the Yaqui homeland in Sonora.

Where else but in Tuscon can you find a world class Low Rider Car Show, with an awards program, located next to a pile of fresh field gourds and nopalito cactus pads, all alongside the favorite Planet of the Crepes food truck, and across from the senior women belly dancers.

Here, too, is what makes Tucson truly unique. It is a global caring community. The Iskashitaa Refugee Harvesting program provides refugees with a way to share their skills, while gaining new ones. The grassroots network includes recent UN refugees from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burundi, Congo, Eritrea, Iraq, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan. They harvest excess fruits and vegetables throughout the year to share with refugees and non-profits. There's also a sewing and crafts center.

During this year's Tucson Meet Yourself, Oct. 14-16, along with hundreds of musicians and artists, there was a conference designed to celebrate the beauty of this region's foods, from the flour of the mesquite beans, to the cactus pads, nopalitas, and corn, beans and squash.

The Cultural Nutrition Conference, The Ultimate Food Fight II, Back for Seconds, was held in the cool of the library, as it was hot for Tucson this time of year, at 99 degrees.

During a series of talks, University of Arizona's Mexican American Studies students described how traditional foods, high in fiber and nutrients, keep people healthy, as compared to junk foods. They offered suggestions for preventing diabetes, like using black beans and substituting whole wheat for white flour, while avoiding excessive fatty and salty foods. For diabetics, cinnamon, nopalitos and prickly pear fruits were encouraged for their health giving properties.

The medicinal properties of the copal tree of Michoacan was described, and the colonization and exploitation of foods was discussed. Along with the university students, speakers included ethnobotanist and author Gary Nabhan and members of the Danza Xochilpilli Centeol dance group. The conference, organized by professor Roberto Rodriguez, included a morning run, with the message to keep moving for health.

Photo mural: Chiles; curried goat to eat at the Jamaican food stand; the Costa Rica food stand; Turkish coffee maker; Michoacan speaker on the medicinal properties of the copal tree; refugee sewing circle; Low Rider Car Show and women making Turkish flatbread.

Neo Nazis and militia show up armed at Occupy Phoenix

J.T. Ready stands armed at the Occupy Phoenix protest. Ready said

he was there with the U.S. Border Guard.

(Sara Steffan/Downtown Devil online media)

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

PHOENIX -- Heavily-armed white supremacists of the US Border Guard, who stalk migrants on the Arizona border with AK-47s, showed up at the Occupy Phoenix movement on Saturday, according to the Phoenix Class War Council.

The Phoenix Class War Council said, "Today at the first mass general assembly of the Occupy Phoenix Movement, neo-Nazi members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) showed up, armed and in their 'Arizona Border Guard' militia fatigues, to counter protest. Sporting assault rifles, they posed flanked by dozens of cops. Recognizing key NSM organizers in their midst, several people confronted them and set about informing the generally ignorant crowd that before them stood actual fascists, armed to the teeth."

Several of the heavily-armed "Border Guards," were at the camp late Saturday night at Hance Park, and were no comfort to Native Americans and others in the movement.

The online Downtown Devil reported at 10 pm, "At least three members of the Arizona Border Guard are still present with sidearms and one has donned a gas mask and a ballistic helmet."

The US Border Guard made a statement about being there. "The U.S. Border Guard deployed an urban combat trained security squad to the Occupy Phoenix rally today as armed peace keepers and legal observers. Border Rangers who patrol the border took a non-political stance to defend peaceful assembly and free speech of all citizens by exercising our right to keep and bear arms. Phoenix Police units were on scene also keeping the peace. Our founding fathers and founding mothers knew full well that the 2nd Amendment is what protects all our other amendments from tyranny. The U.S.B.G. protected the rights of all parties involved."
The Phoenix Class War Council said the reaction to the armed white supremacists, was predictable at the gathering.

The Phoenix Class War Council said, "This attitude towards the NSM scum played out, quite predictably, along racial lines, with whites being the only ones to express attitudes of tolerance towards them. This points to the continuing importance of addressing racism and the continual appeal and relevance of racial privileges within the movement. Indeed, we can expand this argument to the whole attitude of the bulk of the white movement towards the police. Experiencing policing in quite different ways than people of color in general, white middle class liberals mistake their own experience for that of others, and routinely attack anyone who questions the alleged 99 percent status of the police, or points out their quite obvious tendencies towards violent action, as violent themselves. To question the violence of the police is to be violent, according to this backwards analysis.

"The presence of an armed fascist street-level opposition to our movement, in the form of the National Socialist Movement and it's 'Arizona Border Guard' front group, is one major reason to reject dogmatic pacifism and poorly thought-out nonviolence. Instead, what we heard from protesters speaking during the general assembly were declarations of the most naive nonviolence imaginable. Arizona is a right wing state and the forces of reaction are huge and easily overwhelming if they want to be," the Phoenix Class War Council said.

"Occupy Phoenix organizers should not kid themselves about their numbers or power. This movement clearly has capability to attract large numbers, as evidenced by the several thousand that showed up today for the general assembly and will march later to set up camp at Margaret T. Hance park. But we need to be honest about our political circumstances and the forces of reaction arrayed against us. Today is a reminder for those who are paying attention," the Phoenix Class War Council said.
Read more from the Phoenix Class War Council, at Fires Never Extinguished Blog of anarchists:
http://firesneverextinguished.blogspot.com/2011/10/national-socialist-movement-scum-show.html

Militia member says they are not all NSM

One member of the militia at Occupy Phoenix told
Censored News that he is militia, but not a member
of the National Socialist Movement.

One member of the militia who came armed to Occupy Phoenix, photographed here, told Censored News that he is militia, but not a member of the National Socialist Movement (NSM.)

Greg Burleson asked to be referred to as "Wagonburner." He said the group of men in the photo are not NSM.

Buleson said, "I am militia, but I am NOT a Neo-Nazi or ever have been, I hate the NSM. There are a lot of people who go out and patrol with the US Border Guard that are not NSM or Neo-Nazi's, just a bunch of fed up Americans."

Burleson said, "There was a guy in a red t-shirt who had a pistol and shot gun out there also. I will only speak for myself, so, I am militia, I am also a 14th generation American Patriot. I carry open at all times for a couple of reasons, A) it is my right to do so under the second amendment. As one of our forefathers said, if you don't exercise your rights you will lose them. B) As I was out at the rally in support of the protesters and as a defender of our rights, I was insuring that our first amendment rights were protected. I will not tolerate any shenanigans like those going on in New York. You see our rights are all intertwined and they were meant to be, the first amendment assures representation, the second amendment assures that the first will not be plowed under."

Burleson said, "While you and I may not agree on some things, Political Ideology, religious views, what ever, I don't know what your views are, but I will defend your right to have your opinion as long as it is not detrimental to the Nation as a whole. For instance, National Socialism is detrimental to the Nation as a whole." He quoted Voltaire and Plato:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
(Voltaire)
It is a just person who disobeys an unjust law.
(Plato)"

OCCUPY PHOENIX
Timeline on Saturday night, from Downtown Devil:
Phoenix Saturday, Oct. 15-16:

Phoenix Police arrested about 40 Occupy Phoenix demonstrators in Margaret T. Hance Park late Saturday night after negotiations to allow an overnight occupation between protest organizers and city officals failed. (Mauro Whiteman/DD)

12:58 a.m. — All Occupy Phoenix protesters remaining in Hance Park have been taken into custody by the Phoenix Police Department. In total, about 40 protesters may have been arrested.
At least one officer has used pepper spray on a protester.
12:16 a.m. — Police tore down a tent set out by protesters. No one appears to have been inside.
10:09 p.m. — Between 150 and 200 protesters remain in Hance Park. No arrests have been made but decisions are still pending. At least three members of the Arizona Border Guard are still present with sidearms and one has donned a gas mask and a ballistic helmet.Read more from 'Downtown Devil' online:
http://downtowndevil.com/2011/10/15/15082/phoenix-occupy-protest/
.

More on JT Ready and the US Border Guard on the US/Mexico border:

Video: 'Going Home' Floyd Westerman Tribute

ACLU: Pinal County Jail's shocking abuse of migrants violates treaty on torture

No More Deaths photo

Pinal County Jail violates international treaties on human rights and torture

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Update: ACLU: Documented sexual abuse of detainees
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/10/aclu-sexual-abuse-detainees.html

TUCSON -- The inhumane conditions for migrants at the Pinal County Jail violates US treaties on human rights and torture, ACLU Policy Director Anjali Abraham said Friday.

"Terminate the contract with Pinal County Jail right away," said Abraham, making recommendations to ICE, at the Human Rights Documentation and Social Media Reporting Conference in Tucson.

Mexico's Consulate in Tucson Juan Manuel Calderon Jaimes was among those attending the conference held on the campus of the University of Arizona.

Abraham said the current immigration detention system in the US violates a number of constitutional and international rights. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Against Torture, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, treaties ratified by the US that apply to the rights of migrants and detained persons.

Abraham described deplorable conditions for migrants at the Pinal County Jail in Arizona. Rape, denial of medical treatment and prolonged isolation of victims, were among the inhumane conditions.

The Pinal County Jail is one of the county jails and private-for-profit prisons in Arizona where immigrants are detained, and often abused, by way of contracts with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.)

In one case, a woman who should have been detained for 48 hours was detained for a year. In another case, a woman with vaginal bleeding was repeatedly denied medical care and then required a full hysterectomy, one that could have been avoided had she received medical treatment earlier.

"The Pinal County Jail operates on a cycle of fear and threats," Abraham said. Conditions are so severe that inmates in another facility had to be pepper sprayed to force them to be transferred back there.

Abraham said the jail's use of isolation is alarming. "Locking someone in a little cube for 24 hours a day only increases existing mental and physical health issues," she said.

Pregnant migrant women in labor are being shackled to beds, which is cruel and puts both the mother and baby at risk. Migrant women, with no criminal history, are placed in cells with serious criminals. The detainment of migrant women has far reaching impacts on families. While many women are the primary caregivers of their children, their families are left to fend for themselves.

Abraham said the most vulnerable populations in detention are the women, children and the lesbian, gay and transgender detainees. In Pinal County, transgender detainees are placed in cells with the gender they do not identify with.

"They are victims of physical and sexual violence," she said. Further, they are often placed in isolation when they report being victims of sexual abuse.

"They are punishing the victim for being the victim," she said.

Tanya is a transgender woman who has lived in Tucson for almost 20 years. Her family members are US citizens and lawful residents. Tanya's case is among those in the ACLU report, "In Their Own Words: Enduring abuse in Arizona immigration centers."

Tanya was detained by ICE at the Eloy Detention Center for seven months. She was placed in a men's housing unity and isolated for six weeks of the time. After reporting an incident with detention staff, she was placed in isolation. Then she was threatened by a male detainee who tried to force her to engage in oral sex. She is now out of detention.

Abraham said the inhumane conditions at Pinal County Jail include lockdown for minor infractions, including not making a bed, not moving quickly enough or saving a piece of fruit to eat later in the day, because people are so hungry in the jail.

In Arizona, ICE detains 3,000 immigrants on any given day, a 58 percent increase over six years. These men, women and children represent 10 percent of the country's detained immigrant population.

ICE Detention Centers in Arizona are the Florence Detention Center, Pinal County Adult Detention Center and Eloy Detention Center. ICE also contracts with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA,) a private-for-profit prison company, at two separate facilities in Florence, the Florence Correctional Center and Central Arizona Detention Center.

Abraham said these ICE detention centers lack any grievance process that would hold detention centers and staff accountable.

Speaking of migrants being detained in private for profit prisons, Abraham said, "We don't need them."

Raquel Rubio Goldsmith of Derechos Humanos said the number of migrant deaths in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona has increased dramatically in recent years because of the militarization of the border and US policies that have forced migrants into more dangerous areas, where they are far more likely to die.

Earlier, families came to work in the ranches and fields, and returned home to Sonora, by well known foot paths. There was very little risk of losing human life. Then, suddenly, there was a flood of deaths.

Goldsmith said the search for missing persons is difficult because of the lack of central records for the border. There are currently 600 missing persons in the Tucson region alone. There is no central location in the United States, on the border from California to Texas, where families can go and find help for missing loved ones.

Currently, there is a higher percentage of deaths of those who are risking crossing the Arizona desert, because of the US policy that forces migrants into dangerous regions.
Goldsmith said another reason for the increase in deaths is that people who have lived in the United States for years are now attempting to cross back into Mexico to rejoin their families. In the rush to get back to their families quickly, they risk the desert crossing. They are unfamiliar with the desert and too often die in the desert.

Since the year 2000, there have been 2,272 recovered human remains in the Arizona desert.

During the conference, Danielle Alvarado, volunteer with No More Deaths. Alvarado described the abuse by Border Patrol, as documented in the recent release of report, The Culture of Cruelty. Border Patrol agents repeatedly denied migrants water, food and medical treatment, according to thousands of interviews spanning two years. Read more and watch videos: http://nomoredeaths.org/

Alvarado also showed a video of a Border Patrol agent pouring out life saving gallons of water in the Sonoran Desert, gallons of water left by humanitarian groups to save the lives of migrants crossing the desert.Among the most alarming discussions was the fact that when parents are detained, their children are placed in state custody. The state then often severs their legal rights to their children.

The children of detained parents can be disappeared into the state system indefinitely. Too often they are placed in foster care with no contact with their parents.

On Tuesday, October 18, at 11:45 am, in Tucson, Coalicion de Derechos Humanos and other organizations will hold a press conference in front of the Tucson Police Department to announce the airing of the PBS Frontline documentary Lost in Detention.

Derechos Humanos said that last year, the Obama administration set new records for detaining and deporting immigrants, with over another 400,000 slated for 2011. Frontline correspondent Maria Hinojosa, in partnership with American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, takes a penetrating look at Obama's vastly expanded immigration net, and explores the controversial Secure Communities enforcement program.

Maria Eugenia Carrasco of Derechos Humanos said, "Secure Communities has created a nightmare in our community in Tucson and across the country, resulting in a concrete and direct attack on the security of the families we deal with on a daily basis."

"How can it be that someone who is on their way home from dropping off their child at school, wind up being arrested and deported because of an encounter with law enforcement for a minor infraction like having a crack on the windshield," Carrasco said.