4/25: May 1 "A Day Without Immigrant" Strike/Boycott: Over 100 events at 60+ cit : LA IMC

Latest Updates on May 1st "A Day Without Immigrant" National Immigrant Strike/Boycott: Over 100 events at 60+ cities!
April 25, 2006

"El Gran Paro Americano 2006" "The Great American Boycott 2006"
"Un dia sin immigrante" "A day without an immigrant"

Nationwide Immigrant General Strike Wear White T-Shirt at May 1!

http://www.NoHR4437.org http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org

Toll-Free: (800)598-6379

Download the Flyer!

For LA May 1 March: Spanish English Chinese

National

Spanish English Chinese

Dear immigrant rights activists:

As of April 24th, we have over 100 events at 60+ cities for the May 1st mobilization listed at our calendar, please visit: Local May 1 Events

We encourage you to post you events at our calendar, please Click Here

On May 1, we are calling No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying, and also to have rallies around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.) to protest the anti-immigrant movements across the country.

No Work
No School
No Selling
No Buying…

- Yes To Immediate Amnesty

- Yes To Family Unity
- No To Criminalization of Immigrants
- No Border Fences and Racism
- No Increased Immigrant Enforcement

On May 1, we will wear "white" a T-Shirt and/or white arm bands, we can paint and write our political demands (and creative arts) at the T-shirt go to rally, protest, strike, vigil, work or school--we will have a ocean of white T-shirts with our political demands from east coast to west coast, at the street, work place, school, bus station & store... and our voice will be LOUD AND CLEAR AND CANNOT BE SILENT FOR EVER!

We will settle for nothing less than full amnesty and dignity for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the U.S. We believe that increased enforcement is a step in the wrong direction and will only serve to facilitate more tragedies along the Mexican-U.S. border in terms of deaths and family separation.

The success of the March 25 Los Angeles "Gran Marcha" proves that we can make it happen! A new civil rights movement of the 21st century is building, a multi-ethnic movement to link immigrant rights, social justice and anti-war together.

Therefore, activists and organizers have a particular responsibility to point out the links between Katrina's impact, immigrant rights, civil liberties, labor rights and the U.S. war in Iraq. We need to make the connections between: wars in Africa, south America, Asia, Iraq, Palestine and Korea, and sweatshops in Asia as well as in Los Angeles and in New York; international arms sales and the WTO, FTAA, NAFTA & CAFTA with AIDS, hunger, our reproductive rights, child labor and child soldiers; multinational corporations and economic exploitation with racism, homophobia and poverty at home--then we can win the struggle.

United We Win! Together We Can Achieve Our Dreams!

Lee Siu Hin

National Immigrant Solidarity Network

Endorse the May 1 General Strike >> Click Here

List of Endorsers

Join the May 1 Planning List! >> Click Here

Please Donate to the May 1 Organizing >> Donate

Local May 1 Events To Post Your Event >> Click Here

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IMMIGRATION BLUES
[Col. Writ. 4/2/06] Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Now, as polls show growing disenchantment with both political parties,
the issue of immigration is raised once again, as politicians seek to
stir the pot of social resentment.

Voices are raised, tempers are frayed, proposals are launched, and
the destinies of millions are apparently held in limbo.

But, in numbers not seen for generations, mostly Mexican-born (or
related) families pound the pavements in protest, demanding amnesty
for the millions who live and work, in the most thankless jobs, here in
the U.S.

The immigration "discussion" masks deeper currents in American life,
of those who dread the approaching dawn when those who number the
nation's majority are brown, instead of white.

As the government and the servile corporate media hawked fear to trap
the nation into the Iraq War, so now fear is once again merchandised for
political gain. The perpetual fear of the foreign Other, the fear
of Spanish-speaking people, who are called 'criminal' for daring to
cross the Rio Grande , to inhabit the lands stolen from their ancestors!

The truth of the matter is that it is highly unlikely that over 11
million men, women, and children will be returned to Mexican territory.
That's because businesses, especially those engaged in agriculture,
would virtually go out of business, if their immigrant-based work-force
up and disappeared.

But, like most people, many Latino immigrants are involved in other
businesses and industries in U.S. life. Guess who's doing the lion's
share of the work to actually re-build New Orleans ? (In case you've
not guessed, let me just say it - It ain't FEMA!).

With the exception of Native Americans (as in so-called 'Indians'), and
African-Americans, every person in the U.S. today is a descendant of a
willing immigrant (OK, strict historians will object that many poor
whites, especially in the Southern states, were sent to George and
Maryland as indentured servants, as part of a penal sentence).

But, the point is clear. Immigration was consciously used to craft the
U.S. as a white nation. For centuries, certain racial groups, like
Chinese, for example, were specifically excluded by law from citizenship
(like their Mexican counterparts, many Asians were needed in the
building of this country as cheap labor).

As law professor Ian F. Haney-Lopez has shown in his book, *White by
Law: The Legal Construction of Race* (N.Y.:NYU Press, 1996), American
courts and legislatures have consistently defined 'citizens' as
'whites', and over the course of centuries, millions of people were
denied entry to the US, or even if allowed in denied citizenship,
because they were not 'white.' In 1882, Haney-Lopez explains, the U.S.
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese workers
for a decade. In 1884, the Act was expanded to bar all Chinese people,
and shortly thereafter an indefinite ban was implemented. State and
federal court decisions banned Syrians, Asian-Indians, Palestinians,
mixed-race people, and multitudes of others on the basis of
insufficient whiteness!

That ugly history may be reborn in this latest 'battle' over Mexican
immigration. Political storms have a way of giving way to political
hurricanes, that even those who planned them cannot control.

Several years ago, a right-wing politician in California tried to ride
the anti-immigrant train to the White House. This man was Pete
Wilson, and his playing with fire left him politically burnt. Angry
Hispanics in Cali sent him, and some of his colleagues in the Republican
Party, into retirement.

But, this era of politicians, trying to create an issue that protects
them from the falling numbers of the incumbent Bush Administration,
look at Wilson 's fate as ancient history.

Perhaps the recent demonstrations, massive in their size, vociferous in
their spirit, have given them pause.

Time will tell.

The political entity that truly befriends this growing segment of the US
population will have tapped into a powerful social force.

Don't expect it to be either the Republicans or the Democrats.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

=====================================================

National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)544-9355

Please consider making a donation to the important work of National Immigrant Solidarity Network

Send check pay to:
National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ

and mail to:
ActionLA / The Peace Center
8124 West 3rd Street, Suite 104
Los Angeles, California 90048
(All donations are tax deductible)

*to join the immigrant Solidarity Network daily news litserv, send e-mail to: isn-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn

*a monthly ISN monthly Action Alert! listserv, go to webpage http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn-digest

Please join our following listservs:
Asian American Labor Activism Alert! Listserv, send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/api-la

NYC Immigrant Alert!: New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas immigrant workers information and alerts, send e-mail to: nyc-immigrantalert-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nyc-immigrantalert

US-Mexico Border Information: No Militarization of Borders! Support Immigrant Rights! send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border01/

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4/25: May 1 "A Day Without Immigrant" Strike/Boycott: Over 100 events at 60+ cit

THANK YOU Lee Siu Hin

getting our priorities right

You're right Jim Bob

POSTER:"closed" (for businesses -easy download)

kiss my ass socialists

Photos from Santa Barbara marches and rallies