Divided by an international border, families win a few minutes of respite from separation
by Bianca Quilantan | Posted November 22, 2016
Laura Avila and her daughter Laura Vera Martinez waited nervously on the United States side of the border with her mother standing inches away from them in Mexico. Rusted pillars and steel mesh divided them. They could hear one another, but not touch.
Avila had driven 140 miles from Los Angeles to San Ysidro, a San Diego district and the last U.S. exit before entering Mexico. Her mother, Maria Socorro Martinez Lopez, had flown 1,821 miles from Puebla, Mexico, to Playas de Tijuana for a chance to see her daughter and granddaughter.read more
by Natalie Charlesworth | Posted November 19, 2016
Nov. 8, 2016: I sat in math class, frantically checking the presidential election polls every chance that I got. The numbers were so close. Hillary, Trump, Hillary again, and then back to Trump. Jumbled thoughts like ping-pong balls bounced back and forth in my mind. My palms, sweaty. My anxiety increasingly getting worse. I began to wonder, why I had even decided to attend class that day? I then put my phone down and got back to what I should have been doing –focusing on math.read more
On the Nov. 15 #NoDAPL National Day of Action, Chico-area residents demonstrated in front of U.S. Bank, one of a number of American financial institutions said to be funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. According to the environmental advocacy organization Food & Water Watch, U.S. Bank has some $275 million invested. The pipeline would carry fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois, and the Standing Rock Sioux are leading what is now an international movement to halt construction in order to protect the Missouri River and sacred grounds.read more
Immigrant rights advocates are bracing for an uphill fight in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory and encouraging people who could be harmed by an immigration crackdown to take steps now to protect themselves.
“We definitely have a fight ahead of us,” said Kamal Essaheb, director of policy and advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), “a fight against the criminalization of immigrants and people of color, a fight for true economic justice for a country where everybody, regardless of the color of their skin or immigration status, can seek opportunities to make their lives better. And immigrants, documented or not, will be a critical part of that fight.”read more
Across the country Wednesday morning people woke up to face the unexpected. It’s fair to say that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters alike were dealing with shock.
It seems all along there was a “silent vote” for the former reality TV star that gave him the edge he needed to beat Clinton. Pollsters were not aware. Political pundits were not aware. The best research a campaign could buy could not identify the hidden resentment harbored by thousands who were not visible among the raucous Trump base.read more
While waiting for coffee recently, I became fixated on a mentally ill homeless man. He lay on his side in the shuttered entrance to what last was a Walgreens at East Avenue and the Esplanade. Every few seconds, the old, bearded, agitated man would flail his arms toward someone or something that was tormenting him but wasn’t really there. His situation – common across our country – struck me as just so sad and seemingly hopeless.
Yesterday, upon my return for coffee, I noticed that some sort of contraption covered by a blue tarp had taken the man’s place in the entrance. Attached to that tarp was a message, hand-lettered in pencil with more anger than planning: “Stay the Fuck out or else Little Bitches.”
When I look at that sign – and think about its message and its author – I see the face of an angry someone at a Trump rally.
But, really, the meanness of the message is not so different from that sent by the majority of the Chico City Council over the past couple of years: Roust the homeless out of sight; they’re bad for business.
Recently, a noted housing-first advocate from Utah spoke to a packed community meeting at Bidwell Presbyterian Church about solutions to the chronic problem of homelessness. The presentation was attended by council liberals Tami Ritter, Ann Schwab and Randall Stone — all of whom are seeking re-election today, as is conservative Vice Mayor Sean Morgan.
It was telling that none of the council’s four conservatives – Morgan, Mayor Mark Sorensen, Reanette Fillmer or Andrew Coolidge – cared enough to attend that homelessness meeting. Fillmer, who has publicly expressed insensitivity toward homeless in the past, later wrote a letter excusing herself for being MIA that the Chico Enterprise-Record dutifully published. The letter was nonsensical, just like everything else I’ve read written by Fillmer.
Today’s Election Day, and I just want to say that those we elect to our Chico City Council make a difference in how we as a community treat the least fortunate among us.
This commentary was penned by ChicoSol News Director Dave Waddell.
