Farmer Co-Ops Are Giving Latinx Communities Room To Grow

On Sundays, Edith Alas Ortega travels 20 minutes from her home to a farm field in Henderson County, North Carolina, and takes a deep breath. “There’s a mental and physical healing that happens out here,” she said in Spanish. Ortega is one of five members of Tierra Fértil Coop—“fertile ground” in English—an agricultural, worker-owned cooperative for and by Latinx immigrants. The group—three Salvadoran and three Mexican immigrants—meet every week on their one-acre parcel in Hendersonville that provides vegetables for the families involved as well as enough for resale, with a focus on culturally appropriate ingredients for the Latinx market.

Ortega marvels at the first strawberries of the season on a recent morning in June—just 40 for now.

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Hispanic Americans On The Front Lines Of COVID-19

Workforce needs are changing and immigrants and Americans of all kinds are critical to the fight, response, and recovery that we face in the coming months. As the country continues to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Hispanic Americans are playing an important role on the front lines in healthcare, food supply, education, and biomedical industries. There are 2.2 million Hispanic healthcare workers (or 13.0% of the total workforce) nationwide, almost one-third of which are immigrants. Hispanic Americans are even more prominent in another essential sector of the U.S economy: the food supply chain. Hispanic workers are also on the front lines of finding a cure for coronavirus and helping to shore up America’s supply of medicines and medical supplies.

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Immigrant ‘Warriors For Justice’ Return To Their Roots

By Bill Boyarsky for Truthdig. Immigrant justice organizers skills are being tested as ICE officers prowl courthouses, day labor centers, school areas and knock on home doors. ICE personnel also stop cars, demanding passports from Latinos and threatening to arrest anyone without them. The young dreamers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the others live in fear of deportation.

More empowered than before, the immigrants, documented and undocumented, are saying no to Donald Trump and his immigration cops.

Their history includes the young men who resisted in the Zoot Suit riots in 1943 as well as the red-shirted Justice For Janitors strikers in the ’90s. Constituting a new chapter are today’s high school students making a video on how to resist ICE. All of them are an inspiring part of the American story.

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Not Only Latinos, African Blacks Facing Mass Deportation

By David Love for Atlanta Black Star – Although often not covered in the media, the African immigrant community is facing mass deportations in the era of Donald Trump. While the immigration debate in the U.S. is often framed in terms of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America on the one hand and the infamous Muslim travel ban on the other, the issue is more complicated. As the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency conducts its sweeps on immigrant communities, African people are among those who are being detained and deported. While deportations were in no short supply under the Obama administration, these deportations are expected to soar under Trump, whose immigration ban on six Muslim nations includes three African nations — Libya, Somalia and Sudan…

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Clinton And Trump Protested On Cinco De Mayo

By Staff of KPCC – A protest was held Thursday afternoon against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton while she spoke at East Los Angeles College. Members of political group Unión del Barrio organized the demonstration and were also present at Donald Trump’s appearance in Costa Mesa last week. Protesters gathered at Belvedere Park and marched two blocks toward the school. The Los Angeles Police Department was on standby, with some on horseback.

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Mobilization For Peace In Mexico, 43 US Cities, Dec. 3rd

Created as a tribute to Mexico’s #YaMeCansé global movement, a #USTired2 mobilization calling for peace in Mexico launched this morning, campaign organizers told Latino Rebels. The group has identified December 3, 2014 as the day of demonstrations and rallies in at least 43 US cities to represent the 43 Ayotzinapa students. Organizers said that their focus will be to call more national attention to “Plan Mexico” (also known as the Mérida Initiative). The U.S. State Department reports that the “U.S. Congress has appropriated $2.1 billion since the Merida Initiative began in Fiscal Year 2008.” Critics of Plan Mexico insist that such a policy has been tragic for Mexico. To many, Ayotzinapa is just the latest example of such a failed policy. Follow #USTired2 for the latest updates.

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Promises Broken, Latino Voters Split On Election Day Strategy

With the 2014 election just weeks away, and the Democratic control of Congress’ upper chamber in question, Latino voters in Arizona and around the country remain divided on the best strategy to build enough political pressure to achieve real action on immigration reform. The idea of a boycott has some traction in Phoenix and beyond. Carlos Garcia, the executive director of the organization Puente, recently released a statement saying, “Without affirmative relief for our families, we are calling for a boycott of the vote.” Other groups, including Los Angeles-based organizing group Presente, are urging a targeted boycott of certain political races — specifically, against the Democratic Senators in tight races who joined Republicans in a recent vote to repeal the temporary protections given to DREAMers, recipients of deportation deferrals.

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