by H. B. Cavalcanti
on January 08, 2013
With passions running high on immigration and pitched defenses mounting on both sides of the question, the actual stories of immigrants get lost in the broader debate or simply become a backdrop to fierce ideological battles and arguments. That’s why we thought that you might like to hear about a new book by H. B. Cavalcanti, Almost Home: A Brazilian American’s Reflections on Faith, Culture and Immigration. It is a reflection on migration by someone who lived it for 30 years, first as an immigrant, now as a citizen. Here’s what the author has to say:
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by Danielle Marie Mackey
on October 22, 2012
The Honduran LGBTQ community is a relatively young movement that faces overwhelming discrimination and violence in a post-coup nation. In the early years, the community was nominally tolerated; gay male hairdressers of the Air Force wives, for instance, competed as comedy acts in annual Air Force beauty pageants. It was not until the year 2000 that the first legally-constituted LGBTQ organizations appeared. Activists say that advances in human rights protections have historically been followed by waves of repression, but that the most recent wave—that which has followed the 2009 coup—is the most severe. The Diversity Resistance Movement (MDR for its name in Spanish) is an LGBTQ group that formed in the tumultuous wake of the coup. In June 2012, I sat down with three of its members—Roberto Canizales, a history professor at the National University; and Ever Guillen Castro and Jose Palacios, both advocacy officers with European cooperation agencies based in Honduras. The three long-time activists discussed everything from who’s behind the repression, to the recent murder of their friend Erick Martinez, to the hope they have for the future of their community. Visit MDR on Facebook or at their blog-news site.
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by Lisa Haugaard
on January 04, 2013
U.S. policy towards our Latin American neighbors is, as usual, in need of a few New Year's resolutions. Here goes:
- Ban assault weapons. Three months before the murders of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, 110 victims of violence and advocates from Mexico traveled across the United States calling on us to take action to stop the violence that has claimed over 100,000 lives in Mexico during the last six years. They asked us to ban the assault weapons that arm Mexico's brutal cartels. Some70 percent of assault weapons and other firearms used by criminal gangs in Mexico come from the United States. The United States should reinstate and tighten the assault weapon ban and enforce the ban on the import of assault weapons into our country, which are then smuggled into Mexico. Do it for Newtown. Do it for Aurora. Do it for Mexico's mothers and fathers who have lost their children to senseless violence.
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by Omar Martinez
on October 01, 2012
Organizaciones internacionales condenan el asesinato de abogado defensor de derechos humanos de campesinos y campesinas del Bajo Aguan y de fiscal especial para los derechos humanaos. Haga click aqui para leer el comunicado en su totalidad.
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by Emily Chow
on December 10, 2012
Article 30 from the UN Declaration of Human rights states “No one can take away your rights.” Today, we will be celebrating International Human Rights Day and the 64th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Do you know what the 30 articles of Human Rights are? Just in case you need a refresher, watch the video below directed by Ani Boghossian, in honor of International Human Rights Day.
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by Lisa Haugaard
on September 25, 2012
On Saturday night, September 22th, 2012, after he attended a wedding, Antonio Trejo Cabrera was shot six times. He later died at a Tegucigalpa hospital. He was the legal representative of the MARCA campesino movement, and in June he had won the historic though still contested judgment in favor of returning three plantations to campesinos in Bajo Aguán.
“Since they couldn't beat him on the courts, they killed him,” said Vitalino Alvarez, a spokesman for Bajo Aguan's peasant movements, cited in an Associated Press story. Trejo "had denounced those responsible for his future death on many occasions." Trejo also prepared legal challenges to a proposal by U.S. and Honduran companies to run privately-run charter cities that critics call unconstitutional, as they would skirt national labor and other laws.
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