Feature Archives

In an interview by Christina Aanestad, Dr. Ann Lopez discusses the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and it's impacts on farmers from West Central Mexico. In the interview, Dr. Lopez discusses the story of a 60 year old grandmother who risks asphyxiation to travel across the border to visit her "illegal immigrant" farmworker son. Dr. Lopez also talks about the struggles women migrant farmworkers face in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties and how neoliberal trade policies often force Mexican farmworkers to migrate into California's corporate agricultural fields.

A nationwide call was issued for a general strike on the 6th anniversary of the horrendous attacks upon the World Trade Center. Organizers say "No longer will we allow the tragedies of 911 to be used as a rallying point and symbolic justification for war. Instead, we are encouraging people to spend the day reflecting, mourning, and protesting what has happened to this nation in the wake of September 11th."

The California Department of Food and Agriculture and the United States Department of Food and Agriculture released official notices in Monterey County which state, "Due to an infestation of Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM), aerial applications of CheckMate®OLR-F (a pheromone mating disruptor) are necessary." Aerial application of the moth pheromone began in Monterey County on September 9. The operation that night covered just part of the eradication area... additional plane flights were scheduled on September 10th and September 11th.

On August 26th, a number of Santa Cruz homeless activists made an appeal to the ACLU of Santa Cruz County during a fundraising event held at the small public aquarium next to the UC Long Marine center. They would like for them to contribute to the legal fight to end the ban on outdoor sleeping and camping, using the same process behind the Jones decision precedent in the Los Angeles courts, which held that a local city cannot ban sleeping on public property if adequate shelters for indigent people are not available.

On August 24th, dozens of community members gathered in Beach Flats Park for a vigil in solidarity with Elvira Arellano and all of the other families in risk of separation because of the US government's inhumane immigration laws and selective enforcement practices. People spoke about the case of Elvira Arellano, who, with her son Saul, has become a national symbol of the destruction of families by federal policy.

The Jones v. City of Los Angeles decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that criminalization of homelessness amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. In the words of the judge writing the majority decision: "The Eighth Amendment prohibits the City from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles."

On August 16th, the new film True to My Pledge, by Mal de Ojo TV, screened at a meeting of the Brown Berets in Watsonville. On August 17th, Latinoamerican musicians TONALI performed at the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, followed by an update on the peoples' struggles in Oaxaca by Miguel Zafra, a screening of True to My Pledge and discussion about the formation of a new group, "Santa Cruz - Oaxaca Solidarity."