Grow, process food locally
Harmony and sustainability: An essay on green futures

For many who were raised in Northern New Mexico, the springtime was shaped by the urgency of the growing season. Acequias had to be cleaned, soil had to be tilled, and seeds had to be planted by a certain saint's day. These ancient cultural practices still permeate the communities of the region during the months of April and May, making it a natural time to reflect on our relationship with our tierra madre. Since the 1970s, spring has also been a time to celebrate Earth Day, an expression of the mainstream environmental movement.

I believe there are substantive differences in the way that traditional communities and environmental groups relate to the landscape. For many with generational connections here

Environmentalists call on Hidalgo County leaders to scrap levee-wall combo plan
3/17/2008

EDINBURG - Environmentalists have called on Hidalgo County commissioners to scrap their agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to build an 18-foot high concrete wall along 22 miles of the county’s levees.

“I think we need to not support the wall in any fashion, whether it’s a fence or whether it’s a concrete wall,” said Ann Cass, a member of the No Border Wall Coalition and executive director of Proyecto Azteca.

Cass was one of a number of environmentalists to meet with Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas and Hidalgo County Drainage Director Godfrey Garza about the levee-wall plan in a conference room at the county courthouse on Friday.

The meeting was taped by award-winning filmmaker Wayne Ewing for a one-hour documentary about the border wall, to be aired on PBS’s Bill Moyers Journal in October.

Contending Rationality, Leadership, and Collective Struggle: The 2006 Justice for Janitors Campaign at the University of Miami
03/18/2008

Building strength within a diverse constellation of social actors, including workers,
clergy, faculty, students, and other activists, the Service Employees International Union’s
spring 2006 Justice for Janitors campaign at the University of Miami helped open a
new local space for working-class political contention through an engaged and escalatory
organizing and first contract drive. In an effort to empower workers as the base of
a larger struggle against the exploitation of Miami’s working poor, the campaign drew
upon the creativity of workers in shaping and enacting a political agenda toward economic
justice while building up Miami’s social activist community, including a local
chapter of the national Interfaith Worker Justice committee.

New water project lightens residents' load
03/08/2008

Imagine having to find every gallon of water you use and truck it miles to your house every day. That is the routine for residents living on the Pajarito Mesa, but a county project could finally change that.

The routine has become quite normal for people like Sandra Montes. She loads water drums into the bed of her pickup truck, drives for miles looking for a place to fill them, and returns home to unload the weighty cargo.

It is a tiring chore, but now peoples' lives will get easier now that the county has promised to build a $750,000 water fill station on Pajarito Road.

Bridging a Generation Gap
Up-and-coming nonprofit leaders want to reshape the job of charity chief executive, in part because they see too many of their bosses working long hours for low pay. What's more, many of them are turned off by the top-down approach taken by their baby-boomer managers.

LSNA to Provide Fun Summer Jobs to Local Teens

Organizations from around the Logan Square community are partnering to provide fun, interesting and safe opportunities for youth this summer. Chicago residents ages 14 – 21 are eligible to apply for paid summer internships at various community sites. How does creating a mural at Ames Middle School sound? Developing a photographic and oral history of the Bloomingdale Trail? Learning digital arts and graphic design? Becoming part of a theater troupe? Youth who successfully complete the program will receive a stipend.

Growing healthier kids: Programs fight childhood obesity
02/05/2008
By: Abbey mcGee

Too much food and too little activity add up to one giant problem for today's children: obesity. Children are leading sedentary lives, spending more time in front of TVs and computers and less time moving. Inactivity, coupled with consumption of convenience foods and increased portion sizes, lead to weight gain.

Childhood obesity is becoming an epidemic. According to a recent study published by the Journal of American Medical Association, the number of overweight children and teens has tripled in the last 40 years. In another 2004 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers determined that over 17 percent of children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 are overweight.

Welcome urged for immigrants
02/05/2008

Local communities must find a way to publicly welcome immigrant workers, a national workers rights leader challenged a Madison group today.

"We have to figure out how to push our communities to welcome immigrants and not push immigrants out," said Kim Bobo, founder and executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a national organization started in Chicago.

Hard work deserves fair wage
02/05/2008

On Jan. 21, the day commemorating the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., I participated in an interfaith service hosted by Christ Church Cathedral. The gathering was dedicated to celebrating King's legacy, honoring the memor y of Congresswoman Julia Carson and advancing the mission of Interfaith Worker Justice, a national organization that advocates on behalf of low-wage workers. The Indianapolis Clergy Committee has been laboring for more than two years to ensure decent wages and affordable health care for the service workers, in particular janitors and hotel workers.

It is deplorable that janitors working at some of the most prestigious corporations in Indianapolis live far below the poverty level and have no access to affordable health care. The average wage for a janitor is less than $10,000 a year.

Huge backlog for citizenship
U.S. adds staff to cut 18-month wait per application
01/18/07

After an unprecedented 3 million new citizenship applications last year, federal immigration officials Thursday said they are scrambling to meet the demand, though critics noted several hundred thousand potential voters would not see their applications processed in time for the November election.

During a congressional hearing in Washington, Emilio Gonzalez, director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said his agency has extended its hours and plans to bring in some 3,000 new and retired employees to help cut into an estimated average wait time per application of 18 months over the next two years.