Bay Area Protesters Defend the Rights of Immigrants

"It’s no coincidence that Arizona has this outrageous law, because all the proposals from Washington on immigration reform encourage the same criminalization, racial profiling and discrimination. Immigrant communities are demanding an end to these policies and laws, including ‘Secure Communities’ and ‘E-Verify.’ We deserve a new direction from Washington, with real change, including legalization and workers’ rights.” — Renee Saucedo, La Raza Centro Legal

‘This Law Is Very Unjust!’

Teresa Mina was a San Francisco janitor, member of Service Employees Union Local 87, when she was fired because the company said she didn’t have legal immigration documents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told her employer to fire 463 workers because they lacked legal immigration status. She told her story to David Bacon the day before she returned to Mexico.

The Message of Arnieville Lives On

The homeless people “really stood in solidarity with the disabled in this class action and took care of them — helped them get in their beds, helped them turn over at night, carried them in and out of their tents, stayed up all night with security.” — Dan McMullin

No Place at the Table

Across the nation, cities restrict charitable meal programs for the hungry and homeless. “As the recession and foreclosure crises drive dramatic increases in poverty and homelessness, communities should be embracing solutions to homelessness, rather than punishing people for feeding those in need.” — Maria Foscarinis

Poetry, August 2010

Resurrection/ by Claire J. Baker/ May you/ arrive at/ resurrection/ not by dying/ but by LIVING./ May the end/ begin a/ beginning.

PETRA Spells the Death of Public Housing

The privatization scheme threatens to displace hundreds of thousands of low-income families, elderly and the disabled from their public housing units, and future funding shortfalls in the Section 8 program would place the housing units at risk of bank foreclosure.