This song meant a lot back then, Get By by Talib Kweli, but man… it was not easy to be critical in such a reactionary world. Obama brought it back around, but it is up to us to keep it here.

I don’t know if it was a mix of his wife telling him to do it, me the college geek telling him he could, or the beers in him that often time make him dig his heels in the ground. But… once he writes, it will be some fearsome stuff to contend with. What would you all recommend? [To be continued]

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We’re back with more satirical stories and laugh-inducing graphics. To download this issue, just click the cover art above or click

We’re back with more satirical stories and laugh-inducing graphics. To download this issue, just click the cover art above or click here for the pdf file.

In this issue:

- Aztlan’s Next Top Chola
- Why Pochos Love the Raiders
- Activist Caught at Wal*Mart While Drinking Coke
- Search for Carmen San Diego Ends in Guantanamo
- Special Valentine’s Day Cards by Rio Yañez
- Great Moments in Chican@ History: The MEChA Meeting that Started on Time
- 10 Tips to Help Barack Obama get the Elusive Latino Vote
- Indigenous Group Sues Disney for Copyright Infringement
- Writers Strike Ends, Comedian Relieved
- Puro Pedro: 20 questions with Efren Ramirez
- Lonely Hearts advertisement
- Mariachi Road Crew by Jerry Gonzalez

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It also upholds the arcane idea that the United States has only having two races: Blacks and Whites, and only blacks suffer from racism. The United States in not only Black and White, and Obama found that out when he began to campaign in the Southwest for Super Tuesday… it was full of Mexicans and he had no strategy aside from bilingual advertisements. Hillary Clinton had taken a chance that a lot of Latinos would vote this time around and she built a campaign of photo shoots, key endorsement by Latino community leaders, organizations, and elected officials. She locked these crucial endorsements months, if not a year before Obama realized that Latinos were key to Super Tuesday.

I think that for people to simplify the Latino vote on Super Tuesday as a vote against Blacks, overlooks Latino political intelligences, and also creates a fiction that all Latinos care about is screwing Blacks over. Neither community are that preoccupied with the other, not because they are indifferent to each other, but because the other 364 days of the year they are not think about being “Latino” or being “Black”, they are thinking about trying to survive. Latinos and Blacks have much more on their minds when it comes to politics than blocking one persons chance at presidents because of their race. It was only 8 months ago that most Blacks weren’t convinced that Obama had their interests in mind, yet racism was never brought up then in regards to his mixed heritage.

It is amazing how the white pundits have overlooked that most Whites are voting for racist, reactionary, rich, white men in the Republican party that are down right hostile to the interests of people of color. Why aren’t the political pundits talking about the anti: people of color, LGBT, women, working class, environment, peace, democracy, social and economic justice vote most White Americans choose on Super Tuesday with McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Tancredo and Paul?

The biggest problems with these critiques is that they erase the great history and successfully political coalitions between Blacks and Latinos that elected Mayor Harold Washington in Chicago and kept Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles in office during the 1980’s. It also overlooks that fact that most of the residents of south Los Angeles are now Latino, and Black politicians like Mark Ridley Thomas, Karen Bass, Maxine Waters (who endorsed Clinton) absolutely need the Latino vote, and who continue to get reelected by their Latino constituency. While Latinos could make the same accusations of racism against African Americans in regards to Antonio Villaraigosa’s first bid for Mayor of Los Angeles in 2000, it must be said Blacks were the key to his success in his successfully run in 2005. Was it the “racist” vote of blacks that kept him out of office in 2000? No. Villaraigosa did not have a long track record in the community, and his white opponent in 2000, Kenneth Hahn, had a last name that African-Americans trusted due to his father’s legacy. Kenny Hahn while on the City Council in the 1960’s was a supporter of civil rights throughout the 1960s, and became greatly respected in the African-American community of Los Angeles.

Back to Clinton and Obama. Hillary Clinton has something Obama does not have. What she has was the crucial element in her big win among Latino voters across the southwest and in every major city with Latino voters on Super Tuesday. She has the same thing Kenneth Hahn had over Villaraigosa in 2000. She has the name. CLINTON means many things to Latino voters, especially those that were in the US during the 1990’s. Let’s face it, after 8 years of Bush and the Republicans brining this democracy to the brink, people are depressed. The name Clinton is familiar and it reminds people of a much happier and prosperous time in the United States. The vote for Clinton on Tuesday was a vote for “Let’s just go back to normal already!” Obama ran a campaign that said unity, but ran Black and White. He was trying to not be like Jesse Jackson of the 1980’s and lost because of it. He may want to look at the Rainbow Coalition that Jesse ran during his presidential bid because it may have been what did him in.

When I told my mom that I would choose Obama over Clinton she went mad. Did she go on a racist tirade? No. She wanted everything to go back to normal, and was very clear that I realize that Hillary was a vote for the good old days of the 1990’s. For my mom and my family a vote for Hillary is a two for one vote, they get her (who they liked because of her Health are movement in the early 1990’s) and Bill, who they love. When Bill Clinton was in office they remember everyone had jobs, people could afford houses, there was no war without end, there was low gas prices, and corporations weren’t stealing the US treasury (in the open). They were happy.

Latinos do not come to the US empty vessels ready to learn everything anew. Latinos come from countries that have elections and political parties just like the US, surprise, surprise! But criticism so narrow that think Latino solely vote “anti votes” so derogatorily put out by Americans of all colors would have you overlook that. In Latin America we actually have leaders who start revolutions for the people, and not for the rich who don’t want to pay taxes. In Latin America, when people speak like Obama after many years of reactionary politics, a message of change to the Left means more turmoil and conflict, not stability. If people looked at Latinos as an ethnic/racial group with a history that is older than European colonization, and not a group of “non-blacks, but might as well be whites,” they would see that there are similarities among Latino voters whether they be from Mexico, Central American or the Caribbean.

Relations between Blacks and Latinos may not be perfect. But they can only go up. I can think of no greater threat to the hegemony of White Supremacy than the day that Latinos and Blacks realize that their struggle is the same, and that they don’t need to love each other, or assimilate into each other to have a successful political movement that serves both their interests.

]]> http://www.ollinkoatl.net/?feed=rss2&p=35 http://www.ollinkoatl.net/?p=19 http://www.ollinkoatl.net/?p=19#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2007 07:06:45 +0000 Ollinkoatl Indigenous Studies El movimiento http://www.ollinkoatl.net/?p=19

“In Leah Castella’s legal note, “The United States Border: A Barrier to Cultural Survival,” she shares a story about Deskaheh, a tribal elder of the Cayuga Iroquois Nation and early advocate for the recognition of Indigenous and treaty rights. This tragic tales ends when Deskaheh was denied repass into his native Canada upon return from the League of Nations in Switzerland in 1924. He spent the rest of his life in the U.S. Deskaheh’s final words were to “fight for the line,” a reference to the border. The last words of Deskaheh are just as relevant now as they were in the 1920’s. Native Nations must be incorporated into the debate and resolution process of border issues that adversely affect their nations and their members with the nation-states. After one hundred and fifty years of neglect and abrogation of treaty rights, along with attempts to diminish their sovereignty, it is time to ‘Make it Right.’”This was the last paragraph in my monster-size thesis that I completed over a year ago on “Good Friday.” The very, very, long saga I undertook to finally complete my Masters should have a thesis dedicated to it unto itself!

Almost a year to the date I had the great surprise last Monday (4/7), to meet up with an old friend to discuss and catch up with the situation on the border along the Tohono O’odham Nation. I met David Garcia over five years ago when he was the legislative councilmen for the Chukut Kuk District, he was instrumental, if not crucial, in my development towards grasping enough of an understanding of the “line” and of raising my awareness of all the other issues that impact the T.O.N. that stem from the border. When he told me a few months back that he read all of my thesis and was impressed by my work, I felt like I had done some justice in my research to the situation on the border and to the pass and repass issue.

David was on campus with Mike Wilson, a fellow O’odham member and migrants rights advocate. They were on campus screening a film “Crossing Arizona” and speaking on a panel about their current humanitarian struggle of putting water out in various water stations on the Tohono O’odham Nation for migrants crossing the border north into the vast desert corridor.
During lunch I asked David what are the new issues in the Nation that relate to the border since the last time I visited in 2003. He told me that everything was completely different, from the attitudes of the nations’ members, to the border enforcement strategies being undertaken as a result of the new push to “secure” the border, he said, you would not recognize what has happened as a result of build up along the southern border. Mike Wilson added that “pass and repass” was stalled due to September 11th.

A conversation than arose about my thesis, and David asked if I had been sharing it. I said I give to who ever would read it… a 150-page thesis on Native American pass and repass along the U.S.-Mexico border is important, but most people I know don’t want to read about those types of “borderlands”… Chican@s!!! I offered to share it with Mike Wilson, and I was stoked when he said he would like to read it.

I have to admit after I watched “Crossing Arizona” and heard Mike Wilson’s testimonials about the resistance he has encountered at home and abroad for merely wanting to give water to migrants crossing north on his ancestral homeland—so that they will not die. I was glad I met such a good hearted person.

I also felt a re-newed sense of urgency to share my thesis because the research I did is valuable for anyone trying to get a grasp on the impact of the border on Native Nations, and not just in the case of the Tohono O’odham Nation, but of all border-crossed nations.