economic justice

Posts Tagged ‘economic justice’

Expanding Pathways to Citizenship Vigil

At Senator Schumer’s Office, 130 South Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo 14202. Join the New York Immigration Coalition, Justice for Migrant Families, ACCESS of WNY and allies – including the Immigrant & Refugee Justice (IRJ) Taskforce the WNY Peace Center – for a vigil demanding that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer keep his promises to our communities and deliver on a pathway to citizenship!

For decades, immigrants have relentlessly organized and fought for permanent protections from forced separation from their loved ones and displacement from a country where they live. This vigil, one of many across upstate New York, will hold space for the pain and suffering that our communities face every day without a road to citizenship. Immigrants have been on the front lines of getting our country through the pandemic and we can not #BuildBackBetter without inclusion of citizenship in reconciliation.

Immigrants, advocates and allies have rallied across the country for the past few months to demand that citizenship for essential workers is included in the infrastructure package. The Senate Parliamentarian, an unelected bureaucrat, advised against the inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants.

Now it’s up to us to ensure that Majority Leader Schumer and Democrats in power keep their promise to us. We will not stop fighting until we create history and opportunity for our immigrant essential workers, Dreamers and TPS holders.

To stay updated, click here for the Facebook event!

Resistance Rooted in Love

Resistance in the wake of Love: A conversation with Oscar Lopez Rivera. Please reserve your space now!
Learn what people and organizations are doing about Puerto Rico’s recovery, what Oscar Lopéz is doing, and how you can help! Watch this amazing promotional video El Batey put together!

About this event

Topics discussed:

  • Recent examples of resistance
  • The Puerto Rican Diaspora
  • The Prison Experience in the US
  • Community Organizing in Puerto Rico
  • The Struggle to Audit the Colonial Debt
  • Decolonizing Puerto Rico

Born in 1943 in San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, Oscar López Rivera emigrated to Chicago with his family at the age of 14. Growing up in Humboldt Park, he soon learned that “being Puerto Rican would determine where I went to school, what church I was allowed to attend,” and a host of other injustices. An intelligent student, Oscar grew up as a mischievous, fun-loving young man who loved dancing and music; he was also a hard working young man who aspired to own his own business. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965, like tens of thousands of young Latinos, African- Americans and other minorities, obeyed under the threat of imprisonment for draft dodging.

Returning to his family and community after his tour in Vietnam, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star, he was profoundly impacted by how he saw the Vietnamese treated, and the similarities with the treatment of minorities in the U.S. He determined to change these conditions, and along with other young Puerto Ricans, organized and fought for improvements in housing, healthcare, education and different needs. Convinced of the need to change the unequal relationship between the conditions of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico to the U.S. government, he became a leader in the struggle to free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalists, who were serving lengthy terms for their pro-independence efforts.

His strong belief that Puerto Rico should be free from U.S. colonial control led him to clandestinity. He was arrested in 1981, and convicted of seditious conspiracy and related charges, along with ten others who were arrested the previous year. Sentenced to 55 years in prison, he became the longest held Puerto Rican political prisoner in the history of Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence, regarded as the “Nelson Mandela of the Americas.” In 2017, as the result of a broad human rights campaign, and after he served almost 36 years in prison, President Obama commuted his sentence, only days before leaving office. The Puerto Rican people and their allies celebrated the May 17, 2017, end of his sentence.

Since then, he has continued to energetically advocate an end to U.S. colonialism, and has resumed his role as an organizer, working to establish a holistic community center in Río Piedras, from which he will train organizers as well as deepening his relationship to the municipalities of Loiza and Comerio, working on educational and community-based projects.

The tour will highlight the US and Puerto Rico campaign for an independent audit of Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt.

MAP: Raising the Roots for Food Equity

Join Massachusetts Avenue Project’s annual fall fundraising event, Raising the Roots for Food Equity! Raising the Roots for Food Equity is a fun Farm-to-Fork event featuring local, seasonal food and drinks to support MAP’s mission.

Your participation in this fun food and education-based event will support MAP’s mission to increase access to fresh, local, affordable, and nutritious produce for folks in the city who are experiencing the impacts of food apartheid and food insecurity.

Guests will have the opportunity to explore MAP’s 1.5 acre Urban Farm and Farmhouse & Community Food Training Center while indulging in fresh, seasonal food and drinks prepared by some of Buffalo’s most talented chefs and beverage purveyors. Guests will learn about our Urban Farm and Growing Green Youth Education and Advocacy program, all while participating in hands-on activities and demonstrations that celebrate and showcase what we do at MAP.

You’ll be tasting harvest-inspired farm-to-table food & drink from:

This event is proudly presented by Wegmans & Larkin Square, with support from Amy’s Place Restaurant, Block Club, Good Neighbors Credit Union, & Accounting Outsource Solutions.

*This event features alcohol tasting, and is for adults age 21 and over only. Thank you for your understanding.