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Statement from the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) regarding the abolishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program

Statement from the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) regarding the abolishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program

 September 13, 2017

 

The Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social expresses its deep opposition to the announcement ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program. DACA recipients are known as “Dreamers.” On September 5, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the end of DACA, because DACA is an executive action and not a law, the Trump Administration has broad authority to end or change the program.

More than 1.2 million unauthorized young people including Dreamers have been approved for DACA[1], which has allowed young people to legally live, work and study in the United States. Canceling DACA would have an enormous impact on the lives of these dreamers and their families. Historically, many DACA families contributed meaningfully to the economic prosperity of the United States of America. The mothers, fathers, cousins, uncles, aunts, sisters, and brothers have worked in back-breaking labor industries. In spite of the illnesses, injuries, and fatalities that these families have experienced, their children, the “Dreamers” have had access to a fair education, until now. To date, the “Dreamers” are now entering a range of professions in the United States such as educators, medicine, counseling, researchers, engineering, law, retail/sales, media and marketing, and a variety of other fields. The “Dreamers” and their families continue to contribute to the United States economy.

We reject and repudiate the end of DACA. MALCS has no tolerance for white supremacy and nationalist propaganda that promulgates hatred, gender oppression, bigotry, violence, and racism against ethnic/racial minorities. We draw upon our cultural tradition and heritage to face head on the political struggles we face with people of color and DACA. We see ourselves developing strategies for social and political change–a change emanating from our communities. We declare the commitment to support and seek social, economic, and political change throughout our work and collective action.

Education is a universal human right that extends to all immigrants. As mentioned in the article cited below “Dreamers aren’t just coming from Latin America”…the Dreamers come from South Korea, Philippines, Poland, Jamaica, Pakistan, Indian, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Guyana, and other countries. MALCS hereby declares unyielding support for all the Dreamers locally, regionally, statewide, and nationwide. We write to encourage the protection of undocumented immigrant students at all universities. Many of the members of MALCS have worked hard to establish a safe educational space for the students by engaging in culturally responsive teaching and supporting their academic success.

While this letter expresses support for DACA students, the MALCS membership would also like to join the national petition of collective universities that outlines specific actions for university administrations to enact on behalf of DACA students.  These actions, which we encourage our respective university administrations to undertake, are as follows:

  1. Ensure that DACA student privacy remains guaranteed, according to FERPA laws.
  2. Assign an administrative office such as the Chief Diversity Officer or VP for Diversity, the responsibility for counseling DACA students on their educational situation.
  3. Advertise that DACA student counseling services are available on a strictly confidential basis.
  4. Continue in-state resident tuition for DACA students who have qualified previously, including the recipients of scholarships.
  5. In the event of arrest, imprisonment, and deportation, or in the event a DACA student is reluctant to appear on the campus, universities should make arrangements for online distance education or continuation and completion of their degree programs for all current DACA students.
  6. Maintain the DREAM loan program for financial aid.
  7. Offer legal services to our undocumented students.
  8. Support campus-based student service centers.
  9. Direct campus police not to contact, detain, question or arrest individuals based on suspected undocumented status, or to enter agreements to undertake joint efforts to make arrests for federal immigration law violations.

MALCS strongly recommends that these aforementioned actions be instituted as soon as possible at our individual educational institutions, so that DACA students can be assured of institutional support towards continuing in school and the administration’s commitment to DACA student retention and timely completion of their degree programs.

 

Sinceramente,

MALCS Membership and Dr. Cecilia Aragón

Chair, Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS)

 

 

Resources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/07/dreamers-arent-just-coming-from-latin-america/?utm_term=.938ab91f58b9

https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-sues-trump-administration-unlawful-repeal-daca-program

“How to Protect Yourself and Your Family as DACA Ends”: https://com-cam.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/DACA-English.pdf

 

[1] Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Postdoc in Xican@ Art (Deadline April 7, 2017)

The Department of Chicano and Latino Studies of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, invites applications from any field whose research is invested in Chicana/o art history, broadly defined, for one position as postdoctoral associate (9546) to participate in the new initiate on Xican@ Art since 1848, directed by Professors Karen Mary Davalos, University of Minnesota, Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, and Constance Cortez, University of Texas Tech, Department of Art History. For more information see:

https://main.hercjobs.org/jobs/8855399/post-doctoral-associate

2017 MALCS Summer Institute

Sonoma State University

Hidden Sonoma: Laboring Bodies and Silenced Voices

This year’s Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) Summer Institute will take place July 19 – July 22 at Sonoma State University, located in Sonoma County, an area internationally known for its rolling green hills and exquisite wine. The Sonoma region markets itself as a bucolic paradise, a place where one can temporarily escape the issues that, now more than ever, divide our country. There is, however, a hidden side of Sonoma. The ancestral home to the coastal Miwok, Pomo and Wintun peoples, Sonoma Valley is marked by a history of violence, persecution, and subjugation driven by a desire to control its fertile land. Those who own the land and those whose laboring bodies bear the burden of the industries that drive the local economy have shaped ­its history and social and political institutions. However, the value of the contributions that Chicanas, Indigenous, and Latinxs make to Sonoma systematically has been erased. The hidden side of Sonoma mirrors the situation of our gente in the rest of the country. Our bodies are exploited and trespassed and our bodily autonomy is subject to legislation. Our images are used strategically in a performance of diversity, but we are ignored when we decry this tokenization. Often, our attempts to challenge and expose our condition simultaneously are discounted and demonized. Yet, despite all the barriers that have been constructed to keep us in place, we have and will continue to resist, subvert, challenge, and transform.

The 2017 MALCS Summer Institute will showcase work and scholarship focused on gender non-conforming, transgender, queer, Chicana, Latina, Afro-Latina, Asian-Latina, Native American and Indigenous individuals and communities challenging and resisting structures of oppression in local, national, and international contexts. We welcome panels, roundtables, performances, workshops, and individual paper proposals that address this year’s theme and/or any of these topics:

  • Intersectional feminismos
  • Indigenous epistemologies
  • Current political climate and action[s]
  • Feminista praxis and epistemologies
  • Land, spaces, and the body
  • Re/Claiming truths
  • Self-care and healing
  • De/Coloniality
  • Voice and resistencia
  • Spiritual activisms

Individual paper and panel, workshop, roundtable, performance or art exhibit proposals must be submitted no later than April 14, 2017 (previous deadline was March 31, 2017). Proposers will be notified of acceptance by May 14, 2017. Questions about the submission process may be sent to gro.sclamobfsctd-56a13d@etutitsni/archive-2017.

All proposals must include the following:

  • 250-word proposal narrative that clearly addresses this year’s theme
  • 75-100-word abstract suitable for publication in the conference program book

Submissions for panels (3-4 people) must include proposals and abstracts for each paper and the name, address, phone number(s), e-mail address, and institutional affiliation of each participant.

Audio/visual needs.

Contact person’s name, address, phone number(s), e-mail address, and institutional/community affiliation.

Individual paper proposals may be submitted here. Panel, workshop and roundtable proposals should be submitted using this form.

Please note that you will have to login with your MALCS member email and password to access the submission pages. If you don’t remember your password, you can have it reset. If you are not currently a member, you can sign up for our sliding scale membership. If you are unable to afford membership at this time, please contact our Membership Coordinator.

2017 Summer Institute Dates Announced!

The 2017 MALCS Summer Institute, hosted by Sonoma State University, will be held July 19th – 22nd. The Call for Papers is expected to be released by mid-February. Check back here and the Institute site for more information.

Unas Palabras from the MALCS Leadership to the Membership

MALCSistas:

2016 has been tough for the spirit, mind, and body. All that we are witnessing, happening in Aleppo, Corpus Christi, Oakland, Standing Rock—the police brutality, misogyny, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and bigotry are acts and events trying to force a split, fracturing us, hurting us but also reminding us that we are courageous and resilient gente.

Corazón Greñudo. CC Image courtesy of Atzimba on Flickr

Post the election we are witnessing a shift, uncertainty, and hopelessness. We are hurting in our own lives and hurting at the national and global levels. While all of this has been happening, we have turned to each other and relied on the networks of solidarity that we work so hard to protect and maintain wherever we are. Our personal, communal, and political struggles remind us that we come from strong antepasados, from wise elders y comunidades. Love, connectedness, and commitment does and should continue guiding our work these coming years. We will continue to move forward together with the strength and courage our gente has displayed for many years and across many generations.

Immediate consejos from us include that we continue leaning on each other for support and guidance—that we participate in and support local and national grassroots movements. If we can, contribute monetarily to organizations that protect our constitutional rights—one is the American Civil Liberties Union  but we are sure there are others. We must inform, educate ourselves and offer consejos to our students, to each other. We must seek such consejos from luchadoras who have endured struggles before us, from our elders.

We are feeling and witnessing the source of our intergenerational trauma re-enacted in and on our bodies these days. Remember, our bodies also hold thousands of years of strength, amor, and resistance handed down from our ancestors. We are in this together and our ancestors are with us, always.

En solidaridad y con cariño, cuiden su alma, mente y corazón.

Sinceramente,

MALCS Leadership
https://malcs.org/archive-2017/leadership/

Un mensaje

Dear MALCSistas,

¿Cómo esta tu corazón?

A dear friend of mine always asks this question, “how is your heart?” I find it pertinent to ask this given the turbulent times we are enduring.

nodaplWith much turmoil, uncertainty, pain, and many struggles our communities are fighting and facing; mi corazón esta triste but also hopeful. We stand in solidarity with our familia in Standing Rock! We are with you—we will continue to persevere for Cambio Social/Social Change. Let’s all please take action! Go to our Facebook page to read and share informational links about this important matter and other injustices our gente is experiencing.  I write this brief note to remind ourselves that we have each other. En la lucha, siempre. We are Mujeres Activas!

I also write to inform you that due to unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances, Eastern Washington University will not be hosting the Summer Institute in 2017! Please know that as soon as I was informed about this news—my first reaction was to reach out to several MALCSistas, from east to west.  I am still in communication with an institution and will hopefully have an answer before heading to the National Women’s Studies Association conference. I/we will keep you updated.

Please take care MALCSistas. Cuida tu corazón.

Judith Flores Carmona

MALCS Chair

 

 

 

Member Accomplishments – October 2016

aragon2016wyo

L to R: Ann Redman, Sarah Ortegon, CC Aragón

MALCS Chair-Elect Cecilia “CC”Aragón was appointed as the Executive Director of the Wyoming Latina Youth Conference, a non-profit focused on empowering at risk young Latinas through mentorship and awareness. They hold a 2 day conference annually in Cheyenne, Wyoming for 5th-12th grade girls of Hispanic descent. Congratulations to CC on this opportunity to have an impact on the lives of young Latinas.

 


ssq_nasdme2016Congratulations to MALCSista Seline Szkupinski Quiroga who is taking on a new role as Director of the ASU CAMP Scholars Project. The U.S. Department of Education awarded a $2.1M grant to Arizona State University to support a university recruitment and retention program for the children of migrant farmworkers (PI: Dr. Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez, co-PI: Dr. Szkupinski Quiroga). The ASU CAMP Scholars Project will provide academic, social and financial support services to first-year migrant students and their families. Through research seminars, symposia and conference travel grants, the Project also strives to produce a cohort of students with a strong academic identity who see themselves as knowledge producers and community change makers.


jeanaguilarvaldez2016

Portland State University recently profiled MALCS Recording Secretary Jean Aguilar-Valdez about her work on decolonizing science education. In the profile, Jean speaks about the challenges of being a scholar-activist and working towards social justice in science education. Kudos to Jean for bringing attention to these issues to a larger community. Read the full article here: https://www.pdx.edu/profile/solidarity

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Recent Posts

  • Statement from the Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) regarding the abolishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program
  • Postdoc in Xican@ Art (Deadline April 7, 2017)
  • 2017 MALCS Summer Institute
  • 2017 Summer Institute Dates Announced!
  • Unas Palabras from the MALCS Leadership to the Membership

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