Taking Action on Immigration and Food Justice

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ARC Toolbox, a monthly email that provides
activists, students, scholars and philanthropists tools to make change.

Applying Our Research 

ARC Research Department’s “Food Justice” project is underway, analyzing more than 150 completed surveys of advocates who work in the “good food” or “good jobs” movements. Our project seeks to identify opportunities for collaboration between the two movements that too often work in isolation of each other.

Earlier this month, Senior Research Associate Yvonne Yen Liu presented ARC’s "The Color of Food" report at the Labor Across the Food System Conference at University of California, Santa Cruz. Yvonne's presentation specifically focused on wages and working conditions in the shipping and retail sectors of the food system, where jobs cannot be outsourced. ARC will be conducting interviews with “good food” and “good jobs” leaders familiar with the challenges and potential for cross-sector collaboration. Toolbox readers with suggestions for labor leaders whom ARC should be contacting on this project, should contact Yvonne at [email protected].

Yvonne has also been involved with the Occupy Oakland Research Working Group, an independent research committee of volunteers dedicated to the self-determination of local communities. The group has conducted a survey of how Occupy Oakland served the people, and will release a report on April 15 about the city’s slashing of the safety net, and the extent to which Occupy Oakland has filled the gap in social service provisions.



Network News

Last week, supporters of ARC's Drop the I-Word campaign took action via Twitter, when Will Shortz, The New York Times crossword puzzle editor, used the i-word in his puzzle. Shortz apologized and has said he will not use the i-word again. We are glad that the actions of readers had a positive impact, but we will point out that the i-word is not just offensive. We are operating on the notion that once people have the information about how the i-word is dehumanizing, racially charged and completely incoherent from a legal point of view, that they will drop it. Not just the noun, but in any form. The New York Times still has a ways to go on addressing this issue, but we hope that recent stylebook changes and the continued questioning of the term within journalist circles will lead more writers to leave the term behind because they understand it's racist, harmful and wrong. Until then, we will continue calling people on it. If you have not yet signed the pledge to Drop the I-Word, you can do so now, or share the link at droptheiword.com.


Colorlines.com Spotlight

Colorlines.com’s education reporter Julianne Hing visited Adelento, CA to meet the latest group of parents to insert themselves in the middle of education reform debates. Their message was simple: We just want our school to work.

Cynthia Ramirez never imagined herself becoming an education activist, until she enrolled her children in Desert Trails Elementary School in tiny Adelento, Calif. Now, she talks while sitting on the floor of a bedroom-turned-strategy room; canvassing maps and meeting notes hang like wallpaper above her. “People used to tell me I was so shy,” Ramirez says. “Now they can’t shut me up.”

Ramirez is among a group of predominantly black and Latino parents who organized to use California’s so-called “parent trigger” law to force radical changes at their school. In the process, they’ve catapulted to the front line of a national reform war that increasingly pits parents against teachers, and one another.

The parent trigger is a relatively new concept, but it’s caught on fast. Since 2010, when California became the first state in the nation to pass a parent trigger law, three others have followed, and 22 have begun debating it.

Parent triggers are a favored policy of school reformers who support drastic, externally-driven overhauls of failing schools. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, whose school reform group called the parent trigger “radical community empowerment,” both helped fuel its staggeringly quick expansion. But critics argue the laws’ proponents are using parents as props for an agenda that scapegoats teachers and privatizes public education.

Read Julianne Hing's report at Colorlines.com.

President's Message

Our voices are making a difference! Thanks to more than 20,000 people who signed a petition, driven by the Applied Research Center and Presente.org, one father has a chance to be reunified with his children.

Last week we alerted our networks to the heartbreaking story of Felipe Montes, who was deported after driving without a license, and whose three US Citizen children are in foster care, in separate homes, and in danger of permanent separation from their father who loves them.

Thanks to the widespread publicity the case has received and the overwhelming response from the community, the Allegheny County Department of Social Services and the judge presiding over the case have decided to postpone the hearing. This not only signals a chance for Felipe's children to be reunified with their father, but shows that the North Carolina child welfare department has taken seriously our call for change, and that our campaign has already had an impact that could affect thousands of families around the country.

Felipe’s family is not yet in the clear and we must not let our guard down. We continue to call on the Allegheny County child welfare department to reunify Felipe and his children.  We also call on the North Carolina Division of Social Services to implement policies to ensure that other families are not threatened with permanent separation because of a parent’s national origin, detention or deportation.

But today we celebrate this incredible moment, and express thanks to all who made it happen. Thank you to Esther Portillo-Gonzales, ARC Research Fellow, who has been in touch with the family and who first brought the idea to Presente.com. Thanks to Presente.com for taking up the cause and inspiring folks to take action. And big thanks to 20,000 members of the ARC and Presente.com communities for signing the petition, sharing it in your networks, and helping to make change. We couldn't have done this without you.

We continue on with our goal to achieve justice for thousands of families around the country. Please stay tuned for future developments, and continue to spread the word about "Shattered Families" by sharing the report, videos, Colorlines.com articles, and resources available in English and Spanish: arc.org/shatteredfamilies.


 

Rinku Sen
President, ARC
Publisher, Colorlines.com



ARC Updates

  • Register today for 2012 Facing Race National Conference, November 15-17 in Baltimore, Maryland. Facing Race is the largest national, multi-racial gathering of leaders, educators, journalists, artists, and activists on racial justice -- and this year, Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Díaz will be the keynote speaker. Early Bird discount currently applies, so register today!
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