[act-ma] 11/8 Dinner discussion of Immigrant Rights and the "Other Campaign" (thurs)

[Kendra Johnson]

A dinner discussion of Immigrant Rights and the "Other Campaign":
Community organizing on both sides of the border

Thursday, November 8th
7pm - 8:30pm
56-114
see map at: http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=56&Buildings=go

Dinner will be served.
Please RSVP to: hemisphere-feedback at mit.edu
*Bring your own cup and plate if you can!*

A member of the immigrant rights movement in the United States joins  
a representative of the National Urban-Rural Council from Tlaxcala,  
Mexico to discuss community organizing for rights and autonomy on  
both sides of the border.

Topics for discussion:
-> The struggle for the recognition of immigrant workers’ rights
-> The transnational (both sides of the border) struggle for autonomy.
-> The work in organizing from below and to the left
-> The struggle to exercise self determination as a means to  
citizenship.

Sponsored by:
MIT Western Hemisphere Project: http://web.mit.edu/hemisphere
Mexico Solidarity Network: http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/site/


Background information:
The second stage of the Zapatista's other campaign -- the world  
campaign for the defense of the land of the indigenous peoples -- has  
begun.

The National Indigenous Congress declared in Tuxpan, Jalisco,that  
“the Sixth declaration of the Lacandon Jungle is a mirror where we,  
the peoples, see ourselves reflected; each village of México is  
reflected on that mirror. And for this reason we reconfirm the 6th  
Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle as a just, legitimate and legal  
path, supported by the historic right of the peoples, the nations,  
the tribes and indigenous barrios. The current political system has  
given us its back; it is no longer an option for our peoples.  For  
this reason we will continue to work through our own modes and forms  
of organization”.

In that mirror, the migrant communities in the US also see themselves  
reflected.  The circuit of migrant peoples -as part of the south to  
north exodus- permanently weaves political, social, cultural threads,  
a dynamic that can be described as a transnational network of social  
actors that struggle for work, survival and a life with dignity and  
respect.

In other words, transnational migrants struggle on a daily basis to  
exercise their “citizenship” and their rights as workers wherever  
they work, live and study. Here citizenship is understood not as a  
status, but more adequately, as a shifting set of attitudes,  
relationships and expectations with no necessary territorial  
delimitation. That is to say, migrants exercise their social and  
political rights on both, their country of origin and their country  
of destination because they are members of and participate in two  
different political communities. Under this premise, migrants are  
socially –de facto- citizens of more than one state not only due to  
the social, cultural and economic relationships they build in their  
new country of residence but also because of the relationships they  
maintain with people in their home country.

The National Urban-Rural Council from Tlaxcala “has walked” with the  
Ex-Braceros, women, indigenous peoples, workers and children like a  
transhumance group to organize, resist, live and struggle in an  
autonomous way. Like a circular story, they come from the roots of  
resistance and migration to adhere to the Sixth Declaration of the  
Lacandon Jungle  and  La Otra Campaña, to share about their struggle  
and resistance.
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