<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><B>A dinner</B><B> discussion of </B><B>Immigrant Rights and the "Other Campaign":</B><DIV><I>Community organizing on both sides of the border</I></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Thursday, November 8th</DIV><DIV>7pm - 8:30pm </DIV><DIV>56-114</DIV><DIV>see map at: <A href="http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=56&Buildings=go">http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=56&Buildings=go</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Dinner will be served. </DIV><DIV>Please RSVP to: <A href="mailto:hemisphere-feedback@mit.edu">hemisphere-feedback@mit.edu</A></DIV><DIV>*Bring your own cup and plate if you can!*</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Topics for discussion:</DIV><DIV>-> The struggle for the recognition of immigrant workers’ rights</DIV><DIV>-> The transnational (both sides of the border) struggle for autonomy.</DIV><DIV>-> The work in organizing from below and to the left</DIV><DIV>-> The struggle to exercise self determination as a means to citizenship.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Sponsored by:</DIV><DIV>MIT Western Hemisphere Project: <A href="http://web.mit.edu/hemisphere">http://web.mit.edu/hemisphere</A></DIV><DIV>Mexico Solidarity Network: <A href="http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/site/">http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/site/</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><B>Background information:</B></DIV><DIV>The second stage of the Zapatista's other campaign -- the world campaign for the defense of the land of the indigenous peoples -- has begun.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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”.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>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.</DIV></BODY></HTML>