Uniting Communities takes hold

by Aimee Santos Lyons, Western States Center

In November, I was excited to be in New York City to train and facilitate a dialogue on Western States Center’s Uniting Communities project. Uniting Communities focuses on proactively bringing together the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) community and communities of color because there is a need to work across communities and issues. Together, we can stand stronger.

We brought together 22 organizations based in communities of color and immigrants and refugees communities from across the country. Our goal was to support them to examine LGBTQ equality within their organizations and their work.

Queer people of color have struggled to bring their whole selves to advance racial justice because there has not been much work done in tandem between the LGBTQ community and communities of color. While I am thrilled to be working on this groundbreaking project, I was also anxious about the meeting. Anxious because we are working outside of our geographic scope for the first time. Anxious to talk about LGBTQ equality with mostly straight-identified leaders of color.

"My favorite SAFIRE session was this one."

By Amanda Wake

Judy Wu on The Kapor Center's
new mural

SAFIRE's Fall 2010 session came to a close this Monday. Ratema who has been part of SAFIRE for 2 years said, "My favorite SAFIRE session was this one." She wasn't the only one who felt this way. What made this session so special? This year we had the added bonus of a weekend at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. And we traveled around the Bay Area to do workshops with other youth on climate justice and strong families. But what makes every session what it is are the girls who are in SAFIRE. Every session (3 per year) a different group of girls come through SAFIRE. Some of them are new and some of them are returning but all of them are unique, bringing their own wonderful personalities to the group.

We closed out our session with a trip down the street to the Kapor Foundation's mural (created by local artist Favianna Rodriguez) outside of their new building, The Kapor Center, on 22nd and Broadway in downtown Oakland. There we found a picture of SAFIRE alumni, Judy Wu under the heading "It's time to develop our next leaders."

DREAM Act inspires Oakland's undocumented youth

By Joel Tena
[Reprinted by permission from the wonderful local site, OaklandSeen.]

“John” didn’t come to the US of his own choice. His parents, both undocumented immigrants from El Salvador and the Philippines, hurried from Canada one day to visit an ailing family member in the US. Without papers, it was amazing they arrived. More traumatic was that they were now stuck in the US, with no way to return home.

That was almost twenty years ago. Since then, John has led a productive life, living in Oakland since he was six years old, graduating from Oakland High School, and now attending a Peralta Community College here in the East Bay (because of concerns regarding his immigration status, John has chosen to use a pseudonym).

Yet he is still undocumented, and in this day of rising xenophobia and with the right-wing poised to take control of the House of Representatives, John has every reason to think that his place in this country, the only one that he has known since the age of two, is in jeopardy. Unless you help him, and literally millions of others like him, by joining the movement to get this lame duck session of Congress to pass the DREAM Act by Friday, December 17, 2010.

Five reasons to support ACRJ this holiday season

by Eveline Shen

I want to pass along a message from two leaders in our SAFIRE youth program. Chrystal and Emily share their thoughts on how your support for ACRJ and SAFIRE has had - and will continue to have - an impact on their growth as leaders for their families and in their communities.


Five reasons to support ACRJ and SAFIRE this holiday season:
By Emily and Chrystal

#5: POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT: SAFIRE is a great place to be with people like you, who are here because they choose to be here. We work on a lot of different things for our community. -Emily

#4: SAFE SPACE: SAFIRE is a really safe environment where everything is kept confidential. -Emily

It's good and we need this because sometimes we don't have that support at home or at school. -Chrystal

#3: LEADERSHIP SKILLS: Right now we're doing workshops with other youth in the Bay Area to spread awareness about reproductive justice and climate justice. Since being part of SAFIRE, my public speaking skills are a lot better than before...I used to be really shy! Now I feel really confident doing workshops. -Chrystal

Eddy Zheng: our community rallies to let him stay

By Yvonne Tran

Last Thursday morning, I attended Eddy Zheng’s court hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals – 9th Circuit in downtown San Francisco. When I arrived, the courtroom was filled with hundreds of supporters, family, and friends. I recognized a third of the faces there--it felt like community.

Eddy's story, according to the Asian Law Caucus:

After being convicted as an adult for a crime he committed when he was 16-years old, Eddy served over 20 years behind bars, where he transformed himself into a renowned prisoner rights advocate, youth mentor, and poet and author. Released from prison in 2007, Eddy has dedicated his life to preventing youth violence and delinquency through his work at the Community Youth Center, Community Response Network, and many other SF Bay Area programs and organizations.

Having spent more than half of his life behind bars for a crime he committed at 16, Eddy won his parole only by demonstrating to the parole board and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that he was a model inmate who acknowledged his mistakes, expressed remorse for his crime, and did everything he could to improve himself. The judge who sentenced Eddy, the Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted him, a former director of the California Department of Corrections, and dozens of state legislators, local politicians, and community leaders wrote letters of support for his parole. Eddy Zheng now faces deportation to a country he left as a child.

Taking climate justice home

By Amanda Wake, Youth Organizer

As our friends and allies prepared to head to Cancún this month for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, ACRJ's  youth program SAFIRE worked to bring climate justice directly to youth organizing groups at home.

Working closely with our friend Ellen Choy of Check The Weather, SAFIRE created a workshop for youth on climate justice and our families. Last week, we went live!

You can check Ellen's page now for great live reports from Cancún, and take action now by signing this petition asking Obama to support real progress Cancún.

Meanwhile, here at home, SAFIRE met up with Bay Area youth from AYPAL, Chinese Progressive Association, and PODER. The SAFIRE girls facilitated activities about how climate change impacts all of our families.

We started by giving an introduction to climate change and how pollution warms the planet through the greenhouse effect. We then explained the domino effect climate change has on our families and communities. For example, the rising sea levels caused by melting glaciers will affect low-land communities the worst.

You decide the time

By Dana Ginn Paredes

December 7th was an International Day of Action to support the families of farmers, indigenous peoples, and vulnerable communities who are affected first and worst by the climate crisis. Organizations in over 30 locations throughout the US and Canada demonstrated how community-based solutions are doing a better job at cooling the planet than the ghost-like proceedings at the UN Climate Negotiations in Cancún.

This is really important stuff, but are you finding yourself beginning to glaze over? Wondering if this has anything to do with the international drama over Wikileaks (which it does)? I know--the effects of climate change and what we need to do to keep it from escalating are so monumental and unprecedented, it may feel easier to just focus on holiday shopping or simply move the issue to the back burner in your mind until after the holidays or until you and your family HAVE to deal with it.

But how do you know when that time is?

Reflections from Occidental

by Lovely-Joanne A. Diala

If I were to use one word to describe SAFIRE's first-ever retreat held at Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, that word would be friendship. Our weekend was filled with fun and laughter, tons of picture taking, and was a time for the girls to really bond with each other and - as the girls called us - the adults.

On top of all the fun we had, the weekend was also about strengthening and building confidence in the girls.  Their deeper relationships and confidence helped bring out the leadership that will help them in the climate justice and strong families workshops they'll be facilitating for local youth organizations in the coming weeks.

Building Strong Families will take all of us!!!

a message from our Executive Director, Eveline Shen...

As the end of the year approaches and the holiday season is upon us, like most people I think about family. I feel grateful for my family and I think about families who are faring poorly during these harsh economic times. I wonder how we as a movement can make real change for families all across the country to bring about the support and resources they need to thrive.

At ACRJ, families are what matter to us most – they are at the core of reproductive justice. And as our friend and ally, your involvement and dedication to our work is what allows us to build power in our communities locally and build a strong Reproductive Justice Movement nationally to strengthen families of all kinds. We are grateful to have you as part of our community, and ask for your support so that together we can keep up this important work and build upon our achievements with our bold and exciting new plans for the coming year.

In the past few years, through EMERJ, ACRJ’s movement building initiative, we have worked with over 200 grassroots groups across the country to develop leadership, build capacity, and change policies on the local, state and national levels that have resulted in advancing reproductive justice for our communities.

Building on this foundation, EMERJ is taking movement building to the next level by launching a long-term national policy initiative, Strong Families.