Immigration Assaults on Trans folks

I couldnt believe this when I read it and I wonder how many more stories out there. As I was translating for an Immigration panel yesterday for KQED, I was floored with the question of how we need a White history month. The speaker quoted James Baldwin, in asking that America the youngest country has the shortest memory span. Here in the Us, we seem to forget everything, where we came from. This would hopefully open up our connections to each other.Maybe, just maybe, this forgetting, this soul loss is what permits us to make these acts of violence like below.

thanks for the heads up, Oaxaca Vive..

Violence against Immigrant Transsexuals


LOS ANGELES - Suffering years of violence and harassment as a transsexual in Mexico, Mayra Soto sought asylum in a more tolerant U.S.

But the trauma continued here.

She was detained in an immigrant detention center in Los Angeles and forced by a guard to perform oral sex on him with the threat of violence, she said.

Soto's story, relayed tearfully to a bipartisan federal panel Wednesday, was one of many testified under oath of guards taking advantage of immigrant detainees.

The guard in Soto's case eventually pleaded guilty to sexual assault and served a six month sentence. But Soto told The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission - whose eight members include presidential and congressional appointees - that her punishment was much worse: Guards moved her to a cell with accused murderers and rapists, she claimed.

"I took this as another form of retaliation," said Soto, 33, sobbing. "I still don't know how they could justify placing someone as feminine as me in the same unit as murders and rapists."

The two-day hearing in a federal courtroom is the sixth held by the commission nationwide, but the first to focus on sexual abuse of immigrants held in federal detention facilities.

The panel, led by a federal judge and made up of business leaders, academics and human rights workers, was formed by Congress in 2003 to find ways of deterring prison rape - a crime that has claimed an estimated 1 million victims in 20 years, according to the commission.

Unaware of their rights, unable to speak English and afraid that speaking out could hurt their chance at freedom, immigrant detainees are one of the populations most vulnerable to abuse by guards, immigrant advocates testified Wednesday.


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12-13-06 - SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS - CA - By ANDREW GLAZER - Associated Press

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for research and educational purposes. I have no affiliation whatsoever with the originators of my news postings nor am I endorsed or sponsored by the originators.

between dances, book review

MAsGUEY Book Review

Alright so after my superhero fix on you tube, I found time to read "between dances" by Erasmo Guerra. This book was hard to get into in the beginning but past like a good movie the pace picks up and takes you for a ride worth glimplesing.

the plot: A gay texan finds himself stripping in New York and dealing with men, love and life.

what i thought:
All around the way memory is done is fantastic with the spaces. I struggle with transitions and it was great to have the memory jumps in this book, as a flash forward to the good parts. The end left me wanting so so so much more and weaved in what was trying to be said throughout the book. as a coming of age story, i was rooting for romance, but found this a great read. Plus the sexy scenes were great. i would have wanted more metaphors, and less detail but those delivered kept my appetite wanting more.

go out, get it, read it, y comment.

chale
MAsGUEY book review.

Water

MAsGUEY Movie Review
Water

I watched this film like two weeks ago, and i cant get it out of my system. Watch the behind the scenes FOOTAGE before watching the film to know that politics for conformity will keep marginal voices MARGINAL at any cost. Who else besides me was like, the director is a LESBIAN. Please can we say she is Kware?

The Greens and Blues touched my eyes, but the story went much further. In a land where being who you are comes at a price. Damn.
Do yourself the favor watch water, then WATCH FIRE. its damn good. ya.

Radio Interview....

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=16801

Saving face

The MAsGUEY film review has this to say about

SAVING FACE.

Thank the higher powers and all her mights for this ethnic/sexual splash of coming out and focusing on LESBIANS. Can I have a standing ovation for this film. I love my ethnic boys dont know what to do with me being gay, but we could all tell since birth dramas, but this boldly puts the butch/femme dichotomy in center stage with a Chinese-American backdrop.

This film is not for the jaded, but for those who can appreciate clever writing fused with heartfelt painful experiences summed up in jeweled one liners flowing from these amazing actors. I recommended this to fam, and curious to hear what they got to say. I was surprised with the class mobility in the film, but i think begining to open the definition of bearing shame and building honor not only reworks the way we think of queer women of color, but gives solutions. Ay love it. This film gets gold stars all around.


MAsGUEY