11 US/Mexico border women now on 8th day of hunger strike in front of White House

Eleven women who have experienced first hand the violence, poverty and unemployment engulfing the Ciudad Juarez/El Paso border region are on day 8 of a hunger strike launched in front of the White House at noon, Monday, November 8. They call on federal decision-makers focused on short-sighted border security initiatives to establish immediate and long-term strategies to support community-led development of the nation’s poorest region.

Despite violent tragedy in Ciudad Juarez and profound poverty in El Paso, the women are creating long term security through grassroots economic development of their communities, which have been dismissed as “unfortunate but necessary casualties” of international trade and immigration policies and the “war on drugs.”

The El Paso women, most of whom have families spanning the border, are part of the nationally recognized organization, La Mujer Obrera. Their accomplishments and plans are now at profound risk because of a lack of federal investment.

Today, while the front line hunger strike will continue, some women will meet with federal officials and representatives of a philanthropic collaborative.

• WHAT: Border women continue hunger strike demanding alternatives to violence and poverty for long term security for border communities.
• WHERE: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in front of White House.
• WHEN: Hunger strike lasts 24 hours each day. Due to security restrictions, the women are only present in front of the White House from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Press Contact: Rubi Orozco. 915-203-0022. media@mujerobrera.org  facebook.com/mujerobrera   twitter.com/MujerObrera
• Petition to President Obama: www.petition2congress.com/2/3639

Text of Letter to First Lady Michelle Obama Delivered Today

First Lady Michelle Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington D.C. 20500

Dear First Lady,

We, border women workers, bear witness to the vision, integrity, and commitment you have displayed towards women’s and family issues in health, development, and education. We appreciate that a woman of your caliber is in the White House, providing insight and leadership for the women of our nation, and the world.

We ask that you or your representative meet with us immediately, because 30 minutes of your time will have profound impact on the potential opportunities and futures of women, their families and their organizations in the border region.

We are women living in the U.S.-Mexico border, the most impoverished region of this nation – poorer still than Appalachia. Our communities have been economically abandoned for centuries, most recently as a result of international trade agreements, border security initiatives, anti-immigrant sentiment and policies and the war on drugs. But we are not victims; we are rebuilding our communities with dignified courage. As women, we know we have and are exercising, the right to determine our own destiny and work towards the meaningful development of our communities to improve the quality of life of our children and grandchildren.

For eight days we have been at your door, fasting to protest our invisibility. For too long we have lived with the invisibility of our conditions, as well as the solutions we have been implementing for 30 years. We can no longer afford to be invisible, for the sake of our people.

When President Kennedy toured Appalachia in the 1960s, he was deeply moved by the dire poverty of its residents and quickly moved to support the Appalachian Regional Commission (arc.gov), charging it with lifting Appalachian residents out of poverty by investing in community health, education, development, and energy projects.

We call on our country’s leaders to acknowledge what the data shows: that the border region is the most impoverished in the nation; that it parallels Appalachia in its concentrated poverty spread across state lines; and that it warrants meaningful attention by federal agencies and private resources, so that future generations of border residents can enjoy an improved quality of life.

For too long we were treated as machines, as part of the garment factories that dotted our cities. We do not see development as the next set of factories that will come to our communities and pollute it while using us for cheap labor. We want development that is led by the community itself, based on family and community needs such as education for youth and adults, culturally appropriate nutrition and health education, local agriculture, and fair trade with our brothers and sisters across the border. We consider that to be genuine development, genuine border security.

We have been working to build that already. To date, we have a daycare, café, fair trade import company, and a 40,000 square foot Mexican marketplace all of which integrate the cultural, fair trade, health, and sustainability principles that we want to live by. Our daycare, for example, is bilingual and bicultural; serves food prepared from scratch and rooted in the healthful Mesoamerican diet; and has a vegetable and fruit patch where the children learn about food and caring for the earth.

Everything we do, we do with the intention to nurture our children and grandchildren. That is our bottom line, and it is the reason we – as mothers and grandmothers – sit at your door on hunger strike.

We know there are other women’s organizations such as ours working towards sustainable development of the border. But all of us—the women’s organizations on the border–have been doing it basically alone, fighting against the currents of public policy, media coverage, public sentiment and public and private funding for too long. When virtually all the resources coming to the border region are focused on building walls, placing more agents between us and our families across the border, and enriching security firms that always seem to benefit when there is instability anywhere in the world, our work to provide safe, dignified spaces and jobs where people can develop themselves as human beings becomes not only secondary, but invisible.

We urge you or your representative to meet with us immediately. If you allow us to tell you about our vision, we know we will no longer be invisible. Border women embody a resilience and vision that we know will resonate with you.

We also want to bring you and your staff to our border communities as soon as your schedule allows it. We urge you to have your staff work with us to identify a mutually appropriate time in the near future for such a visit.  Like Kennedy, you will be deeply moved by conditions as well as the grassroots solutions  being designed and developed there.

To arrange for our meeting and your visit to El Paso, please contact us at our cell phone on the hunger strike line 915-478-0823 or email cindyarnold@mujerobrera.org.

With utmost respect,

Border Women Hunger Strike 2010

From: lamujerobrera.wordpress.com

Posted on: November 15th, 2010
Curation from Tomás
Filed Under: Essentials, Eye Openers, Press Releases

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