Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social

An ad-hoc working group comprised of representatives from over a dozen leading professional and academic associations has issued a joint statement condemning Arizona’s immigration law (SB 1070) and related state policies such as the prohibition against Ethnic Studies programs (HB 2281), calling for these laws to be rescinded. The “Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations” believes that these laws are inherently unjust, and that their application threatens to inflame anti-immigrant sentiments and undermine constructive solutions to the challenges faced by communities in Arizona and across the nation. We call upon the governor, legislators, and people of Arizona to work diligently and swiftly to repeal these laws. (more…)

Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social will still hold Writing Workshops in July 2010 via web-conferencing.

To maintain the journal’s momentum and it’s vital status as the only interdisciplinary Chicano or Latino studies journal of a professional organization, the editors have decided to hold the Writing Workshops in virtual space or via telephone conferencing.

We encourage applications from writers at all professional levels, including tenured or mid-career professors. Facilitators are mid-career scholars with robust publication records and nearly a decade in editorial work.

Two Writing Workshops are offered this summer:
1) Creative Writing, a workshop facilitated by Dr. Tiffany Ana Lopez, editor of creative writing
and
2) Scholarly Article, a workshop by facilitator Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, former editor of Chicana/Latina Studies. Lead Editor, Josie Méndez-Negrete will join the virtual discuss during the second session. (more…)

Call for Organizations to Join Amicus Curiae Brief  To Highlight the Impact of Arizona Law SB 1070 on Immigrant Women and Immigrant Victims of Violence Against Women
Sign on deadline: June 4, 2010

Dear Colleagues,
We are writing to seek your organization’s support in joining us in signing on to an amicus curiae brief in connection with litigation recently filed in Arizona federal court by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) , MALDEF (the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund), the National Immigration Law Center and the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center.  The lawsuit seeks to invalidate Arizona’s new immigration law, SB 1070.  This Amicus Brief will highlight how SB 1070 disproportionately impacts immigrant women by undermining their legal rights as crime victims to access protections under U.S. criminal and immigration laws; as an especially vulnerable population to access services necessary to protect life and safety that Congress intended to assist them; and as mothers to nurture, care for and maintain custody of their children.

The attached call for organizations to join as amici highlights what will be covered in this amicus brief. (more…)

If you can help circulate this, we’d sure appreciate it…. what folks in Arizona are up against….

Prof. Sandy K. Soto at University of Arizona COSBS graduation gets heckled for asking for civil discourse around SB1070. She’s getting the usual hatemail, and calls for her firing…..we’re asking folks to read about it  - read more here

And please email President Shelton to support her  at robert.shelton@arizona.edu

Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) condemns Arizona’s SB 1070, “Immigration; law enforcement; safe neighborhoods,” signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010. We join with the many academic, research, and activist organizations that have called for a targeted boycott of Arizona as a protest to this repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation.

For the first time in its 24-year history, the MALCS Summer Institute was to be held in Arizona. It was scheduled for July 21-24 and organized by Arizona State University. After deliberating about the implications of the law with our members and receiving an appropriate response from them, we have decided the following.

MALCS joins the targeted boycott of Arizona and will not hold the 2010 MALCS Summer Institute as planned.

Instead, conference planners at ASU will proceed with a statewide conference to address the significant issues of human, women’s, LGBT rights violations, repression, and harassment facing Chicana, Latina, and Native people in Arizona.

The national organization will seek an alternative date and site for its next institute.

The national organization encourages all to take concrete action in support of the activists, academics, and artists in Arizona resisting SB 1070 and work to prevent similar legislation in other states. (more…)

By JULIA PRESTON, New York Times 5/15/10

Several large Latino and civil rights organizations on Thursday announced a business boycott of Arizona, saying that a tough anti-illegal immigration law there would lead to racial profiling and wrongful arrests.

The boycott call was led by the National Council of La Raza, or N.C.L.R., one of the nation’s biggest Latino groups, and was joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Puerto Rican Coalition. The groups said they would ask members and supporters to refrain from planning conventions or conferences in Arizona and from buying goods produced in the state.

“The law is so extreme, and its proponents appear so immune to an appeal to reason, nothing short of these extraordinary measures is required,” Janet Murguía, the president of N.C.L.R., said Thursday at a news conference in Washington.

The organizations said they would collect signatures on a pledge committing supporters to pressure corporations to stop doing business with Arizona. Also participating were the Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of about 200 groups including African-American and Jewish organizations.

The Arizona law would require the state and local police to question people about their immigration status based on a “reasonable suspicion” that they might be illegal immigrants. Adopted on April 23, the law has not yet taken effect and is facing legal challenges.

Story continues here