Summer Graduation and Harvest Festival for Peace and Hope

In response to the recent shooting that severely injured a young college intern at the SWU Solidarity House, we are asking our friends, allies, and community members to help us establish our space as a pillar of peace and hope in our community. As an organization committed to working with low-income, people of color, and disenfranchised communities, we must contest this physically and spiritually violent act with healing, hope, and empowerment. We want to restore what has been torn apart within the Solidarity House and our neighborhood, and show that out of this dark act of violence will come regeneration and light that reaffirms the strength of our community. More than ever, we want to reach out and welcome people to unite in an inviting and peaceful shared space on the Eastside of San Antonio.

Please join us in support and action on July 31st from 9am onward at 1416 E. Commerce (SWU office/garden) for our Summer Graduation and Harvest Festival for Peace and Hope, to celebrate the hard work of our interns on the Roots of Change community garden (including that of injured intern James Domingue) and to participate in the rebirth of the Solidarity House. We hope to transform the SWU complex on the Eastside of San Antonio with community-wide input through many forms of art and expression (including but of course not limited to, murals, house painting, public art, stenciling, altars, and a healing garden). Come be a part of this rebuilding of our community and help us reaffirm that: “Hatred paralyzes life; Love releases it. Hatred confuses life; Love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; Love illuminates it.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

Summer Graduation and Harvest Festival for Peace and Hope

Roots of Change Jardin

July 31, 2010 9am-all day

1416 E. Commerce

Carta de denuncia y de demanda dirigida al Alcalda y Jefe de Policia - Traducido

Les hacemos llegar nuestra carta de denuncia y de demanda dirigida al Alcalde y Jefe de Policía de San Antonio para asegurar de que se haga justicia en este ataque violento y posiblemente racista contra la Casa de Solidaridad de La Unión donde se hospedaban l@s internados de verano y que esta localizada atrás de las oficinas.

Formato suguerido:

Alcalde Julián Castro,
Jefe de Policía McManus,
Consejera del Municipio Ivy Taylor and
Comisionado de Condado Tommy Adkisson;

Yo / Nosotr@s, ________________________________________ (tu nombre individual o como organización) estamos en apoyo de Southwest Workers Union y su reclamo por una investigación profunda y objetiva que resulte en que encuentren los culpables y que se les enjuicie. Demandamos un compromiso por parte de las autoridades para la reducción y eliminación de la violencia en nuestra comunidades y calles.

Southwest Workers Unión demanda que el Departamento de Policía de la CD de San Antonio lleve acabo una investigación profunda del ataque con balas de la Casa de Solidaridad el 11 de Julio. No podemos ni vamos aceptar declaraciones especulativas por parte la Policía que esta investigando y queremos evidencia concreta de quien es responsable por este crimen. No vamos a dejarlos que se olviden de este caso. Hacemos un llamado a desarrollar iniciativas que lleven a la reducción de la violencia y que sean dirigidas por las comunidades mismas.

En las horas de madrugada el Domingo del 11 de Julio, miembros de Southwest Workers Unión (SWU) fueron en el blanco de una balacera en la casa que dejo a un joven Universitario James Domingues un voluntario de verano herido de bala y en condición critica.

La balacera fue dirigida a la Casa de Solidaridad que se encuentra en el 311 Idaho y es parte del Complexo de SWU en la parte Este de la ciudad y allí se hospedaban 3 internos de verano mientras trabajaban en los huertos de la Unión. La casa fue objeto de ráfagas de AK 47 contando con cerca de 25-30 balazos que impactaron la casa. Las balas con poder para penetrar metales, penetrando de un lado de la casa al otro, aterrorizando las ocho personas que se encontraban dentro.

James Domingue, 23, de la CD de New Orleans, Louisiana que fue herido, es internado de verano trabajando voluntariamente en la expansión de los huertos de la Unión llamado ‘Raíces del Cambio’, que esta en el este de la CD de San Antonio y es parte de un proyecto de Justicia alimentaria y comida orgánica y además es parte de una cooperativa de jardines urbanos de la Unión. El proyecto promueve huertos urbanos en residencias de comunidades en el área y por eso viven allí cerca del jardín donde fue victima de la violencia sin sentido, que daña la comunidad entera como nos hizo daño a nuestra organización y compañero.

Le hacemos llegar nuestra petición al Alcalde de San Antonio, que apoye la victima y victimas y sus familiares en un esfuerzo unido en la investigación y para eliminar las causas de raíz de esta violencia que acompaña la pobreza en nuestras comunidades.

Demandamos áreas y calles seguras para la comunidad y las organizaciones que trabajamos para la justicia social y no vamos a permitir que este crimen tan horroroso pase desapercibido. Continuaremos alzando nuestra voces desde nuestras comunidades y organizaciones contra cualquier manifestación de odio y racismo.

Reclamamos por la Justicia, y transparencia en la investigación para que sea exhaustiva la investigación de este crimen tan violento y posiblemente mortal hasta encontrar el o los responsables. Hacemos un llamado a las autoridades de San Antonio que apoyen proyectos dirigidos por las comunidades y sus residentes para hacer posible la eliminación de esta violencia y sus raíces y NO la criminalización de nuestra juventud.

Atentamente,

Tu Firma

Contact Emails:
(Alcalde) Mayor Julian Castro: mayorjuliancastro@sanantonio.gov
(Jefe de Policía) Chief McManus: brian.bielefeld@sanantonio.gov
(Concilio de SA) Council Woman Ivy Taylor: district2@sanantonio.gov
(Comisionado de Condado)County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson: tadkisson@bexar.org

Por favor CC: Genaro L. Rendon genaro@swunion.org

Please send this letter of support to our city officials calling for a justice and peace in our streets in response to the recent shooting at the SWU

July 14, 2010

Mayor Julian Castro, Police Chief McManus, Councilwoman Ivy Taylor and County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson;

I / we, ________________________________________________ (individual name or organization) are in support of Southwest Workers Union’s call for a thorough investigation of the July 11th shooting at the SWU Solidarity House and a commitment from city officials to reduce violence and promote safe streets.

Southwest Workers Union calls on the City and the Police Department for a full and complete investigation of the July 11th shooting at the SWU Solidarity House. We will not accept speculative answers without concrete evidence, nor allow the case to simply be written off. We further call for a commitment to safe communities and neighborhood-led initiatives to eliminate violence and promote peaceful streets.

During the early hours of Sunday, July 11th members of Southwest Workers Union (SWU) became the targets of a shooting that left a young college intern, James Domingue, in critical condition. The shooting took place at the Solidarity House on the 300 block of Idaho Street, which is part of the SWU complex on the Eastside of San Antonio, and is home to several college students interning at SWU for the summer. The house was sprayed with at least 25 metal-piercing bullets from an AK-47, some of which went completely through the house’s front and back walls, terrorizing the 8 people that were inside at the time.

James Domingue, 23, of New Orleans, Louisiana was interning this summer with Southwest Workers Union, working on expanding the Roots of Change Eastside Community Garden into a food justice urban farm co-op. The project brings healthy, organic food to local residence and promotes household gardening initiatives. Living near the site, he fell victim to senseless violence that harms the community well being.

We ask the Mayor and the City for support for the victims and their families and movement towards a unified effort to eliminate the root causes that breed violence and poverty in our neighborhoods. We need safe streets and safe peaceful spaces for people and organizations working towards social justice, and we cannot allow such ruthless acts to go unnoticed. We will continue to raise our voices for real justice in our communities and against all manifestations of hatred. And while we call for justice, accountability and a full investigation of the ruthless and horrible attack, we simultaneously emphasize the need for city support of community based efforts aimed at root causes and reconciliation rather than further criminalization of youth and people of color.

Earnestly,



Contact Emails:
Mayor Julian Castro: mayorjuliancastro@sanantonio.gov
Chief McManus: brian.bielefeld@sanantonio.gov
Councilwoman Ivy Taylor: district2@sanantonio.gov
County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson: tadkisson@bexar.org

Please CC: genaro@swunion.org

We appreciate your support

Drive-by shooters target SWU intern house, injuring one

James Domingue playing the part of the oilfield worker in a recent SWU clean-energy demonstration in front of San Antonio City Hall.

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

A college intern is in stable condition after being shot in a drive-by shooting at the Southwest Workers’ Union intern house in East San Antonio early Sunday morning. Several interns and staff, eight in all, were gathered at the Solidarity House on Idaho Street when a spray of bullets hit the front of the building at 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

At least 25 bullets hit the front of the house, several of which passed through both the front and back walls, said SWU Director Genardo Rendon. Intern James Domingue, 23, of Southern Louisiana, was hit in the hip and suffered shattered pelvic bones, Rendon said. “It’s incredible, when you look at all the holes in the house” that more people weren’t injured, he said.

Police are blaming the incident on a gang-related drive-by, suggesting the assailants hit the wrong Idaho Street house. According to a preliminary SAPD incident report, the assailants called out “gi gi” while they fired on the house.

Domingue came to San Antonio to work in the Roots of Change Community Garden behind the SWU office on East Commerce Street. A fund has been established to help offset medical and travel expenses.

Donations or cards can be sent to: 

Peace & Solidarity Fund

Southwest Workers Union

PO Box 830706 

San Antonio, TX 78283

Donations also can be made online.


Rendon said the union is calling on the community to support the Domingue family, press for a full investigation of the shooting, and recommit itself to working for peace and justice across the city.

A vigil for peace will be held at 4 p.m. today at 1416 East Commerce.

From the SWU press release:

We call on the Eastside, the City and local and national organizations to join together to condemn this act and work towards the creation of safe, healthy communities. We ask for support for the victims and their families and movement towards a unified effort to eliminate the root causes that breed violence and poverty in our neighborhoods.

We need safe streets and safe peaceful spaces for people and organizations working towards social justice and cannot allow such ruthless acts to go unnoticed. We will continue to raise our voices against all manifestations of hatred and for real justice in our communities.

Join us in solidarity and prayers for the shooting victims and to demonstration support for peaceful communities across San Antonio and the world.

Over the past year, the 22-year-old SWU has fought against the citing of a diesel-fuel storage facility on the East Side, organized against SB1070 and for immigration reform, and worked to stop San Antonio from participating in the construction of new nuclear power plants outside Bay City. Other campaigns have included closing the family-detention ICE facility in Hutto and for better educational opportunities for low-income students in San Antonio.

Vigil for Peace, Against Hatred

PRESS ADVISORY

Vigil for Peace, Against Hatred

Solidarity for shooting victims at Southwest Workers Union

July 12^th, 4pm

SWU Office

1416 E. Commerce

During the early morning of Sunday, members of Southwest Workers Union, in our Solidarity Home behind our office, were targeted in a violent drive-by shooting that left one young college intern in critical condition. As a 22-year-old organization working toward dignity and justice for families and workers in San Antonio, we are in mourning as a result of the senseless violence directed at our members, our organization and youth.

We call on the Eastside, the City and local and national organizations to join together to condemn this act and work towards the creation of safe, healthy communities. We ask for support for the victims and their families and movement towards a unified effort to eliminate the root causes that breed violence and poverty in our neighborhoods. We need safe streets and safe peaceful spaces for people and organizations working towards social justice and cannot allow such ruthless acts to go unnoticed. We will continue to raise our voices against all manifestations of hatred and for real justice in our communities.

Join us in solidarity and prayers for the shooting victims and to demonstration support for peaceful communities across San Antonio and the world.

SWU Solidarity House fired on with machine gun last night; one intern critically injured

Dear SWU members, allies, and friends,

It is with sadness that I reach out to the friends and allies of Southwest Workers Union to invite acts of solidarity, remembrance and prayers. During the early hours of Sunday morning, the Solidarity House on SWU’s complex in San Antonio's near Eastside, where workers and volunteers were staying during the summer campaign, was attcked by a violent drive-by shooting that left one young college intern in critical condition. The intern was working this summer on the Roots of Change community garden, is in critical but stable condition with a bullet wound to his pelvis. Fortunately the seven other folks in the home are safe.

We call on the Eastside, the City and local and national organizations to join together to condemn this act and work towards the creation of safe, healthy communities. We ask for support for the victims and their families and movement towards a unified effort to eliminate the root causes that breed violence and poverty in our neighborhoods. We need safe streets and safe peaceful spaces for people and organizations working towards social justice and cannot allow such ruthless acts to go unnoticed. We will continue to raise our voices against all manifestations of hatred and for real justice in our communities.


Join us in solidarity and prayers for the shooting victims and to demonstration support for peaceful communities across San Antonio and the world.

SWU set up a Peace & Solidarity Fund for the victim and his family. Donations or cards can be sent to:
Peace & Solidarity Fund
Southwest Workers Union
PO Box 830706
San Antonio, TX 78283

Donations can be made online here

In Solidarity,
Genaro & members of SWU

People's Freedom Caravan: the road home

After much discussion and debate, the U.S. Social Forum culminated on the final day of events with the National People’s Movement Assembly, a forum for collectively developed resolutions that demonstrate action steps to affect change on both local and systemic levels. As resolutions on topics such as immigration reform, climate justice, food sovereignty, and gender justice (among many others) were read aloud to the crowd at Cobo Hall, the solidarity and excitement were pulsating through the space. Standing ovations, chants, hollers, applause, cheers. The momentum was riding high from the entire People’s Freedom Caravan and U.S.S.F. experience, and a sense of restored community, purpose, and hope filled the air.

As we piled back on the bus the next day, with the lack of sleep still not having set in, we decided to reflect on our personal favorite and most impactful moments. One by one, the caravanistas walked to the front of the bus and got their turn on the mic. We listened to these meaningful personal reflections that in reality were just beginning to be digested and processed as Detroit faded from view.

The People’s Freedom Caravan landed back in San Antonio one week ago in the middle of the night. Exhausted and renewed, the caravanistas parted ways. But it was at this moment that the challenge began– the personal and communal challenge to live up to our commitment to affect change, and the challenge to live up to our own belief that another world is possible and another U.S. is necessary. We must add on to the tightly woven fabric of our shared experience but others must also continue it.

But how will these changes, actions, and commitments manifest themselves? How will we keep our renewed hope and solidarity alive? And what will it take to keep it alive in our communities and the communities who shared their stories with us along the way? How do we create meaning for those who could not make the journey? As fighters, activists, organizers, community members, and sisters and brothers, we must ask ourselves these questions because we are aware that we are all connected and that our change and action will create reaction.

One week of being home is not enough time to understand what will ultimately be set in motion, but for me, I know it starts with us and it starts at home, wherever that may be, and from there it spreads, expands, and runs....

Si se puede!!

Come join the SWU crew and local delegates from the People's Freedom Caravan/U.S.S.F. for a community report back gathering, Friday July 9 at 1414 E. Commerce (SWU office) from 5-8pm. We invite everyone to come share their experiences and ideas, and for community members to ask questions, and together, to begin the process of discussing What Is Next.

200 Protest in Downtown for Tobacco Field Workers

Article published June 23, 2010 in the Toldeo Blade
Toledoblade.com


About 200 people gathered in front of downtown Toledo's One Government Center on Tuesday afternoon to rally against alleged inhumane treatment of tobacco field workers.

Groups from New York and the Southwest stopped in Toledo to show solidarity with the Toledo-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee, or FLOC, before continuing on to Detroit, where they plan to protest against RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. and JPMorgan Chase at 9:45 a.m. Friday.

The group waved red flags and banners and chanted for workers' rights.

"The people are under attack. What do we do? Fight right back," the crowd chanted. "Up with the people. Down with the banks. Down with Chase."

Emma Rollenhagen, a University of Toledo student doing an internship with Campaign for Migrant Worker Justice, said she came to show support for FLOC.

"[Problems include] the hours and the lack of protection against the pesticides and the nicotine poisoning," Ms. Rollenhagen, 22, said. "I don't feel it's acceptable for that to still be occurring in the United States today."

FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez asked those in attendance to sign a pledge and divest from JPMorgan Chase "to send a message that you can't have our money to take advantage of us."

Mr. Velasquez said the Toledo rally went well and plans to lead about 4,000 to 5,000 in protesting the bank in Detroit on Friday.

Residents: Dangerous toxins in Leon Creek come from Air Force base

by Brian New / KENS 5

kens5.com

Posted on July 1, 2010 at 6:52 PM

Updated Thursday, Jul 1 at 7:31 PM

South-side residents want the government to clean-up a potential deadly health risk after the discovery of dangerous toxins in Leon Creek and a warning not to eat the fish you catch there.

Robert Alvarado says the creek he has lived by for 40 years becomes more and more toxic every time it rains.

This past week the Texas Department of State Health issued a warning for Leon Creek after tests found levels of the chemical compound -- known as PCB's --to be nearly three times what the state considers a health threat to people.

"The big question that all of us want to know is what is the source of the contamination - where is it originating from." said Tommy Camden of the Metro Health Department.

However, while health officials may not know where it's coming from, residents said they do.

South-side resident Diana Lopez said she has evidence showing the toxins are coming from the old Kelly Air Force Base.

"Independent reports, Air Force reports, have said that the same chemicals that are in the fish, in the creek, have also been present, and are still present on the Air Force Base," she said

While the Air Force awaits the results of a federal investigation, residents, like Alvarado, said they have waited long enough.

"Right now we're finding fish. Later on we're going to find people down the stream dead," he warned.

Atenco Vive!

On June 29th the National Day of Action for the Release of the Political Prisoners of Atenco, Southwest Workers' Union protested outside the Federal Building in San Antonio, TX. It was one of many solidarity actions. After leaving the US Social Forum in Detroit we resolved to act in solidarity with the Political Prisoners of San Salvador Atenco.

Also present were community representatives from Arizona, ground zero, where there is a low-intensity war and militarization against our communities there.

The action took place after the People's Freedom Caravan returned from the US Social Forum from Detroit, and after having acted in solidarity with numerous communities in resistance along the way to Detroit. The People's Freedom Movement continues.

We were overjoyed to hear that Today, June 1st 2010, after years of protest and struggle for their release, the Twelve Atenco Political Prisoners including Ignacio del Valle were ordered freed from their unjust inprisonment. The hardship that their families have faced can never be forgotten and the struggle continues. The crimes against women who were sexually assaulted, the beatings, the injuries and the deaths that occurred during the raid of the community of resistance in San Salvador Atenco will never be forgotten. The crimes against communities of resistance by officials of the State of Mexico (el Mal Gobierno) continue and must continue to be denounced with the support of the international community.

We know that the impunity of the currupt and unjust mal gobierno is not invincible.

Zapata Vive y Vive! La Lucha Sigue y Sigue!

-Anayanse Garza
Southwest Workers' Union