Archives: USA

On January 29, 2002, Randy Shadowalker, Lisa Igoe, and Marshall Kirpatrick of the Cascadia Media Collective screened their film A Year in the Streets, about a new generation of activists working to "expose the conflict between human rights and neo-liberal economic globalization." Sarah Babb (University of Massachusetts at Amherst) joined the discussion, as did Tiffany Dumont and Rona Even of the Boston Independent Media Center.

On April 8, Dr. & Mrs. Walter Kato shared memories of their internment, as Japanese-American teen-agers during World War II, in concentration camps set up by their own government.

The week before the mid-term elections, on October 31, we screened Counting on Democracy, a film about Election 2000 in Florida.

To mark Thanksgiving, on November 14 we screened Broken Rainbow, an award-winning film about the forced relocation of the Diné (Navajo) people of northern Arizona. Then, on November 21, poet and activist Carol Snyder Halberstadt gave a presentation on Diné culture and talked about Black Mesa Weavers for Life and Land, the co-op she co-founded to bring wool and Diné weavings to market and to re-invest in the strength of the community.

In January, 2003, as a new Congress was sworn in, we conducted a seminar series on the legislative role in US foreign policy. Guest speakers included scholars and activists as well as current and former members of Congress and White House officials.

On February 19, Boston-area activists Charlie Welch, Sandra Harris, and Aram Falsafi spoke about Tecschange, the organization they founded that provides donated technology and services to social-justice activists around the world.

Former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Fred Salvucci joined us on April 30 to discuss the politics and economics of two large and on-going mass-transit projects: the Big Dig in Boston and the Tren Urbano in Puerto Rico.

On May 7, Ambassador John Shattuck, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, joined us to discuss the role that human rights considerations play (and do not play) in the formulation and conduct of US foreign policy.

On October 30, we screened Unprecedented! The 2000 Presidential Election, another documentary about Election 2000 in Florida. Film-makers Joan Sekler & Richard Ray Perez joined us for discussion.

To mark Thanksgiving, on November 18 two of our members, Anna Bershteyn and Kaia Dekker reported on work they had done in Arizona in the summer with the non-profit group Black Mesa Weavers for Life and Land.

On January 16, 2004, we screened two films about the experience of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Sixth Section, by Alex Rivera, tells the story of a "hometown association" in Newburgh, New York; and Dream Deferred, by Jenny Alexander and the high-schoolers of the East Boston Ecumenical Community Council, explains why children of undocumented immigrants often find it difficult to apply to college.