[Antiracism] [Workers' Rights] Upcoming Events 4/1-16

[WMass Jobs With Justice]

Tuesdays April 1 & 8 
	"ECHANDO RAICES/TAKING ROOT"
	11am, Kittredge Center room 301, 303 Homestead Av, Holyoke.
Documentary film on contemporary experiences of immigrant communities,
produced by AFSC, shown with a guided conversation. It succeeds in capturing
the intersection of the larger forces shaping migration and the details that
shape these migrants' lives. As they join in the daily routines of a
community, we begin to see the many ties that bind newcomers with
established residents, changing both. Info: Gustavo Acosta, 315-3560,
gacosta at hcc.mass.edu.  

Tuesday April 1
	MIKE GRAVEL
	7pm, Seeyle Hall Room 208, Smith College, Rt 9, Northampton.
Springfield Mass. native Mike Gravel represented Alaska in the US Senate
from 1969-81, where he filibustered to end the draft, released the Pentagon
Papers (a secret government study showing that successive US administrations
had misled the country about the War in Vietnam), and led the fight against
nuclear testing and nuclear power. As a candidate for President in 2008,
Gravel received a lot of attention for his forceful calls to end the war in
Iraq during the Democratic debates. His new book is "Citizen Power".
Sponsored by Students for Social Justice and Institutional Change. Info:
Olivia Cummings, ocumming at email.smith.edu.
 
April 2-5
     NINTH ANNUAL WHITE PRIVILEGE CONFERENCE
     Sheraton Hotel, Monarch Place, Springfield (for discounted conference
rates: 781-1010 or 800-426-9004). Registration for the Ninth Annual White
Privilege Conference is now open at www.uccs.edu/wpc. Academic credit and
continuing education units available. Sponsorship opportunities also
available. Featuring a wide range of workshops, single-day institutes, and
youth programs examining the intersections of race, gender, sexual
orientation, class, religion, and the broader dynamics of  privilege and
oppression. Keynotes: Rhea Almeida; Joe Feagin; Jawanza Kunjufu; John
Palmer; and Salome Raheim. The WPC is a project of the Matrix Center for the
Advancement of Social Equity and Inclusion at the U of Colorado at Colorado
Springs.   

Wednesday April 2 
	WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC HEARING ON ACCESS & AFFORDABILITY TO
HIGHER EDUCATION
	Noon-2pm, Springfield Technical Community College, Bldg 2 (Scibelli
Hall) 7th floor, 1 Armory Square, Springfield. 
Only 4 states charge higher tuition and fees at 2-year public colleges than
Massachusetts. "It is the time to acknowledge that the rapidly increasing
cost of public higher education combined with the decreasing availability of
need-based financial aid, has led to decreased access, increased debt, and
the undermining of economic development in Massachusetts.” ~ Alex Kulenovic,
Student Trustee at UMass Boston, President of PHENOM, Public Higher
Education Network of Massachusetts.
• Only 4 states charge higher tuition and fees at 2-year public colleges
than Massachusetts.
• MASSGrant, the main need-based financial aid program, now covers 15% of
tuition and fees, as compared to 80% 20 years ago.
• Textbook costs have skyrocketed.
• The amount of debt is dictating career choices.  
• Children of undocumented immigrants who graduate, often with honors, from
our high schools are often unable to attend college because they are charged
out-of-state tuition rates.
	Info: PHENOM, 577-4121, massphenom at gmail.com, www.phenomonline.org. 

Wednesday April 2 (First Wednesday)
     WESTERN MASS JUSTICE @ SMITHFIELD COMMITTEE
     7-8:30pm, Conference Room, room 234 &/or 236, second floor, Potpourri
Plaza, 243 King St, Northampton, opposite Stop & Shop.
http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=243+King+St,+Northampton,+MA On the
agenda: Future Leafleting & PR; Staging a Debate/Drawing Out Big Y; Seeking
a Resolution from Northampton City Council (and then Chicopee Board of
Aldermen and maybe Holyoke City Council); Creating an Honor Roll for stores
not selling Tar Heel pork (more store visits); Latest on the national
campaign and lawsuit. Info: 827-0301, wmjwj at wmjwj.org.   
	NOTE! We thought we'd have to move the location, and some of you
have been told the Fire House nearby, but we were able to keep the regular
room! 

Thursday April 3 
	1968: YEAR OF REVOLT!
	7pm, Campus Center Room 162-75, UMass Amherst. Shaun Harkin,
immigrant rights activist and revolutionary socialist, will give a talk on
the events of 1968, discussing a vital yet hidden history of struggle and
its relevance to today. The International Socialist Review is sponsoring a
national tour to mark the 40th anniversary of the remarkable year 1968 — a
year of conflict, class struggle, and revolutionary upheaval around the
world. 1968 saw the Vietnam Tet Offensive; the May general strike in France;
the Black Power salute at the Olympics; the student struggle in Mexico and
the massacre in Tlatelolco Plaza; the Prague Spring and Russian invasion of
Czechoslovakia; the police riot at the Democratic convention; the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and urban rebellions; the birth of
the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement in Detroit. Today, with the economy
inching closer to the brink of collapse, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
causing unimaginable death and suffering, and billions of people around the
world suffering from poverty, oppression, and exploitation, the lessons of
1968 are of vital importance to a new generation of activists and radicals
organizing for a better world. Info: 351-2323, contact at isonoho.org,
www.isonoho.org. 

April 4-6
	FROM ABORTION RIGHTS TO SOCIAL JUSTICE: BUILDING THE MOVEMENT FOR
REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM
	Hampshire College, Amherst. FREE conference is a project of the
Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program. Over 40 workshops and trainings.
Conference speakers address reproductive freedom as it relates to a broad
range of social justice initiatives including economic justice, health care
reform, racial equality, freedom from violence, immigrant rights, climate
justice, and LGBTQ rights, just to name a few. Info, register: 559-6976,
asjCLPP at hampshire.edu, http://clpp.hampshire.edu. 

Sunday April 6
	"AT HOME IN UTOPIA"
	4:30pm, National Yiddish Book Center, Hampshire College Campus, Rt
116, Amherst. Part of Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival (www.pvjff.org).
$8. A new documentary film by acclaimed director Michal Goldman. A home of
one's own: that's the American dream. But what happens when the dreamers are
immigrants, factory workers, and Communists? In the mid-1920s, thousands of
Jewish immigrant garment workers managed to catapult themselves out of urban
slums and ghettos by pooling their resources and building four cooperatively
owned and run apartment complexes in the Bronx. They believed that owning
one's home went a long way toward controlling one's fate. "At Home in
Utopia" focuses on the United Workers Cooperative Colony ­ aka the Coops ­
the most grass-roots and member-driven of the Jewish labor housing
cooperatives, where many of the residents were Communists or at least
sympathetic to the communist movement. Beginning as a stalwartly secular
East European Jewish working class enclave in the 1920s, they were part of a
national and international movement the power of which blows minds today. In
the 1930s they opted to bring their passion for racial justice home, by
racially integrating their own cooperative house, with unexpected
consequences. An epic tale of the struggle for equity and justice across two
generations, the film tracks the rise and fall of one community from the
1920s into the 1950s, paying close attention to the passions that bound them
together and those that tore them apart. Along the way, "At Home in Utopia"
bears witness to lives lived with courage across the barriers of race,
nation, language, convention, and sometimes even common sense. Info: Ellen
Brodsky, Co-producer, 781-647-1102, coops at filmmakerscollab.org. 

Monday April 7
     TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION & DOMESTIC & CARE WORK
     4pm-5:30pm, Five College Women's Studies Research Center, 83 College St
(Rt 116), S Hadley. Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Ford Associate, U of
Manchester, speaks on "Transnational Migration, Affective Labor and
Precariousness: On Domestic and Care Workers' Rights." A wide range of
research indicates that domestic and care work in private households is now
the largest employment sector for migrant women entering the European Union.
How do EU migration policies constrain the social mobility of migrant women?
How does paid domestic and care work structure interpersonal relationships
between those who pay for and those employed to do this work in private
households? Info: 538-2275, www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/fcwsrc.

Monday April 10
	DEATH PENALTY IN HAMPSHIRE COUNTY: DALEY & HALLIGAN TO PRESENT
FEDERAL COURTS
	7pm, First Churches, 129 Main Street, Northampton. A panel
discussion with Honorable W. Michael Ryan, Atty. William Newman, Atty. David
Hoose, Professor Richard Moran, and Martina Jackson. Co-Sponsored by The
Daley and Halligan Bicentennial Committee, The Northampton Human Rights
Commission, Massachusetts Citizens against the Death Penalty (MCADP) Hampden
Chapter, ACLU of Massachusetts, and the Greensboro Justice Fund. Info:
MCADP, 567-3451, cajowl66 at aol.com.

Friday April 11
	MIGRATION: ROOTS & REALITIES
	7-9pm, Media Education Foundation, 60 Masonic St, Northampton.
Pre-Conference (see April 12) showing of "Echando Raices (Taking Root)" with
discussion. Info: Liz Kelner, 625-9543; www.witnessforpeace.org.  

Saturday April 12 
	MIGRATION: ROOTS & REALITIES
	1-5:30pm, Media Education Foundation, 60 Masonic St, Northampton.
Followed by a reception at 29 Harrison Ave., up Rt 9 (just past Smith
College, turn left on Harrison). 
	Given the rhetoric surrounding immigration in this election year, we
have an important opportunity to combat the misconceptions and damaging
policies that are affecting millions of people both here in the US and in
all of Latin America. Participating in Witness for Peace conferences in
Northampton, Boston, and Portsmouth, Father Romualdo Francisco Wilfrido
Mayrén Peláez, more commonly known as Padre Uvi, will help us connect the
dots between US policy and migration. A parish priest in Oaxaca City,
Mexico, and Coordinator for the Peace and Justice Commission of the Diocese
of Oaxaca, Padre Uvi will deepen the discussion of migration by focusing on
its root causes. He will also speak about his region's vibrant citizen
movement and the struggle for justice and dignity for Oaxaca's peoples. 
	Also participation: immigrants living and working in New England as
well as representatives from ADP Worker Center/Casa Obrera, Western MA
Coalition for Immigrant & Worker Rights, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee
Advocacy Coalition, and Equal Exchange. A discussion will follow, exploring
such issues as:
• Who migrates from family and home - and why?
• What is life in New England like for migrants who come to work here?
• What is the economic impact of immigrant workers - and why are immigrants
hired?
• What US policy changes could improve lives on BOTH sides of the border?
	Info: Liz Kelner, 625-9543; Witness For Peace NE, PO 147, Richmond
VT 05477; wfpne at witnessforpeace.org, www.witnessforpeace.org. 

Monday April 14
	SENIOR ACTION DAY 2008
	10:30am, Great Hall, State House, Boston. Mass Senior Action Council
(MSAC) rally and then talk with legislators about issues affecting seniors
and all people in Massachusetts. This year the focus is on Saving Senior
Housing, Home Care, Bringing Down the Cost of Prescription Drugs, Safe
Staffing, and Reopening the Gardner Auditorium Entrance to People with
Handicaps. A light lunch will be served. Buses are available from several
locations. Info: 543-2334, mbewsee at masssenioraction.org,
www.masssenioraction.org. 

Tuesday April 15 (Third Tuesday)
     FRANKLIN/HAMPSHIRE HEALTH CARE COALITION
     7pm, Lathrop Village Community Room, Shallow Brook Drive, off Bridge
Rd, Northampton. Organizing for the Massachusetts Health Care Trust Fund
Bill (S.703/H.1137) - a universal health care system, providing universal
access, a comprehensive range of physical and mental health benefits, choice
of provider, quality, unified financing and cost controls, accountable
governance, and stability. A Massachusetts Health Care Trust Fund will be a
"single-payer" of all health care costs, statewide. Info: info at fhhcc.org. 

Wednesday April 16 (Third Wednesday)
     PIONEER VALLEY CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL 
     7pm, AFL-CIO Hall, 640 Page Blvd, near corner of Osborne Ter, across
the street from the old Westinghouse, Springfield. Community and labor
activist guests are welcome, but RSVP to Jon at 732-7970, mail at pvaflcio.org,
or Rick at 374-1492.

MORE EVENTS AT www.westernmassafsc.org/calendar/calendar.html. And please
post your events there by emailing Roger Conant, conant at ecs.umass.edu, with
Event for AFSC Calendar as the Subject, with this information in the body of
the email: Date and Time; Location; Brief description of the event; How to
get more information about the event. Please help Roger keep the recurring
events page accurate - see
www.westernmassafsc.org/calendar/calendar2.html#recurring. 

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Western Mass Jobs with Justice
640 Page Blvd #101
Springfield MA 01104
(413) 827-0301

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