Arizona

Straight from the "people still do this?" department, the Governing Board of the Tucson Unified School District responded to pressure from creepy Arizona Tea Party officials by dismantling the district's Mexican-American Studies program, and last week they announced they were preventing many of the books from being used in school curricula. Among the authors banned are Leslie Marmon Silko, Paolo Freire, Rodolfo Acuña and William Shakespeare. The state's war on ethnic studies speaks to a larger battle that seeks to silence the voices and histories of the large Chicano population in Arizona.

We've all heard about the continuous saga of human rights violations in Arizona, from legalizing racial profiling, to eliminating ethnic studies, to preventing anyone with an "accent" from teaching English (read: anyone who doesn't sound like an old white man from the eastern/northern states since I'm pretty sure we ALL have accents) and this extremely racist, oppressive, colonial, and cultural genocide list goes on.

What's been happening in Arizona is horrific on so many levels to so many people and communities – but it has really had me reflecting. When do certain issues get considered "feminist" and when do they not? And when do they require a real feminist response in action?

I am a major fangirl for Linda Ronstadt for many reasons. Great music? Check. Awesome style that I try to copy? Check. Songs available at Karaoke bars? Check. Political activist, feminist, and defender of civil liberties? Check and check.


Freedom and pretty hair for all!

To back me up on that last point, the Christian Science Monitor has this story to share today: "Linda Ronstadt joins group filing suit against Arizona law." Awww yeah. That's right, Ronstadt (and others, but I'm a fangirl, remember?) is suing Arizona for their new bullshit immigration law. She is so awesome. For more ass kicking, read on to see Ronstadt take on Robin Quivers in the name of Mexican-American women!

Last year authorities arrested expectant mother Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant, and charged her with using someone else’s identity to work. After the incarcerated Mendiola-Martinez delivered a baby boy Dec. 21 via C-section at Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed and not allowed to nurse her baby, New America Media (NAM) reports. Moreover, when guards escorted her out of the hospital in shackles, no one told her the whereabouts of her son.