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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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The Biden administration has made strides in reunifying families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under former President Donald Trump's zero-tolerance policy, but more than 1,000 children still have not been reunited with their parents, and the government is considering opening the process to additional parents currently ineligible for reunification because of their criminal histories.

The administration is considering the step, which has not been previously reported, as part of ongoing negotiations with the American Civil Liberties Union to settle a federal lawsuit over family separations.

"We are currently in the process of discussing a [way] to sort out which crimes were too minor to warrant the separation of children from their parents," Lee Gelernt, the ACLU's lead attorney in the lawsuit, told Newsweek.

The change would open the reunification process to parents who were separated from their children by the previous administration for misdemeanor offenses, such as nonviolent theft and illegal entry into the United States. Those parents are currently not included on a list of families the Biden administration is trying to reunify through its Family Reunification Task Force, though it's possible some have reunited without the government's knowledge, according to the ACLU.

It's unclear how many additional families could become eligible if the change takes effect. But the fact that the government's approach to the problem is still evolving more than one year later underscores the immense challenges that remain in addressing one of the most controversial chapters of the Trump years.

The task force, which was established by President Joe Biden shortly after he took office, still has no confirmed contact information for the families of 266 children who remain separated from their parents, according to its latest report.

Records for separated parents were frequently lost or mishandled by the Trump administration. But many separated parents who were deported back to their home countries are still mistrustful of the U.S. government, and wary of being contacted by organizations trying to connect them with the task force, numerous people involved in the effort said.

Some progress has been made. The task force has so far reunified nearly 200 children, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told Newsweek. The number is larger than has previously been reported, and is a sign the government is picking up the pace of family reunifications.

The administration is also in the process of reunifying nearly 400 additional children with their parents and expects to complete their reunifications in the coming months, the official said.

The Department of Homeland Security official declined to comment on the discussions to reunify some parents with criminal records. The official said the task force has contacted more than 500 separated families, and plans to make "contact with additional families in the coming months."

"The Task Force meticulously reviewed, over the course of several months, thousands of records and corrected significant data issues in the existing files following the prior administration's lack of record keeping," the official added.

A Newsweek review of court records and government documents, as well as interviews with administration officials, organizations working with the task force, and others familiar with the matter laid bare the obstacles in the way of finding separated parents who have slipped through the cracks.

It's not surprising the government's grasp of the issue is still evolving now, nearly five years after the Trump administration started separating families, said Mariana Blanco, the assistant director of the Guatemalan-Maya Center, an immigrant rights group in Florida.

"I'm glad Biden initiated this and is trying to right this wrong. But there was so much damage that was done by the previous administration, by ICE and the agencies that supported the process, that it's going to be very difficult to track down all the people who were affected," Blanco said.

The Trump administration launched a pilot program to separate parents from their children in the El Paso border sector in Texas in July 2017. It started the zero-tolerance policy the following April. Under the policy, families that were apprehended crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally were separated, and the parents were placed in detention after being criminally prosecuted. Most were deported from the U.S. without their children. The children were held in federally run shelters, in some cases for more than a year, before being reunited with their parents, or released to other relatives, family friends or placed in foster care.

Trump formally ended the policy in June 2018, in response to outcry from critics and legal pressure from the ACLU lawsuit, Ms. L vs. ICE.

"We're going to keep families together, but we still have to maintain toughness or our country will be overrun by people, by crime, by all of the things that we don't stand for and that we don't want," Trump said at the time.

In its initial report last June, the task force identified 3,913 children as having been separated by the previous administration's zero-tolerance policy or other initiatives. Of those, 1,786 were reunified through a court order while Trump was in office.

The Biden administration also said in its initial report that it was reviewing the cases of additional children who were taken from their parents under Trump, to see if they were separated by the zero-tolerance policy and therefore qualify for reunification by the task force. The parents with minor criminal histories may come from that group.

The latest progress report, which was posted to the task force website in late March, found that 1,228 children still remained separated from their parents. That figure is somewhat lower now, since it includes the families that a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek have been reunified in recent months.

'No One Knew The Task Force Existed'

Officials from the nongovernmental organizations conducting the searches on behalf of the task force said several factors explain why so many families remain separated -- and why some parents continue to be so hard to find.

Most of the work around family reunification has focused on finding parents who were deported to their home countries in Central America while their children were held in the U.S. According to data released by the task force, 94 percent of the families that were separated at the border by the zero-tolerance policy came from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador.

Some parents were contacted by groups working with the ACLU during the Trump administration after the lawsuit to end family separation was filed in 2018. The organization Kids in Need of Defense, or KIND, is leading the effort under Biden to reestablish contact with those parents.

But many moved or changed numbers in the intervening years and are proving very difficult to locate now, several people involved in the search process said.

"A phone number that was good for someone [years ago], there's no guarantee that it's still good in 2022," said Laura Just, KIND's international legal director. "A lot of time has passed. Circumstances have changed. People have not just remained static waiting for us to call."

The parents for whom there is no contact information at all are even harder to find.

Rebeca Sanchez Ralda, an attorney in Guatemala who is conducting searches for Justice in Motion, an advocacy group working with the task force, said in a phone interview in Spanish from Guatemala City that she is often asked to find a parent on the official task force list using nothing but the person's last name.

In those cases, Sanchez Ralda said she starts by searching a government database where citizens are required to register in order to get a national identification card. If the name pops up, she said she can view a copy of the person's birth certificate, and from there start to narrow her search with phone calls to municipal and local leaders.

Sanchez Ralda recalled a recent trip she made with colleagues to a small community in western Guatemala in search of a separated father with no phone number and a common last name that she said was "equivalent to Smith or Johnson in the U.S."

"We walked around and we couldn't find him," she said. "So we found an evangelical church, and waited for the service to end. Then we started asking if anyone knew the man we were looking for. It turns out there were three people with that same name in the town."

The search was fruitless. When she does find separated parents, Sanchez Ralda said they're often living in poor, rural areas with no internet and aren't aware of the Biden administration's effort to reunite them with their children in America.

"Not one person we found knew the task force existed. Not one," she said.

Many separated parents remain deeply scarred by the experience and need to be convinced, once they're found, that the government is trying to help, said Cathleen Caron, the executive director of Justice in Motion.

"There's no trust in the U.S. government," Caron said.

The Trump administration's disorganized record-keeping was well-documented at the height of the family separation crisis. But the problem had long-lasting effects that still present challenges in finding parents and children today.

The case of one mother from El Salvador highlights the issue. The woman, whose name is being withheld to protect her identity, was arrested by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in September 2017, after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in El Paso with her teenage daughter and five other people.

But the criminal complaint filed against the woman in federal court in Texas made no mention of the fact that she was with her daughter at the time of her arrest or that they had been separated afterwards, according to a copy of the complaint that was reviewed by Newsweek. It stated only that the defendant was part of a group of "seven individuals" arrested entering the U.S. illegally.

The information also wasn't included in subsequent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents, reviewed by Newsweek, that related to her detention. It took four years to untangle the confusion and clear the way for the mother and daughter to be reunified, their attorney said in an interview.

In another instance, officials at an immigrant rights group sent numerous emails to ICE inquiring about information for a young boy who was separated from his father at the southern border in 2018. An official shared the emails with Newsweek, but asked that the name of the child not be disclosed.

In one email, the group wrote requesting alternative dates of birth the child may have given his arresting border agent, as well as "any other identifying documents that ICE may have for the participant. Minor reports traveling with his birth certificate, and ID."

The terse response from an ICE official was typical, according to the person who was assigned to reunify the child, and who asked to remain anonymous to discuss details of the case.

"I have no alternative [dates of birth] for the subject," the ICE official wrote back, adding that the immigration office in the city where the boy was being held in custody still hadn't received his file. "When it arrives, I'll see if there are any identity documents inside."

Those two cases were hardly unique. In interviews, several attorneys spoke of handling similar cases, and said years later they were still grappling with the Trump administration's chaotic approach to separating families.

"The Trump administration did not anticipate the need for ever reunifying" separated families, said Linda Corchado, an immigration attorney who has worked on reunification cases. "So of course there's going to be a crisis of information."

Falling Through The Cracks

Adding to their present-day challenges, attorneys and others said the task force still has limited information on not only parents but also many separated children who were held in the U.S.

The Trump administration held separated children in shelters across the country run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency that is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. A majority of the children who were released from custody under Trump were handed over to their parents.

But the Biden task force found the previous administration also released 918 children to family members who were not the child's parents. An additional 451 children were released to people whose relationship with the child was "unknown," the task force said in its first report.

Often, children were released "to someone they knew once, or their families know. Very likely they lived with them for a short period of time," said Blanco, who spent two years as a case worker at an ORR shelter for separated children in the Midwest. It's unclear what happened to them since, she said. "Now they're just living in the shadows."

No system was put in place under Trump to track the whereabouts of any of these children once they left federal custody -- and no formal tracking system has been created since Biden became president.

As a result, hundreds of children remain unaccounted for, though the task force has said it's possible some have reunited with their parents and the government is unaware of the reunifications.

"We saw so many of our cases fall through the cracks," Blanco said. "Those kids are never going to be the same again. We really messed a lot of those children up by separating them."

Apart from the reunification process itself, the ACLU and other groups have continued to push the administration and Congress to come up with a long-term solution allowing families to stay in the U.S. after they reunify, and increase funding to cover housing and other services.

Under the current system, the task force grants reunited families a three-year parole. After that time is up, parents and children must leave the country unless they are otherwise legally permitted to stay longer. The administration has said a long-term solution requires a legislative fix by Congress.

"Three years, that's a start," said Caron. "But Biden cannot give them permanent legal status. That's on Congress to do."

The administration is also under pressure to return to the negotiating table to reach a settlement agreement with families who were separated. The Department of Justice suspended the negotiations last year, several weeks after it was publicly reported that the government was considering offering payouts of several hundred thousand dollars to each separated family that joined the ACLU's class action lawsuit.

The Department of Justice declined to speak on the record about the negotiations. Advocates who believe the Biden administration has an obligation to compensate victims of the policy have argued that the administration bowed to political pressure from Republican critics who opposed the payouts.

"A lot of these parents had a plan" to improve their family's economic future by coming to the U.S., Corchado said, "and instead they had to see their kids live in poverty from afar, and really struggle. Money means something here."

"That's what I think about for the parents who still live in that black hole" of being separated from their children, she added. "Part of their dignity was stripped away by the government. It's not just the reunification, it's the acknowledgement of their dignity. Will they ever get it?"

#us politics #news #newsweek #2022 #trump administration #donald trump #president joe biden #biden administration #us mexico border #us customs and border protection #immigration and customs enforcement #american civil liberties union #Family Reunification Task Force #department of homeland security #department of health and human services #Guatemalan-Maya Center #Kids in Need of Defense #Office of Refugee Resettlement #Justice in Motion

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fatehbaz · 3 years

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hope these might be interesting. round 1. round 2:

Titles and short descriptions below:

-- The Platypus and The Mermaid: And Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (Harriet Ritvo -- 1998 -- The Victorian-era craze for taxonomic classification, dichotomies, human-animal separations, monsters, and hierarchization of animals among formal institutions, naturalists, Euro-American scientists, etc. Showmen, media, scientific professionals, and folk cultures vying to establish hierarchies and definitions of life through language and animal-naming systems.)

-- An Ecology of Knowledges: Fear, Love, and Technoscience in Guatemalan Forest Conservation (Micha Rahder -- 2020 -- Human and other-than-human relationships, multitude of knowledge systems vs. monoculture of knowledge, the tension and negotiation between multiple coexisting “ways of knowing the world,” and conflicts involving dispossession, extractivism, state violence, Euro-American conservation groups, and local Indigenous people in the Maya Biosphere region of Guatemala.)

-- Tropical Freedom: Climate, Settler Colonialism, and Black Exclusion in the Age of Emancipation (Ikuko Asaka -- 2017.)

-- Radical Botany: Plants and Speculative Fiction (Natania Meeker and Antonia Szabari -- 2019 -- “Imagining new worlds” in contrast to modernity, dualism, and rigid distinctions and hierarchies between human and other-than-human by engaging with plant lifeforms.)

-- Trash Animals: How We Live with Nature’s Filthy, Feral, Invasive, and Unwanted Species (Edited by Kelsi Nagy and Phillip David Johnson -- 2013 -- Uncomfortable or unsettling interspecies relationships; includes writing on wolves, carp, rattlesnakes, pigeons, etc.)

-- Singing the Turtles to Sea: The Comcaac (Seri) Art and Science of Reptiles (Gary Paul Nabhan -- Comcaac relationship with reptiles of the Sonoran Desert and Gulf of California.)

-- Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World (Edited by Londa Schiebinger and Claudia Swan -- Anthology of articles/essays about the central role of plantations in imperialism and the role of botanists as “agents of empire”, edited by one of the field’s most respected scholars, Schiebinger.)

-- Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal (Edited by Cary Wolfe -- 2003 -- Collection of a few essays about the boundaries and borderlands between the animal and the human.)

-- No Species Is An Island: Bats, Cacti and Secrets of the Sonoran Desert (Theodore Fleming -- 2017 -- Text and illustrations exploring the decade-long research into nighttime lives of bats, moths, and cacti in the Sonoran Desert. With info about the relationship between moths and senita cactus, and the essential role of long-nosed bats in pollinating cacti.)

-- A World of Many Worlds (Edited by Marisol de la Cadena and Mario Blaser -- 2018 -- Anthology from multiple scholars about different conceptions of ecology/the cosmos and the tension between Indigenous and Euro-American scientific ways of knowing, with extra focus on multispecies worlding/ways of knowing from Latin America.)

-- Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind (Eileen Crist -- 1999 -- How language and animal-naming conventions are not innocent or neutral; how language used to describe animals and their experience can deny the sentience of, autonomy of, or compassion for other-than-human creatures.)

-- The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (Ralph O’Connor -- 2007 -- Fun look at how the storytelling, showmanship, and display of dinosaur and Pleistocene fossils in Europe and the US reinforced existing colonial/hierarchical narratives about “progress” and had a heavy influence on how media and pop-sci disc0urses have framed science, deep time, climate change, and natural history ever since.)

-- Centering Animals in Latin American History (Edited by Martha Few and Zeb Tortorici -- 2013 -- Collection of articles/essays from multiple scholars “seeking to include” other-than-human creatures as “social actors in the histories” of “colonial and postcolonial Latin America” including writing on dog funerals, use of animal in colonization campaigns, the commodification of animals, and animals in political symbolism.

-- Unfreezing the Arctic: Science, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Inuit Lands (Andrew Stuhl -- 2016.)

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ayquebella · 2 years

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Vintage Guatemala Deity Warriors & Resplendent Quetzal Folklorico Maya Silver Panel Bangle Bracelet

What a very beautiful and traditional, handmade silver panel bangle bracelet from La República de Guatemala! This very pretty bracelet was masterfully handcrafted with beautifully etched folkloric images on a bed of rich black oxidized silver depicting Maya deity warriors and the resplendent quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala that represents liberty.

Six of the seven hinged panels have a warrior deity, the ones on the left face to the right, the ones on the right face to the left, and the center panel contains the image of a single quetzal in all of its magnificent glory.

This remarkably artistic bangle bracelet has a 2 3/8-inch rolo-link safety chain for added security, an undisturbed, natural patina, and shows minor signs of wear consistent with its age that are undetectable to the casual observer. This gorgeous silver bracelet is a very authentic and intentional statement of rich Guatemalan cultural heritage and pride when worn!

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romanceyourdemons · 2 years

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unlike the frankly rather empty jumpscare-horror film the curse of la llorona (2019), la llorona (2020) is not only a beautiful and affecting film but a thematically rich one as well. the film centers around former guatemalan dictator enrique monteverde, fictional but transparently based on efraín ríos montt, and the genocide of maya-ixil people he participated in and brought about. the central question in this film is how far innocence can truly extend in the case of an atrocity such as the guatamalan civil war. in the case of monteverde, when his “guilty” verdict is overturned by the court this is seen as clear injustice, but in the case of his wife, his daughter, and his granddaughter, the situation becomes more complex. these women bore entirely passive roles in the events of the genocide, the granddaughter being born years after its end. and yet, in the end, it seems that it is empathy, identification, and ultimately action which determines culpability. for as long as each woman refuses to empathize with and allow themself to be narratively identified with the victims of the genocide, personified in a maya woman named alma who enters their household at the beginning of the film who proves later to be la llorona—for so long as they refuse empathy, so much greater must their role in vengeance against monteverde be to render them innocent. the granddaughter identifies with alma immediately and need only put her grandfather at risk; the daughter does not identify until halfway through the film, and must threaten her father with violence; and the wife does not fully narratively identify with alma until the end, at which point she commits fully realized and fully aware violence against her husband. this interplay of empathy and guilt is tracked in the hiding and revelation of the faces of the victims, and in the clarity and understanding of their voices. though as a horror film la llorona (2020) is not as viscerally upsetting as its 2019 counterpart, it is much richer in substance and infinitely more thoughtful in theme

#and to be clear!! by identification i don’t mean like. racial identity or whatever #i mean the film literally presents the character as being in the same position as alma and the character recognizes that #and they allow themselves to be the willing instruments of her revenge #which it is implied she cannot physically take for herself #it’s a fascinating presentation #ryddles

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pandjseetheworld · 3 years

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Una Mal Traducción

Pearce’s Birthday

This morning we came downstairs and immediately Maria said “Happy Birthday Pearce.” We were both a little surprised because we thought we made a good connection yesterday when we were at the bakery and I said his birthday was in 2 weeks on the 27 but you know how things go. Today is the 17th so Maria, Luis, and Isaac all think today is Pearce’s birthday and we don’t have the heart to tell them it’s the 27th not the 17th (probably my broken Spanish). As we ate breakfast Maria even put on some classic Guatemalan birthday music and there were fireworks set off in the streets. It was so hard not to correct them but they were being so sincere we just had to go along with it. So our bad translation turned into Pearce’s fabulous birthday!!

Isaac promptly arrived at 8:30 because we had a long day ahead of us. After wishing Pearce and myself happy birthday with side hugs we all hopping the car and headed North towards Antigua. It was really fun to drive through Guatemala City and get a sense of each neighborhood and the beautiful landscape. It’s so green and lush in Guatemala, you can see the mountains in the distance and even volcanos at certain points. And Antigua is the most gorgeous colonial city. We only drove through the town to get a feel for what it’ll be like when we stay here in a few days but it really got me excited. As you enter Antigua the streets are all cobblestone and the buildings are all colonial style. The buildings are so vibrant and the architecture is unique. We got out to explore the center square. There’s a cute park in the middle surrounded by the Church of Antigua, museums, shops, and a cute farmers market. We popped in and out of different stalls and Maria bought us all matching bracelets with our names on it!! Super cute! We also got to see a unique instrument called a “marimba” being played by a musical group!! They were fascinating and I’m so glad we got to hear them. This little taste of Antigua made me really stoked to come back and explore the town more!

Our next stop was roughly another 45 minutes away but it’s the closest Mayan ruins to Antigua. The ruins are called “Iximche” translating to Corn Tree. As we pulled up Luis thought he could pull a Flint and be cheap. If you are a local you don’t have to pay as much so he told us to not talk, wear our sun glasses, and act natural. Well, it didn’t work. Ends up we stand out like gringos!! It must be our extreme height and our coloring but I think it’s cute Luis thought we might be able to pull it off. So after paying full price, we headed in to explore the ruins. As we walked around Maria, Luis, and Isaac tried to explain the areas, some of the culture, and the ruins but there was a lot lost in translation. Thankfully a volunteer came up to us and gave us a quick rundown on these ruins and these are some of the things we learned.

The ruins were abandoned by the Kaqchikel Maya Kingdom in 1524. The architecture of the site includes a number of pyramid-temples, palaces, ball courts, and sacrificial alters. The city is surrounded by deep ravines and even had a mote way back when. Only 4 wealthy families lived on these ruins but there were roughly 400 people within those families. The Mayans carried the lime stone 4km on their backs to build each buildings. We were standing just outside of a ball court when the volunteer was speaking to us so he told us the games would be held for 2-4 people to compete. It was a way to settle disputes and the games could last minutes, hours, or even days AND the losers would be sacrificed. Now that’s one way to settle and argument with your husband!!! WHOAH! He also mentioned that the stairs are very tall and close together because the Mayans would walk up them diagonally always facing the sun. They honored the sun gods and made sure they always pointed in the suns directions when walking up or down stairs, interesting! Lastly, he noted that there are 25 different Mayan groups in Guatemala today and they are still fighting over conflicts. Of those 25 different groups, there are 22 different languages and each language has 15 different dialects per language. HOLY CRAP! That’s a lot of languages and a lot to learn! I am glad we ran into the guide because he was extremely helpful! The ruins were very interesting and a good introduction to the Mayan culture. We still have a LOT of ruins to visit and I am very excited about it!

On the way home we stopped at a steak house to celebrate and eat lunch. Of course, I didn’t know it was a steak house so I ordered chicken but it was good regardless. This was another one of those lost in translation things!! Haha As we continued back home we pulled off the highway to get an overview of Guatemala City before making our way back into the city. It’s truly a gorgeous city and I couldn’t be more grateful to be here! I can’t wait to head home and top off the evening with some birthday cake for Pearce! A birthday I am sure he will never forget! :)

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Thursday, February 4, 2021

Pressure builds on schools to reopen during pandemic (AP) Pressure is building on school systems around the U.S. to reopen classrooms to students who have been learning online for nearly a year, pitting politicians against teachers who have yet to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In Chicago, the rancor is so great that teachers are on the brink of striking. In California, a frustrated Gov. Gavin Newsom implored schools to find a way to reopen. In Cincinnati, some students returned to classrooms Tuesday after a judge threw out a teachers union lawsuit over safety concerns. While some communities maintain that online classes remain the safest option for everyone, some parents, with backing from politicians and administrators, have complained that their children’s education is suffering from sitting at home in front of their computers and that the isolation is damaging them emotionally. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a recent study that there is little evidence of the virus spreading at schools when precautions are taken, such as masks, distancing and proper ventilation. But many teachers have balked at returning without getting vaccinated first.

House Dems make case for conviction; Trump denies charges (AP) Donald Trump endangered the lives of all members of Congress when he aimed a mob of supporters “like a loaded cannon” at the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats said Tuesday in making their most detailed case yet for why the former president should be convicted and permanently barred from office. Trump denied the allegations through his lawyers and called the trial unconstitutional. The dueling filings offer the first public glimpse of the arguments that will be presented to the Senate beginning next week. The impeachment trial represents a remarkable reckoning with the violence in the Capitol last month, which the senators witnessed firsthand, and with Trump’s presidency overall. Held in the very chamber where the insurrectionists stood on Jan. 6, it will pit Democratic demands for a final measure of accountability against the desire of many Republicans to turn the page and move on. The impeachment trial, Trump’s second, begins in earnest on Feb. 9.

Activists wary of broader law enforcement after Capitol riot (AP) As federal officials grapple with how to confront the national security threat from domestic extremists after the deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol, civil rights groups and communities of color are watching warily for any moves to expand law enforcement power or authority. They say their communities have felt the brunt of security scrutiny over the last two decades and fear new tools meant to target right-wing extremism or white nationalists risk harming Muslims, Black Americans and other groups, even if unintentionally. “The answer ought to be to sort of pause. Because the instinct to do something is something I’m really quite afraid of,” said Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, one of more than 130 civil and human rights organizations that say the FBI already has the tools it needs. “There’s an entire federal code in place that allows you to successfully go after this violence before you need to sort of say, ‘Oh, wait, you know, there’s this existing gap and we need more power,’” she added.

Jeff Bezos steps down (CJR) Jeff Bezos said yesterday that he will soon step down as CEO of Amazon. Andy Jassy, who runs the company’s cloud computing division, will replace him; Bezos will become executive chair, a role he says will give him more time to focus on outside commitments, including his ownership of the Washington Post. (As CNN’s Brian Fung noted, not many people can say “I’m quitting to spend more time with my newspaper and space rockets.”)

Dozen state police charged in the massacre of 19 in Mexico (AP) A dozen state police officers have been arrested for allegedly killing 19 people, including Guatemalan migrants, whose bodies were found shot and burned near the U.S. border late in January, Mexican authorities announced Tuesday. Tamaulipas state Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica said all 12 officers were in custody and face charges of homicide, abuse of authority and making false statements. The killings revived memories of the gruesome 2010 massacre of 72 migrants near the town of San Fernando in the same gang-ridden state. But those killings were done by a drug cartel, while it is likely many people will find it more shocking that the Jan. 22 slayings allegedly were carried out by law enforcement. The attorney general did not say what motive the officers might have had, though corrupt local and state police in Mexico are often in the pay of drug cartels. Cartels in Mexico often charge migrant smugglers for crossing their territory, and kidnap or kill migrants whose smugglers have not paid or paid a rival gang.

Common pots prepared by neighbors feeding thousands in Peru (AP) At dawn, Genoveva Satalaya and her neighbors walk through Lima’s food markets hoping to find a kind merchant who will donate food to help fill the “common pot” that is feeding their neighborhood. The survival strategy that first appeared in Peru’s capital during the country’s civil conflict four decades ago has been vital since the coronavirus pandemic arrived in this South American nation. With the country again under a lockdown, Satalaya’s pot is feeding 120 people, including seniors, children and pregnant women. Satalaya and her neighbors prepare lunch Monday through Friday. There’s not enough food for weekday breakfasts or dinners or weekend meals. The common pots, also seen in other Latin American countries, have emerged as a symbol of the struggles of the region. Thousands of them are in use throughout Peru at levels not seen since the 1980s and 1990s during the armed conflict between the state and the Shining Path terrorist group. There are almost a thousand common pots in Lima that are recognized by officials in the municipality, but many, including the one run by Satalaya, are not registered and do not receive any kind of help. The government announced last week that it would send aid to many common pots, but since there are so many, the help may not reach every neighborhood.

Tycoon Ordered to Demolish His $70M Home (The Daily Beast) A French property tycoon has been ordered to tear down his $70m faux-Italianate palazzo in the hills of Provence after losing a 15-year legal battle over the 32,000 square foot structure, which was built without planning permission. Patrick Diter has been given 18 months to scrub every last trace of “Chateau Diter,” including its 18 bedrooms, two helipads, swimming pool, bell tower, Roman colonnade and orangery, from the landscape above Monaco. Subscription newsletter AirMail reports that France’s highest judicial court upheld a previous ruling in the appellate courts that the illegal château near the Provençal village of Grasse must be removed and the countryside restored to its original state. If the court orders are not complied with by June 2022, Diter will pay a fine of $600 per day. The court also slapped Diter with fines totaling $550,000.

Hundreds Arrested as Navalny Sentenced (Foreign Policy) A Moscow court handed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny a prison sentence of two years and eight months on Tuesday, as authorities hope to put an end to a saga that has seen thousands of Russians take to the streets in protest over the last two weeks. The court found that Navalny had broken the terms of his probation for a previous conviction for stealing $500,000 from two companies. Navalny denies the charges, and the European Court of Human Rights at the time called the case “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.” The reasoning behind his probation breach is murky, as Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have approved Navalny’s transfer to a German hospital for treatment after he was poisoned in August. Navalny’s relatively short prison term could soon be extended, as investigators prepare a fraud case that could carry another ten-year sentence. But Tuesday’s sentence may be just enough if it means Navalny will not be a threat in September’s parliamentary elections. The Kremlin has dismissed international condemnation of the verdict. “You should not interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. And we recommend that everyone deal with their own problems,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

India farming protests resonate with US agriculture (AP) Images of thousands of farmers streaming into India’s capital on tractors and carrying banners to decry potentially devastating changes in agricultural policy can seem a world away, but the protests in New Delhi raise issues that resonate in the United States. Indian farmers have left their homes to march through New Delhi in a desperate effort to force the repeal of laws they believe would end guaranteed pricing and force them to sell to powerful corporations rather than government-run markets. Despite decades of economic growth, up to half of India’s population relies on growing crops on small parcels of land, typically less than 3 acres, and farmers worry that without guaranteed prices they will be forced to sell their land and lose their livelihoods. The images of farmers marching through New Delhi recall similar scenes in Washington, D.C., during the farming crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when hundreds of trucks and tractors flooded the National Mall. Thousands of farmers lost their land, in part because of government policies that caused soaring interest rates as demand for their products plunged, leading to falling land values. In Iowa—one of the hardest hit states—there were about 500 farm auctions a month in 1983 when families had no choice but to sell. Decades later, those memories remain fresh for Rick Juchems, whose parents had to sell their 640-acre farm in Iowa. Just as feared by those protesting in India, the American farmers lost their livelihoods and sense of identity. “We were just trying to stay alive,” said Juchems, who later was able to continue farming thanks to his in-laws. “That’s what you work all your life for and then it’s gone.”

Myanmar’s Army Is Back in Charge. It Never Truly Left. (NYT) The men in army green never truly retreated. As Myanmar presented a facade of democracy to the world, the generals who had ruled the country for nearly half a century still dominated the economy and the halls of power. They even got away with what international prosecutors say was genocide in their murderous offensives against Rohingya Muslims. With its pre-dawn coup on Monday—unseating an elected government and putting its leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, back under house arrest—the military, led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was once again flaunting its ultimate authority. Yet in the process of reasserting their command, the generals have ripped apart a prized project: a carefully constructed political system decades in the making that allowed them to camouflage their fists behind a veneer of democracy. Though they allowed elections, army officers also reserved a quarter of the Parliament’s seats and crucial cabinet positions for themselves. The public, which felt like it could express its political aspirations by delivering landslide victories to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, is furious. And the international community, which chose to focus more on the civilian part of the country’s civilian-military system, is now aware that one side of the scale clearly outweighs the other.

Iran reaches agreement with South Korea (Foreign Policy) Iran has agreed to release the crew of a South Korean oil tanker in what its foreign ministry called a “humanitarian” move after the vessel was impounded in early January. The vessel’s seizure was believed to be a bargaining chip to convince South Korea to free up $7 billion in Iranian funds currently frozen in South Korean banks as a result of U.S. sanctions. South Korea’s foreign ministry welcomed Iran’s decision to release the sailors, saying it was a necessary next step to “restore trust” before resolving the issue of the frozen funds. Regarding the funds, the ministry stated it “will do what it can in a speedy manner while discussing consultations with the United States on the issue.”

Tigray crisis: Ethiopia region at risk of huge ‘humanitarian disaster’ (BBC) Opposition parties in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have warned of a huge “humanitarian disaster” if aid is not delivered urgently. The parties said people were already dying from hunger and urged the international community to intervene. Ethiopia’s government says aid is being delivered and nearly 1.5 million people have been reached. The parties also said 52,000 people had been killed since the conflict started in November. They did not explain how they arrived at the estimate but said it included women, children and religious leaders. About two million people have been internally displaced in the conflict in Tigray. The government has heavily restricted access to the region for the media and aid agencies. On Monday, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said he had “rarely seen an aid response so impeded” in the 40 years he had worked in the humanitarian field. In a joint statement, three opposition parties—the Tigray Independence Party (TIP), Salsay Weyane Tigray, and National Congress of Great Tigray—said if food and medicine did not arrive quickly the “looming humanitarian disaster of biblical proportion” would become a “gruesome reality in Tigray”.

#headlines #news

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harrytreily · 4 years

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parc central residence location

The Great Plaza is the picture postcard face of Tikal, cleared of jungle and rebuilt. Two enormous pyramids, monuments and tombs of dead kings, climb 44 meters to stretch their roof combs above the surrounding canopy. Smaller complexes that were once administrative centers and residences surround them. Carved stone stelae in the plaza preserve stories of royal deeds.

Pathways hacked through the jungle link the Great Plaza to the other ruins. I avoided the tourist guides, the angry sun-pinked skin, the flapping Hawaiian shirts and the baggy Bermuda shorts. I bought a map and chose a lesser-traveled route. I walked quietly and breathed deeply. Birds called in the verdant green canopy and spider monkeys chattered in the distance. Smells of humid earth and decaying vegetation filled my nose. The intense heat of the flatlands wrapped me in cloying humidity.

The outer ruins lay as they were found. Stones crumbled under probing and strangling roots. Whole buildings slept undisturbed beneath a living blanket of tangled growth. The earth was reclaiming the city, digesting it. The corroding stones radiated mystery and silence, a hint of stories long forgotten and of huge tracts of time.

The Mayan world occupied the upper third of Central America, from the baking jungle flatlands of the Yucatan parc central residence location Peninsula (present day Mexico, Belize and the Guatemalan Petén) to volcanic highlands stretching as far south as Copan in Honduras.

Mayan civilization was not an empire, but a loose collection of entities that shared a common cultural background. Large centers of power like Tikal, Copan or Chichen Itza were comparable to the city states of ancient Greece, and these great agricultural centers were the focal points of Mayan culture.

At its zenith, the Mayan civilization represented one of the most densely populated and dynamic societies in the world. The Mayans were responsible for the only fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, and they continue to fascinate us with their art and monumental architecture, as well as their sophisticated systems of mathematics and astronomy.

But nothing fascinates us more than their demise. What accounted for the stunning collapse of their civilization? Was it an ecological disaster, a catastrophic event, the collapse of trade routes, or a peasant revolt? Many theories exist; none has been conclusively proven.

Though their society collapsed, the Maya did not entirely vanish into the mists of time. Mayan peoples and their descendants remain to form sizable populations in contemporary Mesoamerican societies, and Mayan languages continue to be spoken. In mountain villages and flatland jungle towns throughout northern Central America a slender, fragile thread of life still stretches back through time, providing a blood red connection to the monument builders of old.

Exploring those Mayan worlds was a bit of a pilgrimage for me. As a child I haunted library books with cutaway illustrations of castles and pyramids. I became obsessed with Easter Island. I didn't care for dinosaurs; I needed something with a dream attached, the echo of someone's all-consuming desire. I gloated over the unexplainable. I sought not theories, but mystery. Dark corridors. Ancient stones hewn carefully by hand. The musty smell of centuries. But my country had none of that. Those places where stories were contained in crumbling stones were entire continents away. Perhaps that's why I yearned for them. I've always dreamed of the inaccessible. In time. In place. In love.

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archaeologicalnews · 6 years

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This ancient Maya city may have helped the Snake King dynasty spread

WASHINGTON — New insights into an ancient Maya kingdom are coming from a remote outpost in the Guatemalan jungle.

Aerial laser maps, excavations and stone-slab hieroglyphics indicate that La Corona, a largely rural settlement, became a key part of a far-ranging Classic-era Maya kingdom that incorporated sites from southern Mexico to Central America, researchers reported on April 15 at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Classic Maya civilization lasted from around 250 to 900.

A dynasty of Kaanul rulers, also called Snake Kings, expanded their domain from their home city of Calakmul in Mexico by using La Corona as a relay center for precious stones and other goods from Kaanul-controlled sites farther south, said archaeologist Marcello Canuto.

“Our work supports the idea that the ancient Maya formed interconnected political systems, not largely separate city-states as traditionally thought,” said Canuto, of Tulane University in New Orleans, who codirects the La Corona excavation. Read more.

#archaeology #maya #archeology #guatemala #la corona #snake kings #kaanul

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tlatollotl · 6 years

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In what’s being hailed as a “major breakthrough” in Maya archaeology, researchers have identified the ruins of more than 60,000 houses, palaces, elevated highways, and other human-made features that have been hidden for centuries under the jungles of northern Guatemala.

Using a revolutionary technology known as LiDAR (short for “Light Detection And Ranging”), scholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the now-unpopulated landscape, revealing the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed.

“The LiDAR images make it clear that this entire region was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated,” said Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer who specializes in using digital technology for archaeological research.

Garrison is part of a consortium of researchers who are participating in the project, which was spearheaded by the PACUNAM Foundation, a Guatemalan nonprofit that fosters scientific research, sustainable development, and cultural heritage preservation.

The project mapped more than 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of Guatemala, producing the largest LiDAR data set ever obtained for archaeological research.

The results suggest that Central America supported an advanced civilization that was, at its peak some 1,200 years ago, more comparable to sophisticated cultures such as ancient Greece or China than to the scattered and sparsely populated city states that ground-based research had long suggested.

In addition to hundreds of previously unknown structures, the LiDAR images show raised highways connecting urban centers and quarries. Complex irrigation and terracing systems supported intensive agriculture capable of feeding masses of workers who dramatically reshaped the landscape.

The ancient Maya never used the wheel or beasts of burden, yet “this was a civilization that was literally moving mountains,” said Marcello Canuto, a Tulane University archaeologist who participated in the project.

“We’ve had this western conceit that complex civilizations can’t flourish in the tropics, that the tropics are where civilizations go to die,” said Canuto, who conducts archaeological research at a Guatemalan site known as La Corona. “But with the new LiDAR-based evidence from Central America and [Cambodia’s] Angkor Wat, we now have to consider that complex societies may have formed in the tropics and made their way outward from there.”

SURPRISING INSIGHTS

“LiDAR is revolutionizing archaeology the way the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy,” said Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer. “We’ll need 100 years to go through all [the data] and really understand what we’re seeing.”

Already, though, the survey has yielded surprising insights into settlement patterns, inter-urban connectivity, and militarization in the Maya Lowlands. At its peak in the Maya classic period (approximately A.D. 250–900), the civilization covered an area about twice the size of medieval England, but it was far more densely populated.

“Most people had been comfortable with population estimates of around 5 million,” said Estrada-Belli, who directs a multi-disciplinary archaeological project at Holmul, Guatemala. “With this new data it’s no longer unreasonable to think that there were 10 to 15 million people there—including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable.”

Virtually all the Mayan cities were connected by causeways wide enough to suggest that they were heavily trafficked and used for trade and other forms of regional interaction. These highways were elevated to allow easy passage even during rainy seasons. In a part of the world where there is usually too much or too little precipitation, the flow of water was meticulously planned and controlled via canals, dikes, and reservoirs.

Among the most surprising findings was the ubiquity of defensive walls, ramparts, terraces, and fortresses. “Warfare wasn’t only happening toward the end of the civilization,” said Garrison. “It was large-scale and systematic, and it endured over many years.”

The survey also revealed thousands of pits dug by modern-day looters.

“Many of these new sites are only new to us; they are not new to looters,” said Marianne Hernandez, president of the PACUNAM Foundation. Environmental degradation is another concern. Guatemala is losing more than 10 percent of its forests annually, and habitat loss has accelerated along its border with Mexico as trespassers burn and clear land for agriculture and human settlement.

“By identifying these sites and helping to understand who these ancient people were, we hope to raise awareness of the value of protecting these places,” Hernandez said.

The survey is the first phase of the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, a three-year project that will eventually map more than 5,000 square miles (14,000 square kilometers) of Guatemala’s lowlands, part of a pre-Columbian settlement system that extended north to the Gulf of Mexico.

“The ambition and the impact of this project is just incredible,” said Kathryn Reese-Taylor, a University of Calgary archaeologist and Maya specialist who was not associated with the PACUNAM survey. “After decades of combing through the forests, no archaeologists had stumbled across these sites. More importantly, we never had the big picture that this data set gives us. It really pulls back the veil and helps us see the civilization as the ancient Maya saw it.”

See how LiDAR is rewriting the history of the Maya in “Lost Treasures of the Maya Snake Kings,” a one-hour National Geographic Special, premiering February 6 on the National Geographic Channel.

#archaeology #arqueologia #maya #mesoamerica #guatemala #jungle #tikal #calakmul #lidar #remote sensing #tulane #history #historia

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sistazai · 2 years

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There are Black people in the future. Healthy. Thriving. Joyous. Our ancestors’ wildest dreams. We are out here … dreaming up the present/future everyday. Create a beautiful day, my loves! . . Posted @withregram • @edykachilome Reposted from @seedingsovereignty Wow. We really loved this read because it is so relevant to the work that BIPOC communities are currently engaging with. Why? Cuz we aren't organizing for the end of the world. We are organizing for a different world that is entirely possible and, honestly, very realistically achievable. There was a time before colonization and there will be a time afterwards, many of us see it in our dreams and it is so beautiful. @astrosagas "MARS TRINE PLUTO - I have been studying the mayan calendar for a long time as a way to reconnect with some of my own ancestral roots that I feel disconnected from as a Guatemalan child of the diaspora. I remember the crisis of 2012 and “the mayan prophesy” that was discussed, elevated, criticized and then squashed entirely by white people interpreting a calendar that is not their own. Mayans did not predict the end of the world in 2012 because they do not believe in the end of the world. Time is cyclical. The Maya know this. The end of the 13th baktun, a 5,126 year count, marks the end of a chapter in the development of consciousness on Earth. Now we begin the transition to building societies and cultures based on entirely new values. This is not an apocalypse because the Earth will continue to thrive and so will people on it. But it is the end of colonialism on Earth, the rampant theft of lands and people for the profit of the few. This will not ensure the end of the world but the longevity of it. We, the people who are conscious during this time of great change, will be the ones to initiate a new cycle of time on Earth. What values do you choose to center? What do you want to carry forward?" Image ID: Over a blue to pink gradient encased in a white frame a graphic reads, " Apocalypse is a colonial concept that implies the world will end when colonialism ends." https://www.instagram.com/p/Cag0giLh65c/?utm_medium=tumblr

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esotericworld · 6 years

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“In what’s being hailed as a “major breakthrough” in Maya archaeology, researchers have identified the ruins of more than 60,000 houses, palaces, elevated highways, and other human-made features that have been hidden for centuries under the jungles of northern Guatemala...

#History #archeology #LiDAR #mayan

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mediconico · 6 years

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Quetzaltenango

9.6.2018

We get into Guatemala city in the early afternoon around 1. We are put up in a hotel called “Patricia’s BNB” only about 2 minutes away from the main airport of Guatemala city. Everything has been arranged for us by my program, The Guatemala Initiative-UVA, given how dangerous Guatemala City is known to be; upon arriving at the airport, we’re picked up in a pretty run-down mustard-colored Mitsubishi minibus that is prototypical to the Central American region.

Although we arrive relatively early in the afternoon, our program director has advised that we don’t leave our gated neighborhood of our hotel due to the relative danger of the city. A big, polluted city with high rates of crime, writes Lonely Planet. Your time is best spent exploring other parts of the country that have more beauty to offer at much lower risk. They’re not wrong; in 2016, the National Guatemalan Police Department (PNG) reported more than 4500 homicides, 5800 assaults, and 3500 kidnappings throughout the country, largely centered in the City.

So we decide to stay in “Patricia’s” for the rest of the day. But it’s not a problem; I decide to take a rather long nap after having traveled over 24 hours straight in arriving to Guatemala and having slept in the Fort Lauderdale airport the night before. Actually, that’s a lie. Airports are like hospitals; nobody sleeps there.

At “Patricia’s” with me are 5 other girls from the study-abroad program here in Guatemala (I’m actually the only guy in a group of 9...), so we hang out talking throughout the rest of the night, and order some Chinese takeout for dinner from our hosts. It’s not yet the “cultural experience” I’m hoping from Guatemala, but I already know that it awaits me in the city of Quetzaltenango (more colloquially known as Xela), 4 hours to the west of Guatemala City, shrouded in the mountainous volcanic mist.

* * *

Here in Xela, I live with a Guatemalan host family which is all arranged for me through my Spanish school, “Celas Maya”. The grandmother of the family is named Sandra and she is kindly and deftly hosting a group of 7 (!) composed of her grandchildren and other students in the house. Sandra’s grandchildren are of various ages and are named Abigail, Jemima, and Jose Miguel. I’ve given them some nicknames: Abigail is “La Alumna” because she’s always studying, Jemima is “La Gemela” (this sort of annoys her, but it’s worth it), and Jose Miguel is “El Jugador” because he’s always playing video games. I’ve found that nicknames are a good icebreaker with the family, and we typically joke around during each meal.

There’s another student from my school who lives in the room next to me, Tsai, who is from Taiwan. He’s pretty quiet, but joins us at all the meals and has been a good buddy. Lastly, there are two other students living in the house, Marlo and Junior. Marlo is also a medical student in Xela, and Junior is studying English. Junior and I have become friends here; he’s quiet and mild-mannered, and I’ve learned that he likes to lift weights together at the gym, and supports himself by selling used motorcycles. In summary, it’s a house that is pretty full of people, but we get along well and I’ve been enjoying living here.

Here’s a picture of the view from my room in Sandra’s house:

* * *

After class one day at Celas Maya, we go on a trip to a small mountain-town pueblo to the northwest of Xela named San Andrés Xecul. The trip is the archetype of getting around in Central America; we get there on 3 different modes of transportation. First, we get on a minibus packed with people that reminds me of the colectivos I rode in Mexico last summer. Next, we get on a Chicken Bus which is actually a heavily outfitted and remodeled school bus, equipped with speakers that blast reggaetón during the entire trip, painted on the surface with brilliant colors, and named for wome–ours is named “La Princesa”, painted in hot pink across the windshield. Finally, we arrive to San Andrés Xecul by taking a “tuk-tuk” que is actually a motorcycle that’s been equipped to carry 5 people seated tightly underneath a cloth covering. I’m skeptical of their safety.

Here’s a shot from inside the Chicken Bus:

And another from inside the tuk-tuk:

After arriving to the pueblo after a tumultuous trip, we are welcomed by the striking church in in the main plaza:

Constructed in the 18th century, the church illustrates the history of the influence of the Spanish conquistadores on the Mayan culture in Guatemala. It’s a Catholic church, but the outside of the church is painted with a scene and colors that come from the Mayan culture.

Our guide from Celas Maya, Luis, tells us the history of the church. It has 3 principal Paint colors, yellow, green, and red, each of which has significance in the Mayan culture. The yellow, which forms the majority of the walls of the church, signifies the importance of yellow corn to the culture. Luis points off into the distance, showing us the countryside extending beyond towards the horizon, full of corn. It’s obvious that corn still forms a critical pillar for San Andrés Xecul, 200 years later.

But I interpret this information as a sad story behind the corn that supplies this Guatemalan pueblo: although it’s a major product, it’s not exported to the rest of the world in a way that would support the economy of San Andrés Xecul. In reality, the people of the pueblo essentially only use the corn they grow to put food on their dinner tables. Maybe this illustrates a history that is common to the Guatemalan pueblos–that they have a horizontal economy in which their people can survive, but it’s difficult to achieve a better economic standing and a stable career.

The other colors on the outside of the church, green and red, illustrate the fauna and flora around San Andrés Xecul and the blood of the Mayan culture, respectively. Ironically, one can see in the surrounding countryside rampant deforestation, the hills stripped of their natural guardians. In that moment, it’s perfectly illustrated the juxtaposition between the Mayan culture and its modern counterpart: one is trying to protect and cultivate the land beneath us stretching off into the horizon, while the other is seeking nautral resources in the name of “progress”. At what cost, I think. That same vermillion blood of the Mayan culture, disappearing into the cracks of the fractured sidewalks in San Andrés Xecul. In the name of the future, technology, the richness promised by the city life.

San Andrés Xecul, as seen from the hill above town:

* * *

15.6.2018

My Spanish classes have gone very well. Before going to class, however, I go every day to the “Casa de Yoga” in the zócalo in Xela to take a yoga class from 6:50 to 7:50am. The cost of the studio: 150 quetzales (Q150) per month, which is equivalent to about $20. There are studios at home in the U.S. that cost the same in dollars. It should be noted here the privilege that we have to think that Q150 is inconsequential; the miminum salary in Guatemala is ~Q2700 per month, or ~$360. And there are many who don’t even reach this minumum, as they are working in the streets, they have their own business, or they have to maintain a family.

We are a diverse yoga class. The Dutch yoga teacher, Samantha, leads us through our Hatha style yoga classes with poise and elegance, even including a short meditation at both the beginning and the end of class. For me, it’s been a good way to come into the day, setting an intention and relaxing my body and mind with the breath. To remain centered in ways such as this while one is traveling is imperative in order to overcome the culture shock experienced upon arriving to another country.

Casa de Yoga also holds a weekly potluck on Sunday nights after their late afternoon class from 5:15-6:30. I’m lucky enough to be invited this week. The crowd is diverse and interesting; I meet two girls from Holland, one from France, several local Guatemalans, and the owner, Kevin, from the United States who opened Casa de Yoga over 10 years ago. It’s a mix of both students and teachers, and I enjoy hearing stories about how everyone has come to live in Xela. At the end of the night after a cathartic yoga class with our teacher Joel and having attended a dinner with such a rich sense of community, I’m left with a warm feeling in my chest and smile spreading across my face as I fall asleep.

Casa de Yoga, as seen from the street:

* * *

My Spanish teacher, Ingrid, lives in the suburbs around Xela and arrives every morning to practice conversation with me. Although I speak Spanish well, I have been improving significantly with respect to more advanced grammar, sentence and speech fluency, vocabulary, and my understanding of Guatemalan culture. Every day, we talk for 5 hours from 8 o’clock in the morning until 1 o’clock in the afternoon about themes ranging from the healthcare system in Guatemala to the concept of depression to our life stories.

It’s worth briefly discussing the concept of healthcare and personal health here in Guatemala. There are three major centers in which Guatemalans can seek their healthcare, Puestos de Salud, Centros de Salud, and hospitals, ranging from least equipped to most equipped. Puestos are small health outposts typically present in the more rural communities in Guatemala and do not typically have doctors present; they are run by medical students and nurses, may have a small pharmacy, and a few might also have a lab for basic tests such as urinary analysis and blood draws. Centros are closer to hospitals but are not fully equipped; they are often places where mothers will go to deliver babies if they are not delivered at home. Hospitals in Guatemala are viewed with trepidation, as many Guatemalans believe based on stories of loved ones that people only go to hospitals to die.

Traditional medicine handed down through generations of the indigenous Mayan culture is pervasive in Guatemala. While it is less likely to see locals walking through the streets of Xela dressed in the traditional Mayan huipil (top shirt) and corte (bottom skirt), most of the population still believes and practices in many of their ancient family traditions. And as an American coming into Guatemala to help deliver healthcare in one of the many under-equipped hospitals here, it’s important to realize the importance of these traditions to many of the Guatemalan patients. For example, mal de ojo is a disease widely believed by Guatemalans to affect their infant children. Essentially, if someone with too much energía looks at their baby or is even too near to their child, their child will become sick in some way. Mal de ojo is more dangerous with individuals who have blue or green eyes, but can also be caused by “bad blood”. Therefore, in the indigenous Guatemalan culture nobody aside from the direct family of an infant is allowed to see the child for the first 40 days of life. This is a practice still maintained by some families.

Some professionals from the Western medicine tradition might cringe at this suggestion. But it’s important to remember to avoid ethnocentrism, and to offer culturally sensitive healthcare that includes both the patient’s traditions in addition to more evidence-based medicine. In the end, a combination of more modern medicine and traditions that are more comfortable for the patient will end up producing the best results.

* * *

On Friday, Ingrid and I go to a market, San Francisco El Alto, for our class. I decide that a class mixed in with a cultural experience will help me more in understanding Guatemala and its people than staying in the courtyard at school again.

In the market, there is a cacophonous mix of food vendors, clothing, electronics, shoes…anything that one might want. With Ingrid as my guide, we meander among the narrow streets packed with vendors selling typical Guatemalan goods, such as seafood including shrimp and dried fish, vegetables from the surrounding farms, and even livestock in a dirt field near the top of the hill. Unfortunately, I don’t bring my camera to the market for fear of losing it to a thief. It’s only later that I realize that the market is relatively safe, and that I might have taken some photos that reminded me of the rich colors, smells, and sounds of San Francisco El Alto.

But the purpose of traveling isn’t only to take photos, and I’m glad to be immersed in such an authentic experience. After walking for a little while, we sit down in the middle of the market to eat a small lunch. Ingrid recommends the classic: a fresh tortilla folded about chicharrones bought from a street vendor, topped with fresh squeezed lime juice and served with a typical Guatemalan drink named atol. We choose to drink the atol de elote, which is made from the cob of the corn plant, pulverized and mixed with spices including cinnamon and cardamom. The thick yellow drink is served steaming hot, warming the spirits of these cold Guatemalan mountain pueblos. Delicious, I say audibly, thinking of the late Anthony Bourdain and his adventures among the street markets like this around the world.

I suppose this is how I’ve always wanted to travel: fully immersed in the culture, fee to explore and say yes, learning the customs and traditions of our global community. Because in the end, it turns out that traveling like this shows me that we’re not as different as we might think.

#guatemala #xela #travel #quetzaltenango #spanish #español

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lodelss · 3 years

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An Indigenous Woman Made it to Safety in the US. DHS Won’t Let it Go.

When Flor got word that she was going to be able to make her way into the U.S. and reunite with her family last May, she was ecstatic. For more than nine months, Flor and her five-year-old daughter had been stuck in Matamoros, Mexico, living inside a two-person tent in a squalid refugee camp near the U.S. border while they waited for an immigration judge to hear their asylum claim. Flor — whose full name is being omitted for her safety — and her daughter were among the roughly 60,000 asylum seekers who’d been trapped in Mexico under the Trump administration’s “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP). The months she spent in Matamoros were a nightmare.Temperatures oscillated between blazing heat during the day and frigid cold at night. One of those nights, she and her daughter huddled in their tent as the sound of a gun battle between police and a local drug cartel echoed through the streets. Another time, Flor says men cornered her and demanded extortion payments. When she failed to pay, she was violently assaulted. So when Flor heard that she and her daughter were going to be allowed to enter the U.S., the where they could continue the asylum process under the care of relatives in Massachusetts, she felt like she was being given a new lease on life. “I don’t know how to express the happiness I felt,” she said. “Knowing that we would be happy, at ease, and safe…I don’t know if you could understand it.” By May 2020, being allowed to enter the U.S. as an asylum seeker was akin to a miracle. The Coronavirus pandemic was raging in the U.S., and hearings for cases like hers had been indefinitely postponed, stranding thousands of asylum seekers in cities across Mexico with no idea when immigration courts would start hearing their claims again. In March, the Centers for Disease Control had caved under pressure from the Trump administration and issued a dubious public health order that allowed border officials to eject asylum seekers from the country almost instantaneously. By late Spring, America’s asylum system had essentially ceased to exist.

A Guatemalan asylum seeker and her two daughters are expelled from the U.S. into Ciudad Juarez under the CDC’s Title 42 order, April 2, 2020.

Paul Ratje

But in Massachusetts, Flor’s family’s plea for help had reached the ACLU of Massachusetts. They were desperate – the stories she told them about the situation in the camp were increasingly dire, and they feared for her life and that of her young daughter. ACLU attorneys in the state and nationally had already brought litigation against the MPP, and they decided to take her case along with a coalition of other advocates. Flor joined two other women — one of whom also had a five-year-old child — as plaintiffs in the case, which argued that putting them in the MPP was illegal and inhumane. In the following weeks, attorneys for the ACLU in Massachusetts interviewed Flor and the other two women via cell phone. Flor would charge hers ahead of time in a communal charging station at the camp. “It was only after talking to them on the phone for a really long time, sometimes ten hours, that they felt comfortable enough to share some of the things that they had been through,” said Adriana Lafaille, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts. Flor is from Guatemala and is Maya K’iche’ — a member of an Indigenous group from the country’s remote highlands. Throughout Guatemalan history, Maya K’iche’ and other Indigenous groups have been the target of discrimination and violence at the hands of politically dominant Spanish-descended Guatemalans, sometimes called “Ladinos.” In recent years, that violence has surged, with conflicts erupting between Mayan communities and prospectors with their eye on valuable mineral deposits beneath Indigenous land. Flor’s father was a vocal advocate for Indigenous rights, and she says she suffered as a result. After he was attacked and incapacitated, she began working as a maid in a Ladino household at the age of 10. She suffered repeated abuse at the hands of her employers, and, at 19, was violently attacked by a group of men who demanded information about her uncles. By mid-2019, she knew it was time to leave. “I realized that my daughter and I would never be able to escape persecution in Guatemala, and we fled,” she recounted in an affidavit. But by the time the COVID-19 crisis erupted, Flor had been in the Matamoros refugee camp for nearly eight months. Her daughter was losing weight, saying she was too sad to eat, and Flor feared the men who’d assaulted her might return.

Refugee camp for migrants and asylum seekers in Matamoros, Mexico, October 2019.

Guillermo Arias for the ACLU.

In May, Flor received a phone call from her attorneys. A federal judge had ruled in her favor, granting the ACLU’s request for her to be taken out of the MPP. She and her daughter would be joining a small handful of people who’d escaped the policy. Flor’s attorneys feared she might be sent to an immigration detention facility instead of being released to her family in Massachusetts. But after only a single night in detention, she and the others were released. For Lafaille, it was a hard-fought win in an era where the courts have often thwarted efforts to block the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies. “We were all just so relieved,” she said. “For our clients, it was an end to this incredibly difficult ordeal and a long period of such hardship and uncertainty.” Flor and her daughter settled into life in Massachusetts. The pandemic was still raging, so mostly they stayed inside, but occasionally she accompanied her aunt to the park or grocery store. “It’s so peaceful here,” she said. “I feel a tranquility that I have never experienced in my life. I’m treated nicely by people.” But it quickly became apparent that lawyers from the Department of Homeland Security were not going to accept the loss and move on. Not long after Flor and the others arrived in Massachusetts, Lafaille received notice that the government planned to appeal the decision. By mid-summer, COVID-19 had arrived in shelters across the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as in the refugee camp where Flor spent nearly a year. Despite the rise in cases in Mexico, DHS refused to relent — the agency pressed on with the appeal, seeking the power to send Flor, her daughter, and the others back to Mexico immediately. Lafaille says that the appeal is a symbol of just how hostile the federal government has become towards asylum seekers under the Trump administration. “Not only has the government claimed that our clients weren’t facing urgent harms in Mexico,” she said. “But after our clients were here in Massachusetts, DHS also asserted that the appeal had to be expedited because it was the government that was being harmed by having to allow these three women and two children — who they never contended were dangerous in any way — to live in safety with their families.” Because of DHS’s appeal, Flor isn’t just facing the daunting task of presenting an asylum claim in immigration court — she’s fighting to prevent her and her daughter from being forced to do so from a tent inside a refugee camp during a pandemic. Flor says she has to find ways to distract herself from the prospect. “I tell myself that I shouldn’t think about that,” she said. “When I do, I try to think about other things instead.” The ACLU of Massachusetts argued against DHS’s appeal in front of the First Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 6. Even in an era where the federal government is using every avenue it can to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country, she says the appeal stands out. “It just shows a government that is totally devoid of humanity,” said Lafaille. “In the government’s eyes, the MPP is working because it is so devastating to asylum seekers that many simply cannot make it to their hearings, and their claims are deemed abandoned. They want the process to be so hard and dangerous in Mexico that people just give up.” Until the First Circuit rules on the appeal, Flor and the other new arrivals are stuck in limbo, hoping they’ll be allowed to remain safe and out of harm’s way. “The thing I wish for the most, what I ask God for, is to not be sent back to Mexico,” she said. The ACLU of Massachusetts is co-counseling this case with the firm Fish & Richardson. Flor has been represented in her immigration case by the Law Office of Jodi Goodwin in Harlingen, Texas, and is now represented by Greater Boston Legal Services and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. In the First Circuit, the plaintiffs’ position was supported by National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council 119, represented by Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP; former government officials including Janet Napolitano, Roberta Jacobson and James Clapper, represented by WilmerHale; and a coalition of legal service providers and organizations, represented by the Law Office of Joshua M. Daniels.

Published October 12, 2020 at 08:30PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3iTOXF3

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madisonacampbell · 4 years

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Via the ACLU: An Indigenous Woman Made it to Safety in the US. DHS Won’t Let it Go.

An Indigenous Woman Made it to Safety in the US. DHS Won’t Let it Go.

A Guatemalan asylum seeker and her two daughters are expelled from the U.S. into Ciudad Juarez under the CDC’s Title 42 order, April 2, 2020.

Paul Ratje

Refugee camp for migrants and asylum seekers in Matamoros, Mexico, October 2019.

Guillermo Arias for the ACLU.

Published October 12, 2020 at 11:00AM via ACLU (https://ift.tt/3iTOXF3) via ACLU

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nancydhooper · 4 years

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An Indigenous Woman Made it to Safety in the US. DHS Won’t Let it Go.

A Guatemalan asylum seeker and her two daughters are expelled from the U.S. into Ciudad Juarez under the CDC’s Title 42 order, April 2, 2020.

Paul Ratje

Refugee camp for migrants and asylum seekers in Matamoros, Mexico, October 2019.

Guillermo Arias for the ACLU.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/this-indigenous-woman-reached-safety-in-the-us-and-dhs-is-furious via http://www.rssmix.com/

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