Story Archives 2000

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Jacob Frost

Slam Bio

Green

Like a newly grown apple

Sour like lemons kiss

The smell of rain

Kissed leaves after a nights rain

Touch of soft silk

A red panda

Not many culturally centered left of my Ute people

My home is beautiful

I live in my world

My family fights to keep our culture alive

My sisters death was a difficult time to deal with

I was forced to grow up

At age 11

The streaming green light reminds me

To live in reality

But dream

like im asleep

by Joe B.

Sacred Bonds/Long Lives

Looks like Conservatives have their hackles up about same sex marriage,New Mayor Newsom Didn’t brake laws getting folks married it just seem way to radical but then again we’re in San Francisco to the tune of $50,000 which is not bad for one day and this week that record can easily be broken.

But this is serious being Roman Catholic taught in New York I’d to have qualms about the same sex issue except it came to me:If the institution of marriage is so strong why would two men,women joined in the holiest of binding ties weaken the institution? Doesn’t the fact that two people deciding to love,cherish,protect in sickness and health prove that marriage is still strong?

To the very though of President Bush’s bull for a constitutional amendment restricting or banning same sex unions while making Man/Woman unions the only legal standing in America tell me more about his personal view than the countries.

Face it people Same sex marriages will take place it may be slowed for year but it will happen and this country will be better for it.

There was a time not so long past that Blacks could not marry Whites, Chinese,and were not respected as couples themselves.

Imagine a country where because of myths,tales, and tragic events happen not because of one race choosing to honor clandestine back alley torrid emotions by finding a minister to be honorably married in the creator’s eyes.

As a child I though don’t white folks get enough lovin’ everywhere they go they have women of other races when I learned of consensual sex it made me wonder,if I found a plain Jane white girl or women of any race and we loved each other the very thought of our not sneaking around but being open could get us(mainly me) killed for something as private and intimate as peck on a woman’s cheek.

It still goes on this insidious sexual jealousy, projection onto victims.

Now one the last taboos gay men and women in committed relationships demanding equality of marriage.

The Bible says its wrong but its wrong thinking impure thoughts, Civilization didn’t begin with marriage but children had to know who their mother’s and father’s were and for the longest time women we’re child baring chattel.

Like it or not you cannot stop a determined people and for a President to carve in stone and enshrine that only man and woman constitutes a family is arrogance of one man in a high office whose personal preference, bigotry,belittled the office makes him not the office small.

Between birth and abortion two of the most powerful engines of creation and destruction literally rests in the hands of and wombs of women and men may believe they have power over them as President B’ think using religion and his own belief system on how women should behave means nothing to girls with too many children,girls too young having them or those wanting to keep their child.

And of mature young women knowing what they want getting abortions-on -demand silently suffering emotional,psychological turmoil punishing themselves long after they’ve achieved their career goals even marrying and having children.

Most men don’t acknowledge this power of life and death and as friend said to me once: There’s A Reason Why Men Can Not Give Birth!

99% cannot take the physical,emotion, pain of it constitutionally.

In South Korea cloning of embryo breakthrough shows too that therapeutic is not in some dim future but here as for whole body cloning – that’s up to people who can afford the failures until either or both therapeutic and whole cloning is here.

Lost body parts, nerve regeneration,even brain cell replacement alleviating the lonely curse of Alzheimer.

Could it be that by the time 2020 or 2030 rolls around America may not only have same sex marriages legalized and be normal as like so called traditional family raising children of their own but therapeutic cloning and nanotechnology in our clothes and in us keeping us alive,youthful, healthy,and free of disease and minor ills aches and pains?

This coming election is about which way America will go.

Will the big-A lead the world into a new dawn of a bright future or will it falter,fall back like a preverbal ostrich its long neck in the sand while new countries take the bold steps into the glittering, shining future with all the perils,pitfalls,joys, and agonies it takes to stay Phoenix like renewing themselves as America stagnates behind?

Its not up to politico’s but we the people to elect bold leaders from our ranks to herald us past the dawn into a new day.


Donations C/0 Poor Magazine

1448 Pine Street #205

San Francisco, CA 94103

Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Bruce Allison/City Hall Resistance Beat

At 9am August 9, 2009, this reporter went to a meeting with about 20 other people. Most of it was about the cuts that Governor
did to the Healthcare budget and due to the mistake he did by using
the money while cutting the budget at the same time. So it was taken
by the Gray Panther‚ and Senior Action Network lawsuit was placed by
them. These groups with other groups sued the Governor for violating
the stimulus money from the U.S. government. It says that no money
shall be taken out of any of the health programs that is already
there. So the Governor removed health plans as dental, podiatry,
vision and others.

As I gave my speech about the cut in in-home supportive services and
the finger printing as the cost of this will cost $10,000,000 dollars
for a chance of fraud of 1% for all in-home supportive services for
the whole state.

Due to the Governors fear that there are 30% fraud. At this time he is
totally wrong. According to the Director of the Public Authority of
San Francisco County who runs all homecare in the City of San
Francisco ‚ Donna C. and Tony Nico the Director of Homecare for D.O.S.
[Department of Social Services] agrees ‚ that its only 1%.

At the rally, the final speaker came up. He was a gentleman in a wheel
chair with diabetes. Because of the governors cuts, he cant get his
toenails cut medically. Due to the cuts, they took away his so-called optional services. His only other option is one of two that is deadly and dangerous. One is to have his home care worker, who isn't
trained, cut it for him. Because he is diabetic, if they are cut wrong, he may lose his feet. The second option is for him to cut them
himself, which in this disability and elder scholar is the least
practical and safe option. If he gets gangreen, it will cost the
state $20,000 to treat him--do the math, people. The next day, I
found out that the optional services will be restored in two weeks.
The money that is needed to generate the rainy day fund is still
being negotiated. Stay tuned because Bad News Bruce will keep you
updated

by Takuya Arai

( POOR Magazine released Volume #4 The Work Issue in 1998. In that issue we explored the concept of Unrecognized labor and specifically the idea that Panhandling was, in fact, work)

I was walking down Haight Street in the city of San Francisco with my roommate. After the consecutive cold days of rain and chilly wind, we finally had a nice, warm day. We were approaching Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Shop on the corner, where a group of four teenagers with eccentric attire were begging for change from the pedestrians. When we walked across the street, I noticed that one of them looked at me and turned to her companions to talk about my MTV T-shirt, which I knew looked pretty stupid. They were laughing at me.

"Can you spare me some change?" she said to us with a sneer.

"I am sorry, but I am broke too," I replied, because my financial situation is getting really tight these days.

"No, you’re not!" To my surprise, she suddenly raised her voice, telling me not to lie to her. I think she was just trying to get some fun out of us because it seemed they did not have anything else to do. But I felt offended.

'That's none of your business. Get out of my sight." I did not say that, but I wanted to.

I just ignored her and went to a bookstore to buy my textbook. With the textbook in my hand, we passed Ben & Jerry's again on our way back. They were still there.

"Now you have some change because you bought something." I could not believe how she could have the nerve to say that.

"What the fuck!? I'll give you a penny if you lick the sole of my shoe." I did not say that, but that was my immediate response. Instead, I just stared at her eyes for about 15 seconds as we passed her by. She cast her eyes aside, so I stared at her other companions.

I am Japanese. Haight Street is introduced in the Japanese best -selling tour book "How to Walk the Earth" as one of the hottest spots to visit in San Francisco. Whenever I go there, I encounter several Japanese tourists wearing nice, fancy clothes with GAP shopping bags in their hands (although I have no idea what GAP has to do with Haight community). So I knew how she felt when I told her that I am broke, because I think she knew that I was Japanese and most of the Japanese people she sees on Haight Street can afford to go traveling and shopping.

If you live in a big city, you have a few chances a month to encounter people who ask for change on the street. The other day, I was driving my car and I stopped at a traffic light where a homeless person was standing. It was a cold, windy day. With a brown cardboard sign that said, "Homeless, even a smile would help," this disabled man in his 50's, wearing a torn shirt and ripped jeans, was bending forward and asking drivers in every car that was stopping at the traffic light for change. Although I did not know anything about this person, his shabby appearance immediately aroused a feeling of pity and made me want to do something for him.

At the same time, however, he reminded me of a teenage girl on Haight Street who was basically doing the same thing that this homeless person was doing. Instead of giving her some change at that time on Haight Street, I gave her a contemptuous look. While I was thinking about the difference between the girl on Haight Street and this homeless person at the traffic light, he came to my car. I opened the window and gave him eight quarters. With a big, warm smile on his face, he said, "Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Now, you have a pleasant day." He had a hoarse voice, but I felt good. I gave him change because I thought it was worth more to him than it was to me. I guess I gave him money out of compassion.

I wondered if it was the right thing to do. I think I did the right thing because I helped him, even temporarily. But then I wondered if he deserved money that I gave him.

We live in a free-market capitalistic society where money is used as a means of transaction. Money is an officially issued coin or paper note that is legally established as an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities. It is used as a means of storage of assets and as a measure of comparative values on the market. Therefore, whenever somebody pays money, they get something of equivalent value in exchange.

When I gave the homeless man money, what did I receive in exchange? It is true that I felt good when I gave him money, because I felt like I helped him and he thanked me. But does that mean that I bought conscience? Did I receive good karma? Was he selling misery? If so, is there any demand for the product or service he offers? When he spends money that he received from the pedestrians, how does he feel about it? Does he feel guilty? What if he lived in a society where barter is the main form of commercial transactions? Would he still be begging for food without giving anything in exchange?

According to a dictionary, "work" is defined as physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something. A "job" is defined as a regular activity performed in exchange for payment, especially as one's trade, occupation, or profession. It is a task that must be done, a specified duty or responsibility, and a specific piece of work to be done for a set fee.

Without any guarantee to secure enough money to get by, panhandling on the street for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week must be harder than any type of job we have on the market. But when people are standing on the street begging for change, how are they contributing to the good of the society? What are they producing? What are they trying to accomplish? Are they responsible for anything? Are they trying to give us a signal that the society is not functioning properly? I really do not know if we can call panhandling work.

One thing is true. When I gave him change, it was mutually beneficial. I felt good and he got what he wanted.

by Joe B.

Wednesday, April, 3, 2002.Between the early morn and night lots of activities happened from Food Bank cruising for donated delicacies to riding a bus on Valencia and listening to Junebug spitting truth, sacred word gems.

Its yet another day of this Wednesday off which I should have slept through then go to a movie but Nooooo, helping out a little for an upcoming “Resistance Award” dinner.

After deciding to forgo movies I leave late after taking a shower, teeth brushed, my recording machine has no batteries in them I’ll be dusting of an old notepad.

There’s a slight worry of being on the wrong bus at night, light panic looking for ”Modern Times Book Store for Junebug’s return from the “Cuba Sustainability Tour Report & Slide Show. It was a joint Ecology Center/Media Alliance and others recently returned delegation from Cuba.

The team visited mostly Havana about Cuba’s Organic Farming, Green medicine, Farmer’s Market, and Agricultual Collectives, and other alternatives to pesticides use in more developed countries like North America.

The Modern Times Book Store next to the Ethiopian Restaurant on 26th and Valencia Street which ment I had taken the right bus at 6:33 pm.!

Ms. June (Verse) is not here.

Tiny is there giving or selling the “Survival Handbook” on the counter, quickly said hi and bye.

Settle down in the rear of the room where a film projector, video machine, and portable movie screen.

I go out, by a mango juice, return-find a seat waiting for whatever will happen.

The slide show, movie, discussion afterwards is lively and energetic but no Junebug although there was a picture on screen showing her self and a cute cuddly puppie.

By 9pm people who are late are able to see the first film full of lively Cuban music and language.

Fighting sleep as I know Junebug did working earlier the same day must have sapped her near limitless energies that’s what I take naps like a demented vampire.

It was a great function to be at even though Junebug has not shown up.

Oh well, life’s-a twitch then your reborn doing all over again without remembering - you did this before. Bye.

by Leroy Moore/PNN & Krip Hop

The first official Thanksgiving in this country between the wealthy White settlers and Native Americans followed the same pattern of my 2001 Thanksgiving, looking back at it now. In both situations people of color were evicted from their homes and land by new wealthy White landlords. Everybody knows what happened between Native Americans and the White settlers at that time. Let me tell you it didn't match the description of the Last Supper that the Bible talked about, although it was the last supper for the Native Americans on their land that they respected and cultivated. The same was true for my sister and me on Thanksgiving in 2000, the Last Supper, together in San Francisco. In place of grocery bags stuffed with food were boxes stuffed with our belongings. No relatives, no friends, just a wealthy White landlord breathing down our backs making sure his place was clean that he recently bought with his inheritance and the fortune he made during the dot-com boom. Yes, another eviction!

Just like Native Americans in the US, who were forced to split up and travel to far away locations, thus breaking up families and tradition, my sister and I were forced apart. Because of this eviction, breaking up the tradition of my sister's famous stuffin' and our tight bond. She traveled across the country and I across the Bay in search for an affordable home. It's funny how history repeats itself! Like the days of the Underground Railroad, the ones that helped my sister and I out were also White, working class poor who sympathized and felt the injustice of gentrification by opening their homes to us once in Burlington, VT, and another in Berkeley, CA.

The year was 2002. Another Thanksgiving, too broke to buy a ticket to see my family on the East Coast so I decided to take my last thirty dollars from my Uncle Sam's disability benefits to get some food for the Thanksgiving weekend and to last me till the first of the month. You see like many of my disabled brothers and sisters, I too had to and still do decide between transportation and food, clothing etc. And because most of us are on a strict budget, I chose food at that point. Now how can I cook a turkey in a microwave! I thought to myself in the grocery store. After leaving with my food for my Turkey Day and for the rest of the month, I noticed a poor, working class Black man beside me asking me would I like help with my bags. I politely said no but he continued to grab my bag. To make a long story short, he learned what the wealthy White settlers did to the Native Americans, he discovered my Thanksgiving dinner and food that I just bought with my last dollar.

In 2004 the White settlers, our State government, had their hands out again to Native Americans in California with Proposition 70, asking them to pay taxes from their own casinos almost three weeks before we celebrate another Thanksgiving. However, like the saying goes, you can't keep a good person down. Now the federal government is asking for donations!! Isn't that a flip!

After the unsteady years of the dot-com and the fall of it, my sister, her sons and I will be eating her famous stuffing and continue to strengthen our family ties here in Berkeley, CA. Our ancestors, family ties, hearts and our sense of what is right are stronger than the systematic oppression that pours onto our shoulders daily like gravy. Happy Thanksgiving to our Native brothers and sisters and your family! Eat today for the revolution tomorrow!

by PNN Staff

New York- In a sharp rebuke to the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, federal officials have decided to bypass city agencies in handing out millions of dollars in government money to those who help the homeless. The mayor said the change was motivated by politics.

U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said the change is necessary following a federal court ruling that found city officials demonstrated a pattern of antagonism and acted with "retaliatory intent" against a nonprofit service provider that had criticized the mayor. The provider eventually lost $2.4 million in federal funds.

The change means the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will distribute federal money directly to those helping homeless people, rather than using the city as a middleman.

"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is acting in the best interests of homeless people in New York City, to ensure that the most qualified homeless assistance programs get our funding," Cuomo said Tuesday.

Giuliani accused Cuomo, a Democrat, of playing politics, noting his support of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate bid and that a regional HUD director under Cuomo, Bill DeBlasio, was recently named Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager.

To miss the connection, "I would have to be extremely naive, and I'm not," said Giuliani,who is expected to seek the Republican nomination to run for Senate. "There's no question that Andrew Cuomo runs a major league political operation."

Giuliani, however, said the city can't fight the change.

"I don't think we can," he said. "It's their money."

Last month, a federal court found that the city downgraded the performance of Housing Works, a nonprofit group that operates two houses for homeless people suffering from AIDS, mental illness and drug addiction, because of the group's public opposition to the mayor's AIDS policies rather than its effectiveness.

The lower rating prevented Housing Works from receiving $2.4 million in federal funds to cover three years of operating expenses for the two residences. The city has appealed the ruling.

"This fully vindicates what we've been saying. He has been using the process to reward his allies and punish others," said Charles King, co-executive director of Housing Works.

Giuliani denied he had any political interest in punishing Housing Works.

Later Tuesday, at a state Democratic Committee holiday party where Mrs. Clinton spoke, Cuomo's wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, stood up and bragged about what Cuomo had done, saying: "Just a few hours ago, my husband pulled up the gauntlet."

She went on to criticize Giuliani's homeless policies and added: "Next time Rudy, pick on someone your own size."

Judges have temporarily stopped Giuliani's plan to evict homeless adults, who refuse to work, from city shelters. POOR magazine staff hopes that Cuomo's action will also impact all of King Giuliani's archaic anti-poverty measures, such as his recent act of ordering police to arrest homeless people who refuse orders to move from sidewalks.

If an upcoming election spurs this kind of event, maybe there should be an election every day in America. Thank-you Mr.Cuomo!!

by Leroy Moore

We have an emergency on our hands
Do you understand
Sisters and mothers
Aunts and Grandmothers
Are crying, shouting and yelling

Help! Please help!
Ignored, oppressed and abused
Disabled women of color
Needs you

On the streets
Can you believe
The state has sterilized me
Divorce from my husband, family and community

Beaten on
Kicked out
Shot up
No sirens, no ambulance, nobody gives a fuck

Emergency, HELP, emergency
98% unemployment rate
Sisters don’t want to relate
Very hard to live in this society

Grown up with violence
Father in my bed
|Billie-club upside my head
The only way to make money is to give head

My father was my first
My cell-mate was my second and

My x was my last
Still waiting for my first love
Caught between two worlds
Limping and pushing to the boarder
Disabled woman an easy target for the INS
Disabled immigrant woman can’t be a citizen of the US

Social promotion
Another year in special education
Can’t read the job application
Race, sex and disability discrimination

Margarett L. Mitchell shot by LAPD
Vijai Rajan rejected by the INS
Ya Fang Li roughed up by SFPD
Can’t you see there is an emergency in our society

Disabled women of color
Living under pressure
We need some answers
Time is ticking and we are sick of waiting

It’s time to take a stand
No more lines in the sand
We need a bulletproof plan
Sisters’ our blood is on your hands

Disabled women of color
It’s time to speak our anger
We need to educate our sisters, brothers and leaders
We can only get stronger if we come together

Living under a state of emergency
Disabled women of color tell your story
We belong to three communities
Listen to our history

Harriet Tubman led slaves to freedom
Fredia Kahlo painted her pain
Alicia Alonso danced through the light and darkness
Wilma Mankiller taught her people community organizing

Disabled women of color
It’s time to plan for our future
Break the silence
We have no time for this nonsense

by Tony Robles/PNN

I was riding Muni the other day. An African descendent sister sat nearby. Suddenly she said aloud, "God don't like ugly". I thought about those words. I wondered who first uttered them. Perhaps a poor person, a person removed from their land or perhaps it was a person wrongly incarcerated. I glanced at the other passengers. They stared straight ahead. It was as if the woman's words met deaf ears. I heard them. They touched my heart and mind.

Senior Action Network (www.senioractionnetwork.org) recently honored Mission District elder Jose Morales for his long fight against displacement and gentrification. Jose was evicted from his Mission District home courtesy the Ellis Act--a place he had called home for over 40 years. Jose fought for more than a decade to keep his home while his landlord fought to take it off the market for the purpose of converting it into a condominium. Folks from the community sat in Jose's kitchen listening to this elder describe his long struggle--the clock ticking in the background. Jose talked about the harassment of his landlord. The weight of the fight and the struggle and the harassment could be seen in Jose's bent back. We waited for the sheriff.

And what of the countless numbers of tenants, elders, people with mental and/or physical disabilities who have suffered from the physical and emotional stress of landlord harassment? Cases of harassment are well-documented--residential burglary, severed phone lines, sawing holes in floors, stalking, mysterious fires, etc.

San Francisco currently has no laws protecting tenants from harassment. The rent board does not involve itself in such cases. Presently the only thing tenants can do to fight is to document harassment, which might be over a period of months or years. Once the abuse has been documented as being so egregious as to cause physical, mental or financial damages--can the tenant then file a lawsuit.

Proposition M will add an important section to San Francisco's rent control law a section that will define and ban harassment. Prop M would give tenants a rent reduction when harassed. It will also give tenants attorney's fees to fight eviction attempts. Longtime tenant advocate Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the Housing Rights Committee (www.hrcsf.org) sees prop M as necessary. "Prop M gives tenants a tool for fighting landlord harassment. Currently, we don't have much that we can do when a landlord is tring to pressure us into leaving our apartment or is making it extremely uncomfortable for us to live there. Putting this in the rent ordinance makes perfect sense, its where most of our rights as rent-controlled tenants are already stored. This is a very important proposition--particularly for elders on fixed incomes who should be honored and cared for,not harassed. As the sister on Muni said, "God don't like ugly".

Author's note: To see a video of Senior Action Network's 17th annual convention, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuuIA-MMUSI

by Anna Kirsch/PNN

English follows

"Desde cuando los sue�os se volvieron en suicidio, desde cuando que los sue�os le quitan la vida a la persona. �Qu� es el sue�o Americano?" La voz poderosa de Muteado quebro el aire caliente y mal ventilado que llenaba el cuarto de poesia en la Librer�a City Lights. Era la apertura del nuevo proyecto revolucionario de Prensa POBRE, Los Viajes.

Exprimidos en filas de sillas escasas y rodeado por estantes de libros de poesia, lo oimos explicar la lucha de migracion en su poema, �El Sue�o Amerikkkano.� Un sabio de inmigracion y la pobreza, Muteado es uno de varios autores, poetas y artistas publicados en Los Viajes.

Los Viajes es un libro y proyecto de audio que arroja una nueva luz sobre el significado de la inmigracion y cruce de la frontera. Redefinar inmigracion. Los Viajes comparte el dolor, la esperanza, y la lucha de gente Ind�gena quien cruza la fronteras por todo el mundo. Desde Mexico a los E.E.U.U., Oakland a Berkeley, del pasado al presente. Los Viajes explora lo que significa para la gente lo que es luchar con el racismo y la pobreza, en cruzar las fronteras fisicas, de identidad y racial.

"Para que la gente tenga la oportunidad de publicar es halgo realmente revolucionario." Tiny, la co-fundadora de Prensa POBRE hablo despues, ��Como es que se crea acceso para voces muteadas? �Como es que se crea la revoluci�n para que se mire como nosotr@s?� su voz poderosa cauptivo a todos en el cuarto. �Lo hicimos con nuestr@s ancestr@s, nuestras familias, y hij@s,� dijo ella, �Nosotr@s somos due�@s de nuestras propias historias, noticias y arte.�

Para crear Los Viajes, el proyecto escrito de prensa POBRE inicio talleres gratis, multigeneracional de arte y escrito en refugios, escuelas y centros comunitarios. Estos talleres les dio a adultos, jovenes, y ancian@s la oportunidad de contar sus historias y ser due�@s de su propia noticias y arte; para rechazar el titulo de inmigrante.

La musica se oyia del callejon al lado, mientras l@s sabi@s contaron sus historias. Ingrid de Leon, la primera reportera de prensa POBRE y la inspiracion para Los Viajes, compartio su lucha en el trabajo, �Tengo Miedo� ella hablo honestamente y claramente. �Soy dicriminada y humillada por mis patrones,� ella dijo. Angela Pena nos conto de su viaje a los E.U. para salvar la vida de sus nieto. Vivian Hain nos conto de su familia, y cuando se migraron de Oakland para Berkeley en sus historia, �Cajas Cerradas.�

En cada historia del sabi@ hubo dolor, pero tambien esperanza porque sus verdades finalmente fueron contadas.

Ingles Sigu�

"Since when did dreams become suicide, since when did dreams take people's lives. What is the American dream?" Muteado's powerful voice cut through the warm, stuffy air that filled the poetry room at City Lights Bookstore. It was the launch of POOR Magazine's latest revolutionary publishing project, Los Viajes (The Journeys).

Squeezed in tight rows of chairs and surrounded by shelves of poetry books, we listened to him describe the struggle of migration in his poem, "Amerikkkan Dream." A race and poverty scholar, Muteado is just one of many authors, poets and artists published in Los Viajes.

Los Viajes (The Journeys) is a book and audio project that sheds new light on the meaning of migration and boarder-crossing. Redefining migration, Los Viajes shares the pain, hope and struggle of indigenous people crossing boarders all over the world. From Mexico to the U.S., Oakland to Berkeley, past to present, Los Viajes explores what it means for people struggling with racism and poverty to cross physical, identity and racial boarders.

"For poor people to publish is truly revolutionary," Tiny, the co-founder of POOR Magazine spoke next. "How do you create access for silenced voices? How do you re-make the revolution to look like us?" her powerful voice captivated all those in the room. "We do it with our ancestors, our families and our children," she said. "We own our own stories, media and art."

To create Los Viajes, POOR's community writing project conducted free, bi-lingual, multigenerational art and writing workshops in shelters, schools and community centers. These workshops gave adults, youth and elders the opportunity to tell their own stories and own their own media and art; to reject the label of immigrant.

Music wafted in from the alleyway below as the scholars shared their stories. Ingrid De Leon, the first reportera for POOR Magazine and the inspiration for Los Viajes, shared her struggle in the workplace. "I am scared," she spoke clearly and honestly. "I am discriminated against and humiliated by my own bosses," she said. Angela Pena told us about her journey to the U.S. to save the life of her grandson Vivian Hain described her family's migration from Oakland to Berkeley in her story, Sealed Boxes.

In each scholar's story there was pain, but also hope because their truth was finally being told