"I'm with Ida!": Syracuse Common Council Budget Hearing

My Testimony to the Syracuse Common Council (Wednesday, May 3rd, 2012)
City Hall—Syracuse, NY

Good evening. My name is Risa Cantu C’DeBaca.  I am 28 year old student at Syracuse University, a worker, an educator of children and teens with special needs, and a local community activist.  My husband Adam and I have lived in Syracuse for three years and currently live in the Lower Comstock area, near the university.

Although we have lived here for three years now, it was only until I became involved in the Occupy Syracuse movement that I had learned about the Ida Benderson Senior Center and its closing in early fall of last year. I have had the wonderful opportunity to get to know many of the seniors affected by the closing of the center by being involved with the Ida Benderson Senior Action Group since early November of 2011. We meet every Friday at Plymouth Church and the seniors meet for various events around the community to maintain the special relationships they formed at the Ida Benderson Center.

Many of these seniors had been going to the center for decades and have been dedicated workers, teachers, parents, and proud citizens of the Greater Syracuse community. It’s essential for all of us to remember that one day most of us will be and/or are seniors—and that they must not be forgotten.

That is why I urge you Common Council, to please consider putting a new senior center in the new budget. A senior center that is accessible for Syracuse seniors…one that is safe, clean, inviting, and entertaining.

I want to thank you for your time. A special thanks to Councilman Nader Maroun who has consistently been supportive of the Ida Benderson Senior Action Group. Thank you.

May Day 2012 (Syracuse, NY)

My May Day 2012 Speech

Mic Check! MIC CHECK!

Repeat after me in Spanish…

“El pueblo, unido…jamás será vencido!

The people, united…will never be defeated!

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Risa Cantu C’DeBaca. I am an SU student, a worker and educator, and a local activist—speaking on behalf of the Syracuse ANSWER Coalition and P.S.L.

It’s great to see such a lively, passionate crowd of people coming together in Syracuse for May Day and in solidarity with workers all around the world. I just have a few words to share with ya’ll about why workers and activists must work together to fight in the anti-racist struggle.

The U.S capitalist system was built on the backs of all workers of the 99%, but it is essential to understand how people of color and immigrants have been exploited to the highest degree in this age of mass incarceration or modern-day slavery, extreme racial profiling, and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Por ejemplo (for example)…

The Obama administration has deported more immigrants than any other U.S. President! Why criminalize people who contribute so much to this country—workers who contribute so much to this country—while Wall Street and transnational corporations that control our government are the real root of the problem.

Although our white brothers and sisters experience being exploited in the workplace, police brutality, and face discrimination for their gender and/or sexuality…black and brown bodies are constantly hyper-surveillanced, instantly criminalized, and are disproportionately affected by the violent, racist, police state we live in!

It is an injustice that workers are discouraged to speak out against low wages, abuse, and layoffs—that they are discouraged from even organizing. Whether it be organizing in unions or just simply organizing. It’s time for us to take the streets and make demands because as workers we truly hold the power to make real changes!

¡Otro mundo es possible! Another world is possible!

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, cause the power of the people don’t stop…say what?!

Thoughts on Borderlands Feminism & Theory

I keep thinking of the Borderlands from a Tejana/Chicana perspective. But there are Borderlands everywhere. Just how I talk about there being different types of space(s) that can be taken up within the Occupy movement, whether they be physical, cyber, or mental spaces...there are different fronteras for everyone within the 99%. The revolution isn't about one experience for one type of people. Living on the borderlands helps and is more than a Chicana consciousness, it's where the revolution stops and begins. It's complex and contradictory, just like the 99%. Although my Borderlands Feminism comes from my roots as a Southwestern, U.S. born Chicana, I believe borders can be used to build coalitions. As Gloria Anzaldúa writes about in Borderlands: La Frontera, to be in the borderlands is to be in a constant state of transition to keep the "us" (99%) away from the "them (1%)."

What does it mean to be a U.S. born Chicana who "occupies" space(s) in an U.S. Occupy Movement?

I use it as a tool, a way for me to relate to many different parts of the 99% which helps build coalitions across borders. And even though we fight against being part of the 99% for a myriad of reasons, most of us are proud to voice our concerns and be part of a revolutionary people's movement. The same goes for being Chicana living on the borderlands. The experience is different for everyone, but we all have something to fight for, to scream for, and to be proud of at the same time. It's important for me to bring this kind of thought to a people's movement like the Occupy Movement. It's a way to build bridges instead of walls.

UPDATE on meetings with Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler and the Syracuse Citizen's Review Board:

Just so that you readers are aware...

My partner Adam and I are the first case for the 'new' Syracuse Citizen's Review Board. On the night of the Occupy Syracuse eviction we were assaulted by a police officer for simply getting out of our car far from where the O.S. eviction was taking place. We decided to file a formal complaint with the CRB the week of the eviction and contacted Barrie Gewanter from the NYCLU to meet with Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler. Both meetings were this past Friday, so it's taken almost a month just to have the first meetings with both the CRB and Fowler.

I hope that our actions to speak out against the assault will make the people of Syracuse aware of the CRB and that the injustices that occur in this city every day will not go unnoticed. We know that police brutality, racial profiling, and the hyper-surveillance in the poor communities of Syracuse happen on an every-hour basis, but it's crucial to hold the police accountable for their behavior. They want us to think we are powerless. But we know change can only really happen if the people realize their voice is valuable and can make changes!

I will post the interview that I had once the PSL and/or the ANSWER Coalition posts it with more details on how the meetings went and our reasoning for filing formal complaints.

Here is the article written by our comrades (Syracuse ANSWER Coalition) right after the assault took place. This article includes a photo of what the cop did to my left arm.

http://www.answercoalition.org/syracuse/news/syracuse-police-attack-answer.html

Here is the first article that was put online after our meetings with Fowler and the CRB this past Friday 2/10 :

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=718678#.TzoBABwbsiY

Response ¡Chicana Power! Introduction:

1. What do you think about Maylei Blackwell’s approach in the book?

“The Telling is Political” is a perfect title for Blackwell’s introduction of her book. She discusses how what’s referred to as the Chicano Civil Rights Movement only tells one part of the story. Like many nationalist movements (especially of the mid-late 20th Century), the various role(s) of women within the movement are often forgotten or deemed unimportant. This is precisely why Chicana activists started branching off into their own organizations/groups that addressed women’s issues and recognized what Chicana’s brought to the movement as a whole. Blackwell focuses on archiving and retelling the experiences of Chicanas in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly on Chicana activist Anna NietoGomez and the members of the Hijas de Cuauhtémoc—one of the first Latina feminist organizations created. NietoGomez and the Hijas de Cuauhtémoc created a space for Chicanas, while the nationalist male-dominated Chicano Civil Rights Movement pushed their contributions aside. This all eventually led to the formation of Chicana & Chicano Studies programs within academia.

I feel it is important to share Blackwell’s definition of “Retrofitted Memory” to better understand what she is attempting to establish in the book’s entirety. “Retrofitted memory is a form of counter-memory that uses fragments of older histories that have been disjunctured by colonial practices of organizing historical knowledge or by masculinist renderings of history that disappear women’s political involvement in order to create space for women in historical traditions that erase them” (Blackwell 2). YES, YES, and YES. Blackwell isn’t only interested in re-telling the stories, experiences, and contributions of women that have been erased/untold within the Chican@ Civil Rights Movement, but also wants readers to understand the very political and systemic knowledge practices that produce them.

2. How may it be helpful in relation to the Occupy Movement and modern-day feminist activists?

The last half of the introduction, Blackwell writes about her experience and interview with Chicana activist and theorist Anna NietoGomez. I immediately saw the connections between involvement of women of color in revolutionary movements back then and now. NietoGomez described how many Chicanas became so involved in their activism(s) that they decided to quit school or found academia unnecessary because of the grassroots work they were doing in their communities. NietoGomez explained that much of this was because of the attitudes and treatment towards Chicana women in academia (as teachers and students), which led to many Chicanas voices/stories being erased or untold through academic research, lessons, and texts.

Although the gender divide is much more narrow now than it was in the 1960s and 1970s, it is much more hidden, subtle, and often harder to detect for those participating within movements. However, women are often still expected to take up space as the secretaries and cooks behind the scenes. From my experience as an activist in the Occupy Syracuse movement, I have been interrupted repeatedly, sexually harassed (online, not in-person), assaulted by a police officer, been told to “tone down my radical approach” numerous times. I also discuss in my first blog post my experience as someone who at first volunteered to take notes for the group, but was then quickly expected to. Still in 2011 and 2012, I had to work to make my voice heard and taken seriously within a modern-day social movement. As a “mixed” woman of color I am all too familiar with how males within nationalist/people of color movements can try to convince women of color that feminist issues only divide them from the movement as a whole and the males within them. Blackwell refers to this as “Double Militancia” or “Double Activism,” something that women of color activists/feminists often engage in. This is a perfect example of what Gloria Anzaldúa refers to as “constantly living on the borderlands,” having to deal with race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, etc...all at once.

Lastly, Blackwell emphasizes the importance of oral histories and living memories. She goes on to explain what she calls the “repertoire” of oral knowledge and memory by describing it something that can be performed. “Perhaps oral history is a hybrid that fits somewhere in between the archive and the repertoire, depending on how the narrator narrates, how the listener listens, and how the researcher wields the apparatus of objectivity that records or captures this performance” (10). As a scholar-activist, I find Blackwell’s valuing of not just oral histories, but the performance of them essential in the retelling of Chicana historie(s).

Maylei Blackwell, ¡Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011.

Occupying the "Occupy Olympics!"

Hello everyone.

Another week has gone by. So much to say, so little time!

Last week my focus was on archiving all hard-copies/physical documents I have collected since Occupy Syracuse started last October. I am still in the process of collecting and organizing all of my digital/electronic documents, photos, articles, etc... And by the looks of it, I can write a whole book on my experiences as a women of color activist within the Occupy Syracuse movement.

One recurring topic of conversation between local activists and/or Occupy Syracuse supporters in the community has been the issue of power dynamics within the movement and danger to render certain work within the movement as invisible. This can be connected to what I wrote about in my last post, the “Occupy Olympics.” Native American Feminist and Author Andrea Smith coined the term “Oppression Olympics” in her well-known work entitled, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” as a sort of competition among all oppressed people(s) that diverts them from finding solutions to the root of the problem. It essentially turns the oppressed masses against each other, as opposed to having the groups work in solidarity with one another to expose the real problem(s) like capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy...to name a few.

Simply put, the “Occupy Olympics” represents those within the Occupy movement (this can mean as whole, not necessarily just Syracuse), who feel they deserve to be more physically present than others because of their personal circumstances, who feel their presence and/or work within the Occupy movement is more valuable than others, or who still use language, expressions, or actions to gain power over those who are least represented or not represented at all within the movement. The internal politics of race, class, gender, age, (dis)ability, citizenship, sexuality, etc...have created tensions within an otherwise peaceful Occupy Syracuse movement.

Questions I’d like to ask:

What I am interested in is analyzing how different bodies occupy space within this movement. Who is represented more visuably within the media? Who takes up the most space physically (including speaking)? What voices are heard? Whose opinions are legitimized and whose are scrutinized? Who takes up more space cyberly and how might that be different/same from who takes up more physical space?

Three Issues I Have With “Occupying” a Physical, Public Space:

1. As a Chicana Feminist, the term “Occupy” can be considered a problematic one. I will interchangeably say, “the Occupy movement” or “99% movement,” for this very reason. However, “Occupy” when referring to the “99% movement” is for a political purpose, to stand up against and take back our land from the 1% (filthy rich people and our government). Sure, it will be taken out of context by many who critique the term (or movement as a whole), but because of the actions the movement has taken (to occupy certain, symbolic public spaces), the term can be considered fitting.

1. “Occupying” physical spaces becomes the main issue. Since the beginning of Occupy Syracuse in early October, there has been an ever-apparent divide between the O.S. campers who many refer to as urban campers, and the O.S. supporters and activists who organize teach-ins, marches, protests, and more direct action—often referred to as the G.A. people by the O.S. campers. G.A. is short for “General Assembly,” as in our meetings.

This divide is the Occupy Olympics. The Occupy Wall Street movement started to empower the public and encourage them to not only support the movement by occupying certain public spaces physically (like New York City), but engage in any kind of constructive direct action that will ignite political change(s) all over the world.

1. The vast majority of those physically occupying are disproportionally white males between the ages of 18 and 45. Despite a few votes to bring more “racial and ethnic diversity” to the movement, Occupy Syracuse still looks very much like a bunch of white men urban camping—only now without the expensive tents because they aren’t allowed to have them there anymore. The few people of color, and even fewer women of color who have been involved are not as involved physically as they were in the beginning of the movement (myself included). Although the movement claims to be “leaderless” and a “safe space” for everyone, there have been issues with allowing for everyone to have time (equal) time to speak, males interrupting females, use of racist or sexist language, and heteropatriarchal behavior—including the naming of “mama” and “papa” within the camp.

What many of the physical occupiers do not realize is that people of color and the poor are not going to spend their spare time (if they have any) to sleep on concrete, march behind an American imperialist flag, or praise the Syracuse Police who threaten, kill, rape, accuse, and incarcerate them. There must be more effective outreach and openness to the 99% who make up the poor, people of color, and immigrants in the Greater Syracuse community.

As I delve more deeply into my research I will reflect on different experiences I have had as a woman of color, a feminist, a university student, and a local Occupy Syracuse activist by archiving my memories until I have enough data to put together a research paper. I encourage your participation and hope to hear from you with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

In Solidarity,

Risa

The Evolution of a Revolution: Archiving My Activist Research

I wish I had started archiving the last four months much sooner. It has taken me almost all day to gather everything I can use for my research. Between applying to graduate school, my undergraduate work, my two jobs, and my activist work, it’s difficult to manage enough time to organize what research I have done so far. But there’s only two days left in January and I’m eager and terrified all at once to start the writing process.

Just to clarify for visitors:

My research has evolved significantly in the last four months. I have been actively involved in the local Occupy Syracuse movement since day three. Since early October I have kept photos, notes, flyers, newspaper clippings, videos, etc…to document my experiences as a woman of color occupy activist in Syracuse, New York. I have been focusing my research on the politics of “occupying” and/or “(un)occupying” spaces within what is also often referred to as the 99% Movement. I plan to analyze how physical, cyber, visual, and auditory spaces are utilized and/or not utilized within the Occupy Movement and what that means for a woman of color like myself.

Since I am still very interested in continuing more in-depth research on the Zapatista women of the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional ) and the Chicanas of the Chican@ Civil Rights Movement, I will draw on these movements throughout my research occasionally.

So I started by browsing through all of my photos, videos, articles, and notes online…and slowly realized that this was going to take longer than I expected. I plan to continue gathering everything digital throughout the week and organizing it into its own folder on my computer. Today, my main focus was gathering all hard-copies/un-digital archives of my Occupy Syracuse involvement or anything Occupy-related. Every Sunday evening I will be posting new reflections, so be patient while I make changes on the blog.

Reflections:

As I started flipping through my notebook, I noticed how after volunteering once to be the Occupy Syracuse note-taker, I ended up note-taking more and more. My first night at the Occupy Syracuse site in Perseverance Park in downtown Syracuse, I volunteered to write notes. After that, I was almost expected to write the notes almost every night I came to a general assembly meeting. I remember just a few weeks after first attending, I started to persuade others to take notes, until eventually I stopped because it was taking far too much of my time—not just write the notes at the meetings, but type them up at home and post them to the Occupy Syracuse Facebook page. The notes were the most thorough when I wrote them, but I let it go. I remember almost feeling in the back of my mind like the notes were a way to silence me and to only tell the stories of others. There were several white males that tended to interrupt and talk over others before we started to have meeting facilitators. I have never been quiet at general assembly meetings or at Occupy Syracuse in general, but I felt that the notas were holding me back from what I really could contribute to the movement.

Another important thing I have always noticed is how much I have been photographed, featured, or interviewed in the local media. The Occupy Movement in general, is a very diverse movement, but in Syracuse, NY it’s really not all that diverse compared to bigger cities like New York City, Los Angeles, or Houston. The majority of occupiers and/or supporters at Occupy Syracuse have by and large been “white” males between the ages of 20 and 45. Yes, we have had our big protests and events that have proved we can gather a variety of 99%er’s, but it still looks very much like a white, middle-class, male-led movement most of the time. However, because I have been so involved and outspoken about getting more people of color, women, immigrants, and people living below the poverty line involved in Occupy Syracuse, my photo is often captured in the paper. Everyone seems to want to photograph one of the very few women of color who has even been to (much less very involved in) Occupy Syracuse. While my cara may be in the paper, I am often mis-quoted. And even though my cara is in the paper again, some of what I refer to as “physical occupiers” are mad. They want their cara in the paper. Then I realize, we have even more work than what we imagined. The priorities have been blurred for some occupiers. Revolutions don’t just happen overnight.

It has almost turned into what Andrea Smith calls the “Oppression Olympics” within Occupy Syracuse. Except instead I call it the “Occupy Olympics”—lots of people taking direct action for what could be our modern revolutionary movement and lots of people competing against one another about who can physically occupy downtown the longest or most. It will be interesting to see how Occupy Syracuse and my research as an activist scholar and woman of color within the movement progress in relation to each other. I feel that archiving my position within the Occupy Syracuse movement is essential for my future research and work as a Chicana Feminist. So many storias, so little time...