Pima Community College board member Dr. Sylvia Lee is recognized as one of the 2013 Corn Mothers at the Return of the Corn Mothers Photojournalist Exhibit

Dr. Sylvia Lee, PCC Governing board member

what: Pima Community College Return of the Corn Mothers exhibit

where: Pima Community College West Campus Student Art Gallery, 2202 West Anklam Road, Tucson, AZ, building A, second floor.

when: April 24 through August 29, 2013.

Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 24, 5:30-7:30 p.m. admission: Free and open to the public. Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-10 p.m.

Tucson, Arizona– Dr. Sylvia Lee, Pima Community College Board of Governors member, District 3; along with her mother Sofia Lee, are named the 2013 Corn Mothers at the opening reception of the Return of the Corn Mothers exhibit hosted by Pima Community College West Campus.

“It is an honor for me and my mother, Sofia Lee, to be among such a distinguished group of women of the Southwest. As the great granddaughter of a Chinese immigrant and Arizona pioneer, I am proud to share my story and source of inspiration,” remarks Sylvia Lee.

Return of the Corn Mothers exhibit runs April 24 to August 29, 2013. The Southwest multi-generational and multi-cultural photojournalist exhibit features the portraits and stories of 34 Corn Mothers from Arizona, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. Eight Arizona Corn Mothers are honored. Arizona Corn Mothers Barbara Clark, Anne Zapf, Judy Newland and Raven Mercado have artwork displayed in the exhibit. The opening reception program features five Pima Community College students who were selected to recite their poems and stories after a call for submission of creative writing. The students are (Brenna Mirano-McSpadden, Elizabeth Hullar, Jill Pierce, Ken Rosburg and Ashley Cuen)

The exhibit is based on the Pueblo myth of the Corn Mother, the giver of life. This legendary entity is important to the Pueblo cultures and synonymous with Mother Earth, who represents growth, life, creativity and feminine aspects of the world. The Return of the Corn Mothers exhibit is an opportunity to celebrate women from the Southwest who have earned the respect and admiration of their communities for leadership, activism and creative endeavors. The exhibit is the creation of Renee Fajardo, Chicano/a Studies Program faculty member and coordinator of the Journey Through Our Heritage Program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Todd Pierson, an award-winning master photojournalist, traveled from desert to canyon to mountaintop to capture women in their home environment.

Organizing the exhibit is PCC West Campus executive assistant to the president, Geneva Escobedo, who is one of the featured Corn Mothers. David Andres, gallery director for the Louis Carlos Bernal Gallery and the Student Art Gallery is instrumental in installing the exhibition.

Pima Community College West Campus Student Art Gallery is located at 2202 West Anklam Road, in Tucson, Arizona. For more information about The “Return of the Corn Mothers” exhibit contact Geneva Escobedo, 520-206-3110 or gescobedo@pima.edu.

I personally know both Sylvia and her mother Sofia, and they are both strong, single mothers with friendly, outgoing personalities. Congratulations to both of them for this well deserved honor. Sylvia Lee was just elected to the PCC Governing Board in November, 2012.

My husband and I saw this show last year at PCC West and it is hilarious (hard to believe that monologues about vaginas and women can be funny, but it is.) Both men and women seemed to enjoy the stories told onstage by talented women (students/staff of PCC).

And this is another event to celebrate Women’s “Herstory” Month of March.

Dr. Henry “Hank” Oyama

Memorial services for Dr. Henry “Hank” Oyama were held today at St. Augustine’s Cathedral, 192 S. Stone Ave, with hundreds of people from the Tucson community in attendance. Dr. Oyama was 86 years old and passed away on March 20. He was born and raised here in Tucson, and at age 15 was innocently interned along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans in relocation camps in the western United States. Hank was sent to such a camp north of here in Poston, Arizona with his mother and sister. He was drafted into the U.S. Army after spending 15 months in that internment camp, and later enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, from which he retired as Lt. Colonel.

After returning to Tucson he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Arizona in education, and taught at Pueblo High School for 18 years. Following that he was hired at Pima Community College as director of bilingual and international studies, later became Associate Dean of that program, and eventually retired from PCC in 1991 as Vice President Emeritus. He was bilingual in Spanish and was well know for his advocacy for Hispanic students in Tucson, and established the Hispanic Student Endowment Fund. In 2003 an elementary school in Tucson was named after him at 2700 S. La Cholla Blvd.

Today’s service started off with a welcome by Bishop Gerald Kicanas, who said that Hank was “proud of his roots” and “rejoiced in them here in Tucson.” He also said that Hank “taught by example.” Father Gonzalo Villegas said that Hank exemplified Pope Paul VI’s statement “If you want peace, work for justice.” Particularly touching were when “Amazing Grace” and “Ave Maria” were sung.

Beautiful eulogy delivered today by Ward 5 Councilman Richard Fimbres (also a pallbearer), who spoke of Hank as a “man of integrity, a role model for all”, and listed the many awards/honors that Hank received over his lifetime including Pan Asian Man of the Year in 2005. Hank’s only surviving daughter Mary Catherine Tate spoke of her dad as the person she “learned tenacity from” and that “love is a choice.” Hank was survived by his 2nd wife Laura Ann Toledo Oyama, four children, five stepchildren, fourteen grandchildren, six great grandchildren.

Attending today’s service were many notables:

Ruben Reyes for CD 3 Congressman Raul Grijalva
Former State Senator Victor Soltero
LD 3 State Rep. Macario Saldate (pallbearer)
Pima County District 4 Supervisor Ray Carroll, District 5 Supervisor Richard Elias
Tucson City Councilmembers Richard Fimbres, Karin Uhlich, Regina Romero, former Councilman Steve Leal
TUSD governing board members Adelita Grijalva, Mark Stegeman, Kristel Foster, Cam Juarez
Sunnyside board member Eva Dong Carrillo
former TUSD Superintendents Roger Pfeuffer, Stan Paz

In 1959 he and his Caucasian college sweetheart Mary Ann Jordan challenged Arizona’s anti-miscegenation law which prohibited a Caucasian person from marrying someone Asian American. The actual statute stated: “The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay or Hindu is null and void.” Hank and Mary Ann became plaintiffs in the ACLU of Arizona’s first case, to challenge this law, which was stuck down by Pima County Superior Court Judge Herbert Krucker, but then appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court. Before that court could rule, the Arizona legislature repealed that law, so Hank and Mary Ann’s case was dismissed as moot.

I (an ACLU state board member for five years) attended the ACLU of Arizona’s 50th anniversary dinner on March 20, 2009 where the attorneys for that case were honored, as well as Hank. His wife Mary Ann had passed on by then, but Hank said that she should have been there that night, because she had a harder time with the verbal abuse she endured by being a white person married to a non-white person back then. For Hank and Mary Ann, love was indeed a choice, and they had to fight to remain together and get married.

He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Arizona for this civil rights challenge.

More about Hank in

Arizona Daily Star: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/tucson-education-civil-rights-advocate-hank-oyama-dies/article_fa0197ee-9185-11e2-b1b5-0019bb2963f4.html

Rum Romanism Rebellion (by former State Rep. Tom Prezelski): http://www.rumromanismrebellion.net/2013/03/21/dr-henry-hank-oyama-1926-2013/

Rest in peace civil libertarian and “father of bilingual education” Henry “Hank” Oyama.

Clearly, Jared Loughner was mentally ill, and pled guilty to these crimes. He is being treated in a mental hospital where he will serve the remainder of his days, as his life sentences have no possibility of parole.

What have we as a community learned from this horrendous mass shooting, right here in our midst? Almost all of us knew someone in that shooting. I was personally acquainted with Gabby, having worked on her campaigns. I knew her Outreach Director Gabe Zimmerman, who was struck down on that sidewalk. I knew aide Pam Simon, who was also shot but recovered. I know now Ron Barber who was shot twice that day, and who as her District Director stepped up to the plate and ran for Congress in CD 8 and CD 2 upon Gabby’s endorsement and request. My professor husband knew Gabby as well, and had taught Suzi Hileman who was shot and injured that day. She was the neighbor who had taken nine-year old Christina Taylor-Green to that Congress on your Corner event, and Christina died that day.

Clearly Loughner was ill, but why didn’t people notice enough? Pima Community College had expelled him due to mental problems but he didn’t get counseling help which he clearly needed. He was living with his parents, Randy and Amy Loughner, but they couldn’t or didn’t get help for him as he was over 18 years old. And where did he (an unemployed 22 year old) get the hundreds of dollars to pay for the Glock 9 gun and the two magazine clips he was captured with? I had worked as a board member for 3 years with Amy who manages Agua Caliente Park out east in Pima County. And I have also worked for a year with Gabe’s mother Emily Nottingham on the Casitas on Broadway board. Two mothers, two shattered lives.

Yes, we as a community have grieved over the past 2 years — a huge outpouring of sympathy and support at all the memorials — at Gabby’s former Swan/Pima office, at that Safeway on Oracle (where a permanent stone memorial was erected by the store), and at University Medical Center where most of the injured were taken to. Generous donations were made for the victims to help them recover, and to various foundations to help children & students in the names of the deceased.

Cactus garden by Wright Elem. School students at memorial outside of Congresswoman Giffords’ former district office at Pima/Swan, taken by Carolyn Classen

Now there are Beyond Tucson annual events to commemorate, heal, and move beyond the pain & horror of that day. Now people ring bells at 10:10 a.m.on January 8th when the shooting occurred, and now the politicians talk about gun control especially for firearms with a capacity to be used for mass killing. Also now there are multi-faith services in Tucson bringing together people of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Baha’i faiths.

Since then there have been attempts at more civility in public discourse, and two foundations created expressly for that purpose. We all remember January 8, 2011 and hopefully we will remember to watch out for danger signals in isolated, depressed young men, to lobby for better mental health services, and more effective gun control to prevent criminals and mentally sick from obtaining firearms.

Hopefully we have become better people after this mass shooting of January 8, 2011. And if you have any creative ideas about what type of permanent memorial should be erected, click here for my previous post about the January 8th Memorial Foundation.

A friendly invasion of polite, happy and healthy Danes is coming to Tucson & Phoenix this January 22 – February 3rd.

The National Danish Performance Team returns with 33 of Denmarks’ best amateur gymnasts, ages 20-26, on a world-tour to promote their message of sport for life, sport for all. The gymnasts will lead free workshops in fitness and movement with thousands of youth all over Tucson, plus perform their amazing show ZOOM on January 27th at 2:00pm at Pima Community College West Campus Gymnasium.

Tickets go on sale January 7th at PCC Box Office or call 520-206-6986 to order over the phone.

Host Families are needed to house these delightful ambassadors of sport. Hosts are asked to provide a bed, breakfasts and some evening meals. Hosting is a great experience! Good friends are made and cultures are exchanged – it’s fun!
If you can host one or two gymnasts, please RSVP via email or call Mia at 520-370-0588

More great news: the Danish Ambassador to the United States, Peter Taksoe-Jensen has accepted the invitation to join us in Tucson as part of Danes in the Desert – a series of sports & culinary events, lectures, and exhibits. The Ambassador will meet local business, government & community leaders and give a public talk on Denmark’s Green Agenda and Sustainability practices. Opportunities to meet the Ambassador are being arrange. If you are interested in being part of a special business gathering with the Ambassador, reply via email or call Mia at 520-370-0588

Don’t miss the other great sporting event on January 26th at 1:00pm it’s DENMARK vs CANADA Men’s SOCCER at Kino Stadium.
This is the first international friendly soccer match to be held in Tucson! Wear your red & white and get ready for Danish Dynamite!
A portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased through this link will help support the Danish Club of Tucson:

https://fctucson.ticketsocket.com/mia

And…it wouldn’t be complete without DANISH FOOD & DRINKS!

A Danish Smorgasbord will be offered on February 2nd 1:00pm at the Pavilion at 3705 N. Old Sabino Canyon Road. Tickets are $30 and proceeds will support the Danish Club of Tucson. Reserve you tickets early – send an email to DanishClubofTucson@gmail.com
with the amount of tickets you wish to reserve…space is limited and you don’t want to miss the delicious Danish FOOD!

Visit Danes in the Desert to see the full schedule, get more information and – don’t forget to sign up as a HOST FAMILY.

Special thanks to our supporters & partners: Pima County Supervisor Elias, Pima Community College, Copenhagen Furnishings, Odense Marcipan U.S., Team Online, Danish Club of Tucson, Room of Rugs, University of Arizona Campus Health, and many individual donors.

Donations to this project are tax-deductible through the Danish Club of Tucson – thank you for your support!

Mia Hansen
Danes in the Desert – Coordinator
US Coordinator, National Danish Performance Team
www.NDPT.dk
(520) 370-0588

Denmark is actually one of the European countries I’ve been to, as our son wanted to see Legoland when he was younger.It was a terrific visit although we couldn’t understand a word of Danish!

Here’s whom their editorial board recommends for three seats:

Ralph Ellinwood
Betts Putnam-Hidalgo
Mark Stegeman (incumbent)

This week the Tucson Weekly endorsed Ralph Ellinwood and Cam Juarez for TUSD school board, with “honorable mentions” to Betts Putnam-Hidalgo and Kristel Foster. Read their endorsements, click here. The Weekly did not endorse for the PCC governing board.

The three incumbents on the TUSD board seeking election are Miguel Cuevas, Dr. Mark Stegeman, and Dr. Alex Sugiyama. This is a non-partisan race, with 12 candidates running. For more info the official twelve candidates, click here for my previous blog post, with campaign websites (updated).

And for the Star’s endorsements for Pima Community College governing board in which their editorial board urged change and voting for the political newcomers: http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/editorial/change-is-imperative-vote-for-lee-and-fridena/article_ddf76307-5b9f-57ab-b7eb-ac0f4528882a.html:

Sylvia Lee (District 3)
Richard Fridena (District 5)

The incumbents at PCC are “Vicki” Marshall (District 3) and Marty Cortez (District 5).

Another TUSD candidate forum coming up next week:

Save our Students: Save our Schools
TUSD Candidate Board Forum
How will you vote to make sure your child is getting the best education possible?

Our students/children deserve excellent public education and YOUR VOTE IS IMPORTANT! Learn where school board candidates stand on what matters most to our families:

Description:
(1) Safe transportation to neighborhood schools

(2) No small school closures

Lemonade, Coffee & Pan Dulce!

Join us October 16th 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at St. John’s Catholic Church (12th Ave and Ajo, 602 W. Ajo Way).

Early voting for the AZ General election began on October 11. Vote wisely on or before November 6.

The League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson, Pima Community College and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will present a debate for candidates for Congressional District 3. This district covers roughly the west side of Tucson, south to the border, and as far west as Yuma. The forum will be on Tuesday, October 9 at the Proscenium Theater on the campus of Pima Community College’s West Campus, 2202 West Anklam Road, Tucson 85709, from 6:30 to 8 PM. The moderator will be Christopher Conover of AZPM, and the debate will be taped by AZPM. All candidates have been invited. For further information, contact the League at 520-327-7652.

5 term (10 years) incumbent CD 7 Congressman Raul Grijalva (Democrat) is facing a challenge by two women candidates, Republican Gabriela Saucedo Mercer and Libertarian Blanca Guerra in the CD 3 House race.

Campaign websites:
–Raul Grijalva (D), Congressman in CD 7, www.standwithraul.com
–Blanca Guerra (L), former paralegal & rancher, www.guerraforcongress.com
–Gabriela Saucedo Mercer (R), activist, www.saucedomercer.com

This debate is going to be live stream videotaped by Arizona Public Media (AZPM) on October 9, and shown on Channel 6 on October 10, for those of you who can’t attend in person. Website: https://www.azpm.org/

Vote wisely on or before November 6.

Join in with these women’s groups to find out about legislation affecting women in Arizona. There will be ralllies in Tucson, Flagstaff, Green Valley, and Phoenix (TBA).

Candidates running in District 3 and 5:

Dr. Sylvia Lee, District 3, former PCC Campus President, www.sylvialee-PCCBoard.com

Sherryn “Vikki” Marshall, District 3, incumbent board member, re-employment specialist with Pima County’s Community Services Department, no website

Marty Cortez, District 5, incumbent board member, retired senior advisor for statewide academic programs at Northern Arizona University, no website

Dr. Richard Fridena, District 5, former PCC Dean of Instruction – East campus, www.fridenaforabetterpimacollege.com

Dr. Francis Saitta, District 5, adjunct faculty member at PCC, www.sciencedigest.org

Info on the current 5 member PCC governing board, click here.

Vote wisely in the November 6 general election.

Here’s the schedule for the debates, which all start at 6 p.m.:

• Sept. 20 — LD2 House
Where: PCC East Campus, Room L-101, 8181 E. Irvington Road
House candidates: John Ackerley (R), Andrea Dalessandro (D) and Rosanna Gabaldon (D).

• Sept. 24 — LD11 House and Senate
Where: PCC Northwest Campus, Room A-207, 7600 N. Shannon Road
House candidates: David Joseph (D), Adam Kwasman (R) and Steve Smith (R).
Senate candidates: Jo Holt (D) and Al Melvin (R).

• Oct. 3 — LD9 House and Senate *
Where: PCC Downtown Campus, Amethyst Room, 1255 N. Stone Ave.
House candidates: Cynthia Miley (R), Ethan Orr (R), Mohur Sarah Sidhwa (D) and Victoria Steele (D).
Senate candidates: Steve Farley (D) and Tyler Mott (R).

• Oct. 10 — LD10 House
Where: PCC District Office, Community Board Room (C-105), 4905 E. Broadway
House candidates: Todd Clodfelter (R), Stefanie Mach (D), Ted Vogt (R) and Bruce Wheeler (D).

*9/12/12 update: LD 9 debate moved to following day, October 4, same time, same place due to conflict with U.S. Presidential debate.

For more info about AZ CCEC go to www.azcleanelections.gov, to see list of participating candidates in the Clean Elections program.

The Debate schedule is here on their website for other legislative districts, including LD 14 Senate & House candidates on Sept. 26* in Benson, AZ. at the Benson City Council Chambers, 120 W. 6th St. In that race for Senate, incumbent Gail Griffin (R) of LD 25 is facing Pat Fleming (D). In the House race four men are vying for 2 seats: David Gowan (R) incumbent in LD 30, Robert Leach (D), David Stevens (R) incumbent in LD 25, and Mark Stonebraker (D).

*Update: This LD 14 debate moved to October 10, due to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever’s memorial service.

In LD 10 House race, Bruce Wheeler and Ted Vogt are incumbents, currently serving as representatives in LD 28 and LD 30 respectively. In the LD 11 Senate race, Al Melvin is the incumbent State Senator in LD 26. Cynthia Miley is a Republican write-in candidate from the AZ Primary in LD 9 House, which is why her name has not appeared in previous posts.*

*10/5/12 update: No appearance by Republican Cynthia Miley at last night’s CCEC debate, someone announced that she was not on the ballot. Checked with AZ SOS website, and her name does not appear for LD 9 House.

Attend these debates to listen to these candidates, and vote wisely on or before Nov. 6. Early voting starts October 11.