Kansas Tequila Get Out The Vote Rally – 2011.  Ponka-We Victors helped us register new Latino Voters.

hosted a Kansas Latin Get Out the Vote with the help of immigration reform community leaders who want to protect children and students via the DREAM Act.  Rep. Ponka-We helped the Tequila Party register brand new Latino voters.

Rep Ponka-We Victors is a Native American serving in the Kansas state legislature.  She is a sister to Mexican-Americans for life due to  her continued support for legal immigration reform.  This dynamic woman puts her money where her mouth is and knows immigrants help the farming and agricultural industry.  She believes all [wo]men are created equal.  (I would like to see this woman run for Governor some day).

For those of you who may not know who Kris Kobach is — he is the author of Arizona’s Draconian SB1070 law.  He has helped suppress voting rights for the elderly, the disabled and minorities. We were glad to see Ponka-We Victors courage and compassion for children and students rise to the occasion today when she put Kobach in his place.

More importantly, Kris Kobach has hurt the business and agricultural community in Kansas with his restrictionist and protectionist views with regard to our economy.  Kobach is putting the agricultural and business community in a pickle that reminds us of the Dixiecrats of yore.

A coalition of business groups will propose Kansas start a new program to help some illegal immigrants remain in the state so they can hold down jobs in agriculture and other industries with labor shortages, coalition representatives disclosed Tuesday.

Kris Kobach’s views are affecting large Kansas dairies and feedlots, too.

Here is what Ponka-We Victors communicated to Kobach.

From CJ Online:

The Legislature’s annual attempt to repeal a statute allowing in-state tuition for Kansas students without legal residency drew an emotional crowd to a House committee Wednesday.

Students who have lived in the United States most of their lives got choked up as they described the academic lifeline in-state tuition has provided to improve their lives. A counselor who works with such students in Wichita high schools shed tears as she showed legislators a scrapbook of success stories. Murmurs of unrest were heard in the gallery as one House member asked about the prevalence of illegal immigrants from gangs and drug cartels in American prisons.

But nothing drew a bigger reaction than when Rep. Ponka We-Victors, D-Wichita, wrapped up a series of questions to the bill’s chief proponent, Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

“I think it’s funny Mr. Kobach, because when you mention illegal immigrant, I think of all of you,” said Victors, the Legislature’s lone American Indian member.

The heavily pro-immigrant gallery burst into cheers and applause — a rare reaction in normally staid hearings.

Way to go, Rep. Ponka-We Victors!  For reminding people the basics of American history.

Rep. Ponka We-Victors, D-Wichita, wrapped up a series of questions to the bill’s chief proponent, Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
“I think it’s funny Mr. Kobach, because when you mention illegal immigrant, I think of all of you,” said Victors, the Legislature’s lone American Indian member.

HOW SOON THEY FORGET: Oversights and ethnically-biased quips continue to plague the Academy Awards and the movie industry it honors. A months-long investigation by The Los Angeles Times resulted in a February 25, 2012, editorial about the membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) that revealed the organization—like much of the media and entertainment industries—is mainly non-Hispanic white (NHW) and male. The Times found of the Academy’s 5,112 members, the voting members were almost 94 percent (4,805) NHW and 77 percent (3,936) male. According to AMPAS, that of the 178 people accepted for membership in 2011, 30 percent (53) were women and 10 percent (18) were non-white.

Why is this relevant? In 2010, Nielsen reported that 43 million Latinos bought 351 million movie tickets — an increase from the 37 million that bought 300 million tickets in 2009, making them a critical share of the movie-going audience in the U.S. The movie industry continues to develop more marketing initiatives and ways to make their films more attractive to U.S. Latinos, but fails to understand the need for more inclusion and respect within their own industry’s ranks for a growing number of future customers.

How soon will we forget?

Why is Arizona Democratic Party leadership turning down Latino Precinct Committeemen?

By Angel Garcia  (Community Organizer)

You want diversity, but you deny an opportunity to a young out and proud Hispanic male. I see a logic failure here, and hope it will be addressed as quickly as possible. This same opportunity was openly given to everyone that wanted it without hesitation, yet in I walk and all of a sudden I end up on proving grounds. You want to know why people don’t want to be Democrats, they’re opening their eyes and seeing the party leadership engages in the same exact behaviors as the Republicans they point fingers at. I am disheartened to see the party I have belonged to for so long has become members only. I am sad to see the open entry policy has been changed to be by referral only. I am sickened the people who gave great speeches about wanting to change this culture of elitism are now the same people who are part of the problem and making it worse. I am heart broken there are so many people who are ego driven and power hungry running the party that is supposed to be the party of the people.

Reminder:
Demos – People
Kratos – Power

It is time we put the democratic back in democratic party. It is time we remember by definition this party believes in power to the people. I am sad to see the old guard absolutely refuses to hand down the torch to new and innovative ideas and perspectives. The body dies if only old blood flows without an infusion of new blood and politics is no different. Our system was designed to ensure ALL people have an opportunity to get involved and not just a select few who feel they are the power centerand king makers.

Written from the heart of Arizona:

SB 1070 Poem

When, Lord, will they learn we are not immigrants, but natives, too, to this land?
Still believing in being the Beacon for others who come from far away places like Japan.

Don’t they know we didn’t come from the Mayflower Boat?
Yet, here they are advocating alligators in moats.

These words rise up from the depths of my soul.
Suppression is no longer an option when heartbreak must be told.

As bigotry rears its ugly head again,
How do we hold on to love to the end?

The evil and darkness they bring,
Can be a suffocating blanket to those who see clear.

I’m weary of shining a light.
I lay my tears at your doorstep,
Dedicating to those who don’t know how to fight.

Forgive those who thought a mortal man can be their Savior,
We know the ultimate love comes from You — the Creator.

What do we do when their hearts have been hardened?
We don’t want to be like them,
Give us a supernatural wanting for them to be pardoned.

They try their hardest to wipe clean our history,
Despite what happened before the Guadalupe Treaty.

They push unjust laws,
As they seek racist applause.

I know they want us to feel inferior,
But our will and our hearts are hungrier.

We seek remedy quickly said with ail in our hearts,
We’ve been cursed with compassion and we don’t want to see that depart.

Help us, Oh Lord, and deliver them soon.
Else bottle my sorrow like a silk-woven cocoon.

Al Madrigal travels to Arizona, where the powerful evidence of hearsay convinced the Tucson school board to ban Mexican-American studies programs.