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Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Immigrant Students Wise Beyond Their Years
http://youtu.be/BIgbMZdrVq8 Cross-posted from CultureStrike High school is tough for every kid, but when you don’t speak the same language as your peers, all the anxieties of young adulthood are amplified as your voice gets lost in the crowd. The Global Action Project brings us the story of Lobsang , a Tibetan immigrant who deals with bullying, language [...]
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Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Facing Common Struggles, Domestic Workers Mobilize Across Borders
Cross-posted from In These Times The United States isn’t unique when it comes to political and social crises related to immigration. Migrants in other parts of the world face similar, sometimes much harsher struggles. Even those who are “legal” are often extremely vulnerable to economic exploitation, racial discrimination, and physical and sexual abuse. Abuse and enslavement [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Shame of the Nation: House VAWA Bill Ratchets Up Attacks on Domestic Violence Survivors
Cross-posted from In These Times. Women have been under economic assault in Washington for months. Deficit hawks have taken aim at social programs and civil rights protections that help keep women safe, healthy and able to participate in work and community life. To some lawmakers, none of that is more important than “saving” taxpayer dollars—which is [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Cartoonist Sergio Hernández Depicts “Arizona’s Finest”
Cross-posted from CultureStrike. Sergio Hernández is a California-based artist and cartoonist. This is his take on the latest goings-on in Arizona, where education and law enforcement authorities have formed an axis of xenophobia:
There has been a very aggressive move in Arizona by those in power to erase all Latino, Chicano, Mexican American culture from the state. [...]
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Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Child Labor and Agribusiness Churn Washington’s Food Fight
Cross-posted from In these Times For a moment in Washington, it seemed like the White House was finally getting serious about reforming the agricultural labor system, with a common sense rule about preventing harm to child workers. But under pressure from the agribusiness lobby, the administration appears to have retreated from an initiative to tighten protection [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: U.N. Strike Shows Convergence of Labor and Middle East Politics
Cross-posted from In These Times In the Kingdom of Jordan, conflict erupted in the Palestinian refugee community, but it’s not the kind of unrest you might expect in a society of survivors of war. The protesters were employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). They launched a strike to press [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Beyond May Day, Frustrated Immigrant Movement Forges Ahead
The waves of protests and rallies on May Day 2012 had barely cleared out when police happened upon more than 100 undocumented immigrants locked in isolated houses near the Texas border. After being trapped for days deprived of food and water, they were turned over to the border patrol. May First is [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Freeing the University: Education Occupation on May Day
Cross-posted from In These Times Pop quiz: what’s the value of an American education? To some, it’s a booming industry that preys on debt-crippled students. But to the educators, youth and workers who keep the system running, school increasingly seems like it’s just not worth the struggle. This May Day, masses of working people–and students who [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: L.A. Riots Redux, In Stereo
Cross-posted from CultureStrike The impact of the Los Angeles riots still resonates twenty years on. Here’s an audio take on the experience of the chaos–all the pain, the fear, the search for healing amid relentless destruction, and the hope for redemption rising from the ashes. The community has changed since then–socially, culturally and economically. But the divides across [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Depression Symptoms: What’s Behind Europe’s Spike in Suicides
Cross-posted from In These Times. The metaphor of suicide has been used to depict the downward spiral surrounding countries bludgeoned by the economic crisis—particularly U.S. and Eurozone communities plagued by epidemic joblessness and a rash of budget cuts. Now the term literally describes the psychological dimension of the crisis, according to studies on suicide rates. Some [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Labor Action and Inaction in Colombia Free Trade Deal
Cross-posted from In these Times As the media swarmed over the scandal surrounding the Secret Service’s alleged carousing with prostitutes in Colombia, another questionable financial transaction slipped quietly through the backdoor of hemispheric diplomacy. While officials convened at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena earlier this month, the White House put the finishing touches on another [...] -
Michelle Chen commented on the diary post Sunday Food: Quinoa by Ruth Calvo.
Well, it may be delicious and relatively eco-friendly, but some call into question its hippy-superfood image: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2110890,00.html.
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Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Romney-Rosen Firestorm Is Reminder: We Need to Redefine Gender Justice
Cross-posted from In These Times It’s almost poetic that this year’s Equal Pay Day —the one day of the year when Americans are supposed to reflect on the value (and undervaluing) of women’s work—coincided with the media firestorm surrounding the American stay-at-home-mom. The “controversy” over Ann Romney’s decision to stay home rather than work a “regular” job should highlight [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Apple’s Two Faces: Power Gaps Between Brazil and China Foxconn Workers
Cross-posted from In These Times. Apple presides over a global technology empire, but the economic landscapes it shapes around the world are strangely uneven. With its hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide, Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn works very differently in two hemispheres of the Global South. The think tank Economic Policy Institute recently hosted a forum to [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: The Boss Man Cometh: Through State Tax Breaks, Employers Pilfer Workers’ Earnings
Cross-posted from In These Times. As you file your taxes this week, before complaining about how much you’re forking over to Uncle Sam, bear in mind that the tax man might not be the only one you’re writing a check to: Your boss might be getting a big cut, too. Thanks to arcane state tax subsidies, [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Participatory Budgeting Lets New Yorkers Experiment With Economic Democracy
Cross-posted from In These Times For many American cities, the budget process is basically fiscal hell, and the politics of plugging potholes and funding schools akin to legislative purgatory. But a tiny miracle just arrived in New York City. Communities are experimenting with Participatory Budgeting, a system for giving local people a say in planning [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Free Agents: Will Micro-Labor Shrink Workplace Rights?
Cross-posted from In These Times. The universe of the Web-based marketplace allows you to sell just about anything online today—so why not your labor? The “help wanted” page has now upgraded itself for an Information Age economic crisis, with a new crop of services that link odd jobs to people looking to make a buck. Some [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Unrest in Indonesia’s Mines: Local Chaos and Global Injustice
Cross-posted from In These Times Buried in Indonesia’s rich soil is a minefield of brutality, literally. Last year, the Grasberg mine of the Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold, one of the largest such operations in the world, shut down after thousands of workers launched a strike to demand higher wages. Work recently resumed, but the [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Citing ‘Tradition,’ Big Ag Fights Reforms for Child Farmworkers
Cross-posted from In These Times. ” they gave me my first knife. Week after week I was cutting myself. Every week I had a new scar. My hands have a lot of stories.” –17-year-old boy who started working at age 11 in Michigan ( Human Rights Watch ) America’s farm workers have always had it tough, toiling for endless hours [...] -
Michelle Chen wrote a new diary post: Isolated Incidents: A Hijab, a Hoodie, and an Iraqi American’s Death
Cross-posted from CultureStrike. As reporters clamored for breaking news about the vicious attack on Shaima Alawadi, an Iraqi American mother of five in El Cajon, California, her teenage daughter Fatima turned to the interviewer with a question of her own:
“‘Why did you take my mother away from me? You took my best friend away from me,’ she [...]
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