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Please join us in supporting Michelle García and her documentary "Tell’em Who You Are.” Michelle will be screening exclusive clips from the film followed by a Q&A session.
About the film
The U.S.-Mexico border occupies a mythical place in the U.S. psyche, a wasteland of lawlessness, dirty and wild. With that image firmly rooted in our minds,, the U.S. government sold the public on the idea of a multi-billion dollar Border Wall across hundreds of miles of the southern border.
Turns out, there’s some truth to those tales and legends. Blood once soaked the brush country and Tejano and Mexican rebels sacked towns and traded gunfire with Texas Rangers and Army soldiers. My heart pumps with the blood of those rebels, I am their heir and successor and the spirit of their cause summons me home.
Tell’em Who You Are is a return home, the embattled South Texas frontier, to recover memory, the historical memory of the Tejano-owned land that will be lost to the wall. Fighting on the front lines of Border Wall battle are the descendents of those largely known Tejano rebels and revolutionaries, continuing in a struggle for respect that began over a century ago. Our ancestors, the bandits and outlaws of Hollywood stories were actually Tejanos defending and protecting their land,identity and dignity from colonization. More than a century later, their fight is now ours.
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Camaradas El Barrio
2241 1st Ave/115 St./ Manhattan
Donation at door: $5 bucks
About Michelle
Michelle García is a writer, reporter, subway rider and Texas highway driver.
By Juleyka Lantigua
Forget about your parents' dreams of you becoming a doctor or a lawyer. That's so last century. If you'd like to have a say in, and a nice chunk of the proceeds from, the U.S. economy post-bailout, you must become skilled at trading in the real currency of the coming decades: information.
Yes, folks, we are witnessing the demise of money (actual, physical and printed on paper) as the unit that determines the real-world value of goods and services. As the global economy resettles, the really valuable stuff will be information, loads and loads of it. With that in mind, I have compiled a list of 10 very hot careers that savvy folks will want to get into on the ground floor.
Forensic Accountant -- this is the guy who finds the money people and corporations try so cleverly to hide. Salary: $45,000 to $100,000
Economics Professor -- she's the one who gets the call from the Speaker of the House to make sense of a meltdown, on a global scale, of course. Salary: $54,000 to $89,000
Financial Newspaper/Magazine Editor -- he's the one who gives the rest of us a vocabulary and finance primer when stuff hits the fan. Salary: $45,000 to $75,000
Data Security Analyst -- he's the gatekeeper at the big financial houses, who keeps the hackers at bay. Salary: $67,000 to $84,000
Bank Auditor -- she's the watchdog stationed at major banks, but works for the Federal reserve. Salary: $45,000 to $55,000
Corporate Appraiser -- he's the guy who tells companies what they're worth, based on assets, liabilities, working capital and everything in between. Salary: $72,000 to $90,000
Internal Auditor (Corporate) –- she's the one who makes sure the company stays on this side of the law. Salary: $77,500 to $101,500
Compliance Executive –- he's the one who reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission about how well the company is following corporate governance requirements. Salary: $132,500 to $181,250
Data Miner -- she's the one who uses software to dig through massive databases, crunching numbers and spotting trends used for market research, and even money-laundering rings. Salary: $60,000 to $120,000
Intellectual-Property Attorney -- he's the one who makes sure the people who manipulate the information get to own that information, and reap all the rewards. Salary: $60,000 to $86,000
"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."
Parkingspots.com is a new service currently available in the U.S. and Canada that connects those needing a parking spot with those
looking to earn some extra cash by renting their parking spots. The service allows you to find parking close to
downtown, the airport, your office or home.You can search by city, by postal or zip or by using Google maps.
This service has been designed to help solve that often frustrating experience of trying to find affordable, convenient parking.
For more info visit: www.parkingspots.com
By Juleyka Lantigua
Skyrocketing rents are pushing black and Latino residents out of their communities. The polite word for this is gentrification, and in New York, it’s becoming more than a nuisance.
Bill Clinton’s much-publicized relocation to the heart of New York's famous black neighborhood, Harlem, brought with it rising property values, opportunistic landlords ready to capitalize on their celebrity neighbor and big businesses that took over storefronts that had been locally owned for generations.
The good news, some argue, is the renewed interest from the business sector for places such as Harlem -- places long overdue for an economic renaissance.
The bad news is that as middle-class residents move into Harlem, the Lower East Side and Washington Heights, longtime lower-income residents are forced to pack up and leave.
Even in a city where rent-control policies protect many residents, especially the elderly and the working poor, landlords find ways to generate vacancies. The payoff is high, since rent-controlled units that are vacated immediately go for general market prices.
Landlords have long been performing “self-help evictions,” which means they are locking out longtime residents from their apartments and tossing tenants’ belongings out onto the streets, according to the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court.
And that’s not the least of it.
Landlords have also filed unsubstantiated eviction suits that claim residents did not pay rent or did not complete a lease form. These bullying schemes succeed because poorer tenants often cannot afford to take time off from work to dispute the claims. They usually opt to move out instead of dealing with the harassment and bureaucratic runaround.
Many of the newly displaced cannot afford to go anywhere else. Some are already using a large portion of their salary to pay rent on their apartments. Approximately 37 percent of rent-stabilized tenants spend more than 40 percent of their income on rent, Mark Green, a New York City public advocate and former mayoral candidate, has said. One in six spends more than 80 percent of his or her earnings on rent.
College graduates, young professionals, newlyweds and single people who are willing to split a three-bedroom five ways are arriving to the city in droves, ready to pay bloated rents for apartments historically occupied by poorer families.
Communities like Washington Heights, formerly referred to as “bad” or “distressed” neighborhoods, have become prohibitively expensive for most working families. It is cruel to push rents so high that people can no longer live in the neighborhood they have called home for decades.
* Adapted from an op-ed syndicated by the Progressive Media Project
"Juleyka Lantigua is a journalist and editor whose work appears in national newspapers and magazines. For more info visit: www.juleykalantigua.com."
By Led Black
Imagine for a moment, if you will, being stranded in the middle of a rainforest in the dead of night, armed only with your natural abilities, instincts, intelligence and a dull machete. As you struggle in vain through the endless vines, there are times when you reach a temporary respite; it is illusory at best because you mistake the lull as permanent. Then you realize that the place you have reached it is just a clearing and there is plenty more jungle to cut through. So you plow ahead because in reality there is no other choice. At some point, the feeling that you are making considerable headway starts to take hold. You start to believe that you will indeed emerge from this quagmire injured but ultimately victorious and intact. It is those positive thoughts that propel one forward, that keep you swinging away when your strength has long ago waned. The natural inclination is to perceive small victories as more significant than they really are. It might be a matter of self-preservation but the mind tricks one into seeing what is not there. At this juncture you once again make the error of thinking that you are farther along that you really are. The terrain begins to get steeper, the labor more arduous - it must be because you are about to reach the haven you have been searching for. What happens next is devastating but predictable. That mind-shattering realization that you are just as lost as when you began this awful nightmare, that even though you have been able to reach a higher vantage point, it only reinforces the fact that you are utterly and completely lost, alone and adrift. Not only that, for the first time the concept of time sneaks up from behind to punch you in your face. It has been almost a month since this ordeal began and you have been plugging away without little regard to rest, sleep or simply peace of mind. Then you look down, only to see that you are standing in quicksand and sinking fast.
That’s what my life has been like since this tribulation has begun. Being without your home is bad in itself but add to that, the reams and reams of red tape that one must deal with on a daily basis is enough to make you lose it. I am a full-time employee and a full-time parent but this situation has become full-time as well. I have not stopped calling, cajoling and warning any one that might listen. I have reached out to the town politicians and the more influential state officials and while some have been more helpful than others, the fact remains that we are still not able to live in our house and the work to begin to repair the wall has not even started.
These are the facts as they stand right now. On May 22nd it will be exactly 4 weeks since we have been able to live at home. The Red Cross has been a lifesaver; their assistance has been effective, immediate and virtually red tape free, dealing with FEMA on the other hand has been like to trying to navigate a maze blindfolded and in a straightjacket. The retaining wall that sits atop of the slope behind my house still has not fallen but looks worse everyday. The retaining wall in question belongs to the homeowner that lives above my property. He has been issued an order to make repairs but he can legally stall for months. The town of Lodi, the state of New Jersey and the Federal government represented in this case by FEMA don’t want to commit to fixing the problem because it is in their best interest to see it as a problem between residents. Not to mention, that our homeowner’s insurance has now officially denied our claim. What happens tomorrow is far from certain, this story is still being written.
By Led Black
I woke up this morning feeling depleted, defeated, deflated and depressed. It is now officially 2 weeks since we have been given the order to vacate and we are still staying in hotels. Before this whole ordeal, I thought my wife and I had pretty complicated, busy lives. We both have full-time jobs and are full-time parents with all the responsibilities and entanglements that come with it. On top of the day job, I also try to get some writing done when I am not changing pampers or picking up my oldest daughter from Tae Kwon Do. This catastrophe has completely upturned our lives. I still have a mortgage and taxes to pay; I just don’t have a home. Like everything else, our commute is now much more hellish. Wifey now gets up at around 4:30 to prepare the daily trip into the Heights to take my 2 youngest girls to my mom to take care of and her job is also in the area. I drive 13 miles from the hotel to our town of Lodi to take my 8-year-old to her elementary school and then another 22 miles to get to work. After work I go to the hotel and after dinner I return to our home to walk the dog, get the mail and then sleep-drive back to the hotel. That is another thing; I have left our dog Smokey, a red-nose Pit Bull, at home to protect the house because I have heard horror stories of homes with Red Tags (Orders to Vacate) being burglarized. He is lonely but what can I do.
I have not had a good night’s sleep since the 24th of April. As sleepy as I am, once I hit the bed and turn off the lights, I just lay there and worry. I have spent the last few nights searching for an apartment online to no avail. Most people looking to rent apartments want a tenant for at least a year but I don’t know long it will take to make the necessary repairs to get me back in my house. And that is the crux of the problem, the wall that needs to be repaired doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to the neighbor above me. The town of Lodi is trying to force him to make the repairs but he is using delaying tactics to not do a thing. The painting above, The Scream, by Edvard Munch captures how I feel at this moment precisely.
By Led Black
From one moment to the next my life had changed completely. I could not stop staring at the red piece of paper. I was reeling. I couldn’t move, frozen by the sheer weight of this predicament. So many questions ran through my mind. Where do we go? What do we do? It’s ironic that the day before the big storm hit the entire family sat down to watch The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. The movie is based on the true story of Chris Gardner who because of a series of unfortunate events ends up homeless with his young son. That was the situation we now found ourselves.
As a parent, there is nothing worse than not knowing where you and your kids will be spending the night. Ever since this happened I have felt a knot in my stomach that has not gone away. This experience has been an emotional rollercoaster. It has now been 11 days since we have not been allowed to live in our home. We have been in 3 different hotels and about 5 different hotel rooms courtesy of the Red Cross. The baby who just turned 10 months old is teething and everyone excluding myself has a cold, which just adds to all the drama. On top of that, my homeowner’s insurance has denied our claim. Even though this has been tremendously stressful and difficult, we are still standing. I know we will prevail, like my mother says “Dios es grande” which loosely translates into God is all-powerful. Before this whole ordeal that Crystal Waters song “She’s Homeless” was just an annoying House song, it has now become the soundtrack of our lives. There truly is no place like home.
For those in the tri-state area Channel 9 will be airing a segment on our story this Sunday May 6th at noon on a show called New Jersey Now, check it out to find out more.
Peace
By Led Black
“La vida te da sorpresas, sorpresas te da la vida' ¡ay, Dios.”
Rubén Blades
I never in a million years would have thought I would be without a home to live in. My parents, hard-working immigrants from the Dominican Republic, came to this great country in the late 60’s with very little resources but an indefatigable will to work and to provide for their children. The values they have instilled in me have given me a solid foundation and have ensured that I, in turn, could do the same for my children. In 2001, my mother-in-law, my wife and I pooled our resources and purchased our first home in the town of Lodi in Bergen County, our own a little piece of the American dream. At the time my daughter, Imani, was 2-years-old and I wanted her to have the house and backyard that my parents dreamed of but couldn’t afford. In 2004 my 2nd daughter, Leila, was born and shortly thereafter in June of 2006 my 3rd daughter, Soraya, was born. My fruitless search for a son was over and I accepted the fact that I was destined to be the father of the 3 most beautiful girls in the world. Our children are our lives and providing them with food, clothing and a good place to live is what my wife and I both work so hard for.
Behind my property there is slope, the retaining wall at the top of the slope belongs to the neighbors that live above my house. Sometime in mid 2004, the owners of the retaining wall decided to cut the trees directly in front of the retaining wall because the trees were obstructing their view, their argument was that the trees were on their property and they therefore had the right to do as they please. My wife, always on the alert, took pictures of the people who had been paid by my neighbors to cut the trees. In March 28th 2005, our worst fears were realized; a landslide that began in the very same place where the trees were cut destroyed a part of my deck as well as my retaining wall. The incident happened in the middle of the night and completely startled my entire family. We initiated the litigation process to have our property fixed. Even though a good part of my deck was ruined and the value of my house had been diminished, our house was still safe to live in. Then the Nor’easter of 07 came rumbling into town.
Flooding has never been a problem in the part of town I live in. While a good portion of my town was underwater, our worries were the stability of the retaining wall directly above our property. The storm exacerbated the erosion and the dirt underneath the retaining wall was coming down at an alarming rate. By the time the storm subsided, a fair amount of the retaining wall was floating in air. On April 24th, the town of Lodi placed an order to vacate the house on my door. My mother-in-law, her son, my wife, our 3 kids and myself were in effect homeless. The ordeal had begun.
The show…
Wouldn’t it be great to have a professional style your room – for free? FreeStyle, HGTV’s hit design series, shows you that a designer’s touch can make a world of difference. Now is your chance to be on the show!
What they do...
Their designer uses your furniture, art and accessories to FreeStyle your room and solves your design dilemmas. We change the layout and add color to give your space a high-end, stylized look – and they do it in one day for free!
Who they're looking for…
People in their 20’ 30s to mid-40s. Singles, couples, and families with young children who are NOT camera shy, living in NYC houses, town homes, apartments and lofts. Renters are welcome.
How to get involved…
E-mail the casting company at: imfreestylin@chocolategurlhappy.com. Fill out the attached pre-interview questionaire and include some photos of the room that you would like to have featured and "freestyled" on the show. They can also travel to your home (Brooklyn, Manhattan including Uptown, Queens, and some of Northern NJ) for an in-person interview and take the photos themselves.
For more info or to apply outside the NYC area visit: www.beonfreestyle.com
