Thousands in San Francisco “Occupy Wall Street West”
Sal Alper sat casually in front of the Wells Fargo headquarters in downtown San Francisco, as if chaining herself to the banking giant’s front doors was a normal thing to do on a Friday morning. As one of the many Occupy San Francisco protests on January 20, Sal had joined…
“Art is my Occupation”: Rethinking the Role of Artists in the Movement
As a member of the self-identified “slash profession” – writer/organizer/educator/whatever pays the rent that month – I have learned how to wear multiple hats. How to move between different worlds and code-switch my headgear to meet a particular place and community. Alright, I got this big event coming up tonight…should…
Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society for Otto René Castillo (1936-1967), Roberto Obregon (1940-1970), Guadalupe Navas (1942-1980), Luis de León (1939-1985), and all the poets and people of Guatemala who gave their lives for the people’s struggle this is not a movie starring Robin Williams this is not a white prep school…
¡El Pueblo Unido!…My Top Political Lessons from Central America
When this whole Occupy movement kicked off back in September, I wasn’t on the streets of Lower Manhattan. I wasn’t even on the streets of Oakland. I was walking along the quiet streets of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, where my partner Esther and I had just started a three month journey through…
Occupy Takes Over the Ports: A Report from Oakland
In all my years of marches and demonstrations, I had never been on a picket line at 3 a.m. Yet here I was on this oh-so-early Tuesday morning, out on a quiet street on Oakland’s waterfront alongside hundreds of my fellow Occupy activists. All of us were cold, tired —…