por el personal de El Reportero

­Compartiendo su música y cultura: Son una familia de músicos descendienttes directamente de los últimos sobrevivientes de los Sayaka Inka de las orillas del Lago Titicaca en Puno, Perú. Una presentación única el sábado 13 de junio. Para más información llamar a Luis Alfaro al 650-759-8761 o al correo electronico: ­info@f4gh.org.

Venga a celebrar nuestro aniversario con una interpretación de una obra en progreso de La Peña – Ayer, Hoy y P’alante, una original suite de música sobre La Peña por Wayne Wallace con un libreto de Aya de León e interpretada por la Orquesta Internacional de La Peña. La Orquesta Internacional de La Peña cuenta con Wayne Wallace, Aya de León, Lichi Fuentes, Héctor Lugo, Josh Jones, Ayla Dávila, Donna Viscuso, Valerie Troutt y DJ Wonway Posibul. Venga temprano y disfrute de una instalación artística de historia oral: Creando el Hogar Fuera del Hogar, una exhibición de artículos & objetos de ex-prisioneros políticos & exiliados de Chile. Más detalles: http://www.lapena.org/event/1117.

Sábado 13 de junio, $12 con anticipación. $14 entrada. 7 p.m. instalación artística. 8 p.m. concierto. Centro Cultural La Peña. 3105 Avenida Shattuck, Berkeley, California EE.UU.

Grupo Sayaka Inka

Desde la sagrada región del Lago Titicaca. A través de su música y danza están enviando un mensaje de la Antigua Profecía Inca sobre la armonía y la paz a nuestro amado planeta con respeto y dignidad. Ceremonia de apertura de Mixcoatl Anahuac, Bailarines Tradicionales Aztecas.

Este sábado 13 de junio a las 8:00 p.m. en 362 Calle Capp (entre las 18 7 19) en SF. Adultos:$10.00 Estudiantes: $7.00. Niños: FREE.

Misticismo en el Concierto de Series Comunitarias

Parks & Recs de la Ciudad de San Pablo invita a la comunidad, amigos y recién llegados a RESERVAR LAS FECHAS para la “1ra Serie de Conciertos Anuales de Verano de San Pablo & Fiesta de Danza Callejera”, comenzando el viernes 19 de junio de 2009. Un trío de eventos de verano que contará con excitantes y coloridos eventos musicales para su placer bailable y de escucha. Una gran manera de dar inicio a una cálida 6noche de viernes de verano.

­Todas las presentaciones comienzan a las 6:00 p.m. en punto hasta las 8:00 p.m. TODAS GRATIS!! Todas únicas!!

Las consultas de vendedores & medios deben ser dirigidas a Michelle: Línea de información: 510-215-3097 o 510-215-3097 o Kentara@Kentara.info.

Festival de Poesía Visual e Interpretación

Poesía Visual es una forma de poesía experimental en la cual la imagen y el elemento plástico son predominantes. La Poesía Visual usa cualquier técnica y apoyo que la ayuda a desarrollarse y constituye una nueva disciplina en el campo de la experimentación.

Recepción de Apertura: 19 de junio 7 p.m. $5. Fechas de exhibición: 19 de junio – 10 de julio 2009. Fechas de presentación: 24 de junio, 1 y 8 de julio. 7pm $5, en las Galerías MCCLA, 2868 Calle Misión, San Francisco, California. Más información (415) 821-1155 http://www.ivu.org/spanish/trans/ssnv-change.html.

by Jonathan Higuera

(First of two parts)

Part I: For indigenous families, the practice s generations deep

Mary Helen Sotelo, a retired nurse, chuckles when recalling how her kids would poke fun at her as she washed plastic food bags to reuse later. That was in the 1980s before the terms “sustainability” and “going green” were yet to become part of the national lexicon.

Sotelo’s concern for the environment is still going strong. So much so, in fact, that last year she decided to buy a 2009 Camry Hybrid. While it was a big upfront investment, she’s happy with her purchase, which she had been contemplating for several years.

“Not only is it protecting the environment, but it’s going to save me money in the future,” she says, citing the 37 to 44 miles per gallon it gets.

Despite notions that Latinos are not broadly engaged in saving polar bears or the rain forest, they may very well embody the term “sustainability.”

In fact, as the environmental movement broadens its perspective on what it means to be green, its leaders may want to take note of the way many Latinos live their lives. Whether following customs and practices handed down from sus padres or los abuelitos or borne from economic necessity, many Latinos have found ways to reduce, reuse and recycle long before these became the mantra for the green movement.

“A lot of Latinos like me had aunts, uncles, grandparents who were conservationists,” says Nicole Greason, marketing and public relations administrator for Fennemore Craig law firm. “They collected rain water for their gardens, composted, recycled cans and metals.

They were people who, out of necessity, found uses for everything.”

These practices have rubbed off on Greason, who donates to groups such as the World Wildlife Federation, and has made a conscious decision to reduce her carbon footprint.

To this day, she does not use a clothes dryer, preferring instead to air-dry her garments. “The dryer is an evil thing,” she half jokes. “It uses a lot of energy and of paper and plastic.

Gutiérrez, who received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University last year, recounts how one small step of buying enough silverware and plates to use at family get-togethers dramatically reduced the amount of paper and plastic they had been using.

“If enough people do enough small things, together they can make a difference,” says Gutiérrez.

It’s that type of cultural environmentalism that really didn’t register with the mainstream environmental movement for many years, says Adrianna Quintero, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. From her base in San Francisco, she directs the NRDC’s La Onda Verde initiative, which was launched in 2005 to inform and involve Spanish-speaking Latinos both here and abroad about the broad spectrum of environmental issues.

“If you look at Latinos who belong to movements, it’s more about participating,” she says. “It’s not about giving $20 to an organization. This is about being part of the solution.”

Sotelo, the hybrid owner, often scours magazines searching for ideas on how to reduce, reuse and recycle. She is no Johnny-come-lately to green practices, either. She began recycling in the mid-1980s when she lived near Cal-State University at Bakersfield. The school had recycling bins and she would take all her recyclables there.

Her biggest concern these days is the amount of plastic going into landfills. She’s alarmed that much of the plastic we use will be around longer than us.

Always finding something she can contribute to a recycling drive — half-empty cans of paint, computers, old batteries, used cell phones, she says, “I just want to do my part.

We have a wonderful planet and we need to take care of it.” Hispanic Link.

(Jonathan Higuera, of Phoenix, Ariz., is a freelance writer).

­(NEXT: Greenies and Environmental Justice — Mutually Exclusive Movements?) ©2009

Ian Michael James

Half a century ago, confetti floated through the air in Havana as Fidel Castro arrived to the joyous cries of people celebrating the fall of a dictator. The bearded rebels who were welcomed as heroes included Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, commander of the Second National Front of the Escambray, a faction that had joined in the fight to oust President Fulgencio Batista. At the time, Eloy believed their revolution had brought Cuba freedom from a repressive regime.

Today Eloy looks back on those exuberant days of January 1959 with the rueful conviction that Cuba has since been frozen in a stifling sameness. His struggle against Castro has consumed much of his life – first trying to overthrow him and nowadays favoring dialogue to bring about change.

Eloy, who lives in Havana, is no typical anti-Castro leader. He often chided the Bush administration for its hard-line Cuba policies. At 74, he is trying to build an independent opposition. He isn’t allowed to form a political party or have a voice in the state-controlled media. But he believes it’s only a matter of time until Cuba’s entrenched system begins to break down and allow the island’s people to gradually regain their personal and political freedoms.

He is hopeful President Barack Obama’s initial steps to ease sanctions may hasten these changes. He is encouraged by Obama’s move against Bush’s isolationist policies — an opening Obama summarized to applause at the recent Summit of the Americas, saying, “The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba.”

Eloy has long seen the U.S. trade embargo as a failure and called for its elimination.

But now he says that unless Cuba shows willingness to make would be more productive. It has been a controversial position for Eloy, who has been vilified by some Cuban leaders in Miami for hoping – naively, they say – that talking with either Fidel or Raúl Castro can make a difference.

Eloy’s unflappable persistence impressed me a decade ago when we met in Miami, where I began interviewing him for my book “Ninety Miles: Cuban Journeys in the Age of Castro.” In his small office tucked away in a strip mall, he gestured with a cigarette as he explained how his group, Cambio Cubano, aimed to bring democracy to the island.

­He waved a bundle of threatening notes he had received from exiles after meeting with Castro in 1995. They haven’t deterred him from trying to negotiate.

Now he suggests that Obama’s easing of restrictions on travel and money transfers could create the conditions for state controls to begin to loosen. Yet, it is still unclear how willing the Castros might be to engage in a genuine give-and-take. Raúl has offered to discuss “everything” with the U.S. government, but on equal terms and without negotiating Cuba’s one-party communist system. Obama’s suggestion that Cuba respond with a gesture such as releasing political prisoners met a cool response.

Eloy’s own demands for political freedoms in Havana have been ignored. His requests to meet again with Fidel or Raúl have gone unanswered for years. “They don’t give you a definite ‘no,’ but they also don’t tell you ‘yes’.”

They leave the door open, but not all the way, he says. This time Eloy hopes the Cubans will recognize their historic opportunity. “Cuba has to take some sort of step so that it doesn’t stymie the positive stance taken by Obama.”

[Ian Michael James is a journalist who lives in Caracas, Venezuela. He is author of “Ninety Miles: Cuban Journeys in the Age of Castro” (Rowman & Littlefield).] ©2009

Marvin J. Ramírez

Marvin J. Ramírez

I ran into an interesting article the other day. It was titled, States governments taking back Rights.

The article began by telling how everything about our Second Amendment to the Constitution – the right to bear arms – commenced.

It started in Montana, says the article, where the state government had just passed legislation that says that any guns or ammunition produced inside state lines that remain inside state lines cannot be regulated by the federal government.

Now, other states are following suit—with some, such as Representative Carl Wimmer’s, state of Utah turning it up a notch, that if there are more violations to the Constitution, they will not be recognized.

As I read, I remembered that a couple of times, since he was elected, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has tried to ban private guns in the city. Using acts of violence committed by criminals, two times he convinced voters that guns are no good in the hands of the people. So two ordinances that were passed, were later struck down by the Supreme Court.

And this trend is obviously coming with an agenda. In the SFPD Mission Station poster, the city offers the citizenry $1,000 for everyone who denounces someone in possession of an “illegal” gun.

When I saw that poster, I said to myself: “how can a gun be illegal, when the Constitution allows every citizen to bear arms. Why these government officials want to disarm the people?

In a previous editorial I wrote about President Obama telling President Putin in Russia early this year, that by September 2009, all guns would be banned in the United States. And this same effort is being taking shape in Mexico, and in Nicaragua, and around the world.

In Nicaragua, this woman I know, applied for a public relation position, which until later, she learned what the position was about.

The company that offered the position was an agency of the United Nations, with an agenda. The agenda consisted or still consists, of promoting a very articulate plan: to ban all guns from private people in that country.

And this same effort is being tried in Mexico, as some parts of that nation’s borderline with the U.S. are in the middle of gun battles among drug cartels who get their guns from the U.S. in exchange for drugs. All that is planned.

It’s well known that the U.S. government has been involved in several occasions in drug trafficking activities to promote their war agendas. Remember the Iran-Contra war scandal?

Dear reader, don’t get fooled. What is coming is a world dictatorship within a New World Order, with a World Government headed by the United Nations, and managed by the international ­banking elite to enslave us all. Wake up. Stop watching TV.

Our Founding Fathers foresaw the coming of a tyranny. That’s why they gave us the protection of the Second Amendment: the right to bear arms. Do not let anyone take this right away, no matter what they say.