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Jesus Manuel Mena Garza

After 40 years, give or take a few, SJSU Chicano Commencement endures

By Joe Rodriguez, San José Mercury News
jrodriguez@mercurynews.com

Tony Quintero remembered the wailing cry of a friend's mother as a dozen or so defiant Chicano graduates walked out of San Jose State's main graduation ceremony a generation ago.

"No!" the woman cried, begging her son to stay seated. "Don't give up your degree!"

The degrees were safe, but much more was at stake. Upset about the low number of Mexican-American students and professors at the school, the graduates intended to shake the administration into action. Half-expecting a riot, 200 campus and city police officers lined Spartan Stadium.

Instead of violence, what broke out that June evening in 1968 was a separate graduation ceremony — Chicano Commencement — which lives to this day and holds its 40th official celebration Sunday. Some 2,000 people are expected at San Jose State's Event Center to honor 56 Chicano students and their families. The event has become a festive affair, a far cry from its controversial beginning.

To everyone's relief at Spartan Stadium, only a few boos broke the silence of the peaceful walkout. The students gathered in a field across the stadium with 200 to 300 sympathizers and relatives. The crowd listened to playwright Luis Valdez and other fiery speakers and watched a theater group perform a new satirical play called "Chicano Commencement." Each graduate got a chance to speak. Most, if not all, thanked their parents. Then everyone partied into the night.

Juan Garcia, now a professor at Fresno State, was a freshman who attended. "I remember thinking to myself, 'Hey! We should have a separate commencement every year.' I was that inspired."

It didn't happen the same way again, but it did happen. Today, such commencements — sometimes called Chicano/Latino Commencement — are held at private and state universities in California, including Stanford and UC Berkeley, and throughout the Southwest. San Jose State's was among the first.

Three short years later, in 1971, a different brand of Chicano activism took hold on campus. Student leaders Mauro Chavez and Chris Jimenez liked the idea of a separate commencement, but they didn't want to disturb the main graduation ceremony by walking out or demonstrating outside.

"Mauro said, 'You shouldn't spoil someone else's party for your own,' " Jimenez remembered. —‰'Let's have our own.' "

Instead of attending the main ceremony, the graduates organized and raised $3,000 for a separate ceremony for Mexican-American and other Latino college graduates from throughout the Bay Area. About 30 showed up at Guadalupe Church in East San Jose and brought their families. Jimenez's wife cooked a big pot of chicken. Others brought tortillas, beans, salads and soft drinks. Chavez's idea was to recognize the academic accomplishments of individual graduates, honor the sacrifices of their parents and inspire their little brothers and sisters to aim for college.

In addition, the graduates could select their own theme and keynote speaker. His broader goal was to change the university and other public institutions from the inside. Chavez died in 1992 after a long and distinguished career in academia.
"The highlight for me," Jimenez said, "was the families jumping up and down and shouting when the graduates went up for their diplomas. It became a shouting match between families, they were so proud and happy."

Standing on the sidelines, however, were some of the student protesters from 1968, and they weren't pleased with how Chicano Commencement was turning out.

"It became a celebration and not a political occasion," said Armando Valdez, now a behavioral scientist in Mountain View. "I would rather have seen continued protest. The reality is, little has changed for Chicanos in this society."

Jimenez still bristles at the criticism.

"They called us all sorts of names, 'vendidos,' sellouts," he said. "What did they do other than protest? Our philosophy was education. If you want social change, you need educated people."

Gabe Reyes, who helped organize the 1971 event as a student and later became an administrator at San Jose State, said the battle over Chicano Commencement underscored a wider question every civil rights activist faced at the time: By joining the institutions they wanted to change, did they risk becoming "co-opted" and changing little or nothing at the end?

"It was a question we all wrestled with," Reyes said.

A few years later, the organizers of Chicano Commencement abandoned separatism and encouraged graduates to also attend the school's main graduation ceremony. The university gradually embraced the ceremony as a way to promote campus diversity and boost recruitment of Latino students.

Linda Ortega, a staff member at San Jose State's engineering department, once invited former San Jose State President Robert Caret to a Chicano Commencement at the Santa Clara Convention Center attended by 2,000 people.

She asked him, "This is pretty awesome, don't you think?" Ortega recalled him responding, "I'm blown away." Before too long, black, Asian and gay graduates throughout California were staging their own parallel or ethnic commencements.

Christina Ramos, a student organizer with a new master's degree in public administration, agreed that the ceremony had lost its political edge for a while. But she said Arizona's new law for questioning undocumented immigrants has lit a fire under this Sunday's Chicano Commencement.

"It's still a political statement," Ramos said about the event. "We as Latinos are still not viewed as positive contributors to society. But we are still here. We are making a difference. We are graduating from college."

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Hannity Smears “Chicano” Author As Anti-White By Taking Quote Out Of Context

I saw this crazy stuff on TV this week. If you have time check out the insanity... FOX insanity that is. Click this link to view the video and text: FOX NOOZ?

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Chicano studies among new UC Merced minors

Some students have been vocal about adding the discipline.

By JAMIE OPPENHEIM
joppenheim@mercedsun-star.com

The fruits of Sean Lambert-Diaz's labor have finally paid off. The UC Merced junior began pushing for a Chicano studies minor during his freshman year in 2007-2008, after sending a letter to the school's history department requesting it hire a Chicano historian. Now a junior, Lambert-Diaz finally has what he wanted -- a Chicano studies minor.

The school will also offer three other new minors this fall. UC Merced students can minor in chemical sciences and environmental sciences and sustainability, both offered though the School of Natural Sciences. Minors in Chicano studies and public health will be offered through the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts.

"It's a relief for me because of the hard work I put in," Lambert-Diaz said. "I hope it not only encourages students to minor in Chicano studies, I hope it pushes students to push for their own minor, like African American studies."

The push for Chicano studies was the most organized student-led effort to lobby for a minor, according to UC Merced officials.

Earlier this year, students pushing for the Chicano studies minor held teach-ins on the school's quad to raise awareness about the issue.

"There has been great interest from students in adding these programs to our university," said Mark Aldenderfer, dean of the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts. "With an underlying emphasis on interdisciplinary studies, we think these minors will help produce well-rounded graduates with knowledge that will benefit them in the next chapter of their lives."
Here are the details of all four new minors:

The chemical sciences minor will require students to gain an understanding of concepts and theoretical principles in chemistry and its various subfields, such as analytical, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry.

Students choosing to minor in environmental science and sustainability will learn to gather and report environmental data. They will also analyze information on environmental quality and recommend appropriate technical, environmental policy decisions.

The Chicano studies minor will have students develop an understanding of the role that race and ethnicity plays in shaping the experiences of different ethnic groups in the United States, but specifically Chicanos. Students will also focus on the various changes in immigration policy, identity, language and social and cultural practices.

The public health minor will require students to take courses in natural and social sciences and humanities. The program emphasizes a focus on health disparities in different economic and ethnic groups.

Reporter Jamie Oppenheim can be reached at (209)385-2407 or joppenheim@merecdsun-star.com.

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UC Merced designated Hispanic-serving institution

The University of California, Merced is in line for additional federal money to serve its large population of Latino students.

UC Merced officials said Friday the campus has been designated as a "Hispanic-Serving Institution" by the U.S. Department of Education.

Merced joins Riverside as the second UC campus to get the designation, which goes to schools where Hispanics make up at least 25 percent of undergraduates.

The designation makes UC Merced eligible for funding for student support services, faculty development, campus renovation and other purposes.

Campus officials say its undergraduates are 32 percent Hispanic, 33 percent Asian, 22 percent Caucasian and seven percent black.

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Benefit for Racine artist Art Cadilli May 1 at Raytown Roadhouse

A benefit for the family of Art Cadilli will be held from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at Raytown Roadhouse, 522 Sixth St. in Racine, Wisconsin.

Cadilli, 58, died March 22. He received a bachelor of arts degree from San Jose State University and was a free-lance artist who was known for his window art and murals around town. Cadilli loved music and played his harmonica with local bands. He was also a member of the FOE Eagles Aerie No. 281.

The benefit will feature music by Melvin Barker and the Blues Cruise Band, food, a 50/50 raffle and a cash bar.

Tickets cost $5 in advance and at the door. They are available at Chiefs, Corner Stone, Eagles Club, Rhino Bar, George’s Tavern and Raytown Roadhouse.

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Arthur “Art” Cadilli, age 58, passed away Monday, March 22, 2010. at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, Milwaukee, WI. Art was born in Los Angeles, CA, May 19, 1951, son of Arthur Cadilli Sr. and Amelia Marquez.

Arthur received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from San Jose State University. He was a freelance artist who created window art and murals all around town. He was a member of F.O.E. Eagles Aerie #281. He loved music and played his harmonica with local bands.

Art was a prominent member of El Centro Cultural de la Gente in San Jose, California during the mid-70s. The artist produced numerous works in support of the Chicano Movement and other progressive causes during this period.

Survivors include his children, Antonio E. Cadilli (fiancee, Tokunbo Akinbodunges) and his mother, Christine Colby; Apolonia R. Cruz-Cadilli, Diego F. Cruz-Cadilli and their mother, Magdalena Cruz; his mother, Amelia Marquez of Los Angeles, CA; sisters and brothers, Mercedes Cadilli, Francisco (Regina) Cadilli, Herlinda Vasquez, Joseph Mosqueda, Yolanda (Joe) Duenas, Vicky Rodriguez, Amelia Nunez; best friends, Felix Pacheco, Danny Mangabat, Houston Pmon; other relatives and many dear friends. He was preceded in death by his father, Arthur Cadilli Sr.; two sisters, Patricia Pemebeton, and Rosalinda Ohm; and good friend, Rudy Madrid.

They’re Chicanos and Artists. But Is Their Art Chicano?

... It has long been said that the identity-based show is an evil whose necessity would disappear in a more equitable world, but museums and grant-giving foundations will continue to support this kind of project because of its appeal to various interest groups. In truth, it as much a bureaucratic artifact as a curatorial one.





Photos by Julieta Cervantes for The New York Times

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By KEN JOHNSON
NY Times

Is it time to retire the identity-based group show? Back in the 1970s, exhibitions devoted to the work of women, blacks, gay people, American Indians and other disenfranchised groups brought into the mainstream all kinds of new styles and ideas. They changed the course of modern art history.

If it is hard to imagine that sort of exhibition making waves now, there is good reason. Artists of many different backgrounds and sexual orientations have been assimilated into the art world. There are more women than men in this year’s Whitney Biennial. Questions of equitable representation probably will never go away, but at this point, many artists would balk at being included in an identity-based show. They want to go to the big dance.

These thoughts were occasioned by “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement,” a confused and confusing exhibition at El Museo del Barrio presenting works by Mexican-Americans who have come of age since the 1990s. In the catalog the exhibition’s curators acknowledge that some artists who were invited declined to be in a “surname-based” show. (The exhibition was organized by Rita Gonzalez and Howard N. Fox, curators at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it opened in April 2008, and Chon A. Noriega, of the Chicano Studies Research Center of the University of California, Los Angeles.)

In his foreword to the catalog, Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles museum, observes that the 27 artists and collectives in the show are not grouped “by their own volition or consensus.” Selecting by ethnicity is “a curatorial artifact, a device to reflect and speculate on the issues facing Chicano artists today.”

It becomes readily apparent that the artists are not unified by any single style or conceptual approach. The work ranges from Victor Estrada’s funky-surrealist paintings to Sandra de la Loza’s complicated installation of old documents and a digitally manipulated video dedicated to Fort Moore, a historic site in Los Angeles.

Few pieces resemble the ideologically charged paintings and graphics of the Chicano movement, which blossomed in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Christina Fernandez’s large color photographs of laundromats represent an experience that people from many backgrounds know intimately. Without the works’ titles, you would not know that Delilah Montoya’s sumptuous, wide-angle landscape photographs depict stopping places on illegal-immigrant trails out of Mexico. Turning ugly subjects into beautiful pictures is something photographers do all over the world.

Some works relate to Chicano art, but with knowing, retrospective sophistication. Carolyn Castaño’s brightly painted, cartoonish portraits of pretty Mexican women surrounded by flocked and glittery stripes or floral patterns could be mistaken for cheap beauty parlor décor (in a good way). Folksy, signlike paintings and cases displaying sneakers and sandals made of painted cardboard by Gary Garay similarly refer to low-budget commerce and extend to the present the Chicano movement’s affectionate embrace of “low-brow” Mexican-American culture.

Eduardo Sarabia’s room covered with faux-antique blue-on-white tiles with emblematic designs alluding to the drug wars adroitly combines popular tradition and contemporary political savvy. And Alejandro Diaz’s display of distressed cardboard signs bearing hand-written messages, like “I beg to differ” and “Wet Back by Popular Demand,” play with themes of homelessness and racism with unusual good humor. He first exhibited them while wearing a white suit outside of Tiffany & Company in New York.

The most impressive effort in this quasi-populist vein is Margarita Cabrera’s sculpture of a full-size yellow Volkswagen Beetle, a car that was produced in Mexico from 1967 to 2003. Made of mainly sewn-together pieces of colored vinyl, it evokes the soft sculpture of Claes Oldenburg. According to the catalog, it also draws attention to the poor working conditions of industrial laborers in Mexico.

The curators explain in the catalog that the point of the exhibition is not to show the evolution of a particular visual or formal style but to demonstrate how Mexican-American artists have adapted mainstream conceptual strategies to more local concerns. It is the top-down opposite of the Chicano movement, which raised conventions of popular culture into the realm of high art, and it looks as if the biggest influence on most of these artists were M.F.A. programs.

“Black on Black,” a sculpture by Juan Capistran consisting of a black Minimalist slab leaning against another bent one, as if with sexual intent, looks like the sort of postmodernist riff on formalist abstraction associated with artists like Peter Halley, Sherrie Levine and countless others who have toyed with Modernist semiotics.

Finish-fetish-style panel paintings by Rubén Ortiz-Torres, rendered in glossy and glittery auto-body paint, conflate Modernist abstraction and custom-car painting. “Rigor Motors,” a pair of sculptures in the form of coffins by Ruben Ochoa and Marco Rios — one is half upright with an automobile bucket seat inside — allude to a car culture of death.

Death is more grimly invoked by Ken Gonzales-Day’s display of old postcards bearing pictures of people standing around under trees. Before selective erasure by the artist, they depicted lynched Mexican-Americans, and thus symbolize a pernicious historic amnesia.

Taken altogether, it is not clear what this show says about today’s Mexican-American artists. Are they doing something unusual that the art world needs to catch up on? Not those in this show. Is it news that they are as creatively diverse as American artists in general? It should not be.


It has long been said that the identity-based show is an evil whose necessity would disappear in a more equitable world, but museums and grant-giving foundations will continue to support this kind of project because of its appeal to various interest groups. In truth, it as much a bureaucratic artifact as a curatorial one. A more astutely focused, judiciously selected exhibition might lead to different conclusions, but this one will not alter the impression that last rites for this type of show are in order.

“Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement” continues through May 9 at El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, at 104th Street, East Harlem; (212) 831-7272, elmuseo.org.

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Chicano Photographer Video

Poder Chicano

If you have the time or the interest, check out this interesting video produced by the folks at Borderzine.

Reflections of routine air travel

17 March 2010
By Saul Landau

I waited in line at the Phoenix airport thinking how a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, evaded security. Meanwhile, an informed TSA woman wanded me with a small stick designed to detect explosives -- if I had had any around my armpits, butt and other body parts.

After Umar made headlines, who would enter an airport with “boomzy woomzy” in his knickers, as a British wit described the outré plot to blow up the airplane carrying him to the United States? After the young Nigerian failed to ignite himself, thanks to a fellow airplane passenger’s intervention, President Obama threatened to retaliate anywhere -- meaning Yemen? Surely such a threat would stop a future terrorist attack!

We already have several hundred thousand troops and more mercen… – oops! contractors – scouring several countries hunting potentially violent anti-western Muslims. Unfortunately, this violent process has made even more enemies for us.

But not me! The woman with the detecting wand waved me through “security.” I re-looped my belt, put on my shoes and thought how 19 suicidal, mostly Saudi, box-cutter-carrying hijackers had changed my and everyone else’s life. After their ghastly deed a Jamaican schlemiel tried to light his explosive-laden shoes on a London-U.S. flight. Again, quick work by a flight attendant stopped the impending tragedy.

Has Al Qaeda hired unemployed New York designers to make hot shoes and undies as part of their larger scheme to disrupt airline schedules? U.S. reaction to Bin Laden’s escapades have taken an apple pie experience, air travel -- see George Clooney in Up In The Air – and made it repulsive.

OK, Umar didn’t light the fuse in his skivvies. His nether parts and the plane remained intact. But because of his well-publicized failure, the Administration spent more money fighting airport wars supposedly against people like him. Al-Qaeda has provoked the government to institute permanent non-productive entities – like TSA, Thousands Standing Around or Taking Shampoo Away. They bleed the budget and help start each trip with a frown. Who benefits? Detection technology companies boom. Do their wands distinguish C4 from talcum powder? How many creeps would sacrifice themselves for a cause that few Americans can grasp? Hundreds? Thousands? Hmmn!

A guy with a grudge against paying taxes piloted his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas. That’s the American way, not having some bozo hide explosives in his dentures. Will the next Al Qaeda come from Uruguay via the Emirates? Will U.S. troops invade yet another country – like Yemen -- should a future Suicide Sam attempts an attack? That would force Al Qaeda trainers to move to another country. Umar trained in Yemen, the media reported, that mysterious Red Sea land on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Wait. For almost two decades, U.S., British, German and Spanish and African Muslims have responded to Al Qaeda’s call to do violence – mini 9/11s – at U.S. Embassies and other spots. Umar, the Nigerian whose parents warned authorities, learned from the same texts that attracted members of the Muslim Brotherhood and now Al Qaeda.

How come we don’t study those texts? The export of U.S. culture, Sayyid Qutb an Egyptian scholar believed, could bring death to the human spirit. If U.S. culture prevailed, he imagined a world whose spiritual values would become shopping, lawn-mowing and car-washing – along with inter-sexual hand holding, dancing and hootchie kootchie.

Qutb became the ideological father of the Muslim Brotherhood, embraced Sharia Law and a religious state, and repudiated the West’s “elections,” those processes that follow the imposition of corrupt, pro-Western dictators on the tribal societies. After spending time in Colorado, he observed: "Nobody goes to church as often as Americans do, yet no one is as distant as they are from the spiritual aspect of religion." http://dscriber.com/denver/402.html

Qutb saw “a moment of unbearable crisis,” where people had lost touch with their own nature. Inspiration, intelligence and morality had degenerated along with sexual relations ''to a level lower than the beasts.'' He felt horrified over the level of anxiety, crime, addiction and existentialism in U.S. life. He also saw the richest countries as “the unhappiest of all. And what was the cause of this unhappiness – “this wretched split between man's truest nature and modern life?” (Paul Berman NYT Magazine March 23, 2003)

Western Europe “civilized” (colonized?) what is now the Third World. This process involved capturing African slaves and looting the territories they were civilizing. Then they “granted” the modern Muslim world “independence,” which meant societies characterized by grinding poverty and institutionalized political corruption.

Few commentators dare link poverty and corruption to extremism in Muslim countries. Instead, Washington and London react like Pavlov’s dog to the stimulus of violence against them. A military response vitiates discussion of pro Israel policies and support for oppressive, ass-kissing Arab regimes. Like millions of passengers, I feel the trickle down effect of this strange development. Well, on to the connecting flight!

Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow and filmmaker. Go toroundworldproductions.com for his movies.

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San Jose's MLK Library to host forum on 70s Chicano Movement

[Click the image of the flyer to the right to enlarge (8.5x11). Right now, it is definitely too small to read. Print as many as you want. Thanks!]

Artists and activists involved in the Chicano Movement in San José between 1970 and 1975 are encouraged to attend a forum at the Cultural Heritage Center in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at San José State University on April 19, 2010 at 7PM. Professor Ann Marie Leimer will present photographs of El Movimiento captured by San José-born photographer Jesús Manuel Mena Garza.

The photographs document critical political and community events shaped by the San José Chicana and Chicano community. Dr. Leimer said, “Participants will have an opportunity to share their knowledge of the depicted events. Feedback is critical for the success of this forum.”

The University of Redlands professor added, “During the past decades, Garza has extensively published and exhibited several documentary photographic series. The Chicano Photographer series explores important aspects of the American experience, historic events and cultural practices often marginalized by the dominant culture.” Dr. Leimer is currently developing a book on the photographic series.

While a student at San José State University, Garza took photographs of national and local movement leaders and documented protests, marches, and community celebrations. The series can be viewed at Garza’s website, jmmgarza.com. Twenty-six black and white images from the extensive collection have been exhibited previously on both coasts.

The Chicano Photographer Documentary Photography Series:
The Chicano Movement in San José from 1970 to 1975

Date: April 19, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM
Location: Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
San José State University
Cultural Heritage Center, Fifth Floor, Room 525
150 East San Fernando Street (Corner of Fourth Street)
San José, CA 95112
Contact: Ann Marie Leimer, Ph.D., (909) 557-7159, ann_leimer@redlands.edu

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Winnemem Wintu Tribe Urges Feinstein to Withdraw Salmon Killer Legislation

[Photo of Mark Franco and Caleen Sisk-Franco courtesy of Indigenius Media.]

By Dan Bacher

The Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe of northern California today joined environmental organizations and fishing groups in strongly opposing legislation sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein to waive Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for imperiled Central Valley Chinook salmon.

Feinstein has attached an amendment to a jobs stimulus bill that would increase pumping to subsidized corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley. The amendment would convert the “jobs bill” into a “job killer bill” that would result in the destruction of California and Oregon’s once vibrant salmon fishing industry.

"The actions that are being taken to weaken Endangered Species Act protections are an affront to the Tribal nations of the State of California,” said Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “They violate the spirit of the treaties signed and consultative processes that California Indians have fought for centuries to ensure remain in place. These proposed actions and the failure of the government to even once engage in any discussion with the first people of this state regarding water rights and needs of tribal reservations, rancherias and communities is offensive and a slap in the face of all people of this state who believe in the truth behind the bromide ‘one nation under god, with liberty and justice for all.’”

“I urge you to ensure that the voice of the ‘regular’ citizens of this great state be heard and that the voice of ‘big business and the almighty dollar’ be hushed so that you hear the voice of the salmon, for whom we speak, to penetrate your heart and mind, unpolluted by the words of those who only seek riches for themselves and nothing for their relatives,” emphasized Franco.

The legislation is being proposed as the tribe is planning to travel to New Zealand from March 19 to April 2, 2010 to conduct ceremonies to pray for the return of winter run Chinook salmon, now thriving in New Zealand, to the McCloud River.

“We are going to New Zealand to dance for the salmon and pray for their return, since it is the McCloud River salmon that live in the Rakaia River in New Zealand now,” said Calleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the tribe. “They were taken there in 1875 from the McCloud River. However, before we can even get enough money and all the clearances for our regalia for our trip, it looks like Senator Feinstein is cooking the books with Westlands Water District and will sell out all the water, leaving the salmon to die.”

Sisk-Franco urged everybody concerned about the fate of salmon and people to take action to stop Feinstein from ramrodding her salmon and job killer amendment through the Senate.

“It is more than just salmon that will die, for they are the climate changers,” said Sisk-Franco. “Senator Feinstein wants to kill them without even a thought of the imperative job they do for water and all life. Without them there won't be a prayer for pure, clean water.”

Rather than supporting legislation like this at the behest of agribusiness giant Stewart Resnick, owner of Paramount Farms, and the Westlands Water District, Feinstein should be introducing legislation that will restore salmon and other imperiled fish populations and fishing jobs. Central Valley fall Chinook populations collapsed to a new record low of 39,000 fish in 2009, the result of massive Delta water exports, declining water quality and other factors.

“Strong protections for the Delta ecosystem could help recover the salmon fishery, which would return $1.4 billion to the California economy and 94,000 new jobs to California,” said Jim Metropulos, Senior Advocate for the Sierra Club California. “An amendment to waive the requirements under the federal Endangered Species Act could lead to the permanent closure of this fishery, with long-term job losses and economic damage. Such a suspension would likewise harm the Delta farmers who rely on clean Delta water to irrigate their crops.”

Besides sponsoring her job killer amendment, Feinstein is collaborating with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District in plans to build a peripheral canal and new dams. The peripheral canal is likely to result in the extinction of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, southern resident killer whales and other species that depend upon a healthy Delta ecoystem to thrive.

“The peripheral canal is a big, stupid idea that doesn’t make any sense from a tribal environmental perspective,” said Franco. “Building a canal to save the Delta is like a doctor inserting an arterial bypass from your shoulder to your hand– it will cause your elbow to die just like taking water out of the Delta through a peripheral canal will cause the Delta to die.”

There are three immediate things that you can do to save the salmon and the lives and jobs that depend upon them.

First, please ask your U.S. Senator to support California fisheries and fishing families by opposing Feinstein’s legislation. You can send a letter to your Senator by going to: https://secure2.convio.net/sierra/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=3678&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=crzlmcxvh2.app225a

Second, Friends of the River urges you to call Senator Feinstein's DC office TODAY or TOMORROW, before 2 pm Pacific time at (202) 224-3841! If you get a busy signal, receive this email after her DC office is closed or would prefer to call one of her California offices you can reach her in San Francisco at (415) 393-0707 or Los Angeles at (310) 914-7300.

Third, you can financially support the tribe’s trip to New Zealand by going to: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/440954. All donations are greatly appreciated to enable the tribe to go on this historic trip!

For more information, contact: Caleen Sisk-Franco, Tribal Chief and Spiritual Leader, or Mark Franco, Headman, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, 14840 Bear Mountain Road, Redding, CA 96003, 530-275-2737 voice, 530-275-4193 fax, 530-510-0944 mobile, http://www.winnememwintu.us.

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