USSF day 4 & 5: Keri's stories

THURSDAY

I took a red-eye & arrived 4am Friday into Atlanta. With the airport train broken, I walked quarter of a mile to the baggage claim— thanks to the spirit of the African art along the way to keep me going. I got to the hotel & woke up Mimi at 5am, just in time for a 3 hour nap.

Our breakfast meeting planned our activities for the day then headed out to the EJ Tent for the Toxic Wastes & Race at 20 Press Conference. One of our main purposes was to support Tina as our APEN speaker. The speech was great. The weather was hot & the huge audience was sweating, including a lot of youth. I was surprised to see them: powerful, speaks their mind & brings justice for their community.

I was excited to be at my first Social Forum. So I attended workshops: Queers in Hip Hop (because I wanted to tag along with Tina); Grassroots Leadership Development & Movement Building. It was good to see others getting together to show what they’re doing in their different communities.

The API Gathering was a great experience for the evening. I got to meet other US API’s of mixed generations getting involved in their communities, fighting for workers rights, environmental justice & immigrant rights. And even though APEN sponsored an ice cream social party until 1 am, I didn’t get to it because I crashed at 10:30pm.

FRIDAY

This was a big day for me because I had to speak for an Organizing in Asian Communities workshop with Mimi. I was nervous! The room was packed, especially with youth. The panel included issues around immigrant deportations, fighting for better working conditions and affordable housing (by APEN, of course). I was nervous & I even told the audience that. From there, they were so supportive (especially Tina & Hai Binh) that my nervousness disappeared. After the workshop was over, people were coming up to me saying that it was good to see a Laotian speak up because they often only hear other major Asian speakers, so this was rare & special. That made me feel great because I did something right for the community.

Today was better than yesterday. I’m more relaxed than yesterday’s jetlag. I got to walk downtown Atlanta—which is beautiful. There are tall buildings & international restaurants with good food.

We went to EJ Tent to watch Mari Rose speak for APEN. It was hot & sticky under the tent because we stayed there for 3 hours. Luckily, we had our APEN fans (souvenirs we made for the USSF) to keep us cool, as well as massage sessions that was offered in the tent that Sandy & Hai Binh took advantage of. As for the panel, we heard many stories of environmental justice struggles in different communities across the US. I listened a lot to what Tom Goldtooth from IEN (Indigenous Environmental Network) had to say about Indian lands being dumped on with toxics. Also locally, there were African American women who talked about their poisoned river near Savannah.

With the heat & our tiredness, we went back to the hotel & got into the pool to relax. For dinner, we went to eat Southern food. The food was wonderful. I ordered grilled catfish, with sides that included sweet potato soufflé, fresh fruit, creamed corn, buttered cabbage, fried okra & fried green tomatoes.

For the last activity of the day, we took the train to the Grassroots Global Justice party for international delegates to the USSF. I met a woman from Kenya and other communities from the US who were working to improve their communities.

June 29, 2007
I woke up this morning with one thing on my mind, the PRESS CONFERENCE! Just the thought of the word press conference gave me the B.G.'s ( Bubbly Guts). Even though Mari Rose and I practiced the night before I still felt uneasy about giving my speech. Maybe it was because of my fear of public speaking, or maybe it was because I kept thinking of all those faces just staring at me, who knows? All I knew was that I had to give a speech and that there were going to be people, yes people many people, there.

ONE STEP CLOSER
During our team breakfast meeting I couldn't even eat. Yes, I have to admit the butterflies were kicking in. As we started to walk towards the Civic Center my nervousness was getting stronger, and the weather didn't help either. No offense, I love Atlanta. Every step I took was a step closer to me having to make my speech, so I tried to walk as slow as possible, JUST KIDDING! About the walking slow part, so its okay to laugh. It was obvious that I was nervous so everyone was giving me a lot of support and pointers, thanks guys good lookin out!

"Just try to do the best you can, it doesn't matter what happens. As long as you think and tried your best you won't have any regrets, because you know you gave it your all."
-Sandy

WHAT DOES THAT SPELL?
We arrived to the EJ tent with just enough time for me to add and edit a few things from my speech, which I had written in my handy dandy journal, provided by Mari Rose! The time had finally come, next thing I know I was sitting on the panel it was no turning back. I couldn't even look up at the audience, but then something happened. All of a sudden I hear, "Give me a T! Give me a I! Give me a N! Give me a A! What does that spell TINA!" It was the youth from the organization CPA, it didn't seem real. Their cheering and chanting gave me the power and strength to forget all my fears and to just do the best I can. At that moment I realized that this wasn't all about me, there were other youth trying to send the message of environmental justice out. I thought to myself I need to speak for my people and for the youth, it was my chance and to give them all I got.

AND OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS...
The time had come, no looking back now, I had to do it. I walked up with my head up high and ready to represent. I looked out to the audience, and all eyes were on me. I started to speak and as I read through the pages of my journals the words started to come to me. Some how, right then and there, this feeling came over to me. I had confidence and I wasn't scared anymore. What especially kept me going was when I saw my fellow APEN peeps Hai Binh, MiMi, Mari Rose, and Keri. (I wouldn't be here with out you guys)! I spoke from my heart, and I let it out through the power of my voice. I realized then that I can make a difference in my community and I can make a difference. Who would have thought, me, Christina Saeteurn from Richmond, California was here at the USSF, speaking about environmental justice.

"APEN holds the vision of environmental justice for all people."
-APEN

Christina Saeteurn sporting APEN T-shirt at the U.S. Social Forum's Opening March.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Today was the first day of workshops and the APEN team spread out to take advantage and soak up all the great learning!

Christina Saeteurn, APEN youth member, on Thursday’s workshops:

We started the morning off with a bang at a workshop on Hurricane Katrina: “They Left Us Here to Die: Katrina and Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf” by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.

“The Katrina workshop was a great learning experience. I learned a lot from just listening to people, more than I would listening to the news. I heard what is REALLY happening, not sugar coated. All the speakers were really strong.” To the left is a member of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund.

“The second workshop I went to reminded me of APEN. The workshop was “Youth of Color Organizing Youth of Color in the Environmental Justice Movement” by Little Village Environmental Justice from Chicago. They do environmental work, but it’s in Chicago. The area they work in has a lot of factories, which really hurts the Latino community.”

“The third workshop was a workshop by AYPAL (Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership) about imperialism. We did a game where we made our own country & constitution. There were simulations where imperialist countries controlled religion, culture, and if other countries refused to trade with them, they bombed them.”

Sound familiar?

The evening’s plenaries were dynamic, relevant, and inspiring.

A diverse set of activists spoke on a panel on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Viola Francois Washington of the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, Sharon Harshaw of Coastal Women for Change gave passionate testimony about the devastation they saw friends, family, and community go through in Louisiana and Mississippi. Uyen Le of the National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies spoke about the challenges for non-traditional extended Vietnamese families to access government funding and the government’s lack of knowledge of the Vietnamese community. Javier Gallardo of the New Orleans Worker Center spoke about Latino workers who are at their employers’ whims because of their ability to take their passports away, and the fact that workers are sold between employers for $2000 a head. He asks why jobs aren’t going to the African American community and exclaimed, “they want Latinos and Blacks to fight – the new slaves against the old.” The crowd -- black, brown and yellow -- rose to its feet chanting “Si Se Puede!”

The key message of the panel was captured very well by one of the respondents. “Katrina is a reality, not a symbol. Katrina was a bad storm. But it’s a symbol of the deep inequities in this country. If you’re doing criminal justice work, you’re living Katrina. If you’re fighting for health care, you’re living Katrina. If you’re working on housing, you’re living Katrina.”

After 12 hours of workshops and speakers, the APEN team and friends unwound in our rooms with pizza and ice cream. We ended the night with Christina Saeteurn practicing for her big speech at tomorrow’s environmental justice press conference on the “Toxic Waste and Race at 20 year Report.” After some initial squirming, Christina settled in & blew us all away!

USSF day 2: The Opening March

Today was the opening day for the Forum with a march, an opening ceremony, a concert and several other activities. The Forum events and activities are located all over downtown Atlanta, which makes for a nice way to explore the city if we were biking. Without bikes, however, at the end of the night, most of us got blisters from extensive walking. Whatever pain we felt in our feet, however, was replaced by joy in our hearts when we saw how large the grassroots people's movement is as we join the hundreds of other organizations at the opening march. Virtually every sector was represented at the march from youth to immigrants to workers to students. Long-time APEN allies and friends whom I have heard of but have never met because they were across the country marched side by side with us. Old friends from our previous work turned up and it made me realize how connected we are and how important it is for us to maintain those connections. I ran into a friend who was with the United Students Against Sweatshop back when I was active in campus labor activities; he is now part of the international campaign to demand justice and reparations from Coca Cola. Mari Rose spotted a friend from her Albuquerque/SNEEJ days and she ended marching with us the whole way!

At the march, members of each delegation were rocking their organization's matching t-shirts. You can tell how deep a delegation is by how large their patch of color was in the march and we sure made a beautiful art canvas: Miami Worker Center in baby blue, POWER in bright orange, CAAAV in white tank tops, MUA in purple, APEN in yellow, and more. Atlanta must not have seen such vibrancy and energy in a long time because we drew a lot of attention from downtown office workers and bystanders; many came down from their office towers to watch us from their front steps.

It was another typical summer day in Atlanta but all of us from APEN and, I'm sure, Bay Area delegation were definitely affected by the weather. The march was long, the heat was almost unbearable, and the humidity was high, but as we walked, our spirits were encouraged when we thought about the grassroots organizers who came before us and marched a similar route and on a similar hot summer day for civil rights. We and they were marching together because we believe that "another world is possible."

After the march was finished, the opening ceremony had a wide variety of inspirational and passionate speakers. I want to end this blog with a chant that one of the speakers taught us. From Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) in New York, here's a popular East Coast chant inspired and from Assata Shakur:

(call and response 3 times with each time louder and the 3rd as loud as you can be)

It is our duty to fight. (It is our duty to fight.)
It is our duty to win. (It is our duty to win.)
We must love and protect each other. (We must love and protect each other.)
We have nothing to lose but our chains. (We have nothing to lose but our chains.)

USSF day1

the ants go marching one by one, hurrah hurrah...

After a quick 4 hours on a plane from SFO to ATL, we've arrived on the eve of the US Social Forum! We were greeted by giant ants at baggage claim who were marching to the tune of the USSF too-- equally excited.

En route to the hotel, lovingly called the "Bay" Hotel because so many Bay area delegates are housed here, we chatted with our Eritrean taxi driver who gave us the scoop on Atlanta. We had to ask him if he'd heard of the New York City taxi drivers successfully organizing and he said they had tried here but it was more difficult with the large African immigrant population speaking various languages from Eritrea, Ghana, Ethiopia, etc, as well as the diversity of South Asians in the mix. Of course we also tried to get the scoop on the best restaurants around, like Vietnamese food & he said Vietnamese food was like Chinese food. Uh oh. We told him that saying that was like saying Eritrean food was the same as Ethiopian. Point made. We tipped him at drop off & the welcoming hotel crowd was like home: NNIRR, MUA, CPA, PODER, SOUL, Design Action, FACES, PILA, Liberation Ink. Our social justice colony has found the sweet spot. Hurrah hurrah.

At 1:30am now, in 12 hours the ants won't be the only ones marching as we'll protest Coca Cola at their headquarters. Now in CocaColatown, as Atlanta is like Richmond being Chevrontown, we were briefed about the struggles around the world against this giant corporation. And we ordered water with our meal. Hurrah hurrah.

BLURBS OF THE DAY:

TINA: "B is for bravo," prompted the helpful airport train voice. And "A" is for ants.

MIMI: "Where's my pickle?" after receiving an incomplete airport lunch on the go at SFO.

HAI BINH: 3 glasses of sweet tea upon arrival. Aaahh. Hotlanta quenched.

MARI ROSE: Cuban rueben sandwich with Texas fries without meat, please. "Say what?" said confused waitress.

Join APEN at the US Social Forum!

APEN’s delegation of members and staff to the US Social Forum is very excited about heading to Atlanta next week! Many thanks to our friends, family, and supporters who sent in donations to help get us there. The Forum is undoubtedly a historic event, bringing together hundreds of grassroots organizations from all over the country. It is an exciting opportunity for us to share our work and learn. We invite you to join us in the important activities below (and receive an APEN souvenir). Please help us pass this on to others.

EJ timeline
Thursday, June 28th, 1-5pm
Environmental Justice Tent
Engage by marking your community's story on the EJ Timeline.

Press Conference on “Toxic Waste & Race at Twenty” Report
Friday, June 29th, 11am-12pm
Environmental Justice Tent
Environmental racism continues to be a problem in communities of color! The National Black Environmental Justice Network is coordinating activities around the report. Participating and invited networks include: Asian Pacific Environmental Network, African American EJ Action Network, Farmworkers Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network, National Black EJ Network, Northeast EJ Network, Southwest Network or Environmental and Economic Justice, and other invited allies.

EJ Day ceremonies, plenary, open mic and cultural performances
Saturday, June 30th, 1-6pm
Environmental Justice Tent
Strengthen our movement and participate in EJ Day. There will be a plenary and forum at 1pm to discuss the successes, challenges, and vision for the EJ Movement. Tabling and networking from 10:00 am - 12:30 pm.

API Movement Member Exchange
Friday, June 29th, 8pm
Wyndham Hotel
This session is a safe space for grassroots members and activists to develop relationships and share what they have learned at the US Social Forum. We prioritize delegations with API members to participate. Afterward, there is a social gathering opened to everyone at 10pm, also at the Wyndham Hotel.

Organizing in Asian Immigrant Communities
Saturday, June 30th, 1-3:30pm
International G Room at the Westin Hotel
In this workshop, CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities brings together organizations who have been engaged in grassroots organizing in Asian immigrant communities to share analysis, challenges and strategies, particular to organizing Asian communities in the United States. APEN will present and lead a discussion on “Land, environment, and development.” Ally organizations will lead discussions on two other areas of work: Immigrant labor and state violence.

Can’t join us at the Forum? Read our blog!
Visit www.apen4ej.org/blog for the APENblogger. The delegation will post daily updates of our activities and reflections. The blog will continue to be active after the Forum to keep you informed about our work.