Last week, former member of the Young Lords Party Iris Morales came to talk about her life experiences, especially those surrounding her activist life and the creation of her documentary ¡Palante, Siempre Palante! I found myself very inspired by Morales’s career, or rather, multiple careers. She was very warm and honest in her discussions with […]
Read more "The Path Towards Independence"Last month, the first year students of the Cooperstown Graduate Program took their annual field trip to New York City. During our romp through NYC we visited many museums that focused on immigrant experiences in New York. On our third day in New York, we took the ferry to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, the […]
Read more "Poetic Injustice at Angel Island"Last week our class examined the Young Lords Party and the fight to free the colony—ahem, “unincorporated territory”—Puerto Rico from the United States. This ongoing struggle is stretched out as the status has changed to commonwealth and protests still arise from the ashes of prior movements calling for complete independence. The case of the Philippines […]
Read more "The Struggle Between Citizenship and Freedom"One April morning in 2004 it was announced that George W. Bush would be coming to speak in Buffalo. Adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq since the very start, several classmates and I decided that we wanted to go and protest in front of Kleinhans Music Hall, where he was speaking. Unfortunately, I was […]
Read more "My Activist Life"At this point in the semester, when I am teetering on the edge of sanity from the acute combination of physical, mental, emotional, and of course museum fatigue, Iris Morales’ visit was the energizing boost I needed to make it to the end. Teeming with the New York aplomb I desperately miss but will soon […]
Read more "A Work in Progress"Sluts have been roaming the streets of Toronto, Boston, and Chicago to name a few cities. Not just sluts, but the worst kind of sluts, college student sluts. The SlutWalk is the organized march of women to take back the word slut. The SlutWalk was spurred by the comments of a Toronto police officer to […]
Read more "Sluts on the Loose: Student Activism Today"Last year I was in charge of filling out the census for my house. Being a history student, I was very excited to be involved in history. My roommates, however, were not as thrilled. I wanted to be as accurate as possible, so I hounded them for days to help me. Finally we sat down […]
Read more "Question Eight"When I was in middle school I saw the television film adaptation of Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club and fell in love. I even asked my parents to buy the movie for me as a Christmas present. Two years ago I had the opportunity to listen to Amy Tan deliver a lecture and […]
Read more "Finding Joy and Luck in America"In our class session with activist and former Young Lord, Iris Morales, she spoke of current lobbying and proposed legislation towards Puerto Rican independence. This piqued my interest as to the specifics of the on-going debate over Puerto Rico’s status. The island’s current status is as a commonwealth of the United States. Though Puerto Rican […]
Read more "Where Do We Stand? – Puerto Rican Self-Determination"Throughout my college research on the 1960s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), I learned a lot about what allows groups to function and succeed, and what contributes to major organizational problems. Within SNCC, members considered Martin Luther King, Jr.’s idea of a “beloved community” integral to their organization. This ideal community was based in liberalism and […]
Read more "SNCC and the YLP: Student Activism Then and Now"
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