Walidah at UndocuNation: Artists for Immigrant Justice

http://wordstrike.net/undocunation-art-and-activism-across-borders

Image courtesy YBCA

UndocuNation: An Evening with Artists for Immigrant Justice
Thursday, May 3, 2012 , 6-9 pm
Art • Music • Peformances • Free • All Ages • Food & Drink
@ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission St (Mission & 3rd) in San Francisco

*** First 100 guests receive a free pro-migrant poster ***

On May 3, CultureStrike coordinator Favianna Rodriguez is teaming up with other creative minds for UndocuNation: An artistic response to the Immigration Crisis. With talks, food, revelry and rabble-rousing, the event offers “an evening of culture jamming, visual art, and performances addressing the devastating consequences of our country’s broken immigration system.”

Sponsored by CultureStrike, Center for New Community, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), UndocuNation will use various media platforms to raise consciousness about the struggle for immigrant rights: music, installation art, readings and personal testimony–all “working to shift the national imagination on race, migration, and what ‘America’ should look like.” The event will take place at the YBCA Forum on May 3, 6pm, 701 Mission Street in San Francisco.

The event announcement puts artists at the vanguard of a massive and often ignored human rights struggle:

“2011 was a devastating year for immigrants. Once again, President Obama and his Administration Congress failed to administer relief to the estimated 12 million undocumented women, men, youth and children living in this country. On the contrary, they broke records by deporting over 1,000,000 migrants. Various anti-migrant laws were enacted in states like Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Utah. Alabama managed to come up with a law that far surpassed the evilness of Arizona’s SB 1070.

“Despite the fact that politicians tried to make it a living hell for undocumented immigrants in this country, loads of young folks came out of the shadows as undocumented and unafraid, giving the immigration movement that push of energy that it needed to challenge these laws and demand justice .

“The anti-immigrant movement continues to scapegoat immigrants for social, economic and environmental problems. ‘UndocuNation: an artistic response to the Anti-Immigrant Movement’ intends to encourage inclusive and artistic dialogue on the intersection of race, migration and art.”

The program will feature innovators and change makers like hip hop historian Jeff Chang, author Daniel Alarcón, and the conscious comedians of Laughter Against the Machine. A full list of artists and performers is below.

Go to the Facebook event page.

For directions, go to the YBCA event page.

For more about Favianna and her work with CultureStrike, read this recent profile on Huffington Post, and see her blog and website on Favianna.com.