Voice Of A Mountain
Last night I watched a documentary called "Voice of a Mountain" which was produced by a fellow APU alumni. The documentary is about Guatemala, the civil war from which the country is still recovering, and the economic injustice which is in existence there.
If you follow this blog well you might remember when I talked about my visit to Yolanda, an immigrant from Guatemala (who should probably be considered a refugee) who is living in sanctuary with the New Sanctuary Movement at a church in Los Angeles. I researched Guatemala a bit after that visit, partly to verify her story for the paper I was writing on Mexican- U.S. immigration: You Were Aliens. But I was also very interested in Guatemala because I was surprised that I had never heard about its' economic struggle. Guatemala is suffering from a huge, larely inescapable casm between wealth and poverty. The poor get poorer due to the debts that they owe on their agricultural land and the rich get richer through corruption and the debt that the poor owe to them. This is all linked very heavily to the civil war that happened there which took place because the U.S. decided to implement democricy and capitalism over what appeared to them to be a communiast state (you'll have to watch the documentary). The economic situation there is so tragic that not only should we be careful when we talk about deporting immigrants but we should be surprised that no one is really talking about it.
Well, in fact, there are people talking about it and working to resolve it. Voice of a Mountain is working to bring the situation of the Guatemalan economic crisis to people's attention. Check out the website (www.voiceofamountain.com) and order watch the DVD.
If you follow this blog well you might remember when I talked about my visit to Yolanda, an immigrant from Guatemala (who should probably be considered a refugee) who is living in sanctuary with the New Sanctuary Movement at a church in Los Angeles. I researched Guatemala a bit after that visit, partly to verify her story for the paper I was writing on Mexican- U.S. immigration: You Were Aliens. But I was also very interested in Guatemala because I was surprised that I had never heard about its' economic struggle. Guatemala is suffering from a huge, larely inescapable casm between wealth and poverty. The poor get poorer due to the debts that they owe on their agricultural land and the rich get richer through corruption and the debt that the poor owe to them. This is all linked very heavily to the civil war that happened there which took place because the U.S. decided to implement democricy and capitalism over what appeared to them to be a communiast state (you'll have to watch the documentary). The economic situation there is so tragic that not only should we be careful when we talk about deporting immigrants but we should be surprised that no one is really talking about it.
Well, in fact, there are people talking about it and working to resolve it. Voice of a Mountain is working to bring the situation of the Guatemalan economic crisis to people's attention. Check out the website (www.voiceofamountain.com) and order watch the DVD.
Comments
"This is all linked very heavily to the civil war that happened there which took place because the U.S. decided to implement democracy and capitalism over what appeared to them to be a communist state."
hmmmm...American Imperialism at its best.