Thousands gathered at City Hall and at different points throughout the city of San Francisco in direct response to the current decision by the Supreme Court to overturn the fifty-year precedent known as Roe v. Wade.
Imagine, if you can, unable to walk out of your home because your hard-earned wages will be stolen by people on the street; or you are of an age sought by actors of corruption within the police force or street-gangs, and sometimes you can’t tell the difference. So you walk for two-to-three months with only a dream to keep you going.
Meet Jorge Joyal. He is 29 years old, from Honduras, and a father to a six-year-old daughter. Mr. Joyal said that he walked for two-to-three months with the hope of coming to the United States. The above exercise in imagination is his life story. While his dream to come to the United States has taken a detour, Mr. Joyal has been offered support and assistance by the Mexican government. He has applied for permission to work in Mexico and hopes to have employment at one of the high-tech companies offering employment assistance to refugees and asylum seekers.
On Tuesday December 4th, 2018, DIF accounted for a total of 2,331 persons residing in the shelter designated for families with children.
On Thursday December 6, 2018 acting New York Attorney General Underwood: “13 AG’s are filing an amicus brief today to challenge the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict applications by immigrants seeking asylum. This is a de-facto denial of asylum. It is illegal, it is inhumane, and it must end.”
Attorney General Underwood goes on to write: “More than 6000 Central American immigrants, including over 1000 kids, are stranded outside California’s ports of entry waiting to present their asylum claims. They are living outside in extreme weather, without access to basic services, so that they can have a chance at a better life.”
The faces of mothers.
(front) Julio Alberto unloads the DIF van with personal care items scheduled for the families with children.
Jesús Landeros, of Santa Barbara, California is a volunteer with SBRN or the SantaBarbara Response Network; Landeros is also employed with Montecito Union school . “This was a learning experience for me too,” he said referring to El Barretal and his health, safety, and security responsibilities for students, faculty, and the school building itself during the grip of the Thomas fire and the subsequent mudslides. In this photo Landeros distributes personal health-care items donated by Direct Relief.
The contents of care.
In support of the dream to have a better life, and in efforts to assuage the delay of dreams to a better life, a generous wave of individual community-minded people, in coordination with the Santa Barbara Response Network,DIF-Mexcio and Direct Relief of Santa Barbara, California delivered hygiene products – the basics of everyday life such as shampoo, body soap, antibiotic cream, first-aid, toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss.. Remember how you felt after not brushing or flossing 24-hours? Imagine for months.
In this newly sprouted village at our southern border at Tijuana, amid lives stranded, one can see signs of former life ritual in children and teens playing soccer, in adding color to hopes and dreams in large scale graphics, and in the power of listening in the peer-to-peer conversations.
Overview of El Barretal. (pictured center) are Mariana Caña and Maritza Escobedo.
Mariana Caña and Maritza Escobedo are doing such work – listening. They are listeners, rendering the power of the compassionate ear. Both Caña and Escobedo are students in Psychology at the UABC (The Autonomous University of Baja California ) Both Caña and Escobedo are student volunteers, conducting health questionnaires of the refugees in affiliation with the NYU School of Medicine, under the direction of Dr. Allen Keller. According to his bio: “Dr. Allen Keller is Associate Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine, Director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT) and Director of the NYU School of Medicine Center for Health and Human Rights.
”Caña writes that she hopes “to start giving psychological attention to those who need it most at the shelter.”
Perched overlooking El Barretal, Caña and Escobedo, listen and conduct their health questionnaires as volunteers for NYU school of medicine.
From my archive, a two-minute portrait of attorney Sarah Weddington, during a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, in Orange County, California. Sarah Weddington is the attorney who argued the landmark case Roe v. Wade.
Today, Thursday June 18th, 2020 we await a potential, pending decision from the Untied States Supreme Court regarding, a woman’s right to decide for herself, her most intimate and private rights over her body, and her access to health care services, independent of religious beliefs or constructs.
For so long legislation has imposed and seized a woman’s body to determine what rights, control and access she has or had over her own body – this has/had expressed itself through healthcare choices, pregnancy, birth control or contraception, fertility choices, a right to choose (abortion as an option), or significantly in the employment of Eugenics in the enforced sterilization of women.
For the love of (wo)mankind, it appears that the male driven paradigm has determined both sides of the coin for far too long. No longer. You cannot have it both ways. NO longer should this paradigm decide for women, especially women of color who is fit to give birth, who is mandated to be sterilized, when or if a woman gives birth or not. It seems to me that enforced sterilization is a method of birth control justified by racist and discriminatory policy. This white male paradigm has owned our bodies for too long, we are not you chattel.
Image copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes and licensed through Alamy.
“I Believe,” “Yo Creo,” is written on the hands of over 200 participants during the lunch hour demonstration of support for Dr. Christine Ford in the sexual misconduct allegations against the United States Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh; in Santa Barbara, California on Thursday September, 27th, 2018.
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Alamy or Stockimo photoagencies – Images copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes
A yarn bomb drapes the Millennium Gate Sculpture situated before the Santa Barbara County Arts Administration building in Santa Barbara, California. The sculpture created by artist Rich Peterson is an oval, egg shape, symbolizing a portal to a new era or millennium.
The spider web-like drape was knitted locally by a group of unidentified women in visual protest of county administration.
Cycling along the beach today, I saw this scene of young women playing volleyball in their bonnets and long dresses. My hands had put on the brakes before I could think. I especially love the top image, it is almost painterly. The dresses speak of another era in the present. A bit of brain blip – from another era today, hopefully back tomorrow.
Dr. Agathe Jean-Baptiste, grew up in the Central Plateau of Haiti where she returned to practice medicine after completing her medical training in Cuba. She is the daughter of Agronomist Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize and founder of the Peasant Movement of Haiti (M.P.P); the oldest and largest peasant cooperative in Haiti, with 60,000 plus members.
Above, Dr. Jean-Baptiste gives instruction on womb fetal positioning during a Midwifery training course for MPP collective members. 40 members from the collective participated in the free training.
(at right) Nurse, teacher-trainer Maestra Denise Desormeaux asks questions of Midwife student and MPP member Jean Jolles during the oral exam segment of the training. Jolles was one of 40 students, from throughout Haiti attending the week-long training.”I want to work and help within in my community and protect the women in my community,” Jolles said.
Yesterday, as I was going through photographs I rediscovered a roll or black and white film. Why I did not see them before? Has this happened to you? I realize that the requirements of deadline and demands of color images can impact the way we see things.. so this is my answer. I was delighted to find this roll of film and it took me back to this time and place in the Dominican Republic, just over the border from Haiti.. Looking back also reminds me of the enormous strength of Dr. Alba. A Haitian physician who works out of a mobile medical van serving remote, under-served populations. In this group of images Dr. Alba is treating hurricane-flood survivors relocated to this camp – a barren, dry, hot and unforgiving landscape. Not only did Dr. Alba’s and her van administer healing, and medicines, the van also served as a social hub for people residing in the camp. An inspiration to remember during Women’s History Month
The van funded by the Humanity and Democracy Foundation of Spain. Medicines for the van supplied by Direct Relief International, a Humanitarian organization based in Santa Barbara, California and the American Jewish World Service. Water for drinking, bathing, brushing teeth, and laundry organized by Oxfam International
A malnourished woman waits her turn to see Dr. Alba.
The woman waiting, gets her turn.
People of all ages walk to the mobile van for treatments.
Water for drinking
Water for laundry. Water for drinking. Water for brushing teeth, Water for bathing.