Resource Center of the Americas NEWS

By PAM COSTAIN

June 2001

UNION AT HOME

After three months of investigating and discussing various organizing options, a majority of the Resource Center’s nonsupervisory employees recently decided to affiliate with the Newspaper Guild and Typographical Union. The Resource Center board of directors had agreed to recognize a union based on a simple “card-check” procedure. The board formally recognized the Guild as the sole bargaining agent of our employees in May. While this is a big change for the Resource Center, we think it will be healthy and positive, and that we will all learn a great deal. Our organization has grown dramatically in recent years; with a staff of 25 nonsupervisory people and 7 supervisors, personnel issues have become increasingly complex. We look forward to working cooperatively with the union to strengthen the Resource Center and its ability to carry out its mission in the community.

SAUNA DEMOLITION

Sauna 27, the unsightly green cinderblock structure adjacent to our building’s south wall, will be demolished in late June. This wonderful community event culminates the work of hundreds of people who’ve struggled for years to rid south Minneapolis neighborhoods of saunas. The faith and concerted action has paid off. From the sauna’s ashes will arise a beautiful tile mosaic mural. To replace the sauna’s triangular parking lot, we’re working on design concepts and financing strategies for a green space; we hope to share those details next month. We are excited to be part of the renewal of the Lake Street and 27th Avenue commercial district, and we’re working closely with the Longfellow Community Council to bring positive changes for everyone in the area.

MOSAIC OF THE AMERICAS

After more than a year of planning, Mosaic of the Americas production will begin in late June. The tile mural will cover our building’s entire south wall, from the ground to the top of the second story. Subtitled “Many Strengths, Many Struggles,” the images will tell the story of the Americas—the human tragedies and triumphs that form the hemisphere’s collective experience. Elsewhere at AMERICAS.ORG, Learn about the artists, see a full-color rendering of the design, read about its concepts, share your reactions in a chat area, and follow the progress throughout the summer.

To coordinate the project, former Resource Center staff member Stefanie Wallach has returned to the Twin Cities from Washington, D.C., for the summer. And four cooperating artists—led by José Luis Soto González of Morelia, Michoacán—are coming from Mexico. We invite you to join this amazing public art project. We’ll need scores of volunteers: tile cutters, painters, carpenters, clowns, mosaic artists, musicians, organizers, writers, Spanish translators and kind-hearted neighbors to feed the workers. To get involved, call 612-276-0788.

SPRING APPEAL

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank everyone who has responded to our fund-raising request. Whether or not you still have our letter handy, it’s not too late to mail a check to support this thriving organization. Our programs rely on your support. Please consider a donation if you are able.

GRANT NEWS

Thanks to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development for $20,000 in support of our Centro de Derechos Laborales and to the Otto Bremer Foundation for $20,000 in support of a project we have undertaken with Project for Pride in Living and the Community Solutions Fund. The project has enabled us to acquire and customize software that will improve our ability to raise funds and coordinate events and volunteers.

SUMMER HOURS

Our Saturday Morning Coffeehours and Thursday Night Movies will continue through June, followed by an annual two-month pause until the week after Labor Day. And we are experimenting with expanding the hours of our Penny Lernoux Library. In addition to weekdays, the library will be open on Saturdays, noon to 3 p.m., during June only. If people use the library on Saturday, we’ll likely resume the schedule this fall. Let us know what you think.

May 2001

SAUNA TO GO

Demonstrating that patience and persistence are virtues, the Resource Center has acquired the infamous former Sauna 27, the green cinder-block eyesore attached to our building’s south side. Since arriving in south Minneapolis in 1999, we’ve wanted to demolish the structure and redevelop the property into a public green space. With financial assistance from the Longfellow Community Council, which worked with area residents and businesses for more than five years to get rid of the sauna, we’re going to make it happen. After we demolish the sauna, we’ll cut a doorway into the front of the building, cover the entire south wall with a beautiful tile mosaic mural, rip out the parking lot, and landscape the space with trees, flowers and café seating. We’re excited.

WHIRLWIND

We’ve had an amazing amount of Resource Center activity. Here’s what happened over a single weekend:

• On April 19, Café of the Americas catered the Project Minnesota-León annual fundraiser at Plymouth Congregational Church. The event is always a favorite for people concerned about Nicaragua.

• The next day, April 20, we hosted a highly informative, all-day conference, Latinos in Minnesota, for more than 40 human service providers. The event included sign-language interpretation.

• That evening, Teresa Ortiz, director of our Centro de Derechos Laborales, read to a capacity crowd of 100 from her new book, Never Again a World Without Us: Voices of Mayan Women in Chiapas, Mexico (EPICA). The bookstore sold 43 copies within days.

• The next morning, April 21, we helped lead a march to the State Capitol against the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

• Back at the Resource Center, Nicolás Buenaventura, a theater and film director visiting from Colombia, spoke in Spanish to more than 40 people at our weekly “coffeehour,” then told a story to children in one of our Spanish classes.

• That night, we co-sponsored Our Word is Our Weapon, a program of performances by artists of color inspired by the Zapatista struggle in Chiapas. The event drew 250 people to Intermedia Arts.

Thanks to everyone who made it happen!

COMING UP

Don’t miss these special Resource Center events:

• Economist and author Edward Herman visits to speak about “The Market Versus Democracy: NAFTA, the WTO, the FTAA and the New Corporate Sovereignty.” Co-sponsored by Women Against Military Madness, the event is Friday, May 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Resource Center.

• Minneapolis writer Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer reads from his first novel, Harvest of Cain (EPICA), a fast-moving tale of political intrigue and religious awakening in which CIA agents collide with salt-of-the-earth peasant farmers as El Salvador careens toward civil war. The event is Friday, June 1, at 7 p.m. here at the Resource Center.

• Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now,” and New York Daily News columnist Juan González, the show’s former co-host, speak at a Resource Center fundraiser, Saturday, June 9, at 7 p.m. at First Unitarian Society, 900 Mount Curve Ave., in Minneapolis. Get your tickets, $15 each ($50–$250 including reception), at the bookstore.

COMINGS, GOINGS

Adult and Community Education Coordinator Kristi Papenfuss left the staff in April. This summer, she will visit the Alaskan wilderness, lead a month-long Global Volunteers trip to Africa, and ride a bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the California Aids Ride. During her three years at the Resource Center, first as a paid intern and eventually as a permanent staffer, she helped create most of our programming for families and children and most of our bilingual programming, including “coffeehours,” movie nights and classes. We will miss her. Taking over for Kristi is Stacy Janisch (no relation to Education Director Kay Yanisch). Stacy earned a degree in Organizational Communication and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire in 1999. For the last two years, she has worked at Chicanos Latinos Unidos en Servicio (CLUES). She also has worked with the Jane Addams School for Democracy on St. Paul’s west side and taught for several summers at Concordia language villages in Bemidji. Charla Weiss (rhymes with “nice”) has become our first Labor, Globalization and Human Rights Project associate. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in December, after spending last summer working with maquiladora workers in Honduras with United Students Against Sweatshops. She also worked for a month in Puebla, Mexico, supporting the Kuk Dong maquiladora strikers. In another coincidence with names, Charla has no relation to the program’s director, Larry Weiss (rhymes with “niece”). Our new administrative assistant is Paul Herwig, an actor and founder of the Theater Gallery. He’ll work on data processing, reception, mailings and other vital tasks. He replaces Virgilio Rodas, who now is working full time for an engineering firm.

ANNUAL REPORT

In April, we mailed every member our 2000 annual report along with our spring funding appeal. Please read the report and, to help support all of the organization’s work, pass it along to a friend who might be interested. And please respond as generously as you can to the funding appeal. We will not be doing any phoning this spring to prompt you, so we’re counting on you to respond to the letter. Despite our great fortune in earning grant income this year, we still rely on you, our membership, to keep us financially strong and independent.

THANK YOU

Last month, we received a heartfelt contribution from friends of the late activist and Resource Center member Caroline Saunders. They wanted to honor her memory and her commitment to the Resource Center mission. We are grateful for this generous gift in celebration of her life.

BOOK CATALOGUE

The spring bookstore catalogue is ready. If you didn’t get a copy in the mail, or if you’d like to give one to a teacher, call 612-276-0801.

April 2001

ANNUAL REPORT

The Resource Center’s 2000 report will go in the mail to members within a few weeks. We hope you enjoy it and we hope you are as proud as we are of the organization’s wonderful programs and accomplishments. After reading it, please pass it along to a friend or colleague and encourage them to join the organization and support our work. Members are our best ambassadors. Thanks for helping us spread the word.

NEW STAFFERS

Regular readers of this column have seen news on many new staff members lately. It has been an exciting year. Grants have enabled us to fill some long-needed positions. Not only does the funding allow us to meet the needs of our growing community better, it helps us reduce the load on longtime staffers who’ve been working too hard for years. This month we welcome Kay Yanisch, who has joined us as director of educational programs. Kay, a longtime Resource Center member and friend, has been working as a school leader and Spanish circle coordinator at the Jane Addams School for Democracy, a project of the Neighborhood House on St. Paul’s west side. For three years before that, she worked in Guatemala, volunteering on service projects and human rights accompaniment.

Due to a generous, three-year $190,000 grant from the Bush Foundation, the Resource Center is expanding its administrative staff. It’s hard for a grassroots organization to focus on management, but our rapidly growing staff and programs demand a stronger infrastructure. As we announced last month, Cynthia Breslauer has begun as office manager. We also are accepting applications for associate director, who will have primary responsibility for our finances, administration, human resources and business development. We seek a candidate with 3–5 years of experience in nonprofit administration and finance, including general-ledger accounting, budgeting, financial reporting and planning. We’re looking for executive-level experience in a nonprofit group, cooperative or small business. We prefer Spanish language skills and a strong multicultural background. And we are accepting applications for our half-time administrative assistant, a permanent position for data entry, filing, mailings, front-desk reception and other tasks. This is a perfect job for someone with limited time—a student, retiree or parent of school-age children—who wants to promote human rights. The hours are flexible, and the individual will receive full health benefits. For a job description, visit americas.org.

March 2001

BOARD

Members attending the annual Resource Center meeting February 4 elected Mark Sherman to the board of directors. He joins seven other new board members and 10 returning from last year; the entire list appears on page 2. Mark left our paid staff in December after three years coordinating our computer systems and americas.org. He brings valuable experience from his years at the Resource Center and, previously, from running a fast-growing business.

STAFF

Replacing Mark as half-time computer coordinator is Ross Stenersen, a longtime volunteer here (his feats included writing a program enabling americas.org to publish thousands of new and archival news items). On the staff, he has hit the ground running, eager to help his co-workers solve computer challenges big and small, and adding new computers to our network. To work with us, Ross cut hours with his longtime employer, Plymouth-based CES International, which designs energy-utility software. Our new full-time office manager is Cynthia Breslauer, who has worked in administrative positions for 14 years with a range of nonprofit organizations, including Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Intermedia Arts and, most recently, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in Washington, D.C. We can’t wait for her to whip the office into shape. Dannah Baynton is joining us full-time to develop americas.org content, especially concerning globalization issues such as sweatshops, trade, development and immigration. She has been an intern here for six months, compiling Minnesota news and selecting americas.org “Web Watch” links for two dozen countries and subjects. She had been an editor of Minneapolis-based Training magazine and, before that, she lived for more than a year in the central Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. In addition to these permanent staffers, Marion McNurlen has been working with us for two months as a consultant to our education programs while we hire an education director. She’s a godsend.

COLOMBIA

As Colombia’s conflict grows more deadly, and as the U.S. deepens its role, the Resource Center is working harder than ever to educate and organize for peace and social justice there. Our February 11 forum with Sen. Paul Wellstone and Luis Gilberto Murillo, an exiled former Colombian governor, drew 600 people. “Oil Rigged,” last month’s Connection/americas.org exposé by Thad Dunning and Leslie Wirpsa on the role of transnational petroleum firms, has captured the attention of activists and scholars nationwide. Staff member Rosita Balch, volunteer Dick Bancroft and I have spoken on Colombia and the drug war in recent weeks to audiences in Duluth, St. Cloud and the Twin Cities. The Resource Center is holding a May 5 workshop, “From CODEFOR to Colombia: Consequences of the Drug War,” with Suzanne Wilson, a Gustavus Adolphus College sociology professor, and Kazi Staudte, our intern from the University of Denver (look for your registration form in the mail, visit americas.org or call 612-276-0788). And, through May, the Resource Center is hosting Colombia Support Group of Minnesota intern Ky Guse, a sophomore in Latin American Studies at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

WORKERS CENTER

Immigrant Workers Center staffers Teresa Ortiz and Jorge Flores traveled to Los Angeles to meet February 22–23 with other organizers in low-wage industries. They met with Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. We also began our new English classes, emphasizing worker rights, in February. Funded by the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning, 40 Spanish-speaking immigrants from a variety of workplaces and unions are participating in this exciting initiative. Teachers Mark O’Brien, Stephanie Lawson and Lucy Grinnell are getting help from Kathleen Ganley and her University of Minnesota community-service learning students.

LABOR AND GLOBALIZATION

Labor, Globalization and Human Rights coordinator Larry Weiss drafted a letter signed by 43 members of Congress, urging Mexican officials to support free and fair elections at the U.S.-owned Duro Bag plant in the northern Mexican town of Río Bravo, Tamaulipas. Workers there are facing violent repression as they attempt to elect an independent union. Cross-border organizers call it one of the most critical maquiladora struggles in years.

COMMUNITY EDUCATION

Coordinator Kristi Papenfuss has lined up a tremendous slate of spring classes, beginning the first week of April. The classes include Preschool Spanish, Children’s Spanish, seven levels of Spanish for adults, Advanced Portuguese, two levels of Latin Dance, “From CODEFOR to Colombia” (above), “Preservación del Medio Ambiente Mundial,” “Looking at the World: Media and Foreign Affairs” and “Many Faces of Mexico.” We mailed members a brochure March 6; send back the registration form or visit americas.org. The classes fill up, so don’t delay!

BOOKSTORE

Author John Shekelton reads Friday, March 30, from his novel A Jesuit Tale (Rutledge, 2000) in which a Guatemalan death squad abducts a priest while two friends from his past (they met at a St. Paul novitiate) rush to his aid. The event starts at 7:30 p.m. in the bookstore.

LIBRARY

Our spring interns include Lynnae Nelson, a Hamline University senior majoring in Spanish and minoring in Latin American Studies. She’s working in our Penny Lernoux Library, annotating Spanish language books for our computer system. She’s working on our educational programs too. Another development in the library is a new collection on popular education.

YOUTH

Our Youth Organizing Project on Sweatshops and Child Labor (YO!) held an artists cabaret on the theme of “survival” February 27 at Intermedia Arts in south Minneapolis. The event drew 75 people, mostly high-school students. Performances included spoken word, poetry and music (acoustic, amplified and computerized). Between performances, organizers David Juárez, Allie Adrian and Anna Stachow interjected quotes and statistics about child labor and led a YO! activity. The event raised $40 for Intermedia and $130 for Los Quinchos, a shelter for street children in Managua, Nicaragua.

PHOTOS

Don’t miss “Peoples of the World I: The Colorful Spirit of Mexico,” an exhibit of Dawn Vogel’s photography at the Resource Center. It opens with an April 7 reception.

February 2001

NEW BOARD MEMBERS

At our annual meeting February 3, the membership elected eight individuals to the board of directors. (A full list of board members, who serve two-year terms, appears on page 2.) Víctor Sánchez, executive director of CreArte, is a former Utne Reader design director and a community garden designer. Mark Anderson, an aide to Sen. Paul Wellstone on immigration and foreign policy, has a particular interest in Colombia. Tine Wade, a chemistry professor at North Hennepin Community College, is a longtime Resource Center volunteer. Juan Hoyos, a Ramsey County public defender, is former president of the state Hispanic Bar Association. Trish Clarke, a Minneapolis Public Schools social worker, is a former Resource Center board president. Lisa Knazen, an attorney and state Health and Human Services Department employee working on health care policy, is a former Centro Legal board member. Deborah Ehret, who earned a Public Health master’s degree with an interest in cross-cultural health, recently returned from a public health exchange in Cuba. Miguel Souffrant, a civil engineer who grew up in the Dominican Republic, has worked for social justice for years, including time in Worthington, Minnesota, where he worked against anti-immigrant bias.

GOODBYE

Emiliano Silva, an Americorps volunteer who organized most of our cultural programming, including the Pacha Mama band and the bookstore’s bilingual Saturday Morning Storytimes, has accepted a job as a teacher at El Colegio, the new bilingual public charter school in Minneapolis. El Colegio students are lucky to have him! On the faculty, he joins Resource Center board member Yuri Guerra and former board member Marcela Rodríguez.

JOB OPENING

The Resource Center seeks a director for our Common Circle educational programs, which serve a variety of constituencies, from teachers to social workers to Latino immigrants and the general public. This person should be an educator with three to five years of experience in a community setting, a formal institution and a nonprofit organization. Spanish language skills are a plus. For a detailed job description, call 612-276-0788 or visit americas.org.

INTERNS ABOUND

Several interns have begun at the Resource Center recently. Nora Fern, a Carleton College junior majoring in Latin American Studies, is working with the Labor, Globalization and Human Rights project. She spent last semester in Ecuador with the School for International Training. Maggie Moss, a Gustavus Adolphus College major in Math, spent her January mid-term using her photography skills to document our staff members at work. She also curated our exhibit of Dick Bancroft’s stunning photography and worked on upcoming exhibits. Kris Rosborough, a Gustavus sophomore in English and Journalism, is annotating new books for the library and writing about our youth organizers for the Milwaukee-based magazine Rethinking Schools. Beth Gleason, a recent University of Wisconsin–Madison graduate in Latin American Studies and Women’s Studies, is doing numerous projects in the library, including re-organizing “country boxes” for elementary school teachers. Melissa Mundt, a Macalester College senior in History, who interned with us last year, is devoting work-study hours to our library and describing newly acquired videos for americas.org. Kazi Staudte, who is completing graduate degrees in Social Work and International Studies at the University of Denver, is organizing our Thursday Night Movies and examining domestic and international effects of the drug war.

FINANCIAL REPORT

Due to the generosity of Resource Center supporters, we finished our 13th consecutive year in the black, meeting a budget of more than $800,000. Special thanks to the 315 individuals who contributed a total of more than $130,000. This included 28 contributions of at least $1,000. (Details on our finances will appear in our 2000 Annual Report, available in March.)

We have received tremendous foundation support for 2001: $100,000 from the Ford Foundation for our Labor, Globalization and Human Rights project; $60,000 from the Minneapolis Foundation for our Common Circle educational programs and $10,000 for general operations; $50,000 from the Bremer Foundation and $10,000 from the Catholic Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul for our Immigrant Workers Center; $35,000 from the state Children, Families and Learning Department for a program to help immigrants learn English and U.S. civics; and $5,000 from the Laura Jane Musser Foundation and $1,000 from the Elmer and Eleanor Andersen Foundation for Common Circle. For last year’s Common Circle programs, $25,000 came from the Phillips Family Foundation.

NEW STAFFERS

In January, Teresa Ortiz became director of the Resource Center’s new Immigrant Workers Center. Teresa, originally from Mexico City, is a founder and former executive director of the fair-trade coffee importer Cloudforest Initiatives and has lived in Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, for the past five years. But she is no stranger to the Twin Cities. For six years, until 1995, she was a Guatemala program director for Augsburg College’s Center for Global Education. Before that, she was a teacher here. She will work with Jorge Flores, who began in December as the project’s community organizer after six months with the Organizing Apprenticeship Project.

PUT IN A GOOD WORD

The following folks have something in common: American Express employees, U.S. Bank employees, U.S. Bancorp employees, Piper Jaffrey employees, St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church members and Working Assets customers. What is it? They can all provide invaluable assistance to the Resource Center by putting in a good word for us on grant proposals we’re submitting to the organizations. A large, diverse membership such as ours includes people on that list. If you’re one of them and would be willing to help—this entails little more than identifying yourself to us and putting in a good word to the distribution committee—contact our development director, Jodi Williams, at 612-276-0788 (ext. 17) or jwilliams@americas.org. If your employer or place of worship has a fund for social action or charity, let us know and we’ll get the ball rolling! And, don’t forget, employers often match the charitable gifts of their employees, enabling Resource Center members to double their contributions to our work.

STORYTELLERS

We need bilingual volunteers for Saturday Morning Storytimes. Call Darla, 612-276-0801.

SPECIAL EVENTS

On February 11, we’re co-sponsoring a forum with Sen. Paul Wellstone and Luis Gilberto Murillo, an exiled former governor of the Colombian state of Chocó, at First Universalist Church. On March 1, author Tessa Bridal discusses her novel The Tree of Red Stars.