Adopt a Brown Baby - New Books on Sexual ineqality, Transracial Adoption, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Reading in Minneapolis

Sexual Inequlities and Social Justice

UC Press has released Sexual Inequalities and Social Justice (978-0-520-24614-0, cloth $55.00/978-0-520-24615-7, paper $21.95), edited by Niels Teunis and Gilbert Herdt. This pioneering collection of ten ethnographically rich essays signals the emergence of a new paradigm of social analysis committed to understanding and analyzing social oppression in the context of sexuality . . .

Beyond the Madonna and Angelina Jolie Adoptions: Brown Babies

Carlos Morton just put out a play about transracial adoption called “Brown Baby.”

Below is a recently released book on South End Press called, Beyond Celebrity Adoptions

Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption

The Publishers Press Release:

Cambridge, MA - October 26, 2006
In Madonna's internationally broadcast "chance to set the record straight"--provided gratis by none other than Oprah--Madonna said: "Children don't ask questions."
Perhaps this is why transracial and international adoption happens at all. The children have no voice. But then they grow up.

And whatever the applause from an Oprah audience, they don't all think the only solution to their abandonment (if they were abandoned) or poverty (if they were indeed poor) was to uproot them from land and home, from familiar sounds, food, smells, faces, from any reflection of themselves.

If you don't believe that, listen to them yourselves.

In Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, the voice you hear is not the adoptive parent, celebrity or otherwise, not the applauding onlooker happy someone is doing something to rescue those poor children, not the social worker or the adoption lawyer.

It is the adopted adult, far from the perpetual child the adoptee is imagined to be. And this adult has a strong, powerful voice that explores the contradictions and unasked questions surrounding international and transracial adoption without ever suggesting that the answers are simple.

Questions like:

• why are babies available for adoption in the first place?

• what happens when they grow up?

• what does adoption have to do with war and imperialism?

• how do we come up with solutions that are humane and just?

Outsiders Within asks these questions and more. Hear about transracial adoption from the adults who have lived it, explored here in this explosive and complex collection through personal narrative, critical essays, poetry, and art.

"Experts on their own experience, the writers of Outsiders Within offer an illuminating and provocative glimpse into the world of transracial adoption that will make many of us uncomfortable. All the more reason to read it."
--Beth Hall, adoptive parent, director of Pact, an adoption alliance, and co-author of Inside Transracial Adoption

Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin, editors
(South End Press, 2006)

National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month and November 18th is National Adoption Day. Shannon Gibney, Sun Yung Shin, Julia Chinyere Oparah (contributors to Outsiders Within and transracial adoptees) and Asha Tall (publisher at South End Press and a transracial adoptee) are all available for comments and interviews.

Reading Event in Minneapolis, MN

Join authors of Outsiders Within who will be reading from their work on November 18th from 7 to 9 pm at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance, 500 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN. more info

About South End Press

South End Press is a nonprofit, collectively run book publisher with more than 250 titles in print. Since our founding in 1977, we have tried to meet the needs of readers who are exploring, or are already committed to, the politics of radical social change.

Website: http://www.southendpress.org

The Website About the Book

For more information about Outsiders Within, the authors, and transracial adoption visit www.outsiderswithin.com.

Harvard Journal of “Hispanic” Policy

As communities honor the history and future promise of Latinos during Hispanic Heritage month, we invite you to become a part of the very special group of subscribers that enjoy the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.

HJHP released its 18th volume this year! Order a copy of the journal today and save 20% off the regular price! Simply complete the order form at the close of this message.

The HJHP is a unique publication dedicated to furthering the economic, social, and political empowerment of Latinos. Today, it remains one of the few policy journals dedicated to publishing interdisciplinary work on policy making and politics affecting the Latino community in the United States.

So, why should you subscribe to HJHP? The journal offers readers relevant and timely information. The journal:

• Showcases the lives of key Latino leaders. Volume 18 features interviews with United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; Dolores Huerta, Cofounder of United Farm Workers of America; and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

• Presents careful analysis of a range of policy areas. Nearly all policy areas have implications for the lives of Latinos. The journal publishes articles on education, health, economic, and immigration policies, and other important topics, like voter turnout.

• Highlights new and important books on Latinos. More often than not, scholars doing research on Latinos go unnoticed by critics and corporate bookstores. The journal helps readers stay informed, reviewing new and upcoming books.

Don’t miss this opportunity to become a part of the HJHP family! Act now to order your copy and join the community leaders, politicians, and academics who enjoy the exciting articles, book reviews, and exclusive interviews every year.

New book by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

Cinco Puntos Press has just released THE SHADOW OF THE SHADOW (1-933693-00-2) by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

The Shadow of the Shadow follows four men who meet to play dominos in a hotel bar in Mexico City in 1922. They are a motley group—a gun-toting poet who makes a living writing advertisements for patent medicine, a radical Chinese-Mexican union organizer, a lawyer who represents prostitutes, and a newspaper crime reporter who churns out pages of copy “like links of sausage in a chorizo factory.”

Left to their own devices, the group would have waited out Carranza’s presidency in their own quietly besotted fashion, ignoring the betrayal of the Mexican Revolution. But they witness a series of strangely related murders and begin to suspect a conspiracy involving the oil-rich lands of the Gulf Coast, greedy army officers, and American industrialists.

Critics have hailed The Shadow of the Shadow as the best of Paco Ignacio Taibo II’s historical novels. Issues of oil, American imperialism, extortion, and government corruption give the novel a distinctly contemporary ring.

School Library Journal
"Mexico's foremost crime novelist masterfully evokes a bygone era. His quirky characters are as endearing as they are well-drawn."

Kirkus Reviews
"A high-spirited historical fantasy...Every new revelation seems to give Taibo's madly spinning top another lash."

ALERT—ALERT—ALERT

Federal Police Attack Demonstrators in Oaxaca

Outrageous Violation of Democracy & Human Rights

On Sunday, October 29 Mexican Federal Preventative Police (PFP) occupied the zocalo in the center of Oaxaca pushing out the encampment of the Peoples Assemply (APPO). Federal police in full riot gear, backed by water cannons, helicopters, and heavily armed soldiers retook the city from protestors street by street.

Demonstrators, clutching rocks and sticks resisted. APPO denounced the death allegedly at the hands of the police of a fifteen year old boy. The PFP also occupied Radio Universidad, shutting down the only remaining media voice of APPO.

The violent repression of a non-violent, democratic movement which began in May as a teachers’ strike and involved tens of thousands of citizens who raised broader demands for democracy, an end to corruption by the government and the resignation of Oaxaca State Governor Ulises Ruiz is a tragic event for Mexico and for human rights. While we are certain that the resistance will continue as will the long struggle of the Mexican people, CJM deplores this final action of the administration of President Vicente Fox in turning his back on the will of the people.

We remind our members that the election of Fox in 2000 was heralded by the backers of NAFTA and neoliberalism as concrete evidence of Mexico’s democratization. Fox’s failure, however, to turn around the growing economic injustices caused by globalization, so-called free trade, and corruption could only lead to the kind of heroic resistance we’ve witnessed over the past few months by the workers and citizens of Oaxaca. It’s shameful that Fox’s only response to the cries of the people for justice is violence and repression.

The deaths of teachers and citizens at the hands of police and paramilitaries, the murder on Friday of an American reporter, and the police violence of today can leave no doubt that there is an accelerating current against human and worker rights.

CJM calls on all its members and friends to protest in the most vehement terms the repression in Oaxaca and demand respect for the rights of the teachers union and the citizens and support for their demand for the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz.

Please do the following:

o Send letters of protest of President Vicente Fox at vicente.fox.quesada@presidencia.gob.mx

Send copies to:

o Lic. Carlos Abascal Carranza, Secretario de Gobernación, cabascal@segob.gov.mx

o Dr. Jose Luis Soberanes, Presidente de la Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos, correo@cndh.gob.mx

o Send letters to your member of Congress and Senators, or Member of Parliament demanding that the U.S. or Canada condemn the repression by the Fox Administration

o Send letters to U.S. President Bush at comments@whitehouse.gov or Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at pm@pm.gc.ca

o Organize a protest at Mexican consulates in your area. For a list of US and Canadian Consulates, go to http://elenemigocomun.net/128

o Spread the word

o Send copies of your letters to cjm_mojeda@igc.org