Long Beach, CA City Councilmembers at CLUE'S Community Solidarity Vigil

Marshall Blesofsky Speaks at the LB United Against Hate Rally

Marshall Blesofsky Speaks at the LB United Against Hate Rally

Dawn Modkins at UU Church Banner Drop Discuss BLM Platform

Heidi Schaible and John Kindrad of Surfriders Foundations

No Fracking YouTube 2 9 14 016

Standing Up & Speaking Truth to Power

Marcia Westbrook of MFSO talks at 2016 Left Forum Panel: "Bringing the B...

Marcia Westbrook talks about the suicide of her active duty son due to PTSD.  She gave her talk at the Military Families Speak Out Panel: "Bringing the Battle Field Home: Suicide Heartache, and Healing for Victims of Unjust War" at the  2016 Left Forum in New York, NY

Nancy Lessin Introduced MFSO 2016 Left Forum Panel: Bringing the Battlef...

Nancy Lessin one of the founding members of Military
Families Speak Out introduces 2016 Left
Forum: Panel Bringing the Battlefield Home: Suicide, Heartache, and Healing for Victims
of Unjust War. With 22 veterans and 1 active duty soldier committing
suicide a day, Nancy Lessin notes the panel “focuses on one set of war victims:
those who were used as cannon fodder for an unjust war”

Adela Perrez, Cordinadora General, de la Plaza General Comunitaria Casa ...

Andrea Donado and Dora Valdez of Interfaith Community Organization

Coming out of the Shadows with Mitchell Jimenez Hernandez

I produced this video as the proud daughter of an
undocumented worker, Anthony Alvarado, who came to the US in 1920 when he was 3
years old. Unlike Donald Trump's racist lies about Mexican undocumented students
and workers they were not sent by Mexico to the US.  Like my father and my immigrant family, they
ran away from Mexico's corrupt government that breeds poverty, hunger, and
starvation wages.  They came here to study,
work and contribute to the US.  My father
did by volunteering and fighting in WWII for this country, becoming a citizen,
working hard, raising a family, owning a small business, and paying his taxes
before he died in 2007.  The annexation
of half of Mexico by the US in 1850 is one of the reasons Mexico is so
poor.  When we cross the border, we are
crossing into a land that was once our own. 
The true illegal aliens are Donald Trump and his racist followers who
blame the victims of their corporate empires in order to obfuscate their
rapacious grab for money and power. Ultimately the Dreamers are the future.
They, like all the majority of documented and undocumented immigrants before
them, will enrich the country and give it more than they take.

A Room of Her Own by Sandra Cisneros

My interview with Sandra Cisneros about "A Room of Her Own" alter dedicated to mother. It was unveiled on October 30, 2015 at the Museum of Latin American Art, in Long Beach for the Day of the Dead Fundraiser Event.

Claudia Sanchez Vigil

       Claudia Sanchez collapsed in April,
2015 after working 14 hours as a Renaissance Hotel dishwasher.   She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fell
into a coma.  The Renaissance hotel owned
by Sunstone Hotel investors, denied all her claims for worker's
compensation.  On September 23, 2015
Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), Stand With Women Against
Abuse, her coworkers, and community leaders held a vigil in front of the
Renaissance urging the hotel to "do the right thing" and pay her
Workers' Compensation claim. Produced by me, Marlene Alvarado

Raise the Wage Demo in front of Long Beach, CA City Hall

As a retired member of the working class, I support an increase in the minimum wage, so I decided to make this video of a rally in front of Long Beach, CA City Hall to raise the minimum wage.  Ernesto Garcia of Justice for Port Truck Drivers and Coalition to End Wage Theft was the moderator.  Long Beach city Council members Lena Gonzalez, Dee Andrews, Robert Uranga, and Rex Richardson talk about why they support an increase in the minimum wage.  While Carlos Quintero with Justice for Port Truck Drivers, hotel worker Francisco Abdual, and restaurant worker Chando Kem spoke of experiencing wage theft, having no breaks, and working long hours for low wages.

June 2015 New York

Art As Activism Exhibit at the NY Historical Society Museum 6-26-2015

Riding on the Mendocino Skunk Train

In
May 2012 my husband and I went on a car trip to Northern California.  We took a ride on the Skunk Train. It was so
named because when it was built people thought the smoke smelled like a skunk.  This is a short video of the guide on the
train talking about the Redwoods we pass and then video of the train ride
itself.

Aquifer Exemption Workshop protest March 24, 2015

Here is a video I produced.  But since Youtube wouldn't allow me to upload more than 15 minutes, I had to break it down into 4 parts.  Here they are:

Pollution of Kawai,Hawaii

I can't go on vacation without doing a story.  I took a lot of beautiful pictures in Kawaii, Hawaii, but so does everyone else.  This is more important, so I did this video.  I'll bore everyone with my pictures later

Soy Del Pueblo - Fast 4 Families

Belem, Lisbon, Portugal - The Alfama Fado Music - Scenes of Spain - Jorge Aruzaga a Spanish Hunger Striker

My husband and I spent a month in Portugal and Spain.  Here are videos I did of Belem an historical area of Lisbon, Portugal.  I was most impressed with the Berardo Collection Museum. Its collection covers all the major movements of the 20th and 21st century.  We stayed to very nice young men who took us to hear Fado Music in the oldest part of Lisbon, the Alfama. Next video are scenes from Madrid, Spain, I emphasize the Royal Palace and its gardens with a musical accompaniment by a street violinist.  Finally I interview Jorge Aruzaga a young Spanish hunger striker protesting the government's handling of the grave Spanish economic crisis

Videos I did for AllCare Alliance discussing why we need single payer health care

Here are some of my most recent videos:

Here is another reason why we need single payer health care

Yesterday Occupy Long Beach joined 350.org's national day of protest to stop fracking to extract oil from tar sand.  In March there was a similar demonstration in Los Angeles.  This is a video I produced of that demonstration.

Coalition for a Safe Environment Video

In this video I produced Jesse Marquez of Coalition for a Safe Environment discusses the environmental impact of the 710 Freeway expansion to allow more diesel truck traffic to and from the Long Beach/Los Angeles Port

My most recent video is of a demonstration in support of Best Western employees after they had been fired in order not to comply with Long Beach Proposition N, which gave them a living wage, and 64% of Long Beach voters passed it.

Recently I have been doing videos on labor issues.  This is a demonstration in support of Walmart workers.

I started to do videos with this slide show.  Where I discuss A exhibit of street art at LA Museum of Contemporary Art and capitalism.

This is one of my first videos that I did when I started to do full videos

I have been reading an old school mates blog and realized I hadn't discuss in my blog my earlier life. I shall begin with Dan Lieberman who was my first husband. I met him in San Francisco, we went to Europe together back in 1965 - 1966. We spent a whole year there. We had saved $1000. There was a book out then entitled "Europe on $5 a Day" We prided ourselves on living in Europe for less. We flew into Luxenburg on Icelantic Airlines. We first drove a car for a company that we were to deliver in New York. Then we took Icelantic Airlines to Luxenburg. It was less than $200 for one of us. We got to Luxenburg and hitch-hiked to Paris. We didn't stay very long in Paris, maybe a couple of days, because we were going to go back, so we thought later. It was in late April near Easter. We got picked up by 2 Greek guest workers who were working in a Sacandinavian country. It was a Mad Hatter drive to Paris on two lane winding roads at what I felt was 50 miles an hour. We left Paris and hitch hiked to the south of France. While in Bieritz we decided to stop taking chance with rides and bought ourselves this Vespa.

I have been reading Gunter Grass’s biography. It is an open window into the soul of a young Polish/German Nazi and his repentance, slow rebirth, and maturation as a great German writer and intellectual. I read the Tin Drum, many years ago and still remember its gnome protagonist. I see where Gunter took scenes from his life and used them in the Tin Drum, and as he notes does in his other novels, which I now want to read. The tragedy of the biography, is that his experience as a true believer describes so many of us, and how I doubt we will learn from his and other German’s lives, who thought they were free while they followed Hitler and his propaganda machine. Will we have to suffer total defeat, before our fellow Estadounidentes learn that war is not the answer? His writing is detailed with introspective descriptions of his life as 14 years old Nazi Youth, 16 year old German soldier, 17 year old wounded prisoner of war, culinary student, miner, and grave stone cuter. This is where I am in his life now. His language describes German life in human detail and made me realize how much we all are the same. Most profound for me was how mundane the Polish Germans were as they slid into genocide. I once knew a German young man who said to me, there is a little Nazi in all of us, and I can see that in Grass’s biography. One learns of German life after the war, now he is discussing the change in the German money from one species to another while working on repairing the marble facade of bank. He notes, “They changed the money to make us consumers.
I have also included my photos of my backyard patio. I did them last year. I worked hard to create this little garden. Most of my plants are in pots including and orange tree.