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.

Winter Flowers of Willmore City

I took these photos in my neighborhood which is the oldest part of Long Beach, California.

Today is Veteran's Day and I wish we weren't celebrating it. We humans are still so barbaric, because we still haven't figured out how not to end our conflicts in war. Nor have we learned the lesson that violence creates more violence. I wish we didn't have to celebrate this day because we no longer had wars. That it was a faint memory of history, like we remember the Trojan War or the Peloppenesian Greek civil war. I only see that every war we are in only causes another war. That the lives of young men and women are not protecting this country, which is the myth, but uses as the foundations for another war. It is so frustrating to hear people use their deaths as an excuse to justify wars. I don't believe they are dying for me, I see it as propaganda to justify an unjustifiable war. But many people in this country don't see it this way. It so sad. I fee that these deaths are in vain, because their violent deaths will not solve the problem of my security. The money we are spending this war could have been used to feed, cloth, and cure the sick of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. If we did that we could counter the AlQueda and the Taliban's lies. Killing the people in these countries is only alienating people and creating more terrorist.

I am listening to a book on tape "A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier" by Ishmail Beah. It only reaffirms my educated view that war creates only killing machines and more violence. Ishmail was recruited into the Sierra Leona army at 13 years old after his entire family is killed and his village burned and pillaged by rebels. He becomes like those who killed his family a cold, heartless murder. He is one of the lucky ones who is rehabilitate, but it takes a long time to do this. It is difficult for him to be anything other than a killer. His armor of hate and anger are eventually penetrated, and he is rehabilitate. However a lot of soldiers in every war are not and we create tormented souls. No I don't like Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and all those other days we remember wars, because we haven't learned anything by remembering them.

This past Saturday Barry and I took a couple of friends, Dick Speciese and Lynn to dinner at La Traviata Resturant. It is down the street and around the corner from my our house. They feature an opera singer. We went there because we wanted to celebrate Dick's birthday and he likes opera. The opera singer was good and he enjoyed himself. The dinner, music and conversation was lovely. After dinner we went to a Day of the Dead art exhibit at Long Beach's Second District Art Gallery. I have encluded photos of both.

I love Day of the Dead more than Halloween. It is a time in Mexican culture that we commemorate those in our family who have died. We place photos of our deceased with the things they liked most in life from food to objects on alters. These alters are covered with bright Marigold flowers and candles. Incense is burned in front of them.
The tradition comes from Potzcuarro, Michoacán Mexico. In Potzcuarro there is a small island where the people bring food, drink, and music to the graves of their loved ones. They pray for their dead and hold a vigil where they eat, drink and play music at their deceased grave sites. Day of the Dead is as much as for the living as it is to remember the deceased love ones. I visited Potzcuarro at New Years in 2006. I couldn't get to visit on November 1 or 2, which is the Catholic All Saints Day and when the people of Potzcuarro go and pray for their deceased. Part of the tradition is the making of brilliantly colored sugar skulls and special sweet bread. Brightly colored paper mache skeletons participating in daily activities also decorated these alter. To remind the living that, “life is a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” (To poorly quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth) or as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday, “Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shall return” The Calaveras also make fun of death, with a hangman’s humor. Most people don’t understand this and consider it macabre. It is a way of relieving the terror of our own demise, and makes us remember that we should live this life to its fullest.


I am an atheist and don’t believe in an afterlife, but have come to the existential realization, that we need to make sure that when we leave this life we did more good than harm. I owe it to the next generation that I lived an unselfish life and tried what I could to stop war, poverty, and hunger. As a teacher I was compassionate, understanding and helped my students. As a wife I made my husband happy. That I loved the stranger and realized she/he was like me, humans with the same wants, needs and loves.

I learned of the Day of the Dead here in Los Angeles and have been going to Day of the Dead celebrations for years. We have made alters at school and last week I went with some friends to the Hollywood Cemetery Annual Day of the Dead art exhibit. Not only did families setup alters but also artist that made political statements. These included alters that mourned the deaths of hundreds of women in Juarez Mexico, the hundreds of undocumented workers who died of thirst as they now cross the boarder in an unforgiving desert, and of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan from soldiers to civilians. It was a sobering experience, but also as in Mexico filled with lots of color, music and food. Some of the face paintings were works of art, and I have attempted to photograph some of them. It was dark when I arrived and was unable to get good shots of the alters, because I forgot to take a tripod.

Attached are photos of the Island in Potzcuarro Lake where the tradition started, an alter at school and photos of people dressed in Calaveras costume at the recent Hollywood cemetery. I have decided to share these photos through and email since I can not do it on Facebook so I decide to send them in an email. I hope you enjoy them.