A Project of YAOTL

Violence All Around July 1, 2009

I have lived in Little Village all of my life and I’m sure I’ve seen more shit than a fifty-year old from the suburbs. Don’t get the wring idea this is a wonderful town. Here there is all kinds of stores, restaurants, and schools, but also all types of people. Unfortunately, this community consists of two different gangs. Almost every day I see a fight at school or next to my house. These are almost never just fights but more like riots. It is unffair for innocent people to get killed or shot at for someone who can’t control themselves. There are people in my family who are gang related but they are stern about what they stand for. It is not only gangs but including anybody. Girls fighting against girls, guys fighting against each other, or even a random homeless person trying to stab me. It shouldn’t be that way, I should be able to greet anybody without then trying to fight. We should not be fighting our own people, our own culture. We should unite and represent ourselves as what we are,Mexicanos. If we all come together and attempt to understand one another violence would not be such a problem.

“All you need is love”. -The Beatles

Written By: Amairani Galvan

Has Technology ruin this generation By: Yarelie

“The challenge that teens faced 150 years ago was hard work the challenge teens faced today is a lack of hard work, ”a quote that is introduce in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. I have to disagree with this quote for the fact that teens now and days teens do many things, they go to school have after school activities such sports, clubs plus homework and chores they basically have their hands full, so what is the big difference with this and milking cows? Teens back and the day and teens today mostly have work, the only new thing is this generation depends much on is technology and that is they reason they mention teens are lazier.
Now and days everywhere you turn you see someone on their Ipod or cell phone or has any technology devise on there hand. Now people have been introduced to so much that this new generation has been viewed as lazy.
Decades ago people had no phones no car and no computer. People would walk for hours to get to their friends home to chat. Now just by a press of a button you could send many words with out even saying them. Has technology ruined this generation? In other ways it does seem like it has.
People have the ability of meeting online now, we don’t have the old fashion way of meeting people in person or even the courage to smile to a person you see everyday, now its either my space or face book were you browse for people to chat with, and ones you find them its starts with “hey aren’t you that person who I saw at the park?” and then it goes on from there and next thing you know you are out on the date with that person. Has it giving us less confident in ourselves that we are not capable of speaking to one in person.
What happen to all the romantic stuff? Has this generation lost all of their courage? It seems too many that they have. This generation is now most likely to depend on technology. It was made to make things easier and soon we are going to end up like the characters from wall-e, the chunky ones who have robots doing everything for them, we don’t want to overcome that. It is never too late get back on doing things the old fashion way. Make new changes go out instead of being in front of a screen for three hours. It been a statistic that some students may spend more than 3 hours online and lack out their education and having a social life, don’t let the critics be true. Have the courage to get out and meet people go to places which seem interesting, explore the city and visit people, you never know who you will ran up to if you don’t get out. This generation has access to more things to make life easier  we are not lazy we just depend on things in which the past generations created for us and what the heck, they were invented for a reason.

Thoughts By: Nessa

Many thoughts run through the mind, I wonder the way they flow. Is it the same as blood vases in your vains?  Are your thoughts warm? I wonder the way thoughts make you feel feelings. When your mad, Do the go crazy? The way they make you react. When sad, your thoughts bring out tears. As you feel the tears, do your thoughts make you tear more? Is it possible to control your thoughts? The way we block things without noticing. The thought of a sound when heard. Do sound waves get stuck in your mind? Is  it the feeling of the sound waves? Do you ever wonder if your mind ever plays tricks on you? where do the negative thoughts come from? Your mind makes you think, it goes deeper into the situation and you could never stop a thought. the way thought could hurt you in a physical way. Are they really this powerful? The way a thought makes your apperence  look. Do they really control your health? the way your thoughts become reality. Is it that your making it become a reality without noticing? Does a thought make you want? Is it really you when its just a thought???? The way people regret what they thought was right. How are your thoughts changing while you realize a regret? Are thoughts so strong, That when you want something it just makes you get it. Thoughts they just flow around no one could see them, touch them, feel them, or hear them only you.  In reality its just a thought.

What is Voilence BY: Armando Reza

Violence physical force used so as to injure (Webster’s Dictionary). This is the definition of violence according to Webster’s dictionary. But unfortunately violence tyranny comes in many different ways. In neighborhoods, foreign countries, land, sea, air it doesn’t really matter violence triumph all. With the start of violence it causes a chain reaction. People fight; do shootings, bomb etc. and the victims either are oppressed by the violence or go out for revenge. It’s funny because violence and overall warfare you can say created the places we live in.
For instance violence is displayed as an attention getter in the media. Big fighting events, movies, even historical changes have had violence mixed into them. Statistics show that 61% percent of television programs contain some violence and only 4% percent of television programs contain anti violence themes (safeyouth.org). With violence revolving all around us presented with sexual themes or items we desire it seems to be part of everyday life.  We are fooled into thinking violence is a positive thing and we should praise to commit it. We have many other alternatives instead of the first thing we think of when getting offended or wanting to be entertained shouldn’t be violence.
In conclusion violence makes up the world around us. It’s displayed everywhere and bloods of millions drown streets or battlegrounds to make up societies we live in today. We should stop be so ignorant and not be brainwashed by our government or pass issues that have been resolved by violence. Other alternatives we can resort to joining sports, drawing, acting, or the million of organization that are offered in our schools or neighborhood. I would like to end with this quote “Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up” (Mohandas Gandhi).

Chicago Street Absurdities

As the summer progresses this year, it is obvious that the increase in police to gang violence shall escalate to a very extreme degree. The days of being able to walk down the streets at night and feeling safe are now over or shall I say have been over. Gang members no longer consist of just rebellious teenagers who want a place to fit in, they now include kids as young as nine years old, in some cases younger.
This type of impracticality cannot stand, it is absurd to believe that kids this young have nothing better to do than stand on corners and flash cars with their gang signs and give hard looks to bystanders or pedestrians walking down the streets. My personal believe is that most of these kids have no role models or authority figures to look up to and honestly that is sad and distressing.
The “Latino” and “African American”, youth seem to be the ones who are more involve in gang violence than most other youth groups. One of these reasons for this is because they have no role models as previously stated, they tend to look up to their older siblings and relatives as the means to shape their lives. Once they start imitating their older brother and /or older sister, they get involve with gangs or gang related activities as a way to escape the tragic lives they lead at home.  I can clearly say from personal experience that being a “Latino” youth is no easy matter , my parents were never home and when they were they were sleeping form hour of excessive work they had to endure to be able to give us a better lifestyle than they had, And I believe it is like that in most “Latino” and “African American”  homes.
Last year Mayor Dayley, approved a plan that would not only allow the Chicago police department greater firepower but also pay them to train 13,500 officers in how to use these new weapons*. This is not necessary, but they tend to believe that more violence is the key to having us sedated.

*source Http:/www.officer.com/web/online/Top-New-Stories/Chicago-Police-to-Get-Assualt-Rifles/1$41168

Anti-immigrants attacking U.S. born children of undocumented parents BY: Carooh

In California, anti-immigrants proposed a ballot measure that would create a second type of birth certificates for children of undocumented parents began collecting signatures on Friday the 10th. To be enacted, a ballot measure must be approved by a simply majority of the public’s vote or in other words obtain 433,971 signatures from registered voters by the 8th of September  to put the initiative on the June 2010 ballot. Also, before receiving the birth certificate of their American born child, parents would have to present proof of residency. If the parents are not able to show proof, they would have to pay a $75 fee instead of the usual fee of $15, provide employment information, the mother’s fingerprints and three passport-type photos of the mother for a “Birth to Foreign Parents document” instead of a standard birth certificate. Furthermore, children will be denied public services such as health care. The information will then be reported to the Department of Homeland Security. This is unconstitutional. Section 1 of the 14th amendment states that everyone that is born or naturalized in the United Sates is citizens of this country and no state can enforce anything that will change this law. Therefore this ballot measure will not pass.  The nation needs to push forward for an immigration amnesty. We need to put pressure on the president and on our elected officials to take urgent and fair action.
Resources:
North County Times

Questions? Email me at: tonantzin1911@gmail.com

Who Owns the Sky? BY: RH

Right off the bat the attendees from Power Shift attacked “The Man”. The first panel we attended was “Cap carbon & Trade? Invest? Auction? Dividend? “  It was a panel about who really owns the sky and who is allowed to benefit from the pollution. Cap and Trade was the most talked about topic in the panel. The idea was to fined Coal Power Plants when exceeding their emission limit. They money would go to the residents of the community where the plant is located.  How it would work would be that the money would be sent to the US treasury. After a month has passed the money would be divided upon the Residents of the community.   Almost the same way unemployment, and LINK works.   This sounds good and all but how would it work in a community like Little Village? In order to get any type of money from the government it would require a social security number for every family. Not everyone in Little Village is documented. Not everyone would receive their money, but at least you still got the pollution ;D! Everyone has been affected by the economic crisis in a way or another, directly or indirectly. The expected check for each family if this were to happen would be about $100-$150.   I signed up for their monthly newsletter, and as soon as more information is sent out I would updating El Cilantro readers.