Advocacy

ACCESS WASHINGTON: TRACKING THE ANTI-IMMIGRANT MOVEMENT
FROM GRASSROOTS TO ONLINE

WHAT: New America Media conference call with Washington experts to track immigration legislation. This week’s call will look at how anti-immigrant movement has been organizing online as well as the grassroots and how they have been accessing media. From national organizations like FAIR to blogsphere how effective has the anti-immigrant been using new media and getting their message across? What are they doing to put immigration in the hot seat ahead of the caucuses in Iowa? Which are the best-known blogs? Are immigrant rights organizations able to fight back? Who's who in the anti-immigrant movement?

WHO: Participants will include

Henry Fernandez, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Mark Potok, Southern Poverty Law Center
Liza Sabater, Blogpreneur, CultureKitchen and The DailyGotham
Devin Burghart, Director of Building Democracy, Center for New Community

WHEN: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 10:30 AM PST (1:30PM EST)

RSVP: All ethnic media are invited to participate in the call though space on the call is limited. The call-in number is 1- (866) 244-4629 . The conference ID is 1180231 . For any questions or further information please contact Sandip Roy at sroy@newamericamedia.org or 415-503-4170.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: NAM offers this service to ethnic media across the country. The fee to subscribe is your agreement to send us clippings or links to any articles you produce based on the call. Your stories help NAM sustain the program through foundation support. Please send clippings or links to Sandip Roy at sroy@newamericamedia.org or 415-503-4170.

You can tell by my previous post that technology has been heavy on my mind all this week. Not just technology but the uses of technology that allow people to either keep things same as they ever was or break free into new transformative ground. Especially as I saw them presented at The Sunlight-Berkman Conference on Political Information.

Last Monday at the Sunglight-Berkman I was able to witness some of the most interesting uses of Web 2.0 design practices that have the potential of changing not just the way we view Congress but the way we conceive of governance. Yet nothing, absolutely nothing compared to being in the presence of these two girls : Samantha (on the left) and Bianca (on the right).

People who have heard me speak at conference know what I can do with my oratorial skills. Well, I'm nothing compared to these two girls in action. I was completely blown away by how they just commanded that room and swept everybody away with their presentation of the project they're work as students of the The Center for 21st Century Skills.

Zephyr and Nisha asked us to wrap-up our thoughts with a question. I had two questions, one about technology and the other politics. They seemed to be separate questions but they're very related --and I honestly cannot remember what were my exact words. But they question that is on my mind is simple : does it make any sense to continue developing software and hardware the way people have been developing it if the face of the future is not a while man but of a couple of dark-skinned latinas from Waterbury Connecticut?