Author: mopress

Mujeres Por La Raza Unida /
The Women of La Raza Unida
A Tribute to Women’s Involvement in Texas Politics

An exhibition currently on display at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection
March 23 through June 30, 2005

This exhibit presents the breadth of contributions that Mexican American women made to Texas politics and to the struggle for equal rights for Mexican Americans. It was inspired by the Women of Raza Unida Oral History Project, developed in conjunction with a graduate seminar directed by Dr. Emilio Zamora in the School of Information. The course was entitled “Memory, History and Oral Narratives: Mexican Americans in Politics in Texas History.” The exhibit includes archival materials from the Raza Unida Party Collection, Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, as well as items and memorabilia from party members and quotations taken from oral history interviews.

Sponsored by the Center for Mexican American Studies and the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection. Guest curators: Linda Ho and Brenda Sendejo, graduate students, Center for Mexican American Studies and Department of Anthropology, UT Austin.

March 13, 2005

After eleven years as a continuous student of the
law in the dungeons of America, and a graduate of one
of the most constitutionally oriented, conservative
Texas law schools (Baylor School of Law), I am unable
to prepare the necessary post-conviction remedy defense
for the re-opening of my federal case.

By administrative policy of the Bureau of Prisons, we are only
entitled to telephone communications of 300 minutes per month, or the
equivalence of ten minutes per day. At times, due to the importance of
the legal matter in which I am involved, I have used my entire 300
minutes in the first two weeks of the month, thus leaving me without
communications with the free world.

I ask that every attorney and/or professor
and scholar of law to place themselves in my present
position, and immediately react to the truthful and factual
matter of the application of one’s constitutional rights
under the Constitution of the United State of America.
The only legal reaction to my present constitutional law
situation is that it is in violation of the Due Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of
the United States of America.

Presently, I am 62 years of age, and have been
imprisoned in one of the harshest core penitentiaries
(Leavenworth USP) for the last eleven years, facing the
essence — the actuality of a death sentence (life sentence
without parole). It is extremely difficult for me to
accept the violations and actions of the prison administrative
policies on the limitation of my right to counsel and my
constitutional right to prepare my defense in accordance
with all my constitutional rights within the practice and
rules of the federal courts.

I am not a criminal. I am a Mexicano political prisoner
of the 21st century. In order to present to the appropriate
jurisdictional federal court why my case should be reopened,
I must communicate by phone, in person, and through
correspondence. I must communicate with different attorneys,
investigators, politicians, constitutional defense rights
committees, legal constitutional professors, scholars,
and different law student associations involved in the
violation of human rights.

I am not requesting the
determination of my present legal position. I am demanding
that the laws and rights from the written constitution of
this country be applied to my case. Without a doubt, if
I were allowed to prepare an adequate defense with
the fulfillment of my constitutional rights, then I would
become a free man. Until the Bureau of Prisons or the
Federal Courts of the United States permit me to communicate
using unlimited telephone time, my constitutional rights
are in violation at this very minute of the night.

In other
words – to make it clearer – an injustice of the law applies
to my life every day and night in this mode of darkness.
Americans must realize that I am not confined in Iraq, but
here in the United States of America. Or am I?

I will immediately share further information pertaining
to this illegal cloud of injustice on my life…

Sent by Irma Muniz via email. March 23.
For more on Ramsey see: http://freeramsey.com/

Associate Editor Tony Gallucci sent me a note saying hey have you seen what Kuff’s saying about you?

Then I looked and got goose bumps. Kuff gets it.

The more I read of Moses’ work, the more I share his distaste with the sustained attacks that Taylor made not just on individual voters, but on the concept that voting is a right, and as such it shouldn’t be trivially denied. Mark Schmitt notes that a frequent question on the test for US citizenship is “WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RIGHT GRANTED TO U.S. CITIZENS?” The answer, of course, is “the right to vote”. Well, if that’s really so, why do we make it so hard to vote?

We’d only add that because of the immigrant rate in Vo’s district, it’s likely that more voters there passed that test than in Andy Taylor’s precinct.

Thank you Mr. Kuffner. Thanks again.

For the same reason that the Texas Civil Rights Review sat long hours through the school funding trial with barely another reporter in the room, it seems we contribute best when we stay focused on what the corporate press is not covering. The weaknesses of HB2 and HB3 have been so well covered by the mainstream media and have been so promptly denounced by various interest groups that we find nothing to add.

For a rigorous review of what will be necessary to fix Texas education in good faith, please see our exclusive “closing arguments” series where we reprint in five parts what MALDEF attorney David Hinojosa argued in court last Fall. They may be found under the “stories archive” for months of Februrary and March 2005.

To review our coverage of the school funding trial, please visit the stories archive for August and September 2004.