Ruth Tirado, president of the board of directors of Casa Latina, joins me in the studio.  (http://Casalatinainc.org) Casa Latina is the only Latino-led and Latino-focused organization in Hampshire County. They promote self-sufficiency and a sense of community among local Latinos.  Ruth talks about some of Casa Latina’s different projects, and how she got involved over the years.  Ruth and I met last week doing the Northampton Food Rescue project at Hampshire Heights.

Tuesday night at the Iron Horse is Latin dance night!  Ruth says it was great, a fun way to share local latinidad.

Also, at the beginning of the show, I share a little story about how earlier in the day, biking through Easthampton hauling compost, I passed a young man, an EHS student, walking down the path with a basketball under one arm and a confederate flag wrapped around him.  So we played basketball together for a bit and I asked him about the flag.

And, this is fund drive week, so feel free to contribute to Valley Free Radio, now or at any time.   You can donate online at Valleyfreeradio.org.  Thanks!  And thanks to all the contributors and volunteers who keep the station going, and give me this platform.

May Day – international workers day – Over 18 businesses in the Valley closed today as part of national strikes to show the economic power of immigrant workers.  Since we had the day off,  hundreds of people  (including Smith College students who walked out) went downtown to the Pioneer Valley Worker’s Center, where we listened to speeches, and then filled Main St, marching to City Hall for more speeches and stories, in Spanish and English, about the contributions and struggles of immigrant workers in our community.

Later in the evening, there was a rally in Springfield and a march to City Hall.  My housemate, co-worker, and friend Clarissa Lyons talks about her experience sitting through the City Council meeting where they discussed a resolution to make Springfield a Sanctuary City.  She noticed that, with one exception, it appeared that all the white councilors voted against it, and all the councilors of color voted for it.

Yes, there are so many reasons I am passionate about utilizing my physical abilities to move myself around.  The bicycle -(Wheels!)-  is a vehicle that weighs less than half of what the cargo weighs,  as compared to a car, which weighs easily 10 times what the cargo weighs.   Carrying 2-3000 extra pounds around with me wherever I want to go is not how I want to spend precious energy.

Okay, okay, “it’s the infrastructure” you say.  Yes, that too.  And I recognize that we all have different abilities and situations.  But for me, the bottom line is, Using my own power to go places – it makes me feel alive!

Alex Jarrett joins me in the studio for this conversation.

Myk and his family are visiting my household for  a few days from Brooklyn.  He’s a jazz musician passionate about social justice.  He brought his slide guitar into the studio.

On Monday, March 27th, I went with a carful of people to Boston to a bond hearing for 3 Migrant Justice organizers arrested by ICE two weeks ago. Migrant Justice is based in Burlington, VT, and advocates for immigrant and farmworker rights, especially on Vermont dairy farms . It seems clear that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was targeting these young people because they are human rights leaders. In the car, I was sitting next to a man named Austin, a student at Middlebury College (VT) who is involved with Migrant Justice, so I interviewed him. In Boston at the rally, there are a few minutes of recordings of speeches and chants. Our goal was to put pressure on the judge to release, or lower the bond for, Alex Carrillo, Enrique Balcazar, and Zully Palacios.

I made a sign that said “Fugitive Slave Act of 2017?! Which side of history are you on?” Earlier this week I was at a Sanctuary in the Streets training where Margaret(?) gave some history about abolitionist tactics in the mid-1800s in MA. The history was presented with a disclaimer that slavery was a different beast than our current economic situation. But still, there are parallels.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it federal law that people in the non-slave holding states were still required to aid in the capture of people who had escaped slavery. In 1850, northern anti-slavery people argued that non-slave states shouldn’t be forced to pay taxes to support the south’s institution of slavery. (I hear echoes of Trump’s new budget proposal and the wall on the Mexico border.)

One strategy of northern states was to refuse to let their jails be used as detention centers. Perhaps we can do that with Franklin Co Jail, in Greenfield, where ICE has recently paid $3million dollars to the state to regularly imprison 75 people who are said to have entered the country illegally. (Greenfield Recorder, Feb 23, 2017)

Visit the 4-story hanging potted plant in the middle stairwell of the Arts and Industry building, 240 Pine St, Florence! Pablo and I admire it.

Duane and I take a visit to Historic Northampton to view the States of Incarceration exhibit. Co-director of HN, Betty Sharpe, explains the exhibit and her role. Duane shares personal stories – like cooking in the jail for then-governor Michael Dukakis, and the giant plate of melted cheese.

John Paul Tademe, who is couchsurfing at my house, is here from Ghana to participate in the Valley Venture Mentors entrepreneurship program in Springfield. He and his co-founders are creating an internet-based way to connect people who need work done with tradespeople. Trabapido is the 3rd business he has started. He said he has been an entrepreneur since he was a boy in Ghana, cracking stones for sale or selling kerosene.

Happy International Women’s Day! We have a recorded word from my friend Akesa Mafi, who came with her co-workers from Paolo Freire Charter school in Holyoke, to the women’s march/rally in Northampton today.

AND – We have special guest appearances by Amiee Ross and Paige Bridgens, who, together with myself, tell some of our stories of being naturally bearded ladies.  Says Amiee, “I don’t really care for the word ‘lady’ — unless it’s preceded by the word ‘bearded.'”         CatBerry calls into the radio station in solidarity.      (This is not on the show, but that night I ran into Susan Stinson [Ep 75] coming out of the library, and she laughingly mentioned when she first met Amiee [the most bearded of us all] outside the post office, and Amiee was like, “Hey, Beard-o!”)

Last week Jada Tarbutton Springfield came into the studio (see previous episode) but we had so much more to say, she came back again this week. She talks about her witnessing and experiencing racism as part of her tenant’s association at her apartment building in Northampton – all rising to the surface because of her effort to get recycling in her building.

Jada and I went to Amherst Cinema yesterday and watched the new James Baldwin film, “I Am Not Your Negro.” We talk about our reactions to the film, as we have a lively time joking around in the studio.

This episode is only 35 minutes long. But Jada is planning on coming back to the studio next week for more, including talking about racial discrimination at her apartment building/ tenants association here in Northampton.

Interviews with Carol Lewis about SURJ, and my housemate Clarissa Lyons about giving rides to people who need them through the Farmworkers Organizing Committee.

And Duane tells stories from his years being homeless.