Nick McDonell, Peter Orner & Tom Barbash present
McSweeney’s Issue 34 and An Expensive Education
April 29, 2010
6:00 PM
at Book Passage
1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA 94111
Join Underground America editor Peter Orner and other McSweeney’s writers at the San Francisco Ferry Building to celebrate McSweeney’s Issue 34! Inside this issue: ‘Tafi’ an excerpt from our forthcoming book on Zimbabwe.
For more information on this event, click here.
Theo Rigby is the talented photojournalist behind the cover art for Underground America. Now Theo is raising funds to complete his documentary film about a Guatemalan family’s life after deportation. Find out more about the project and how you can help:
With the release of HBO’s new series ‘Treme‘ this week, viewers across the country are reminded of the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. But this reminder isn’t just about destruction and loss – it’s also about the surge of creativity and goodwill brought on by the disaster, an aspect that’s discussed in detail in a recent article in The Independent. Some of the projects mentioned? Voice of Witness’ own Voices From the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and its Aftermath and Dave Eggers’ novel Zeitoun!
You can read the full article here.
Haven’t had a chance to read ‘Voices From the Storm’ yet? Click here to learn more about the book, read biographies of the narrators, and more! You can also connect with us on Facebook with the link below….
Below is an excerpt from our Congo book in progress. We are currently interviewing narrators throughout Eastern Congo and Rwanda. Check back for more excerpts and clips from this and other Voice of Witness book projects.
After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, millions of Hutus fled the country in the fear that Tutsis would seek retribution against them. Whether or not they had participated in the killings, Hutu people sought refuge in neighbouring countries like Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jean Luc, whose mother is Tutsi and father is Hutu, was only fourteen when his family left Rwanda for Congo DR.
In 1996 the Rwandan army invaded the Congo and they started advancing, destroying all the refugee camps along the border. They took Bukavu, the town I was staying in. …
Health Inequities for Undocumented Immigrants
Wednesday, April 7
12:45-1:45 PM, Room 100
Underground America editor Peter Orner will be speaking about the growing health crisis for undocumented workers, highlighting such topics as health and human rights in prison, occupational injuries and social vulnerabilities leading to health inequities. Hosted by The Boalt Healthcare & Biotech Law Society,
Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, and the National Lawyers Guild – Berkeley Law.
Below is an excerpt from our forthcoming book on Burma.
Lai Pa
34 years old, male, Chin
Former Prisoner and Army Porter
Kuala Lumpur
Lai Pa is an outgoing Chin man—a Burmese ethnic minority—who works for the Chin Refugee Center. It is a clear that he has a lot to say; he is passionate about telling people of his experience as a prisoner of the State Peace and Development Council (the military junta that rules Burma), as he believes the issue must be exposed.
I was a porter for nearly six months.
I stayed in Moulmein (the third largest city in Burma) prison until the day I became a porter. At the time, I was about thirty years old. One night they yelled for me to get out. They made me line up with …
Shep
ard Fairey and the Human Rights Action Center have generously donated Aung San Suu Kyi Freedom To Lead posters to support the completion of our book Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives From Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime.
Your donation today will help us finish this important project. Until May 31st, if you donate $50 or more, we’ll send you …
Voice of Witness is currently seeking native French speakers to translate and transcribe interviews from French to English for our book on Congo. We are asking for native speakers only, as the interviews require a very high level of French. Approximately 10-15 hours per week required. If you’d like to help us, please contact letters@voiceofwitness.com with “Congo: French translation” in the subject line.
An excerpt from one of our narratives will feature on the McSweeney’s iPhone app The Small Chair this week. We will also post this excerpt on our website. More about our Congo project below:
The situation in Congo represents one of the worst humanitarian emergencies today. We ask the people who know this complicated story best – the Congolese and Rwandan people who have endured (and hoped) across the years to tell their side of this …
In a packed Long Island courtroom, a prosecutor laid out in chilling detail the “sport” that she said the defendant and his friends had made out of attacking Hispanic men.
“On Nov. 8, 2008, the hunt was on,” Megan O’Donnell, the prosecutor, told 12 jurors and 4 alternates in State Supreme Court on Thursday.
The defendant, Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was one of seven Patchogue-Medford High School students who the police and prosecutors said attacked an Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, in November 2008. The fatal stabbing of Mr. Lucero shocked many on Long Island and focused new attention on assaults and harassment of Latinos in the area.
You can read the full article here.
Voice of Witness is looking for a Development and Communications Associate to help us expand our fundraising and outreach capacities. If you believe strongly in our mission to illuminate human rights crises through oral history, and would like to help us grow as an organization, please consider joining us in our work.
Voice of Witness is a nonprofit book series that empowers those most closely affected by contemporary social injustice. Using oral history as a foundation, the series depicts human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them. Voice of Witness was founded by author Dave Eggers and physician/
