[mgj-announce] MGJ meeting minutes - 5/31/2006

[basav at igc.org]

MGJ meeting minutes – 5/31/2006

NEXT MEETING: Wednesday June 7, 7 pm., St. Stephen’s Church, 16th & Newton
St. NW (Columbia Heights Metro)

A. National Immigrant Solidarity Conference

Jesse White of the National Immigrant Solidarity Network came to the
meeting to talk about the National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference
(July 28-30, American University). The purpose of the conference is to
strategize about where to go next with the movement, as a followup to
racist legislation passed by both the House and Senate, and to the awesome
organizing of the last few months. Check out www.immigrantsolidarity.org
for more details.

NISN would like MGJ to assist and participate. Specific asks are:
•	Provide leads on housing (St. Stephen’s and other churches).
•	Connect our website to the conference housing board.
•	Help spread the word about the conference through e-mail, website posts,
etc.
•	Identify delegates to attend the conference. (It costs $45 a person, so
not everyone can go. We need to talk at one of our next meetings about if
we can pay for one person to go.)
•	Come up with a workshop proposal on how to make the
neoliberalism-immigration connection for popular education and organizing.
(Given the thrust of the conference, as well as the level of analysis of
those expected to attend, Jesse pointed out that, rather than presenting
analysis of the neoliberalism-immigration connection, it would be more
appropriate to propose a discussion about how one does popular education
around the issue, and uses this analysis as a starting point for
organizing.)

We reached a general sense of supporting this conference, including
providing leads on housing and doing outreach. However, we need to reach a
consensus at a subsequent meeting about specifics such as delegates and a
workshop proposal.

B. U.S.-Korea FTA

Quick report: the march and rally on Sunday June 4 was AWESOME!!! There was
a 15-person MGJ contingent there, with our banner and a very appropriate
puppet.

Upcoming events:

MGJers, please come out for as many of these as you can!

Monday 6/5, 7:30 pm.
Candlelight vigil at Lafayette Park (White House), 16th and H St. NW.

Tuesday 6/6, 12:45 pm.
Meet at McPherson Square (Metro: McPherson Square on Blue/Orange, Farragut
North on Red) to protest at offices of corporations lobbying for the FTA.

Tuesday 6/6, 4:00 pm - 6:00pm.
Deepening Solidarity: Afternoon of Parallel Discussions. Small group
discussion on various aspects of the FTA and people’s resistance. New York
Ave. Presbyterian Church, New York Ave. and H St. NW (Metro: Metro Center)

Friday 6/9 morning.
Closing rally at Lafayette Park.

C. Tollbooth action
Postponed because of potential bad weather. Will be announced later.

D. July Free School
A local activist is planning a series of free educational/skill-sharing
events in July, that are free and open to the public. She approached MGJ
asking us to participate. Some background about the series:
•	Could be a one-time event or a series.
•	Most events likely to be at Al-Fishawy.
•	In addition to the outreach for the series as a whole, it would help if
we did some of our own.

We decided to do a one-time educational event on local-global connections,
Saturday July 22 morning. We have already submitted our proposal, drawing
upon the 3-4 local-global teachins and workshops we’ve done over the last
two years.

E. Next meeting facilitator: Basav


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