We’ve been engaged in a number of immigrant defense and support activities. We need more volunteer help. VOLUNTEER NEEDS: A. Safe Hotels Campaign, B. Rapid Response Team, C. Help for Mississippi Raid Victims, D. Court Monitoring, E. Bus Reception, F. Public Actions, G. Sponsor Families. If you can help, please email irtf@irtfcleveland.org .

The student movement is diverse, accommodating a range of ideologies and tactics. This year it has intensified as wider movements against President Hernández’s attempts to privatize the health and education sectors have grown. Massive street protests have been led by La Plataforma para la Defensa de la Salud y Educación (Platform for the Defense of Health and Education), made up of various unions with more than seventy thousand combined members. Despite attacks by the staunchly pro-regime media, La Plataforma achieved a huge victory in June when Hernández backed down and repealed the law. It was a watershed moment of popular power against a regime that needed to deploy the military, when the police alone could not repress the movement.

Shopping to meet the locavore ethos ("eat local") is never simple, but taking a follow-the-money approach enables shoppers to support products that share their values. And this is where bananas come in. Buying Equal Exchange bananas from a local food co-op not only keeps money cycling through your community, but also ensures that communities of farmers in Ecuador and Peru are receiving a fair price for their products, which then keeps money flowing through their communities, as well. In a way, eating fair trade bananas gives you a local eater two-for-one, and you support both your community and the cooperative community of farmers that grew the fruit. It may not have been grown physically close to your co-op, but it creates an interconnected network of solidarity between communities.

In Beaten Down, Worked Up, former New York Times labor correspondent Steven Greenhouse devotes an entire chapter to the history of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), from the early strikes in the 1990s to the Campaign for Fair Food today, including a detailed look at the ground-breaking success of the Fair Food Program!