<html><head></head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>You already know I'm with you on this 100%! It's a beautiful letter. Great job. <br><br>Melody Kowach</div><div><br>On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:37 PM, Rachelle Cruz <<a href="mailto:rachelle.a.cruz@gmail.com">rachelle.a.cruz@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font face="georgia,serif">Dear CWPA students, alumni, faculty and staff,<br><br>Andrea Gutierrez and I have drafted a letter to Chancellor White in response to last Thursday's UC Regents Meeting and protest on campus. <br>
<br>We would love your feedback, support, signature, and/or anything else to strengthen our voice and concerns regarding police presence and brutality at UCR, students' rights to assemble, and the Occupy Movement on campus.<br>
<br>The letter is both attached to this email and pasted below.<br><br>Thank you!<br><br>Best,<br>Rachelle Cruz<br>Andrea Gutierrez<br><br>***<br><br></font><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline" id="internal-source-marker_0.2893760826502427">January 22, 2012</span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Dear Chancellor White,</span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">As graduate students
and teaching assistants in the MFA Program for Creative Writing and
Writing for the Performing Arts, we are deeply disappointed and ashamed
by the actions taken by the University this past Thursday. </span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Many of us
participated in the campus-wide action of students across the UC system,
faculty and staff outside of the HUB, while the UC Regents continued
their meeting in privacy. This day-long action was indeed an expression
of outrage over rising tuition and depreciating quality of education.
It was also a celebration of community and solidarity. </span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">We witnessed our
students chanting or engaging in discussion about the grim future of UC
Riverside and their disappearing classes; for many of them, this was
their first political protest. One of our students, a mother of two,
brought her three-year-old daughter. This student lamented forgetting
to dress her daughter in her Highlander shirt. She wanted her daughter
to bear witness to the fight for her future education.</span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">We witnessed UCR
students and community members dressed in black bearing colorful,
lifesize banners depicting the book covers of liberatory texts. These
books envision equality and freedom and question privilege and cultural
hegemony, such as Franz Fanon’s </span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">The Wretched
of the Earth</span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">, bell hooks’ </span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Feminism
is for Everyone, </span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Paolo Freire’s </span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Pedagogy for the Oppressed</span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">,</span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"> </span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">among others. The book bloc remained at the
front of the line, facing the staggering number of riot police at the
HUB exit and protecting protesters from police violence. We couldn’t
help but recognize the clear metaphor in all of this. </span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Despite what your </span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Friday Letter</span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"> states, there
were more than just a “few” individuals at this action. We witnessed
hundreds of students, faculty, and staff who merely wanted to engage in
an open discussion with the UC Regents. As police helicopters circled
above us, we witnessed our students (</span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">your
</span><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">students) pushed, shoved and humiliated by
riot police because of this desire to converse and be heard by the
Regents. We witnessed members of our community shot by riot police with
pellet guns; one young man was knocked to the ground by the shock and
force of the pellets. We witnessed sheer violence by your “co-workers,”
the police who treated your students like the Asian Citrus Psyllids
plaguing the orange groves at UCR and throughout Southern California.</span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">The “few individuals”
who peacefully disrupted the UC Regents Meeting represents more than a
handful of marginal opinions. These “few individuals” exercised an
essential act of civil disobedience and represent many of us in the UC
Riverside and UC community who are fed up with business as usual. </span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">We urge you to provide
opportunities for students to engage in dialogue about last Thursday’s
events and the implications behind police presence as the University’s
response to student assembly and protest. We urge you to take
responsibility for putting your students’ safety on the line. We urge
you to ensure their safety and right to express their discontent with
the UC system by supporting future student actions. </span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Sincerely,</span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Students of the MFA
Program for Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts</span><br><span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline"></span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Rachelle Cruz</span><br>
<span style="font-size:16px;font-family:Times New Roman;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline">Andrea Gutierrez</span><font face="georgia,serif"> <br clear="all">
</font><br style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif">*****</span><br style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif">Rachelle Cruz,</span><br style="font-family:georgia,serif">
<span style="font-family:georgia,serif">Host of "The Blood-Jet Writing Hour" Radio Show</span><br style="font-family:georgia,serif"><a style="font-family:georgia,serif" href="http://www.thebloodjet.wordpress.com" target="_blank">www.thebloodjet.wordpress.com</a><br>
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</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>CWgrad-announcements mailing list</span><br><span><a href="mailto:CWgrad-announcements@lists.ucr.edu">CWgrad-announcements@lists.ucr.edu</a></span><br><span><a href="http://lists.ucr.edu/mailman/listinfo/cwgrad-announcements">http://lists.ucr.edu/mailman/listinfo/cwgrad-announcements</a></span><br></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div><ChancellorWhiteLetterfromCWPAstudents.doc.doc></div></blockquote></body></html>