i wonder how many of my imaginary readers have yet heard of the Immigrant Workers' Freedom Ride? i have seen nothing of this, read nothing of this, heard nothing of this, in/on the regular media. the first i heard of it, in fact, was on another blog, a wonderful blog, Body and Soul. she gave me the iwfr site and i've been keeping up with the ride through it. interestingly enough, when i asked my evening class about this, none of them had heard of it either. i sent the link to one of my students, carmen i., and she has been keeping up with it too. i found another article today on Tom Paine and on Democracy Uprising, by Mark Engler. last night i watched the news on Univision, the only spanish-language channel we get, and they had a big feature on the ride. i hope some of my students were watching. coming into texas from the west two of the busses were stopped in, i think, sierra blanca, and the passengers were made to dismount and submit to a going-over by la migra. i don't think they were able to detain any of them, but i need to surf around through some texas newspapers and find out more. at the time the piece was shot for Univision the riders were in san antonio at san fernando cathedral giving interviews to the local press, and, i guess any national press that was there, like Univision. the final event of the ride will take place next weekend in new york. i have a tentative idea of taking some of my students up to attend the big culminating rally. it would be a great morale boost for all of us, i think.
(a little while later) i did check out the san antonio papers, both the english and bilingual ones. no riders were detained and the ride continues. i also found a ton of news references on the Ride site itself. it has been covered, more than i thought. mainly in the west, but also some mention in the NYT and the Washington Post.
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