#polish immigration to the united states

[rwrbmovie]

BTS of #RWRBMovie: 'z' in your last name

TZP via HOLA:

Clifton Collins Jr., who plays my father in the film, was amazing. I knew of him. I’d seen his projects, but we’d never crossed paths before. And then we met and we just got along, thick as thieves. And he’s like an OG Mexican from Los Angeles which was so colorful. He made it feel like there was family on set. Same with Matthew being Puerto Rican. Their influences help you get into that vibe, and then you do the scene and it’s wonderful. You really bring that accuracy to it.

There’s a line in the film when Alex and Henry are in Paris, and Henry asks him a question about his mom’s campaign, and Alex starts telling him about his father and his abuela coming to the States. The line is something like “If you’re an immigrant in America and you have a ‘Z’ in your last name, there’s a lot of people in positions of power that don’t look and sound like you. I’ve been given the opportunity to be someone in the world that my father didn’t see when he was growing up.” As someone with two ‘Zs’ in his last name (laughs), that was a tough scene for me because I had to be there as Alex and not as Taylor. It was very emotional to think of my family and what they went through to come to the United States. Even though they came here a long time ago, you still think about all of the people that are coming to America today and about all of their stories. Alex realizes that his father didn’t have any role models growing up and now he’s a congressman. That fuels his fire to be the change. That was so exciting for me.

From NYT:

For both Zakhar Perez and the director, the character Alex’s biracial identity was particularly meaningful. López grew up in Panama City, Fla., with his Puerto Rican father and Polish Russian mother, while Zakhar Perez is of Mexican, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean descent and was raised in northwest Indiana, where he said there was only one other Mexican family. “Matthew and I talked a lot about the mestizo journey,” Zakhar Perez said in a video call before SAG-AFTRA, the actor’s union, went on strike. “Being part Mexican, part lots of other things, I don’t want to say you’re forgotten, but in today’s world, it’s like, you’re either this or you’re that. There’s nothing in between. I’m kind of a cultural chameleon.” “As a young Latiné queer man, I never read something that centered someone like Alex,” López said, echoing his star. “If I had been presented with this character when I was in my late teens, early 20s, it may have changed how I thought about myself.”

From Windy City Times:

Was the part about having a Z in your last name personal or the book? ML: It was personal. That was about me and Taylor. It came from a conversation that Taylor and I had when making the film.

From Metro Weekly:

Alex has a line about grow ing up in Texas as a kid with a last name that ends with Z, which is I guess something else you can relate to, Florida style. ML: And Taylor Zakhar Perez also. Taylor and I talked about that scene a lot as being something that we both understood. My aunt Priscilla Lopez is a beloved, beloved stage actor. She was in the original cast of A Chorus Line. And there's a story that she tells about Mandy Gonzalez, who was in In the Heights with her, and Mandy once told Priscilla that Priscilla made it okay for her to be someone with a Z in her last name. And that was a thing that Taylor and I spent a lot of time discussing as well. It was important to me that that scene be in the movie. There was never a chance in hell that that scene was ever getting cut.

From Teen Vogue:

TV: One of my favorite parts is when they’re in Paris, and Alex talks about being a young person of color coming up from Texas and not seeing anybody who looked like himself or his dad in politics, and Henry’s response to that simply being: “I’m learning.” I don’t know if you were in the theater for that one, but half the crowd was like, awwwww. ML: Yeah, I was for that. TV: I’m married to a white man, and I was like, that is the perfect thing a white man can say in that situation. ML: I’m married to a white man, too. Speaking as someone who is a person of color married to a white man: that’s like the ultimate thing you ever want your white boyfriend or husband or partner to say. That’s it. “I’m learning.”

ML via THR:

There’s a scene in the movie that is very much me, which I gave Taylor after they’ve had sex for the first time. They’re there in pillow talk mode, and he tells Henry about what it’s like to be the son of an immigrant with a Z in your last name. It was really important to me to talk about growing up with a Z in your last name and even just how our names are pronounced, the spellings of our names sometimes if you have Latin ancestry. To have to answer for your name has always been something for me that I struggled with until I stopped struggling with it. So, I needed to put that into Alex’s story and when it came time to shoot that scene again, it was something I didn’t have to explain to Taylor Zakhar Perez. He got it instantly. The only thing that I did screw him up with is like, “We’re going to do this [scene] as a oner, and we’re going to do it as a top shot that starts in a wide shot and comes all the way down to your face, and we’re not going to leave this scene until you get it right in one.”

#rwrb movie #rwrbedit #red white and royal blue #rwrbsource #taylor zakhar perez #matthew lopez #alex claremont diaz #tzp #* #rwrb bts #rwrbbts #my gifs

[hero-israel]

How can you claim that Zionism was morally right, when what it was was European Jews coming to Palestine by the thousands and buying land, and when the Arabs realised what they were trying to do, i.e. steal land by making it sound reasonable to the British they should have the right to self determination, they rightfully tried to put a stop to it? If a lot of people come into a populated area and then ask for it to be given to them, since they’re so many, does it make it right for the people who were already there? And yeah, it’s true there was some Jewish presence there already but it wasn’t that much and it wasn’t them who started the Zionist movement. So how can you claim this was right?

You just said they were buying the land, and they were, so anyone thinking they were stealing it is already revealing major problems with racism, xenophobia, and conspiratorial thinking.

And by all means, let's talk about "immigrants" versus "people who were already there." From the 1850s to 1920s, the Ottoman Empire faced waves of refugee crises (the Crimean War, the Balkan Wars, the Russo-Turkish War, the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the beginning of World War 1) and decided to resettle OVER FIVE MILLION Muslim refugees all throughout its Mediterranean and Levant provinces. They sent hundreds of thousands of ex-Balkan and ex-Russian Muslims into southern Syria and what is now Jordan. These refugees founded the four largest cities in Jordan, including its capital Amman; of course, Jordan had been part of historic Palestine and the Palestine Mandate, and from the very first day they were able to govern themselves they passed laws banning any Jewish citizenship or inhabitation.

Am I supposed to see that as anything other than the most base, ladder-pulling racism? Do you really expect me to care that ex-Russian Muslims arriving in Jaffa in 1890 wanted to keep the ex-Polish Jews out in 1920? Between the Ottoman refugee resettlement and the large numbers of Arabs immigrating to benefit from new economic opportunities in a rapidly developing Palestine, the United Nations would later come to classify people as "refugees of the 1948 war" if they had been permanent inhabitants of Palestine any time before 1946. So many newcomers that just living there for two years made you a wizened, old-timer local, with a perfectly natural right to say nobody else can come in.

Where exactly are you starting history and whose immigration are you seeing as rightful, as just? In 1832, Egypt invaded Ottoman Palestine and established from nothing the new settler town of Abu Kabir; in 1948, Zionist militias depopulated it. Were the Arab settlers of Abu Kabir "indigenous" for the 116 years they were there? Because the major waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine started about 140 years ago....

There is no such thing as a legitimate history of the Levant that sees it as normal and morally / politically neutral for millions of Muslims to be resettled by various Muslim empires, but abnormal and dangerous for Jews to move in under their own initiative - usually out of desperation to save their lives - with no sponsoring empire at all.

Beyond that, if you took a few minutes to think of what your argument implies about the "Great Migration" of African-Americans to northern states in the early 20th century, or refugees crossing the Mexican border, and how white people responded to both, I think you would be less willing to make it, even anonymously.

#israel #palestine #zionism #ottoman empire #immigration #jumblr

[usaigi]

How @yellowocaballero and I Fixed Daredevil by Headcannoning Him as Mexican

When Daredevil first appeared in 1964, he was a second-generation Irish-American from Hell’s Kitchen, a working-class Irish-immigrant neighborhood. In a time where Irish people weren’t viewed as “white” or “real Americas.” They were a part of the oppressed working class, the bottom of the food chain, who had nothing but their religion, the vehicle of their culture from the old world, to keep them together.

Note: Today, the argument that “Irish people aren’t really white” has been co-opted by white supremacists and has often been used in bad faith against POC. I want it to be clear that what is considered “white” is and has always been a political term with no backing in science. Discrimination against the Irish back in the day was tied to anti-Catholic sentiment in predominately Protestant states, such as England, Scotland, and the United States. Naturally, Anti-Catholic discrimination overlaps with nativist, xenophobic, ethnocentric and/or racist sentiments (ie Anti-Italian, Anti-Polish, Hispanicphonia).

Jack Murdock was a poor boxer with no education or prospects who had to exploit his body to provide for Matt. And recognized that not a way to live and thrive, so he pushed Matt into academics for social mobility. Sound familiar?

At its core, the story of Matt Murdock is an immigrant story. Matt has the immigrant mentality;  immigrants-get-the-job-done type of thing. Gotta hustle and became a lawyer because that’s how he moves up the social and class ladder. And when he does “make it” he chooses to stay and help his neighborhood because he has a cultural connection to it. 

This worked in 1964, I don’t know how much it works now.  

Hell Kitchen isn’t a rough neighborhood primarily occupied by working-class immigrants, it’s another gentrified hipster hellhole. Irish people and people of Irish ancestry in the United States no long face systemic discrimination. 

Therefore, modern-day recontextualizing is to make Matt Mexican. 

Technically, Matt can also be from any other Latin American country or Filipino but I lean towards Mexican since a) this is my post go make your own and b) we get the most discrimination from the mainstream media. Yes, a lot of it is because racists use “Mexican” as a catch-all term for anyone from Latin America but still. Trump made his presidential platform by calling Mexicans illegal rapists and druggies. 

If Matt was actually the son of Jack Murdock*, an undocumented brown immigrant living in a working-class immigrant/POC neighborhood, it gives him the underdog immigrant arc the character is missing in modern-day adaptations. Matt's core is still the same Matt we know and love, he’s still the son of a boxer, whose dad’s pushed him into succeeding academically, who lost his dad to gang violence, and who is extremely Catholic. Someone who wants to fit into middle-class educated (white) society and feels like he has to suppress the "devil" inside until one day he can’t. He's seeing discrimination and poverty and crime and gentrification tear his neighborhood apart and the police turn their back on it since it's predominantly POC. The law has failed them, he's not going to fail them too. 

Meg made the fantastic point that Matt should still be white-passing (and ginger) so he could exist somewhere in between worlds.  And Matt takes advantage of that, as well as his Columbia Law degree to help his community. Matt not using his conditional whiteness and the fancy degree to “escape” his community and instead help it.

#daredevil #matt murdock #daredevil comics #marvel #foggy nelson #karen page #comics #stan lee #mcu #charlie cox #usaigi meta #usaigi speaks #mateo murdock au

[probablyasocialecologist]

Since its inception in 1948 as a settler colonial state, Israel’s leaders have followed in the footsteps of other settler states like the United States, Canada and Australia, by managing the tensions among its different immigrant communities through legal democratic processes. It was the only way to reconcile the differences between, say Iraqi and Polish, or Moroccan and Russian immigrant communities. Needless to say, that has not applied to the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who suffered under direct military control through 1966. Throughout that period, the secular Ashkenazi elites – concentrated in the Labour movement that created and led the earlier settlement of Palestine – had an advantage over the more conservative Sephardic immigrants and religious groups, and became the masters of the land. But the 1967 war changed that. The occupation and settlement of East Jerusalem, and the rest of the newly occupied territories, have given vigour and momentum to messianic, fanatical, and hyper-nationalist Israelis ever since. Their movement rose to power for the first time in 1977, supported by the marginalised Sephardic Jews and more than a few Labour leaders dreaming of a Greater Land of Israel or total control of all of historic Palestine. From then on, American complicity in the form of economic and military support has provided the radical Israeli Right with much-needed momentum. And lately, Arab and Palestinian appeasement of fanatical Israel further hardened its racism. The Palestinian Authority has been repressing its own people in order to provide protection to Israel’s entrenching apartheid, rendering its survival an Israeli necessity. Likewise, the willingness of autocratic Arab regimes to ditch the “land for peace” formula, and to sign up for unconditional peace and normalisation with colonial Israel, has provided Netanyahu and his fanatical allies with the legitimacy and the rationale to double down on their fanatical expansionist policies. As hundreds of thousands of settlers in hundreds of illegal Jewish settlements proliferated throughout Palestine, blurring the lines between Israel and its occupied territories, it was only a matter of time before the ruling fascists turned inwards, and tried to solidify their fanaticism in Israel as in Palestine, come what may. When supporters of Minister of National Security Itmar Ben-Gvir follow through on his call to carry arms, those weapons will not only be used against Palestinians – but also against secular, liberal Israelis they abhor no less.

#israel #palestine #zionism

[daloy-politsey]

this is a genuine question; im not asking this as a "gotcha", im asking this as a "my zionist peers/family have argued with me about this and im tired of not having a rebuttal, because i dont know the answer", i want to be able to feasibly argue against zionist rhetoric but its hard to get those worms out of my brain.

how are palestinians indigenous to the land when palestine, as a country, is younger than the united states? palestine (as a modern nation) was formed under the greek-ottoman empire in 1516. the USA began for form as a collective in 1600. so much of palestinian culture is explicitly greek culture - greek food, greek language, greek dance. even the name "palestine" comes from the GREEK ("palaistine") translation of "israel" - both meaning "to wrestle with g-d". none of these are inherently bad things, but how is it indigenous? how is it any more indigenous than british culture still rearing its head in USAmerican civilization? how is rejecting non-palestinans from the palestine any less xenophobic than rejecting non-americans from america? how is, say, a polish jew immigrating to palestine any more colonialist than that same polish jew immigrating to the US?

Well, being indigenous doesn’t have anything to do with how long someone has been somewhere. It’s about someone’s relationship to colonialism. Palestinians are indigenous because they were colonized by Zionists who later established a settler colonial state called Israel. Israelis have the upper hand over the indigenous Palestinians. And you’re right, the US is a settler colony too so a Polish Jew immigrating to the US would be no more a settler than a Polish Jew immigrating to Palestine.

#ask #anon #food mention

[mariacallous]

European lawmakers are issuing increasingly bleak warnings about the future of the war in Ukraine and the continent’s security as a $60 billion U.S. aid package for Kyiv continues to languish on Capitol Hill and the war is set to enter its third year later this month.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Washington has welcomed a steady stream of lawmakers, government ministers, and heads of state from Europe amid transatlantic efforts to coordinate military and humanitarian support for Ukraine. But there has been a palpable ratcheting up in the intensity and urgency of their message. 

“You can’t help but wonder what has happened here. We seem to have drifted apart,” said Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir, chair of the Icelandic parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Einarsdóttir and a delegation of six other chairs of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees of the Baltic and Nordic states spoke with a small group of journalists on Thursday morning as the U.S. Senate voted to advance a stand-alone aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. It remains unclear whether the bill will be able to garner enough votes to pass the Senate and House. 

A bipartisan effort to combine the aid with an immigration reform package was shot down by Senate Republicans on Wednesday evening after former U.S. President Donald Trump urged his party to reject the legislation. 

“Dear Republican Senators of America,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, following the vote. “Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today. Shame on you.” 

Dire warnings from European lawmakers come as Ukraine has stalled on the battlefield and Russia is making significant investments in defense spending and production. In the early days of the war, Moscow appeared to be on the back foot as its economy was pummeled with international sanctions and its armed forces struggled through a poorly planned invasion. 

But two years on, the Russian economy is projected to grow, albeit marginally, in the coming year fueled by a significant boost in defense spending. One-third of the country’s state budget has been allocated for defense in 2024, and arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock. 

“If we cannot manage, together with the U.S., to stop Russia in Ukraine, it’s a matter of time if it is a war against NATO in general, and that will be much higher cost,” said Aron Emilsson, chair of the Swedish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Emilsson’s Latvian counterpart, Rihards Kols, said he was struck by the lack of urgency in Washington about the war. “I got the notion that the war in Ukraine is something very far away, distant from the U.S.,” said Kols, who noted that by comparison, Latvian public discourse had been dominated by the possibility of a wider war. 

Last month, top military officials in Sweden and the United Kingdom warned their populations to prepare for a potential war.

Zygimantas Pavilionis, chair of the Lithuanian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, who has made several trips to Washington since the beginning of the war, said that the reception he and his colleagues get on Capitol Hill is “getting worse with every visit.” Pavilionis, like many lawmakers and officials from the Baltic states, sought to sound the alarm about Russia’s revanchist intentions long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Our argument is simple: If you don’t want another Pearl Harbor, you better listen to us,” he said. 

Ahead of this week’s visit, the delegation reached out to the offices of around 20 congressional Republicans who have to varying degrees been skeptical of U.S. aid for Ukraine. Just three offices responded, Kols said.

The visit follows a trip by the chairs of the parliamentary foreign affairs committees from six NATO member states last month who brought a similarly stark message. “The reality is the U.S. also needs a wake-up call,” said Alicia Kearns, chair of the U.K. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the Hill reported.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also in Washington this week and is set to meet with President Joe Biden and members of Congress to make the case for continued support to Ukraine. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, he laid out his case about the dangers of a Russian victory. 

“We have to do our utmost to prevent Russia from winning. If we don’t, we might soon wake up in a world even more unstable, threatening and unpredictable than it was during the Cold War,” he wrote. 

The United States has provided more than $75 billion in aid to Kyiv since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, of which $46 billion has been military support. Analysts have warned that a collapse in U.S. support would deal a significant blow to Ukraine. 

“We are not able to fill the gap if the U.S. pulls out,” said Ine Eriksen Soreide, chair of the Norwegian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, who stressed that there would be wide-ranging ramifications if Russia were to emerge victorious. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wins the war, it would embolden him; it would embolden China; it would embolden Iran; it would embolden [North Korea],” Soreide said. 

[beardedmrbean]

In November, Geert Wilders' stridently anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim party swept the Dutch elections in what the media called a political earthquake.

The magnitude of his win came as a shock to the center and left parties in the Dutch legislature. They jointly decided that "Europe's most dangerous man" should never become prime minister.

The Dutch are not alone in seeking an institutional fix against hard-right populism. In legislatures across the European Union, politicians are erecting a "cordon sanitaire" against extremism -- a red-line tactic to block far-right parties from entering governing coalitions.

It's hardly enough, but it's an important first step.

Coalitions against extremism rose to prominence in the late 1980s, when Belgian parties signed a deal to exclude the extreme-right Vlaams Blok from government.

The resulting cordon sanitaire lasted for 30 years and evolved from a written deal to an unwritten convention. But it's become more difficult to maintain in the face of far-right mobilization. Nonetheless, the strategy is being tried in other countries, too.

21st-century populists

In the upcoming EU parliamentary elections in June, center and left groupings of European parliamentarians, known as MEPs, are planning a quarantine strategy to isolate the hard right in parliament. The prospects of success for this EU strategy are far from certain.

In Spain and Portugal, beleaguered governments are turning to anti-extremist coalitions, too.

In Portugal, a new Democratic Alliance government has been formed by center-right and socialist politicians who are working together to exclude Chega, the far-right party that holds the third-largest number of seats in the Portuguese legislature.

In a deeply controversial move, the Spanish socialist government is even prepared to work with Catalans indicted for crimes against the country's constitution. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez apparently believes it's preferable to work with separatists than to turn the government over to authoritarian populists on the far right.

The weakness of this tactic lies in the fact that quarantine only deals with populists once they arrive in government.

Germany is practically alone in Europe in having a popular movement that opposes extremism in the streets.

Hundreds of thousands have marched against the anti-immigrant AfD. Even though the AfD polls at nearly 25% of decided voters and is predicted to win seats in the Reichstag this summer, it will be impossible for any established party to work with them.

Quarantine not a cure

Quarantine is always a half-measure. When populists win outright majorities, the cordon sanitaire becomes useless.

The United States, Poland and Brazil have elected populists. Establishment Democrats are trying to energize a lackluster presidential campaign by arguing they're the democratic wall against Donald Trump's MAGA movement. Such a tactic is a Hail Mary play in the polarized American two-party system.

Even so, Trump doesn't enjoy the benefit of being an unknown quantity for Republicans. Those who like him are true believers. The rest don't like him. But left-leaning and Arab-American Democrats are angry about President Joe Biden's military support for Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu's indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza.

That means the progressive flank could stay home in November. The winner will likely be the candidate who is less hated by voters. Pro-democracy sentiments may not have much to do with it.

Anti-populist efforts abroad

In Poland, Donald Tusk and his coalition are trying to restore the independence of the judiciary and expel hard nationalists from top positions in the bureaucracy. They may succeed because Tusk has the support of Polish voters and the EU bureaucracy.

Brazil's quarantine strategy relies on the judiciary, which has been more effective than the U.S. courts. Former President Jair Bolsonaro and leading supporters have been barred from elected office for the next seven years.

Even so, the upper and lower houses of the legislature are still allied with Bolsonaro and they're resisting all of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's major economic reforms. That said, the disgraced former president and key members of his administration have been accused of plotting a coup to remove Lula.

In Israel, the religious right holds a critical place in the wartime unity government. It has built a wall against the progressive parties -- a reverse quarantine. Even though Netanyahu is detested by a majority of Israelis and has been described as "the worst leader in Jewish history," he will be difficult to dislodge. The Oct. 7 Hamas attacks gave him yet another political life.

Democracy is also under major attack in countries like India, Hungary and Italy. The power structures in these countries make the quarantine tactic difficult, and all three have decades of struggle ahead.

It's always easier to build coalitions with a handful of parties filled with populist and self-interested cynics than it is to build a big tent of people who wish to uphold liberal institutions.

Revolt of the masses

Probably the biggest benefit of populism quarantines today is that they provide some breathing room to pro-democracy parties. How those parties use this borrowed time could determine the fate of nations.

In 1930, José Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher, wrote The Revolt of the Masses, arguing that spasmodic crises afflict all "peoples, nations and civilizations."

Revolts break through the political status quo as ordinary people confront political authority and bend the arc of history. In the post-Second World War era, citizens pushed for greater social, political and legal equality. The 1963 March on Washington, the Paris occupation of May 1968 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 are three such iconic moments.

Those past uprisings didn't destabilize entire societies because their leaders were not cynical opportunists using anger to create disorder. They had concrete goals to create more just societies. As a result, these movements opened the door to creative political compromises.

Sowing disorder

The populist merchants of grievance have done the opposite, hollowing out political parties that now work against the constitutional order they were elected to uphold.

Mainstream political parties are seemingly losing their capacity to build consensus and defend democracy against conspiracy theories on social media.

The legitimacy of liberalism hangs in the balance. Whether quarantining populism via coalitions formed by weakened parties will barricade the door against populists is an open question.

Many populists, after all, are highly organized, well-funded by the billionaire class and skilled at sowing disorder. It's going to take much more than a legislative lock on the door to shore up our defenses. But it's incumbent upon the courageous Dutch and others to give it a shot.

#nunyas news #they're bordering on fascism here #i used fascism to destroy fascism isn't the own you think it is

[girlactionfigure]

Jewish Partisan Fighter

Wanted Dead or Alive

Abe Asner was a Jewish partisan and veteran of the Polish army who used his military training to fight Nazis and rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

Born to a traditional Jewish family in Nacha (now Belarus) in 1916, Abe was raised in Lida, Poland and served in the Polish army. After Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Abe went to Lithuania, which for centuries had been a hub of Jewish life and learning. Germany invaded Lithuania in June 1941 and the Nazis immediately forced all the Jews into squalid ghettoes. Abe knew his best chance of survival was to find a place to hide where the Germans wouldn’t find them. Young, strong, and desperate, Abe fled into the forest.

Over the next three years, as his family and the other Jews were deported to death camps where most of them perished, Abe stayed alive by staying on the run. He traveled at night, foraging for food and accepting the kindness of farmers who sometimes shared provisions with him. Most of the time he was hungry.

With a group of fellow Jews including several of his brothers, Abe established a hideaway deep in the woods that became a base camp for about sixty Jews, as well as escaped Russian POWs. One of the few with military training, Abe became a leader of the group of partisans. (Partisans were civilians who fought against the Nazis.) He managed to obtain weapons, and organized attacks against the Nazis including sabotaging German supply lines and robbing food convoys. They also snuck into the ghetto and helped fellow Jews escape. Their missions were conducted under cover of darkness and Abe later recalled, “The night was our mother.” This scrappy band of militants were such a threat to the Nazis that high bounties were placed on their heads, “dead or alive.”

During the harsh winter in the Lithuanian forest, some of the Jewish partisans chose to return to the ghetto. Sadly, many of them were deported to concentration camps before they could escape again. Abe remained in the forest, sometimes barely clinging to life due to starvation and hypothermia. One day, he and his brother were foraging for food in a nearby town when they encountered a young Jewish woman who wanted to join them in the forest. Abe was hesitant because their small group didn’t even have enough food for themselves, but his brother made the point that if 33 people were going to starve, why not 34? Abe relented, and wound up marrying the woman, whose name was Libke. 

In 1944, the Russians arrived and liberated the area. Many of the Jewish survivors were drafted into the Russian army but Abe was able to avoid it. He was, however, detained by the dreaded NKVD, the Soviet secret police. Finally, Abe was released because of a law allowing those who were Polish citizens before 1939 to return to Poland. From Poland, Abe immigrated to the United States and then Canada.

The trauma of the war years stayed with Abe for the rest of his life and he suffered from PTSD. Despite his physical and emotional pain, Abe built a successful life in Canada. He was proud of his brave actions during the war and said, “We didn’t go like sheep. We did as much as we could. We did a lot. People should know somebody did [fight back.] People should know.”

Abe Asner died in 2015, at age 98. He was survived by Liebke, two daughters and four grandchildren. 

For fighting Nazis and helping his fellow Jews, we honor Abe Asner as this week’s Thursday Hero.

#Thursday Hero

[speakergame]

hi I've been obsessed with Speaker for the past 3 days (since I found it, essentially) and I must say it's so fun and I can't wait for more! immediately I became a Seb girly and then Li came in? immediately, I take both (especially since I did choose the option that I had a crush on Li, for the potential drama 👀) also Rory? I love 'em (I went with f!Rory and honestly, having a werecoyote gf? the dream)

i will not call Li a short king, but it would be funny teasing him (in my case) that he's shorter by 1inch

i have 2 questions:

if there is a situation where Speaker in nakey could there be a choice that they have nipple piercings? 👀 it's alright if no, just putting it out there, a food for thought let's say

are you Polish? because I am and if it's mentioned in any fiction I get extremely confused that people know about... well, Poland even if it's kinda big country xD also is Seb's mom Polish? cause you said his dad is from Hong Kong, but he knows the language

sorry for the long ask! have a nice day/night!

for your first question, there's a bit coming up later in chapter 4 that I've been calling "body customization choices" (it was originally going to be in chapter 3, but that choice section got a little too long so I moved it). it will include options for nipple/naval piercings, as well as other things like tattoos, scars, and clothing style!

and for your second question: no, I'm not Polish, but my spouse's family is. his great-grandmother was one of the most charismatic and charming people I've ever met, and I wanted to pay her an homage 💙 and yes, Sebastian's mother is Polish, she moved to the United States to marry Bas's dad, so she's only recently immigrated (well, about 30 years ago or so) and speaks Polish as a first language

#speaker game #my own family is heavily welsh and irish which is why a lot of the mythology I use in speaker is influenced by that #also the way james and lucia (bas's parents) met is very cute but that's another story

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt. Wuerker

* * * *

Trump's NATO comments reverberate across Europe.

February 13, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Trump's anti-NATO comments over the weekend have focused attention on US foreign policy commitments. At a meeting of the EU on Monday, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski reminded a reporter that the NATO treaty’s “mutual defense” provision has been invoked only once—to assist the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As reported in Politico,

Referring directly to Trump's comments, Sikorski underlined that “the [NATO] alliance is not a security agency,” stressing that NATO allies came to America's aid after the September 11 attacks and that Poland fought alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “We didn't send the bill to Washington,” he said.

Dozens of readers posted Comments and sent emails noting that it is beyond hypocritical for Trump to pretend that timely payment of bills is grounds for abandoning an ally. Trump famously stiffs every lawyer, contractor, service provider, and vendor possible, leaving a string of unpaid debts and collection lawsuits in his wake.

Many major media outlets continued coverage of Trump's statement, notably the NYTimes, which ran a front-page “news analysis” titled, “Trump Steps Up, Helping Biden Just When the President Needs Him,” and a second story highlighting Trump's attack on Nikki Haley’s husband, Major Mike Haley, “Defending Troops, Haley Says Golf Course Is Closest Trump Has Come to Combat.”

The thesis of the Times coverage is that Trump consistently draws attention away from Biden’s age by injecting Trump's recklessness into the political equation. Per the Times news analysis,

The stunner from Mr. Trump over the weekend not only drew attention away from the president’s memory problems, as detailed in a special counsel report, but also provided a convenient way for Mr. Biden’s defenders to reframe the issue: Yes, they could now say, the incumbent may be an old man who sometimes forgets things, but his challenger is both aging and dangerously reckless. It was not the first time, nor likely will it be the last, that Mr. Trump has stepped up when an adversary was in trouble to provide an escape route with an ill-considered howler of his own. Mr. Trump’s lifelong appetite for attention has often collided with his evident best interest.

For Mr. Biden, that may be the key to this year’s campaign, banking on his opponent’s inability to stay silent at critical moments and hoping that he keeps reminding voters why they rejected him in 2020.

But Trump's dangerous views on foreign policy are not mere campaign fodder. They have infected his party, which is looking for a way to kill aid for Ukraine.

As the Senate moves closer to a final vote on supplemental funding for Ukraine and Israel, Speaker Mike Johnson preemptively rejected the bill because—wait for it—the foreign aid bill does not include US immigration reform and border security provisions!! See The Hill, Speaker Johnson fires warning shot as Senate prepares to vote on Ukraine aid

In case you have forgotten, Trump ordered congressional Republicans to kill a prior version of the aid bill that included immigration reform and border security provisions. Because of Trump's opposition to immigration reform and enhanced border security, GOP Senators voted down the combined bill.

Now that the Senate is sending a bill with foreign aid only, Speaker Mike Johnson is playing the legislative version of the “rope-a-dope” gambit where the American people and Ukraine are the victims of a bad-faith delaying strategy. 

While foreign policy rarely plays a decisive role in US presidential campaigns, Trump's threat to abandon NATO and encourage Russian aggression deserves the attention of every American who values global stability. If Ukrainian soldiers cannot contain Russia’s expansionism, the next country in Putin’s sights will be Poland—a NATO member.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #NATO #war in Ukraine #NATO allies #MAGA Gop

[ugisfeelings]

In an article for Collier’s Weekly entitled “Exclude Anarchist and Chinaman!” (1901), immigration chief Terence Powderly sought to assure the public of the government’s security procedures newly installed in the wake of President McKinley’s assassination by a U.S.born citizen of Polish descent. What is the link between the two banned categories of the article’s title? Though “the man who killed President McKinley was born, raised, educated and trained in the United States,” reassuringly, “the teachings which eventuated in the crime are not indigenous to the soil of America.” Similarly, “American and Chinese civilization are antagonistic; they cannot live and thrive and both survive on the same soil. One or the other must perish” (7). While Powderly’ s reasoning is uniformly circular in justifying their national exclusion on the basis of an assumed foreignness, the paired categories reflect a divergent articulation of ethnicity and politics. Powderly attributes the rise of anarchism in the United States to the southward tilt in European immigration—away from “hon-est, homeseeking Germans” (5) and toward troublesome Italians. His objection to Chinese immigration, on the other hand, rests on its posing an “appalling menace to American labor” (7). As twinned foreign perils, “anarchist” and “Chinaman” express different crimes against the republic—on e political, the other economic. To put it another way, the dependence of industrial profits on the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor was at the time rhetorically diversified into a political disturbance and a racial contamination. It is perhaps not surprising that, in being condensed into political versus economic terms, white ethnics should have gathered a reputation for being undocile workers and that Asians appeared incapable of political action.

Yet, in being jointly named, “anarchist” and “Chinaman” were strangely made to share an apparitional kinship. Powderly’s regime marked the vast expansion of immigration policing, and those labeled “anarchists” or “Asiatic” were the primary targets of increased official harassment. These subjects posed a particular visual challenge to border policing. Just as the “alien anarchist who presents himself for admission to our country at an immigration station on the coast or border” (Powderly, 5) was not too readily obvious, a new immigration apparatus of identification and classification began to be deployed on the claim that Chinese individuals were racially difficult to distinguish. Thus, when Powderly defends his measures as the only proper and effectual “guard against the invasion of this stealthy foe to lawfully constituted government and authority” (5), the point could equally well apply to anarchist s or Chinese.

The notion of the enemy alien who is ubiquitous and invisible is, on one level, the necessary illusion of any national security discourse and a function of its self-legitimation. On another level, “anarchist” and “Chinaman” are differently invisible: seldom were Chinese and anarchists mistaken for one another. Riis’s “man with the knife” remains unseen until his moment of attack, but one can always tell from the outset who is a “Chinaman.” The anarchist blends into the “mixed crowd” whose Slavic and Mediterranean character implied a spreading political radical-ism. The “Chinaman,” on the contrary, presents an obviously identifiable entity. He is not at all concealed in the crowd; his obtrusiveness has to do with the fact that he always comes as a crowd. The anarchist signifies the modern crowd’s riot potential; the Asiatic signifies its homogeneity. The Asiatic marks the crowd’s outward appearance; the anarchist marks its latent capability. (pp84-86)

Lye, Colleen. America’s Asia: Racial Form and American Literature, 1893-1945. Princeton University Press, 2009.

#qq #colleen lye #america's asia #asian racialization #hot girls read colleen lye! #qq's zotero

[flowerandblood]

Hi, how is the situation in poland regarding the war ucraine/russia?

This will be a long post, so I'll put my answer under the cut.

As for what is happening in Poland, the Polish government and the Baltic countries are very strongly supporting Ukraine in the European Union arena, trying to support it financially at a time when the United States cannot reach an agreement on further military spending, and fortunately succeed.

Their situation on the front is difficult. It is turning into a war of attrition, but Ukrainians have very high morale, which Poles notice.

Many of Ukrainians stayed in Poland during the war, and Ukrainian and Russian languages are heard everywhere (because Ukrainians also speak Russian).

At the beginning, there was concern whether Poles would cope with such a large immigration and whether the society would not become discouraged, however, in general, the Ukrainian nation very quickly "blended" into the crowd, becoming part of the state, which our country simply accepted and still expresses huge support.

In general, apart from conflicts, e.g. in the field of agriculture, Polish-Ukrainian relations are very good, Poles are not tired and constantly support Ukraine in the war in every possible way.

When my husband and I learned that the war had broken out three years ago, we watched the news all day long for a week, sent money, watched our compatriots help at the border, welcome them into their homes, and we prayed that the Russians would not take Kiev, and fortunately it did not happen.

I would never have thought that something like this would happen in my lifetime.

I personally believe and hope that, as in the case of Poland, Ukraine will eventually liberate itself completely, join the EU and NATO and become part of a free, independent Europe.

#answered

[ask-the-hws-immigrants]

How long was tolys was with alfie and when did he get back to mr russia, also which household did he prefer ??

We'll just say it's not much of a competition, especially considering how I feel about Alfred.

**Historical Note: After the Third and final Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the majority of Lithuania came under the control of the Russian Empire. Although Lithuanians welcomed Napoleon during his campaign into Russia and rebelled in 1831 during the November Rising and 1863 during the January Rising, they were unsuccessful at gaining independence. After the November Rising, Russification policies intensified and Russia tightened its grip on the territory. In 1864, Lithuanian and the Latin alphabet were banned in schools and print. However Lithuanian culture and language underwent a revival during the 1870s and 1880s, alongside a growing independence movement.

Lithuanian immigration to the United States began en masse after a famine that lasted from 1867-1868, and immigration did not lull until the 1920s. Unlike Tolys, most Lithuanians did manual labor in steel plants, meat-packing factories, coal mines, and construction. As such, Lithuanians in the United States became very involved in labor rights movements and settled in areas related to these industries (New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc). Like most immigrants from Eastern Europe, they did face prejudice in the United States, but created resources within their own communities such as aid societies and newspapers to build them up and become more accepted while maintaining their identity. Many Lithuanians also promoted independence and supported home rule movements in their homeland.

#hetalia #historical hetalia #hws lithuania #hws russia #hws america #aph lithuania #aph russia #aph america #hetalia ask blog

[autogynocrat]

i once heard in a video i was watching recently that fascism is self destructive because it cant exist without some "other" to be against, if they somehow achieved their white cishet utopia they would just go back and say irish, italians and polish arent "pure white" or people with red hair or left handed people again...theres always something, if left unchecked it just swallows itself along with everyone else.

if lgbt rights were perfectly suppressed and there was a hermetic seal on the southern border preventing all immigration then the right would turn on each other for religious differences. right now most religious bickering is playful at best between Christian sects in the United States but if they did not have a common enemy to pacify them the protestants and catholics would be at each other's throats

#remember that it was actually controversial in jfks time that he was a catholic

[zedazone]

I left a comment on a YouTube video by Jessie Gender and nothing I ever say on YT gets looked at by anybody, BUT I think I made some great points about Christianity and white supremacists and stuff, so I’m importing that shit over here: Jessie’s extremely thoughtful and personal video essay Part 1 for context [watch Part 2 as well]

Just a small thought to add RE your incredibly valuable discussion of race at about the 23 minute mark- I think that a lot of what white people might be yearning for when they go grasping desperately for the  threads of their own 'cultural heritage' [and grab onto the scaly tail of white supremacy instead] is stuff that was largely lost due to the spread of Christianity and how it sought to culturally homogenize the 'white' experience? So-called 'pagan' traditions and cultural values were deliberately snuffed out and replaced with Christianity in a way that profoundly separates any modern English or Irish or Polish or Swedish person from any cultural heritage that is not just a part of  monolithic Christian 'whiteness.' These days we're seeing a lot of alt-right bros fetishizing ancient Scandinavian and Nordic clothing and magical staves [I hate every day what they've done to the Ægishjálmur], but those dudes are often neither Scandinavian by heritage nor sincere practitioners of these ancient religions [mostly by dint of said religions being lost to time - most of the artifacts out there have significance that can only be guessed at due to deliberate destructive measures taken by Christians who believed that they were snuffing out satan���s influence]. They don't ever seem to recognize that the colonialist spread of Christianity is to be blamed for both their alienation from their own heritage and their envy and resentment of BIPOC peoples’ frequently much closer connection to their own, and that it's also responsible for permanently obfuscating their native cultural roots. What's worse, they see Christianity as a vital PART of their roots, melding their own romanticized notions about what ancient Nordic culture and tradition may have looked like with the bigoted, monotheistic Christian sentiment that theirs is the sole ordained righteous way of being and living - the same sentiment that crushed their cultural roots to BEGIN with. It's not JUST that immigration to America  socially requires names to be anglicized and capitalism to be the thing by which their entire identity should be defined - it’s that the United States was founded by puritans, and that Christian dogma shaped the unspoken 'rules' of what American culture ‘looks’ like- white anglicized homogenization, Under God. So frequently, these men slide deep into violent, racist ideologies with the full certainty that their violence is morally justified and divinely ordained - it's frustrating and tragic, and I don't know how we're supposed to teach  modern white people how to have a healthy relationship with religion and race in this current sociopolitical environment, but I DESPERATELY hope that we can find a way.

#zeda babbling #topic: religion and myth and stuff #topic: sociopolitical commentary that is almost certainly an infuriating bummer to read

[femmesandhoney]

I think it’s completely normal that Americans want to know their heritage. America is such a young country and most people there know their ancestors were only in the country for 200-300 years maybe.

It’s a successful example of a country built on multi culture. People see themselves as Americans first, a unifying factor that was needed when the large immigration took place. Traditionally countries are built around people in the same area having a shared language, culture, history and often ethnicity. But America is built upon that common factor of everyone identifying as Americans, despite being of different cultures and heritage, with the different cultures in the background. When people of different background come together and they don’t manage to find a common ground to put before their separate cultures, that has been the source of many conflicts.

I’m aware this describes mainly ”white America”. When it comes to European immigrants’ coexistance with native Americans or the full inclusion of African Americans, it is not quite the same success story.

idk how to reply to this aptly, but i agree creating a hardened sense of american identity was very vital for america to even succeed as long as it did. from my recollection, prior to the civil war people did not really call themselves americans or feel that sense of connectedness to the states as some overarching power they connected with. one of the first usages of "the united states of america" was in a speech by lincoln instead of "these united states" etc. so you're not wrong that american identity has been heavily geared to national identity in an effort to unite a vast group of people.

this also involved creating a lot of unique traditions from the ones our ancestors had and "americanizing them" in many ways. non-americans would find it difficult to relate or understand (blank)-american culture and how its reflected in modern american cultural spaces everywhere. they just think because its "americanized" and unique to us now that its "boring" or us trying to like "steal" back stuff we already have? idk its so odd. they have a weirdly uptight view of their own cultures as purer and if any american so much as says their family immigrated from their country and they're curious about the country its a travesty 😭? like? calm down no american who's family has been here for a long time thinks we are actually like citizens of their country or just the same. linguistic difs too in how we often just shorten our heritage to things like "german, irish, polish, italian, etc" as a means to say (culture)-american, which means something specific to americans. like stop whining about how we refer to our own cultural backgrounds without understanding it its tiring.

#this mostly applies to european descendants as u said anon very true #i cannot speak as much for black americans but I think theres still common experiences in how we refer to our cultural backgrounds