Fundraiser Recap

We had a great fundraiser last week Friday! It was hosted at the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, surrounded by their amazing exhibition of community ofrendas! 

We raised an amazing amount of money, all of which will go into our bond fund. The YPRC Legal Clinic helps those wrongfully detained for their status. The bond to release someone from detention is often thousands of dollars, money that most families do not have access to. The Legal Clinic intends to implement a bond fund that allows families facing detention to be able to access money to keep their loved one’s safe. 

The Legal Clinic provides aid to anyone who is navigating the detention and/or immigration system. Not only will this money be a basis for our bond fund, but allow us to continue our efforts to organize free Know Your Rights and bond packet trainings for people facing the reality of the immigration system in this country.
YPRC members and their families provided some incredible food, including a nacho bar! Several MKE based performers sang, played, and rapped for our audience completely free of charge. We had the honor of seeing Tlaloc (TMI), Juxt Dame from Freespace and the Son Jarocho group Milwaz Talleres. 

We had a silent auction featuring paintings, prints, and drawings donated to us by both members and community folks. All of the work was incredible. 

As always, we were also selling our merchandise, including prints, t-shirts, tote bags, and buttons. 

Thanks so much to everyone who came out. For those who missed it, keep an eye out – we’ll be hosting more in the future! 

You can also donate at the link below! 

https://www.gofundme.com/yprc-legal-clinic-fundraiser

Legal Clinic Fundraiser 2017

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March to Defend DACA

Following Trump’s announcement of the termination of DACA, YPRC planned an emergency march and rally to stand in solidarity with those affected by the decision. We called for our community to stand up, be brave, and fight for the legalization of ALL immigrants. We marched to show our south side community that we were not afraid – ¡SIN PAPELES, SIN MIEDO! We have the power to fight back! We wanted to prove to ourselves and our neighbors that we are force for justice in this city and in this country!

Dacamented folks are now in a period of uncertainty and injustice, but those completely without papers have been suffering this way for decades. We must fight for the safety and liberation of all 11 million undocumented people!

The south side Milwaukee community clearly agreed with us – we had over 5,000 people marching with us in the streets to defend DACA and support the millions of hardworking immigrants living in the United States.

Legalization for all!
Absolutely NO border wall!
Protect immigrants!
Fight back against injustice!

RESIST AND FLOURISH!

Artist Statement: Legalization for All

L4A

Silkscreen print on paper

Young People’s Resistance Committee is a proud affiliate of the Legalization For All network (L4A). L4A demands genuine immigration reform for all 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. The L4A network is made up of dozens of organizations from around the country all demanding the same thing: an end to the political and economic repression of undocumented people and, of course, legalization for all – nothing less.   

Other central demands include: No militarization of the border. No guest worker expansion. Increasing militarization makes it essentially impossible for undocumented people to find work within the U.S.. The U.S./Mexico border is already overly militarized, resulting in thousands of unnecessary and tragic deaths every year. We stand against any measures that make it more difficult for people to find work in the U.S., regardless of where they were born. “Guest Worker” programs are a fundamental assault on workers’ rights. By definition, these programs allow labor rights and other necessary rights to be restricted from migrant workers, creating a sector of second-class workers inherently more vulnerable to dangerous work conditions. We stand against any guest worker program that functions only to further exploit the work of undocumented people.  

Artist Statement

Who Are We?

YPRC is a youth-led, multi-national campus and community organization that works for the rights of immigrants, students, and workers. We seek to increase awareness of the violence and injustices oppressed peoples face in this country by engaging in the movement all who are indignant to these struggles. We are students, teachers, workers, artists and activists who live and work in the communities we organize.

 

What Does Art Mean to Us?

As a completely unfunded, staff-free, grassroots organization, we understand that our best practices are born out of collective struggle, and our visual propaganda is produced using that binding principle. Everything we create has practical application in the struggle for our liberation. As working class people and oppressed nationalities, we are constantly working to dismantle the factors that have been forced upon us by the state; ideas that alienate us along economic and racial lines. Our collective approach to visual communication is a clear dissociation from the romanticized concept that art can only be produced by artists. We hold true that the sole requirement for  a “good” artwork is its representation of the people’s genuine needs and concerns. Through our work, we seek to empower, educate and engage the masses to join our efforts to achieve self-determination and build a society where all are free from oppression. Because of this, our work is a reflection of our common culture; of our common ideology as workers, students and immigrants. Art making is a form of resistance. The work we are displaying in this show emulates the diversity of our struggles while consciously representing their connectedness.

 

“…since culture is the human expression of ideology, the destruction of culture as an agent of resistance is imperialism’s favorite operation.” -Jorge Sanjinés

 

Speech: Abi Gonzalez

Good evening my name is Abi Gonzalez. I am currently a social work student at UWM, taking the semester off. Currently, I am a member of YPRC, mostly doing work with the legal clinic committee.

YPRC (Young People’s Resistance Committee) is a youth­ led, multi-national campus and community org that works for the right of immigrants, student, and workers. We seek to increase awareness of the violence and injustices oppressed peoples face in this country, by engaging in the movement all who are indignant to these struggles. We are students, teachers, workers, artists, and activists who live and work in the communities we organize.

As YPRC, we have three main areas of work. There is a UWM student committee, a summer school committee and a legal clinic committee. Over the summer, we were able to start a summer school. We focused on teaching our youth in the community about political education and the injustices that oppressed communities face. We met with youth once a week for 5 wks, and had around 30-40 students in each session. The legal clinic was able to host trainings and workshops over the summer,  on Know Your Rights and How to create bond packets for people to navigate their way out of immigration detention. We were able to help two people get out of detention by writing letters of support for their bond packets.

Speech: Isa Cortés

Mi nombre es Isa Cortes y soy miembra del comite de resistencia juvenil, tambien parte del comite de propaganda de YRPC. Soy chicana, estudiante, activista, y artista comunitaria. Y mi existencia como muxer chicana en esta institucion e universidad es resistencia.

I want to give a shout out to mi gente; brown and black and Palestinian sisters and brothers for living a life of struggle, and being resilient and embodying true resistance as soon as we walk through the doors of this institution and into these spaces. Thank you to the muxeres that made this show possible and to the spaces that they work so hard and fight so hard to create in this white institution.

YPRC is a grassroots organization, completely un-funded we understand that our best practices are born out of collective struggle. Everything we create is vital and is practical for the struggle of the liberation of our people. Our collective approach to visual art and culture is a clear dissociation from the concept that art can only be created by artists, by the elite, by the bourgeois, the owning class. We hold true to our belief that our art is by the people and for the people and that art in general should always be. Through our work we seek to educate and inform, and engage the masses to join our efforts and work to build a society where all oppressed peoples are free. Because of this, our work is a reflection of our struggle and our common ideology as students, workers, and immigrants. As we all know, art making is a form of resistance. All the work we are displaying in this show tells the story of the diversity of our struggles while consciously representing their connectedness.

YPRC believes in and stands by the narrative that our parents are the original dreamers, which is why we fight for legalization for all. It’s important for us to acknowledge that DACA was never enough, and that the “dreamer” narrative was destructive and highly exclusive. Our communities’ humanity became defined through the Straight A’s, polished students that stood at the forefront of the dreamers movement – but what about the dropouts, the mentally ill, LGBTQ and gender non-conforming people, the disabled, the poor, the workers, the parents – do they not deserve legalization as well? Those people are our heroes. They are the reason we fight and why we are committed to legalization for all. 

 

Voces de Resistencia: Contemporary Latinx Activist Artists

YPRC has excited to present our work in a way we never have before – off the streets and into the gallery. We showed our prints, shirts, banners, and burned screens to the UWM campus at the Union Art Gallery. Two of our amazing women leaders gave speeches about YPRC, our political work, our artwork, and our identity as a grassroots organization in the most segregated  city in the US. Check out some pictures from the show, as well as our artist statements and the speeches delivered by our members!