Posted on 04/20/2005 8:59:28 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN PABLO - On the fourth night of her front yard hunger strike, Diana Ponce lay delirious under the carport, fighting off the chill under a fuzzy blanket emblazoned with the Mexican flag.
Neighbors sat clustered around her on white plastic lawn chairs. Children smacked at a yellow volleyball in the street. Toddlers tricycled past fence-strung banners that read "Tenemos Que Unirnos" -- We have to unite.
Outraged by recent news accounts of vigilante Mexican border hawks, the 32-year-old San Pablo woman took to the streets -- really, her driveway -- on two lawn chairs pushed together. Ponce, a diabetic, is fasting there for a week.
"How dare they call us terrorists," she said.
She refused not only food, but also water for the first two days of her fast, which ends Thursday.
Worried friends and family finally convinced her to drink fluids. Now she's sipping a kind of children's Gatorade that her husband, Feliberto Diaz, serves her before he leaves in the morning for his gardening job.
Ponce can be stubborn, relatives say.
"Once she gets into a certain cause, she really goes all the way," said her sister, Christina Gastelum.
Earlier this month, Ponce read a newspaper account of the Minuteman Project, a loose band of armed volunteers gathered in Arizona this month to catch illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican border.
President Bush has called them vigilantes, but the administration has taken no action. The group is slated to speak in front of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus next week, according to the Associated Press.
"How can the government in 2005 allow this, let people take the law into their own hands?" said Ponce, whose father came from Michoacan. "Why do they need to be armed?"
Ponce discussed a protest with her husband and her three children.
"I told him, I need to do something," Ponce said.
She considered a demonstration at the border, but then took a cue from March4Education, a Bay Area activist group. Besides walking 70 miles to Sacramento last year to protest school budget cuts, members starved themselves in Oakland and Sacramento.
Ponce marched with them, but missed the hunger strike. This time, she saw her chance, she said.
She took a week off as a manager at Century Theatres in Pleasant Hill. At home, she built her lawn chair platform, piling it with red plaid and denim comforters.
Each night at dusk she holds candlelight vigils, occasionally filmed by a TV crew. She sleeps outside on the improvised divan, in a spot usually reserved for her 1953 Fordomatic, the barbecue or, on really hot days, her free-standing pool.
She knows there are more conspicuous places for a protest.
But Ponce said she wanted news cameras to show the world her neighborhood -- a tightknit Mexican-American enclave of families with children, all of them with inalienable rights.
"And I figured the government can't get involved if it's my own property," she said.
To her right, a statue of Guadelupe clasps her hands in prayer, wooden rosary beads dripping from her plastic digits. Fatima beams in a gilt white robe, a trio of doves at her feet. A bust of Jesus flashes Ponce the peace sign.
About 8 p.m. Monday, as Ponce lay weak, the mini-congregation lit long white tapers, saucered by red plastic cups to catch the wax.
Friend Lisa Ramirez began the prayer:
"Our father, who art in heaven ..."
They repeated the prayer a second time in Spanish.
Ponce gripped a pink teddy bear, the tag dangling from its left ear. Someone turned on the TV to watch the news, but there was only the mustache of Dr. Phil.
Ponce drifted in and out of sleep. Soon, her husband would light a fire and let out her dog, Vega, a pit bull-German shepherd mix, to guard her.
Through her homebound protest, Ponce is following not only her conscience, but the stars, she said.
The day she read about the Minutemen, her Gemini horoscope (after warning her of troubles with strangers, authority figures and traveling) ended with an edict:
"Help a cause you believe in."
True enough! Must be one bad barrio. ;)
"Ponce drifted in and out of sleep. Soon, her husband would light a fire and let out her dog, Vega, a pit bull-German shepherd mix, to guard her."
Here in my home town, Dalton, Ga., you never saw a pit bull until the Latinos moved in. Now it seems they're everywhere. I've, in the last three months, had two occasions where pits have come after me while out for a walk. I don't know what a small child would have done. This dogs were crazy. I've never seen dogs that, off their own property, would not turn and run when a human yelled, No! and stomped their foot.
vig-i-lan-te: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate); also: a self-appointed doer of justice.
When did vigilante become a bad word? I'd love to be considered a vigilante.
I may go on a Sharpton Hunger Strike this weekend.
Clam chowder, steak tips and a couple pints of Harpoon IPA.
That'll show the MAN I am serious!
WTH?
BTW, San Pablo is a s*** hole of a town.
I can't believe no one posted the pic until post 106.
It's all over the left-wing sites. The pinkos are not being very kind to this poor woman, either.
Since we are compassionate conservatives, we'll have to hold back....a little.
She not only participated in the March4Education, she was one of a few participants who were interviewed for a news article covering the event. The organizer of the march was one Cesar Cruz, a Chicano culture/reconquesta activist who. among other things, writes a column on the BrownPride.com web site.
Cruz also has a community education group, the Making Changes Center. There is a weekly class, Parent Organizing, taught by a Diana Ponce, with instruction on "how to organize and advocate for their children's education.". Also taught at the center is class on "Street Journalism." The instructor for the class is Raul Alcaraz, a student from San Fransisco State who is a member of the on campus La Raza group. BTW, Alcaraz and quite a few others from SF State drove in for the March4Education.
My conclusion: Diana Ponce is not just some random individual concerned for the rights of migrants.
If you walk where these killer dogs roam, carry a spray bottle filled with bleach or ammonia and let them have it if they get close. Some spray bottles can really lay out a spray that goes 12-15 feet. One or two shots to the face and they won't come near you again.
Thanks! I'll try that.
I can tell you have actually done this. A couple of times a year I fast for a while too. I don't have any set time, just however I feel. But it usually lasts a couple of weeks. Its interesting how much the craving for food is psychological. It is good to tell your body "no" once in a while.
Yes, that was KFI's John & Ken. The interview lasted maybe ten minutes. It was pathetic, but comical. Every time they'd nake a valid point, she'd reply with a weak "Yes, but..." reply - you know, when someone knows they're wrong but doesn't want to admit it, just agree then disagree. Once they finally got to what her point was - that securing the border is the government's job - they said that they actually agree with her on that, so what's the problem? She answered by ending the interview and hanging up.
It was obvious from the start that she had no idea what was going on with the Minutemen Project, except that she'd heard them called vigilantes and that's supposed to be a bad thing, and they had guns so they must be using them to shoot the poor Mexicans (as opposed to protecting themselves from murderous thugs smuggling drugs and people). Yeah, the more ignorant people we have in this country, the better off we'll be. In the meantime, I'll be eating the burgers she doesn't want to eat!
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