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CA: San Pablo woman protests border vigilantes (in 4th day of hunger strike)
Contra Costa Times ^ | 4/20/05 | Shirley Dang

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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; US: California
KEYWORDS: aliens; americahaters; border; california; kooks; march4education; mexifornia; minutemen; protsts; radicalleftists; rats; sanpablo; vigilantes
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"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?"
1 posted on 04/20/2005 8:59:35 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
On the fourth night of her front yard hunger strike, Diana Ponce lay delirious

Only four days to delirium?

Wimp.

2 posted on 04/20/2005 9:02:14 AM PDT by socal_parrot (Doo-wop)
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To: NormsRevenge

Who are these "border vigilantes" being referenced in this article?


3 posted on 04/20/2005 9:02:34 AM PDT by nuffsenuff
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To: NormsRevenge
Now she's sipping a kind of children's Gatorade ...

Don't you get tired of wusses who proclaim a hunger strike and then consume calories. A "real" protester would forgo all food and water until the other side gives in or until death, whichever comes first.

4 posted on 04/20/2005 9:03:56 AM PDT by JoeGar
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To: NormsRevenge

Trying to figure out how she failed to connect these two thoughts:

"And I figured the government can't get involved if it's my own property," she said."

and

"How can the government in 2005 allow this, let people take the law into their own hands?"

The minutemen are on private property at the owner's request and other places where they can legally be. But she wants the government to stop them.


5 posted on 04/20/2005 9:04:26 AM PDT by flashbunny
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To: NormsRevenge

has the world been turned inside out or is it just my imagination?


6 posted on 04/20/2005 9:04:54 AM PDT by bigsigh
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To: socal_parrot

She was delirious to start with.


7 posted on 04/20/2005 9:05:59 AM PDT by martin_fierro (Chat is my milieu)
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To: NormsRevenge

Que sera sera...her life isn't anyone else's responsibility but her own. If she decides to starve herself, let her.


8 posted on 04/20/2005 9:07:03 AM PDT by TheBigB (Proudly annoying stupid people since 1970!)
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To: NormsRevenge
Were they sellng tickets to this "protest"? I would've bought one to show my solidarity with this so very righteous cause.

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.

Burn that flag-emblazoned blanket. That ought to help keep you warm.

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.

Viva La Raza!!

9 posted on 04/20/2005 9:07:56 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: NormsRevenge
"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?"

all of them with inalienable rights.

I suppose this woman thinks that only little Mexican-American children have inalienable rights.

But the Minutemen do not have the right to bear arms, to free speech, and to petition their government for redress of their grievences.

But the good news is that given her hunger strike, taxpayers are probably saving a little on food stamps.

10 posted on 04/20/2005 9:08:00 AM PDT by jackbenimble (Import the third world, become the third world)
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To: NormsRevenge

Where are the DUmmies? they could save her, they like to throw food.


11 posted on 04/20/2005 9:08:36 AM PDT by cripplecreek (I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier!)
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To: NormsRevenge

What a waste of resources.


12 posted on 04/20/2005 9:08:36 AM PDT by An.American.Expatriate (Here's my strategy on the War against Terrorism: We win, they lose. - with apologies to R.R.)
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To: socal_parrot

Wow, 4 days without food (actually not without noursishment) and she's already delirious. Hmmm...but I thought it was a painless and peaceful death by starvation & thirst in Florida. Must only be painful in California.


13 posted on 04/20/2005 9:09:12 AM PDT by rhc2000
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: HiJinx

A ping for the delusional woman staging a hunger strike to protest the armed vigilante MMPs.


15 posted on 04/20/2005 9:10:38 AM PDT by DumpsterDiver
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To: NormsRevenge

Looking at pictures of this woman, going on a hunger strike for a few weeks might do her some good. If you know what I mean.


16 posted on 04/20/2005 9:10:46 AM PDT by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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To: TheBigB
Que sera sera...her life isn't anyone else's responsibility but her own. If she decides to starve herself, let her.

And we better not catch anybody trying to insert a feeding tube.
17 posted on 04/20/2005 9:11:39 AM PDT by fr_freak
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To: NormsRevenge
"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."

I think her horoscope today says she should go visit a Dr with a couch (bilingual of course)

Or, she should have watched Dr Phil on TV.

So many nutcases, so little time.

18 posted on 04/20/2005 9:12:22 AM PDT by WestCoastGal (Ongoing prayers for nw_arizona_granny and TexasCowboy)
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To: NormsRevenge

"She refused not only food, but also water for the first two days of her fast, which ends Thursday."

Someone should tie a granny knot in her feeding tube...


19 posted on 04/20/2005 9:13:19 AM PDT by babygene (Viable after 87 trimesters)
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To: JoeGar

If she is truly a diabetic, she is really comitting suicide, because diabetics HAVE to have a certain amount of food a day with carbohydrates or they will go into a diabetic coma and die....

I say IF....because I am skeptical.


20 posted on 04/20/2005 9:14:10 AM PDT by Txsleuth (Mark Levin for Supreme Court Justice!)
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