Final Straw: Defending The Block with La Villita Solidaridad

Long running anarchist podcast and radio show The Final Straw brings us an interview with the Little Village Solidarity Network in so-called Chicago.

This week on The Final Straw Radio, I’m happy to share a conversation with Rozalinda, Pura and Lynn from La Villita Red de Solidaridad or the Little Village Solidarity Network in so-called Chicago, IL. LVSN, in the English-language acronym, is an autonomous community organizing project based in La Villita or Little Village neighborhood and networks with other residents of the area. If you’re listening to the podcast or online version of this episode, just an fyi that there is cursing, but compared to putting babies in jails which offends more?

In the first hour, LVSN members talk about organizing on the ground against Heartland Alliance, a 501c3 non-profit running baby jails for federal funding (they call them shelters) around Chicago, in coalition with the Chicago Catholic Arch-Dioecese. Soon, at our website, on youtube, spotify and other sites we offer a 2 hour version of this conversation, including our Sean Swain segment and LVSN comrades’ words directed at people resisting detention facilities around the country.

LVSN also speaks about the case of Jose, a young father who was in these facilities and faces deportation currently from Texas where his family is. Information about Jose’s case and how to support him can be found, alongside more info about the work of LVSN, on their fedbook page and twitter account or at their website, lvsolidaridad.com.

In an update to Jose’s situation, he has gotten a stay of deportation. You can donate to his case via the lvsn venmo (@lavillitasolidaridad) or paypal to [email protected]. You can see and hear Jose in his own words in testimony on vimeo talking about what kids on the inside experience noise demos outside and the sense of desperation of the youth inside. And here is another of Jose describing the experience of staff attempting to extract information about his loved ones by Heartland Staff, in particular how it’s experienced by children in the jails.