South America Archives | South Seattle Emerald

by Josie Jensen and Jesús Zamora

The Seattle Globalist was a daily online publication that covered the connections between local and global issues in Seattle. The Emerald is keeping alive its legacy of highlighting our city’s diverse voices by regularly publishing and re-publishing stories aligned with the Globalist’s mission.

Indigenous peoples around the world have been fighting to protect their ancestral lands, languages, and cultures from being erased by colonialism for generations.

In Seattle, on the unceded territory of the Duwamish, Suquamish, and Tulalip people, there are countless movements for Indigenous liberation past and present. These range from the fish wars of the 1960s and ’70s to the Duwamish fight for federal recognition to movements such as Idle No More and 350 Tacoma that work to protect Indigenous lands from environmental degradation to movements calling for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women to organizations working to uplift Indigenous artists and preserve Indigenous culture such as the Duwamish Longhouse, Yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective, and more.

Similar work is being done by Indigenous people around the world. I got to witness these similarities in a recent trip to Ecuador where I participated in a program organized by Amigos de Las Americas centering Indigenous rights and food justice.

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by Kayla Blau

Colombian activists in Seattle are working tirelessly to spread awareness about mass protests in their home country.

Countrywide protests in the South American country were sparked in late April thanks to a tax reform bill proposed by right-wing President Iván Duque, which would have placed extreme taxes on essential items such as eggs, milk, and gasoline. The legislation would have hit working-class and middle-class families hardest, who were already struggling before COVID-19 hit the country.

Colombia is one of the most economically unequal countries in the world. A 2018 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that it would take 11 generations for a poor Colombian to approach the average income in Colombia, the longest time period out of all 30 countries in the report.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this divide, shrinking Colombia’s economy by almost 7% and increasing the poverty rate to more than 42%.

“I shouldn’t be forced to leave my country just for a chance at a better future,” Evelyn Carvajal, a Colombian social worker based in Medellín told the Emerald.

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