Another step toward PEACE & JUSTICE

At a time when their contributions to the movement are essential, the student activists who received grants from the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund this year promise a different world as they work to create peace, preserve our rights, and connect our issues and our communities.

The Class of 2005-06 Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, is an international law student at American University working for peace and justice in Palestine and Israel. Katherine Berglund-Schlesinger, an undergraduate at Georgetown, was involved in the campus living wage campaign, hunger strike and victory for contract employees. Ilise Cohen, a member of the national council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, is a doctoral student building the peace movement in the Middle East.

Our 2005-06 O'Connor Scholar Each year the Davis-Putter Fund selects one grantee for special recognition in memory of Jessie Lloyd O'Connor, one of the early members of the Board of Trustees of the Fund and a labor journalist and organizer. Many of us remember Jessie for her life-long commitment to peace and justice but we don't always think of the joy she brought us in her home, filled with art and music -- a respite from the long and exhausting battles against repression and war. Jessie and her husband, the author Harvey O'Connor, were glad to open their doors to the next generation of progressives and gave many of us the love and laughter we needed. Between strategy sessions and periodically intense debates, the O'Connors made sure we created music and told stories that lightened the load and refreshed the spirit. Few of our grantees have made us remember those precious hours as clearly as this year's O'Connor Scholar, Kristina Wong. Kristina, a performance artist, brings relief and humor to the social and economic justice movements as a Billionaire for Bush in Los Angeles. She has been part of the Billionaire's public auction of Social Security and teaches performance art to women and communities of color in Subversive Art and Activism workshops. She also created www.bigbadchinesemama.com, which exposes the legacies of racism and colonialism in the global sex trade. A 2000 graduate of UCLA, she is beginning a masters program at Goddard and will create a theater manual for community activists. Kristina -- and her amazing artistry -- makes us step back for a moment and laugh at ourselves and the world we are changing. We can't help but believe that no one would have enjoyed these moments more than Jessie.

	A. Lynnea Domienik, a high school leader in affordable housing, economic justice and anti-war campaigns in Cincinnati, is a freshman at Smith.		Desiree Evans, a journalist now in a masters program at Columbia, studies international human rights and continues to contribute to the economic justice movement.		Heather Gautney is a doctoral student at CUNY, studying the impact of World Social Forums, and is one of the organizers of the Left Forum.
	Kaneisha Grayson, a Texas native and undergraduate at Pomona College, is part of the Students of Color Alliance and is organizing a grassroots student newspaper.		Allison Guttu, part of the Radical Students of Color, continues to play a leadership role the fight for civil rights and an end to the war as an NYU law student.		Sora Han, finishing her doctoral degree, combines her research with her leadership in the movement against the prison system and its impact on women.
	Danielle Helm works in alternative media while organizing against the war, military recruitment and budget cuts at San Diego City College.		Elizabeth Hernandez, active in her union while organizing tenants around affordable housing and welfare reform, is in a masters program at the New School.		Alexandra Leader has a long history in labor and feminist organizing and is preparing to enter pharmacy school as an advocate for reproductive freedom.
	Camila Leiva, who grew up in the movement for democracy in Chile, fights child labor and builds support for economic justice as an undergraduate at Swarthmore.		Tatyana Margolin organized against sweatshops and globalization as an undergraduate and is a public interest law student at the University of Pittsburgh.		Federico Martinez, a senior at Evergreen State College, organizes for the rights of immigrants, building support and solidarity with farm workers in Washington.
	Josefa Mata is finishing her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas Pan American, and is part of the socialist forum and campus peace movement. ``		Fernando Mejia, son of an Idaho farm worker, is an undergraduate at Boise State promoting the rights of immigrants and economic justice.		Karina Mu–iz works with the Welfare Radio collaborative. A translator and photographer, she documents increases in militarism on the border while a masters student at UCLA.
	Christine Petit, a feminist, labor and anti-imperialist activist, is doing research into the role of women in the anti-war movement while a doctoral student at UC Riverside.		Alberto Ponce, with a long history in the labor and anti-war movements, entered UC Berkeley where he continues to organize for peace and economic justice.		Gabriela Reardon, in a masters program at NYU, was employed as a translator for Granma which fueled her interest in international solidarity and independent media.
	Irene Sanchez has been an advocate for public education, international solidarity and the rights of women while an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz.		Purvi Shah volunteered at the Miami Workerâs Center, interned at the Center for Constitutional Rights and is finishing law school at UC Berkeley.		Tamara Spira, a community organizer who has challenged the violence that produces prisons, drug wars and police abuse, is a doctoral student at UC Santa Cruz.
	Sarah Thompson, president of the student government association at Spelman, is finishing her undergraduate studies and continuing to organize against the war in Atlanta.		R. Hong-An Truong of the Southern Anti-Racist Network, Institute for Policy Studies and Hip Hop Against Racist War, entered a masters program in visual arts at UC Irvine.		Chien-Wei Tseng, an undergraduate at UCLA, creates bridges for economic justice across the lines of race, gender and sexual orientation.

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