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Ride Bike-Aid's 'California route' - from San Francisco to the Mexico border in 2008! Working with Global Exchange's California Human Rights Program, this route seeks to explore California by meeting with grassroots organizations and communities across the state and in the border areas to illuminate the intersections between free trade policies, corporate globalization, immigration and the criminal justice system. This two-week ride explores the beauty of the California landscape, while also exposing the harsh injustices endured by immigrants and other communities at the hands of unjust and racially biased policies. The ride culminates in a 2-day border tour that shows participants first-hand the militarization at the U.S.-Mexico border, and meets with groups on both sides who are working on immigration, labor, trade, and environmental issues.
Draft Itinerary:
SF-Mexico border ride
Preliminary Itinerary
Date City Miles
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Jul 23 S.F. to Costanoa 60
Jul 24 Salinas 50
Jul 25 Ed/Service day in Salinas 0
Jul 26 Gorda 80
Jul 27 San Luis Obispo 72
Jul 28 Lompoc 60
Jul 29 Santa Barbara 46
Jul 30 Los Angeles 95
Jul 31 Ed/Rest Day in L.A. 0
Aug 1 Oceanside 84
Aug 2 San Diego 50
Aug 3 Border Tour 20
Aug 4 Border Tour
Aug 5 San Diego Finale celebration
Some of the groups and communities met with on Bike-Aid California route:
Salinas, CA -- The Citizenship Project (El Proyecto de Ciudadanía) and Teamsters Local 890 - a labor-led immigrant community-based workers center dedicated to a new citizenship.
"We are dedicated to a citizenship that is active, deep and broad. Our citizenship recognizes the inalienable rights of ALL citizens of ALL countries, not just the United States.
We believe that these universal citizenship rights include not only participation in self-government but also basic civil rights, social welfare rights, workplace and other economic rights, sexual freedom and gender equality, and educational and cultural rights....and we have learned that our citizenship is not real unless we have the knowledge and the organization necessary to exercise and defend these rights."
Lompoc, CA -- Vandenberg Action Coalition -- a statewide alliance of concerned individuals throughout California and beyond that is dedicated to waging a nonviolent campaign of civil resistance at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) - which is located on 98,000 acres of indigenous Chumash land near Lompoc in Santa Barbara County. VAFB is the largest space command facility in the world and plays a primary role in U.S. military activity and global control through its satellite and missile-testing programs.
Los Angeles, CA -- Bus Riders Union/Sindicato de Pasajeros - a multiracial, working-class based membership organization operating at the intersection of mass transit, the environment and air quality, and civil rights.
See http://www.busridersunion.org
San Diego, CA -- Environmental Health Coalition - "EHC is dedicated to achieving environmental and social justice. We believe that justice is accomplished by empowered communities acting together to make social change. We organize and advocate to protect public health and the environment threatened by toxic pollution. EHC supports broad efforts that create a just society which foster a healthy and sustainable quality of life. "
See http://www.environmentalhealth.org
U.S.-Mexico border -- American Friends Service Committee - U.S.-Mexico Border program (USMBP) - The USMBP focuses on the defense of migrant human and civil rights, farm labor rights, and the monitoring of federal Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Border Patrol policies and practices, and other law enforcement agencies.
Tijuana, Mexico -- Casa de la Mujer/Grupo Factor X -- group of women, particularly union members and maquiladora workers, who come together to meet, organize, and improve their capacity to defend women's rights. They focus on labor organizing, workplace health and safety promotion, advocacy of reproductive health, and defense against domestic violence and other abuses of women's rights.
East of Tijuana, Mexico -- Maclovio Rojas -- Maclovio Rojas is a community of around 2000 families, with the majority of the adults working in the surrounding maquiladoras, facing unbearable conditions and health and safety hazards, making only $3-4 a day. The community of Maclovio Rojas has built houses, gardens, schools, and a community center on this land that they have obtained legal rights to, but for years the community has been involved in a land struggle with governmental authorities and corporations who want their land to build more factories on. But Maclovio Rojas remains unified in their struggle, and the community hopes it can continue to be a center for organizing for the rights to their land and their rights as workers.