Raul Ruiz

Raul Ruiz

Template:TOCnestleft Raul Ruiz is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 36th district of California.

Background

Just months after he was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, Ruiz's biological mother died in the coastal Mexican city of Mazatlan.

The death left Ruiz's biological father deeply distraught, Ruiz said. It also led to his adoption while still a baby by his father's sister, Blanca, and her husband, Gilbert - who was born in Fresno, Calif.

Ruiz grew up in Coachella, California, and "learned at an early age that the key to attaining the American Dream was hard work and a great education. In the summer of 1990, under the hot desert sun, Raul walked from business to business in the Coachella Valley asking them to invest in their community – by contributing to his education. With each investment for college, he made a promise to come back home and serve the community as a physician".

The family came of age in a region as fertile with activism as the soil and vineyards that yield table grapes, peppers, alfalfa and other crops. The Coachella Valley played in integral role in securing better wages and working conditions for California farm laborers.

In Coachella "it was the Filipino farm worker strike of 1965" that spurred subsequent strikes across the state for better wages and rights, labor activist Dolores Huerta recalled earlier this year, days before she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Huerta and Cesar Chavez had founded the United Farm Workers just three years prior to that valley strike and had not planned their own strike yet. They didn't think their young movement was ready. It was the Filipino farmworkers' courage in Coachella helped spur them to action, she said.

Many veteran UFW members from that era still live in the desert. They’ve influenced subsequent generations of east valley activists, their legacy reflected in groups such as Lideres Campesinas, Pueblo Unido and Promotores Comunitarios del Desierto – a group that now features a group photo with Ruiz on its Facebook page.

He studied at Harvard from 1995 to 2003, did residency work in Pittsburgh, Pa., and then wrapped a final academic year in Boston in 2005-2006. Ruiz then returned to the Coachella Valley in 2007 to work at Eisenhower Medical Center.

While in Boston, Ruiz lived in Jamaica Plain, an historic Boston neighborhood about 3 miles south of Harvard Medical School.

Ruiz has a girlfriend called Monica Rivers.

Accomplishments

• Graduated magna cum laude at UCLA
• Became the first Latino to receive three graduate degrees from Harvard University – a Medical Doctorate, a Masters in Public *Policy and a Masters in Public Health
• Returned to the Coachella Valley in 2007 to work as an emergency physician at Eisenhower Medical Center, the Coachella Valley’s only nonprofit hospital
• Senior Associate Dean at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine
• Founder and director of the Coachella Valley Healthcare Initiative
• Founded a pre-med mentorship program, the Future Physician Leaders program, for students from underserved communities who, like him in 1990, want to become doctors and return to their community to serve
• Helped open clinics giving free care and health education to underserved communities throughout the Coachella Valley.

Overseas service

During and after his education at Harvard, Raul Ruiz also volunteered and worked abroad. He spent a year as a medical student with Partners In Health, bringing health care to the poor in Mexico. In El Salvador and Serbia, he served as consultant to the ministers of health on emergency healthcare reform.

1997 arrest

In 1997, Raul Ruiz, a 25-year-old Harvard medical student, participated in the annual Thanksgiving Day protest in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with the United American Indians of New England (UAINE), a group comprised mostly of non-Natives, according to Russell M. Peters, first Tribal Chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. The protest, called “The National Day of Mourning,” is an event that marks the continued misrepresentation of Native Americans during colonial times.

Things got out of hand, and in a sudden turn of events, the police handcuffed Ruiz and dragged him off to jail with a handful of other protestors.

Fifteen years later, that incident is rearing its ugly head for Ruiz, now a 40-year-old emergency medicine physician at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, who is running against Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack for her 36th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a post she has held for 14 years.

Bono Mack has taken to the airwaves with a pointed attack against Ruiz for his arrest back in 1997, portraying him as “one of the most far-left candidates to ever seek a Congressional office.” In an interview with The Desert Sun, Bono Mack said, “He led protests against the celebration of Thanksgiving, no joke … because he opposes what Thanksgiving stands for and what it represents. He even called for the smashing of Plymouth Rock a symbol of American freedom.”

Rally Against Racism

The Jan. 19 1998, Rally Against Racism, Plymouth, Massachusetts, was organized by the United American Indians of New England in response to an "unprovoked police assault on peaceful Native demonstrators and their supporters on Nov. 27". That was "Thanksgiving"- better known to Native people as the National Day of Mourning.

UAINE elder Sam Sapiel, one of 25 people arrested that day, opened the program with a greeting and prayer. He was followed by Danza Azteca's ceremonial dances.

Mahtowin, co-leader of UAINE, opened the rally. She pointed out that it was taking place in First Parish Church in Plymouth, which traces its roots back to the congregation founded by the pilgrims.

Mahtowin discussed the massive, unprovoked police assault against the United American Indians of New England and their supporters. She pointed out that for the previous 28 years, National Day of Mourning demonstrations had involved no violence.

Mahtowin reported that several elders who had marched with Dr. Martin Luther King years ago called her to compare the Plymouth attack to Selma, Ala., in 1965 "Selma, Ala., and Plymouth, Mass.," she said, "are towns on a continuum of racism and hatred and violence that leads from slavery and lynchings and massacres at the Great Swamp and Wounded Knee, to our neighboring state of New Hampshire, which refuses to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, to a tiny village in Chiapas called Acteal, where last month paramilitary forces massacred one infant, 14 children, 21 women (nine of whom were pregnant), and nine men."

Imani Henry of the National People's Campaign, a poet and actor from the lesbian/gay/bi/trans community, co-chaired the rally. One of the two Black women arrested at the National Day of Mourning, Henry spoke of the long history of solidarity between the African American and Native struggles, from the Seminole War to the government repression of the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.

Henry said of the media: "It is almost laughable to mention Dr. King's legacy of non-violence without mentioning the racist violence with which he was constantly met, including his finally being gunned down. Racism as systemic and systematic oppression is itself an act of violence."

Moonanum James, co-leader of UAINE, showed how the pilgrim mythology continues to be used to justify murder, theft, racism, repression and genocide against Native people today. He described current conditions on reservations. The crowd cheered when he called for freedom for Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners.

Juan Gonzalez, spokesperson for the Council of Maya Elders, saw links between the massacre of Indigenous people in Chiapas at the instigation of the U.S. and Mexican governments and the attack on Native people in Plymouth.

Larry Holmes of Workfairness in New York thanked the organizers for rescuing the struggle essence of Martin Luther King Day from empty platitudes and corporate co-optation.

Holmes said that instead of grandstanding and pandering to the right with his "dialogue on race," President Bill Clinton should investigate the police attack on the National Day of Mourning.

Other speakers included Brian Shea of the Disabled People's Liberation Front, Myke Johnson of the Unitarian Universalists, Anita Mukarji Connolly, and John Perry Ryan-a gay man arrested at the National Day of Mourning-of Cape Codders Against Racism.

Juiza Gimeno, a Puerto Rican high school student from Boston, said: "I was at the National Day of Mourning. I cried because it was so painful to me to see my people be oppressed like that. But this experience will not shut me down."

Solidarity messages were read from several chapters of the American Indian Movement, the Texas death row prisoners' group PURE, and Mumia Abu-Jamal. Chicano/Mexicano activist Raul Ruiz closed the rally.

30th National Day of Mourning, November 25, 1999

National Day of Mourning is an "activist effort by Native Americans and other indigenous peoples to tell the truth about the genocide -- still ongoing in some parts of the world -- which is erased by history books and holidays which celebrate the lies that we are all fed as children and adults".

• The introductory prayer by Sam Sapiel
• Moonanum James, Aquinnah Wampanoag, activist and organizer for United American Indians of New England (UAINE.org)
• Mahtowin Munro, Lakota, activist and organizer for UAINE
• Clint Wixon, longtime activist
• Lone Eagless, Mashpee Wampanoag (see Wampanoag history)
• Millie Noble, Ojibwe, reading a poem (sorry, this reading is difficult to hear at times)
• Juan Gonzales, spokesperson for Mayan elders
• Teresa Gutierrez, Chicana re Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Dr. Bert Waters, Assonet Wampanoag from Mass. Commission of Indian Affairs, reading a statement from Leonard Peltier
• Sam Sapiel, Penobscot, elder
• Mahtowin Munro on the plaques that will be erected as part of the settlement with Plymouth arising out of the arrest of 25 activists at the Day of Mourning in 1997, and on the Boston Globe and Herald articles that question whether the reign of terror carried out against indiginous peoples was indeed genocide.
• Raul Ruiz, Mexica (& Chicano), including reading of letter from Sub-commandante Marcos of the Zapatistas

The letter was to Leonard Peltier.

Teresa Gutierrez, a Chicana, demanded freedom for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Gutierrez noted that she had just returned from supporting the struggle in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and the crowd cheered again when she demanded, "U.S. out of Puerto Rico now!"

During the Thanksgiving protest read read a letter of support for Leonard Peltier, who had been convicted of killing 2 FBI agents, and one from,Subcomandante Marcos, of the Mexican revolutionary group Zapatista Army of National Liberation. The incident was used by Mary Bono Mack, Ruiz's 2012 congressional opponent, in her campaign against him. The Ruiz campaign denied that Ruiz supports Peltier..

Chiapas

Raul Ruiz spent eight months in Chiapas, as part of a medical research project while attending Harvard medical school, during a period of armed conflict between the Zapatista rebels and Mexican government.

Raul Ruiz, a medical doctor candidate for the class of 2001 at Harvard and a member of the Partners in Health Chiapas Project describes his experience in seeing the risks women endure when delivering babies:

Julio was wet from the pouring rain and frightened. He ran through the streets of Polho, a community in Chiapas sympathetic to the Zapatista rebels, to find Carlos, the health promoter. He explained to Carlos, in Tzotzil, that his young wife, Ana, had delivered their first child an hour ago and was still heavily bleeding at home. I ran with the student nurse to the clinic's poorly stocked pharmacy to the post-partum hemorrhage kit.

Ruiz continues to write about his horrific travel to the woman delivering the baby. He describes Esperanza's (pregnant woman) location as very destitute. After Ruiz and the nurse performed the exam and made sure that Ana was not bleeding, they left the house. This made Ruiz question his experience and wonder what would have happened if he hadn't been there. He says, "My stomach cringed as I asked myself; What if the nurse and I was (sic) not there? If she continued to bleed would Anna have died? On my way out I gave on a last good look at the house to imprint it on my memory forever."

As a Harvard medical student with a Paul Dudley White and Andrew Sellard Traveling Fellowship, I spent eight months investigating the use of herbs by health promoters in Chiapas during low intensity warfare. I interviewed several directors from non-government health organizations, doctors, curanderos, and countless health promoters from the highlands and jungle. I worked at two clinics and helped the organization, Equipo de Atención y Promoción de Salud y Educación Comunitario (EAPSEC) - a sister organization of Harvard Medical School based Partners in Health - train health promoters in preventive medicine and primary care. I wanted to better understand the factors that influenced health promoters' use of herbal medicine.

Since the cease fire agreements in January 1994 between the Mexican Army and the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, the Mexican government militarized Chiapas with a third of its forces and promoted the formation of paramilitary groups to terrorize Zapatista sympathizers. Julio and Ana are two of 5,000 refugees in Polho displaced from their communities.

Physicians for Human Rights documented multiple violations of the neutrality of health care. Health promoters concurred that the Mexican government cause divisions amongst community members by providing aid only to non-Zapatista sympathizers, use state police and soldiers to assist the Mexican Red Cross deliver medicine, and interrogate clinic patients suspected of being Zapatista sympathizers. Moreover, military and immigration checkpoints are located in strategic entry sites creating fear and limits on community members' ability to travel and organize. They also harass international human rights observers and providers of humanitarian aid, according to Physicians for Human Rights and local non-governmental organizations.

To avoid the risk of interrogation and harassment, health promotors see herbal medicine as a means to be independent from government services. One promoter said, "we need to be prepared with medicinal plants [and] train more people in other collective work in order not to depend on the government." Another questioned, "if there is war and we don't know how to use medicinal plants, how will we treat the indigenous?"

I spent eight months investigating the use of herbs by health promoters in Chiapas during low intensity warfare,” Ruiz recalled in a 2007 piece he wrote for Partners in Health.

Later, in 2008, he further recounted of the experience: "I went in romanticizing the poor and their struggle and issues with social justice. But I came out of there realizing the tremendous nature of poverty and how real policies can actually affect human lives."

2012 CLW Senate victories

2012 Council for a Livable World House Victories were;

Ron Barber (D-AZ), Ami Bera (D-CA), Tim Bishop (D-NY) Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Bruce Braley (D-IA), Cheri Bustos (D-IL), Lois Capps (D-CA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), John Garamendi (D-CA), Joe Garcia (D-FL), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI), Denny Heck (D-WA), Steven Horsford (D-NV), Derek Kilmer (D-WA), Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH), Dave Loebsack (D-IA), Patrick Murphy (D-FL), Rick Nolan (D-MN), Raul Ruiz (D-CA), Brad Schneider(D-IL), Carol Shea-Porter(D–NH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ),Mark Takano(D-CA) and John Tierney(D-MA)..

Chicano movement

The 40th Anniversary Commemoration Committee of the Chicano Moratoriums was formed in the summer 2009 by the Chair of the National Chicano Moratorium Committee of August 29, 1970 along with two independent Chicano Movement historians whom although not of the baby boomer generation, have become inspired by the Movimiento. The organization posted a list of significant “Chicano movement” activists on its website which included Raul Ruiz of La Raza.

External links

• Campaign Website

References

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