Organizing Ourselves: Drywallers\u27 Strike Holds Lessons for the Future of Labor Organizing

[Excerpt] In October 1991, drywall hanger Jesus Gomez complained to the drywall contractor for whom he worked that his check was short $60 for the week. The contractor refused to pay up the difference — and he felt safe doing so. He\u27d conducted business this way for years and his predatory attitude told him these drywallers, (poor, immigrant, Mexican, often undocumented, and without a union to defend their interests,) were in no position to challenge the status quo. Besides, the economic recession and construction slump provided added insurance against worker discontent. Unfortunately for drywall contractors, Gomez was more than discontented. He was determined to do something about this state of affairs. Gomez began to speak with other drywallers at their homes and at worksites throughout southern California, slowly fashioning the complaints and frustration into collective strength and a plan of action. When the group became a few hundred strong, an ultimatum was issued to contractors: Either you agree to increases in piece rates and other conditions by June 1, 1992 or we will strike

Lost at Sea: Introduction to Numerical Methods through Navigation

Excerpt: The ship, El Perdido, was damaged during a storm which knocked out its main and backup power generators. Before the backup generator failed, Captain Miguel Gomez sent a distress call and the crew have been able to keep El Perdido a oat, but the ship is adrift in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Thankfully, a US Coast Guard rescue operation is underway after receiving the distress call. The Coast Guard has El Perdido\u27s last known position and has mapped out the surface water velocities in this area as slope fields for longitude (x) and latitude (y), which they have updated using historical data and estimated predictions. Since the search grid is small enough, this curved region on the surface of the earth is relatively at

Algebra of N-event synchronization

We have previously defined synchronization (Gomez, E. and K. Schubert 2011) as a relation between the times at which a pair of events can happen, and introduced an algebra that covers all possible relations for such pairs. In this work we introduce the synchronization matrix, to make it easier to calculate the properties and results of $N$ event synchronizations, such as are commonly encountered in parallel execution of multiple processes. The synchronization matrix leads to the definition of N-event synchronization algebras as specific extensions to the original algebra. We derive general properties of such synchronization, and we are able to analyze effects of synchronization on the phase space of parallel execution introduced in (Gomez E Kai R, Schubert KE 2017)Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Maria Elena Gomez v. Essential Botanical Farms, LC : Reply Brief

APPEAL FROM THE FOURTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT UTAH COUNTY, STATE OF UTAH HONORABLE JAMES R. TAYLOR, DISTRICT COURT JUDG

[Review of] Americo Paredes. George Washington Gomez

Américo Paredes is a figure quite familiar to anyone who has delved even lightly and briefly into Chicano literature, history, and culture. His long and distinguished career as a teacher at the University of Texas and his excellent scholarly publications have insured that his name is among the first encountered as one begins to examine the writings of Mexican Americans. With His Pistol in His Hand : A Border Ballad and Its Hero (1958) is a landmark study, and his collections, A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border (1976) and Folktales of Mexico (1979) are significant contributions to the corpus of American folklore

Is it Fair to Criminalize Possession of Firearms by Ex-Felons?

Steven Gomez was being held in the county jail when he learned that he had been acquitted of the charges against him. Upon hearing that Gomez would be released shortly, Imran Mir, a fellow inmate who had been charged with participating in an international drug conspiracy, offered Gomez $10,000 per person to kill the six witnesses who were going to testify against Mir. Gomez reported Mir’s offer to the jail guards. Eventually, the customs agent working on Mir’s case promised anonymity and protection to Gomez in return for his help in gathering evidence against Mir. Gomez then pretended to accept Mir’s offer and, over the next three months, received detailed information about each targeted witness, was promised weapons to carry out the killings, and received a cash down payment from Mir. But, when the government charged Mir with solicitation to commit murder, the Assistant United States Attorney disclosed Gomez’s full name in the indictment. Shortly after he was released, Gomez was accosted by a man with a gun who accused Gomez of cooperating with law enforcement and insinuated that there was a contract out on Gomez’s life. The federal agents, the county sheriff, and Gomez’s parole officer all refused to take Gomez into protective custody. Gomez then started running for his life, sleeping at friends’ houses and living on the streets. After receiving death threats in several locations and not knowing what else to do, Gomez took possession of a twelve-gauge shotgun that had been stored at a friend’s house even though he was generally prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal law due to a prior felony conviction. Federal agents later sought to make contact with Gomez, not to belatedly offer him protection, but to get further help in making their case against Mir. After two days of searching, they found him at a friend’s house, carrying the shotgun. Gomez was later indicted on two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), one count for the shotgun, the other for the shells in it. Given his dire situation and the government’s refusal to protect him, Gomez sought to introduce evidence tending to prove that his possession of the shotgun was justified, but the district court refused to allow this affirmative defense. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Gomez, the court found that Gomez’s situation fit within the very narrow justification exception to the federal felon-in-possession statute. Therefore, Gomez should have been allowed to present his justification defense to the jury. Gomez’s case neatly lays out some of the costs and benefits of prohibiting ex-felons from possessing firearms, and the sympathetic defendant helps create an objective perspective and dispel some biases that easily cloud the issue of whether ex felons should be able to arm themselves. This Note will attempt to objectively tally up the ways that prohibiting ex-felons from possessing firearms both helps and harms members of society, using data to support arguments wherever possible. Data are not available on topics such as where ex-felons reside, their experiences as victims of crime, or their perpetration of violent crimes, so the arguments presented here will necessarily only paint a partial picture

On-the-Ground Literacies: Moderating with Media and Theatre to Embody Critical Pedagogy

My work is based on the work of Paulo Freire, and my current tasks come from the endeavors that Freire, Jesús Gomez, Joe Kincheloe and I did on Radical Love in the early part of the new century. Both Radical Love and Critical Pedagogy create my theoretical framework for critical activist pedagogy