Cultural Freedom Awards and Fellowships
The purpose of the Cultural Freedom awards and fellowships is to recognize individuals whose work inspires their communities, domestic and international, that are struggling to uphold and defend their right to cultural freedom and diversity. As defined by the foundation, Cultural Freedom is a basic human right dependent on political, economic, and environmental justice.
Recipients for 2008:
Bradley Angel awarded 2008 Cultural Freedom Award
Bradley Angel is an international leader in the environmental health and justice movement, working with communities to stop pollution threats and to promote pollution prevention, clean technologies and safe jobs. He is the co-founder of Greenaction, which works to address health and environmental justice issues within urban, rural, and Indigenous communities. Since 1987, Mr. Angel has worked with hundreds of diverse low-income and working class communities and Native Nations impacted and threatened by pollution. He has played a leading role helping communities win some of the most important struggles in the history of the environmental justice movement. Some of those victories include defeating a hazardous waste incinerator planned to be sited near the farming community of Kettleman City, California; stopping a proposed nuclear waste dump on land sacred to several tribes in Southern California and Arizona; and preventing a hazardous waste dump in Mexico on lands sacred to the Tohono O’odham tribe. Prior to co-founding Greenaction, Mr. Angel was the Southwest Toxics Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace USA from 1986 though 1997. He also served as co-director of the San Francisco Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in 1985.
Esther Chávez Cano awarded 2008 Cultural Freedom Award
Esther Chávez Cano is a human rights activist who addresses the horrific effects of widespread violence against women and children in Juarez, Mexico, one of the most crime-ridden cities on the planet. She has worked relentlessly to bring to the world’s attention the hundreds of murders of Mexican women and girls in the Juarez area. She has founded or co-founded several non-governmental organizations defending the rights of women and children, including Casa Amiga, a violence treatment and prevention center that has sheltered thousands of victims of sexual crimes and other types of violence in the border region of Chihuahua, Mexico. Services at Casa Amiga include psychological counseling, medical assistance, and legal aid for the victims of domestic violence and incest. Casa Amiga also educates the public on the rights of women and violence prevention in general. Casa Amiga is a model, both nationally and internationally, for empowering victims of violence. Ms. Chávez Cano has received many awards for her work in promoting the understanding and prevention of violence against women, including the 2008 National Human Rights Prize in Mexico (El Premio Nacional de los Derechos Humanos).
Isabel Garcia awarded 2008 Cultural Freedom Award
Isabel Garcia is the co-chair of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a grassroots organization based in Tucson, Arizona, that promotes respect for human and civil rights and fights the militarization of the border region in the American Southwest. She is also the legal defender of Pima County, Arizona. Ms. Garcia has been at the forefront of immigrant and refugee rights since 1976. As a lead speaker on behalf of Derechos Humanos, Ms. Garcia holds press conferences and interviews, hosts media crews, leads demonstrations, weekly vigils, symposiums, and marches to draw attention to the unjust policies and inhumane treatment of immigrants. She works to counter anti-immigrant hysteria and to change stereotypes and misinformation about immigrants. According to Ms. Garcia, “Immigration policy has been a total failure and needs to be changed. It has not prevented people from attempting to cross the border but has put the lives of thousands of men, women, and children in serious danger. Their deaths are the direct result of U.S. policy.” Ms. Garcia has received many awards for her work, including the 2006 National Human Rights Award from the Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos de México.
Malcolm Margolin awarded 2008 Cultural Freedom Award
Malcolm Margolin is the founder of Heyday Books, established in 1974. The mission of Heyday Books is to deepen people’s appreciation and understanding of California’s cultural, natural, historic, literary, and artistic resources. Mr. Margolin’s vision has led the press to be especially active in publishing works by and about the California Indian community. Heyday has published more than thirty books on California Indians and since 1987 has been distributing News from Native California, a quarterly magazine devoted to California Indian culture and history. Many of the existing tribes indigenous to the state of California were nearly wiped out, due to disease, enslavement, and institutionalized genocide. Today, while a number of traditional cultural practices and Native languages are on the brink of extinction, News from Native California has been a strong force in helping to spark a revitalization of California Indian languages and cultures throughout the state. In his role as publisher Mr. Margolin has supported the revitalization of Native language, dance, basketweaving, storytelling, and religious practice. Mr. Margolin is the author of four books, the best known of them being The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area.
Clive Stafford Smith awarded 2008 Cultural Freedom Award
Clive Stafford Smith is an attorney and the founder of Reprieve, a human rights organization focusing on the rights of death row prisoners and Guantánamo detainees. He spent nine years as a lawyer with the Southern Center for Human Rights working on death penalty cases and other civil rights issues. He also launched the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center, a non-profit law office specializing in representation of poor people in death penalty cases. As director of Reprieve, Mr. Stafford Smith oversees legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. Reprieve prioritizes the cases of prisoners accused of the most extreme crimes, such as acts of murder or terrorism, as it is in such cases that human rights are most likely to be jettisoned or eroded. Reprieve’s lawyers currently represent over 30 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. The organization also continues to assist British nationals facing the death penalty around the world, and is conducting investigations into “extraordinary renditions” and secret prisons. Mr. Stafford Smith has recently authored Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay, which recounts his personal experiences representing more than fifty of these prisoners.