Date: 97-03-10 00:46:20 EST

WEBSITE AND PHOTOS OF THE EVENT ARE UP !

http://members.aol.com/tccsc/index.html (or directly to)

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~dhondrup/tccsc/menchu.html

March 9, 1997 (Los Angeles, California, USA)

TCCSC hosts 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum Sunday night in one of the most multicultural and multiethnic neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Pico Union, a community which symbolizes the diversity of the the most diverse city in the world, and also one of it's poorest. Los Angeles has been called a true "metropolis," the city of the next century by urban planners and sociologists. It was within this setting that the Tibetan Cultural and Community Service Center of Southern California (TCCSC) held what can be called one of the most unique nights in the Tibetan struggle.

For one night, the Tibetan and Mayan communities met in Southern California. What the neighborhood lacked in riches, it more than made up in a wealth of warmth and hospitality - inviting the Center and the Tibetan community to it's community. And the synergy created that night was enough to carry on and inspire a new reality where peace and justice could be possible.

TCCSC and the Mayan community joined together to host 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum. A simple Mayan woman with extraordinary will and courage to tell the world of the struggle against extinction of the indigenous Mayan peoples of Central America. TCCSC Board members Gedun Phuntshog, Laura Dhondrup, and Robert Dhondrup (a long-time Central American activist!), greeted Rigoberta Menchu, amid an almost deafening roar from the mostly Latino/a audience and the flash of the LA press corps. For many in the audience, tonight was the first time many had actually witnessed a Tibetan person and heard of the struggle.

TCCSC, is leading one of the most diverse multicultural and multiethnic coalitions for Tibet in the world, including Asian Pacifics and Latinos/as. Always one of the most innovative Tibet Support Groups (TSGs) in the US, TCCSC beleives strongly in laying the foundation for expanding the Tibet struggle to include strategies of self-determination and self-sufficiency of Tibetans while building new bridges for justice to other communities.

As a result, the synergy of the night where TCCSC joined Rigoberta Menchu is vital towards building strategies for Tibet. We must join and support other struggles as they join and strenghten ours. Only then could we all together build a bridge of peace and compassion to the next century. TCCSC has long advocated that the Tibet struggle include addressing the needs of poverty and immigration of Tibetans to strengthen and add to the well-being of our communities. It is the compassionate thing we must do.

The TCCSC website with full photos of the event are at:

http://members.aol.com/tccsc/index.html or http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~dhondrup/tccsc/menchu.html

TCCSC (310) 289-4302 - email: tccsc@aol.com