Note from the publisher.

While images of statues toppling in Baghdad lead the news, other important trends and actions are affecting people of color in the U.S. and abroad. As the word "homeland" takes on a repressive meaning, Francis Calpotura and Wendy Call write movingly about peoples' struggles to preserve ties to their lands of birth. Francis recounts his Filipino immigrant experience, while Wendy tells the story of the Zapotecs beating back Coca Cola's rapid encroachments on indigenous lands in Mexico. Sandra Lee's article about the racial debate in genetic tracking, along with Sasha Welland's piece about the growth of multiracial activism, remind us that race has no science to it, and that census politics based on "science" will aggravate rather than destroy racism.

On the cultural front, racist images continue to make comebacks. Karen Carillo's story about the effort to stop eBay from selling such artifacts, David Leonard's analysis of Yao Ming as a racialized "freak and foreigner" in the NBA, and Gabrielle Banks' interview with performance protester and cultural artifacts expert Guillermo Gomez-Pena. As we watch the start of what promises to be a long U.S. occupation of land in the Middle East, we have to keep disrupting racist occupations of bodies and minds too.