Former Chicana Activist Shares Her Favorite Tunes

Courtesy of National Public Radio

Rosie Castro was a Chicana civil rights activist in El Movimiento Chicano during the 1970s. She passed down her passion for change to her children, Texas State Representative Joaquin Castro and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. For Tell Me More's 'In Your Ear' series, Castro talks about her favorite songs.

New Stanford Mural Celebrates Latino Identities

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By Robin Wander

The Spiral Word: El Codex Estánfor, a four-part mural at El Centro Chicano, marks artist Juana Alicia's return to campus

Earlier this month, Stanford inaugurated its newest campus mural, The Spiral Word: El Codex Estánfor, at El Centro Chicano, the university’s Chicano/Latino student center. The mural was designed and created by Berkeley-based international muralist Juana Alicia, who was on hand for the ceremony.

The event celebrated the moment when the four-part mural left the artist's hands and was entrusted to the current and future generations of Stanford students, faculty and staff.

Juana Alicia's friend and poet Rafael Jesus González burned sage and blessed the seven directions of the Mayan tradition (the cardinal points, earth, sky and center) and then read his moving poem, Flor y Canto. He also shared poignant words about education and social responsibility with those assembled.

Student Cesar Torres, graphic designer of the mural guide produced for the occasion, offered his reflections on the work and senior Aracely Mondragón read three powerful poems inspired by the mural. The artist discussed her process along with the subtext, symbolism and deeper meanings of her work.

El Centro Director Frances Morales observed that since the installation last spring, the mural has inspired creative expression within the Stanford community, as evidenced by the poems and reflection written and shared by Torres and Mondragón (both from the class of 2012) during the inauguration. In addition, Morales said that some faculty members have begun to think of ways to incorporate a viewing and study of the mural into their classes.

Imagery inspired by literature

The mural depicts the legacy of Latin American and indigenous literature. The concept for the suite of four murals for El Centro was inspired by the history and literature of multi-ethnic Latin America, from the ancient stories of the Popol Vuh to modern Chicana/o poetry. California Poet Laureate and Stanford alumnus Juan Felipe Herrera named the work.

Juana Alicia was inspired by a wide range of literary sources including José Martí, Sandra Cisneros, Carlos Fuentes and Junot Díaz, "but more than any other author, Eduardo Galeano." She said his books, The Open Veins of Latin America, and the trilogy Memories of Fire, function as a subtext for the set of four paintings, most especially the codex.

"Each of the four painted surfaces [three canvases and one watercolor paper panel] has its own role to play in the story and in the space. This is one of the smallest, most compact and narrative-dense works that I have created. The challenge was to create a series of works that altered an institutional-feeling entryway into a sanctuary for our collective narratives as multi-faceted Latinos and original peoples of these continents. I wanted to create a space for students to find beauty and honor for their identities as Latin Americans at Stanford, and to create a place that both narrated our legacies and celebrated our cultural projects," she wrote.

"I also wanted the mural to create feelings of safety and pride and stimulate historical consciousness with regard to our evolution as a people."

An artist returns to campus

Juana Alicia is a familiar face on campus by now. She first came to work at Stanford in 1984, at the invitation of Jose Antonio Burciaga, and taught a class titled Mural Art: Enfoque Feminil. Students worked with Juana Alicia to research, design and paint the mural Mujeres de Fuego that frames the entrance to the Chicano/Latino theme dorm Casa Zapata. "Daniel Luna, Valentín Aguirre and Maria De La Rosa, now alumni, were some of the outstanding students that I remember still. The theme of the piece was an homage to the 'real women' of our culture as Chicanos," she recalls.

Mujeres de Fuego includes farmworkers, artists and revolutionaries rising from the flames of a burning Black Velvet Vodka billboard picturing a clichéd, busty odalisque, visible on many liquor ads in the barrios of California in the 1980s.

After the Casa Zapata mural project, she returned to campus to teach in the Yo Puedo Program for Latino high school students. In addition to teaching art, she has guest-lectured sporadically over the years in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the invitation of Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, professor of Iberian and Latin American cultures.

In 2006, Stanford approached Juana Alicia about creating a mural for El Centro Chicano.

The Spiral Word is the most recent of many iterations of Juana Alicia's relationship with Stanford’s Latino community and the culmination of more than five years of imagining, proposing, researching, negotiating and painting. The mural is the fulfillment of a vision to give a lasting work of her own original creation to the space that she credits with nurturing promising young artists, intellectuals and activists.

Stanford art Professor Enrique Chagoya praised the artist as a longstanding muralist in San Francisco and a role model for Chicano muralists. “She has murals all over the Mission District and one at the San Francisco International Airport among other places. I am glad she has some work at Stanford,” he said.

“The inauguration ceremony in November was not an end to the mural project, rather, it was an opportunity to hand over the murals to the community. It is a passing from my hands to theirs – a rite of passage,” said Juana Alicia.

--Stanford News Service

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Election Day Memories

 Photo by Ann Marie Leimer, Ph,D. Click photo to enlarge. 

By Jesús Manuel Mena Garza

It is election day. How exciting. I started voting when I was a child in San José, California. My mother could not read or write and would let me fill out her ballot. Since the beginning, in the early sixties, I supported progressive candidates and causes. In 1970 when I turned 18, I continued to vote for candidates who vowed to end the war in Viet Nam. 

Today, to me, Barack Obama is the culmination of many years of struggle. I could never let down the thousands of marchers in Selma, Delano and across the country who made his ascendency possible. On Election Day, now at the ripe-old age of 60, in the very-red state of Texas, I look forward to supporting a man I truly believe in, President Obama.

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Zetas Cartel Occupies Mexico State of Coahuila

By Tracy Wilkinson for LA Times

Few outside Coahuila state noticed. Headlines were rare. But steadily, inexorably, Mexico's third-largest state slipped under the control of its deadliest drug cartel, the Zetas.

The aggressively expanding Zetas took advantage of three things in this state right across the border from Texas: rampant political corruption, an intimidated and silent public, and, if new statements by the former governor are to be believed, a complicit and profiting segment of the business elite. It took scarcely three years.

What happened to Coahuila has been replicated in several Mexican states — not just the violent ones that get the most attention, but others that have more quietly succumbed to cartel domination. Their tragedies cast Mexico's security situation and democratic strength in a much darker light than is usually acknowledged by government officials who have been waging a war against the drug gangs for six years.

"We are a people under siege, and it is a region-wide problem," said Raul Vera, the Roman Catholic bishop of Coahuila. A violence once limited to a small corner of the state has now spread in ways few imagined, he said.

What sets the Zetas apart from other cartels, in addition to a gruesome brutality designed to terrorize, is their determination to dominate territory by controlling all aspects of local criminal businesses.

Not content to simply smuggle drugs through a region, the Zetas move in, confront every local crime boss in charge of contraband, pirated CDs, prostitution, street drug sales and after-hour clubs, and announce that they are taking over. The locals have to comply or risk death.

And so it was in Coahuila. One common threat from Zeta extortionists, according to Saltillo businessmen: a thousand pesos, or three fingers.

With the Zetas meeting little resistance, wheels greased by a corrupt local government, there was little violence. But the people of Coahuila found themselves under the yoke of a vicious cartel nonetheless.

"It was as if it all fell from the sky to the Earth," said Eduardo Calderon, a psychologist who works with migrants, many of whom have been killed in the conflict. "We all knew it was happening, but it was as if it happened in silence."

The "silence" ended in rapid-fire succession in a few weeks' time starting mid-September. Coahuila saw one of the biggest mass prison breaks in history, staged by Zetas to free Zetas; the killing of the son of one of the country's most prominent political families (a police chief is the top suspect); and, on Oct. 7, the apparent slaying of the Zetas' top leader by federal troops who say they stumbled upon him as he watched a baseball game.

"Apparent" because armed commandos brazenly stole the body from local authorities within hours of the shooting. The military insists that the dead man was Heriberto Lazcano, Mexico's most feared fugitive, acknowledging that he had been living comfortably and freely in Coahuila for some time.

"He was like Pedro in his house," former Gov. Humberto Moreira said, using an expression that means he was totally at home and could go anywhere.

The Zetas had such confident dominion over the state that Lazcano, alias the Executioner, and the other top Zeta leader, Miguel Angel Trevino, regularly used a vast Coahuila game reserve to hunt zebras they imported from Africa.

Since their formation in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a paramilitary bodyguard for the then-dominant Gulf cartel, the Zetas operated primarily in Tamaulipas state on Mexico's northeastern shoulder and down the coast of Veracruz and into Guatemala.

For most of that time, Coahuila, rich in coal mines and with a booming auto industry, was used by cartels as little more than a transit route for drugs across the border. The Zetas maintained a presence limited to Torreon, the southwestern Coahuila city that served as a bulwark against the powerful Sinaloa cartel that reigned in neighboring Durango state.

In 2010, the Zetas broke away from the Gulf cartel, triggering a war that bloodied much of Tamaulipas and spilled over into neighboring states. Coahuila, with its rugged mountains and sparsely populated tracts, became a refuge for the Zetas, and they spread out across the state, including this heretofore calm capital, Saltillo.

Even if the violence hasn't been as ghastly as in other parts of Mexico, nearly 300 people, many of them professionals, have vanished in Coahuila, probably kidnapped by the Zetas for ransom or for their skills.

The man in charge of Coahuila during most of the Zeta takeover was Moreira, the former governor. After five years in office, he left the position a year ahead of schedule, in early 2011, to assume the national leadership of the Institutional Revolutionary Party on the eve of its triumphant return to presidential power after more than a decade.

But scandal followed Moreira, including a debt of more than $3 million he had saddled Coahuila with, allegedly from fraudulent loans. He was eventually forced to quit the PRI leadership, dashing what many thought to be his presidential aspirations.

Tragedy followed when Moreira's son Jose Eduardo was shot twice in the head execution-style in the Coahuila town of Acuna early last month. Investigators believe that most of the Acuna police department turned Jose Eduardo over to the Zetas as a reprisal for the killing of a nephew of Trevino. The police chief was arrested.

Killing the son of a former governor — and nephew of the current one, Humberto's brother Ruben — was a rare strike by drug traffickers into the heart of Mexico's political elite.

In mourning, Humberto Moreira gave a series of remarkably candid interviews in which he accused entrepreneurs from Coahuila's mining sector of sharing the wealth with top drug traffickers who in turn used the money to buy weapons and pay off their troops. They killed his son, he said.

Mining in Coahuila is huge and notoriously dangerous, with companies routinely flouting safety regulations and workers dying in explosions and accidents. The depth to which drug traffickers have penetrated the industry is being investigated by federal authorities.

The question on the minds of many Mexicans was: If Moreira was so aware of criminal penetration, why didn't he stop it?

Critics suggest that during his tenure, he was happy to turn a blind eye to the growth of the Zetas as long as he could pursue his business and political interests. He denies that now and says fighting organized crime was up to the federal government; the federal government blames state officials, in Coahuila and elsewhere, for coddling the drug lords.

"The northern governors have long cut deals with the cartels that operate in their domains. The pattern in the north is cooperation," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico scholar at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., who has written extensively on the Zetas and Mexican issues.

"The Coahuila police are among the most corrupt in all Mexico."

The extent to which the Zetas' tentacles had penetrated state government became clear this year when federal authorities discovered a protection racket that dated well into

Humberto Moreira's administration and was led by none other than the brother of the state attorney general. According to the federal investigation, he and 10 other state officials were being paid roughly $60,000 a month by the Zetas to leak information to the gang.

The nearly 3 million residents of Coahuila, meanwhile, find ways to survive and accommodate.

In rural areas where the Zetas are most commonly seen on the streets, people have learned to be mute and blind. In cities such as Saltillo, they change their habits, don't go out at night, send their children to school in other cities.

A businessman whose family has lived here for generations said, "We are in a state of war, without realizing when or how we got there."

wilkinson@latimes.com

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Chicana Literature, Creative Arts Scholar Named Tomás Rivera Chair

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By Bettye Miller for UCR Today

Theater professor Tiffany Ana López , the granddaughter of migrant farmworkers, fills chair honoring UC Riverside’s fourth chancellor

Fleeing an abusive home and on her own at age 15, Tiffany Ana López planned a career as a Burger King franchise owner. The life of a scholar was unimaginable. But a series of mentors — high school teachers, community college instructors and a Latina poet at Cal State Sacramento — encouraged her to dream big.

López, now a professor of theater at the University of California, Riverside, has been named the Tomás Rivera Chair in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. She becomes the second scholar to hold the prestigious endowed chair at UC Riverside, succeeding Juan Felipe Herrera, who has held the position since 2005. Gov. Jerry Brown named Herrera the California Poet Laureate in March, a two-year appointment that will take the Latino poet into classrooms and community centers throughout the state.

“I am incredibly proud to be honored in this way,” said López, a longtime admirer of Rivera for his creativity as a poet and author, his scholarship and his administrative leadership. “When you’re an endowed chair you’re a living memorial. Like Tomás Rivera I feel duty-bound to serve the public by emphasizing that students finish their degrees and have a sense about what they want to do to change the world when they leave the university. Our students represent passion, hope and the future.”

Rivera was UC Riverside’s fourth chancellor, serving from 1979 until his death after a heart attack in 1984. Rivera was the first Hispanic and first minority chancellor in the UC system. The endowed chair, funded by Rivera’s family and other donors, provides financial support for teaching and research to a senior faculty member. The chair-holder also coordinates the annual Tomás Rivera Conference.

In announcing the appointment of López, Stephen Cullenberg, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, said, “Tomás Rivera was a world-class poet, author, scholar and administrator. Tiffany Lopez’s record of creativity, scholarship and administration make her a perfect fit for the Tomás Rivera endowed chair. She brings passion, sensitivity and deep knowledge to every project she engages. We are looking forward to the many new and exciting projects she will develop while she holds the Tomás Rivera chair.”

López joined the UCR English department in 1995 as the university’s first specialist in Chicana/o literature. She currently is a professor in the Department of Theatre. Her research focuses on issues of trauma and violence and the ways that theater, literature and art provide avenues for personal healing, community building and social change.

“I left home to escape horrific domestic violence and the violence of poverty,” she explained. “I try to help students develop a vocabulary to talk about issues that impact all of us. That empowers them to be more present with their work and their goals, and enables them to be better students and understand their own histories.”

The granddaughter of migrant farmworkers and the first in her family to attend college, Lopez describes herself as “an accidental academic.”

A Burger King restaurant manager at age 16, the future she envisioned entailed earning an A.A. degree so she could become a franchisee. Three instructors at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento encouraged her to transfer to California State University, Sacramento to earn her bachelor’s degree instead.

She enrolled in a program for students who showed promise and were at-risk, and found a mentor in the English department, Chicana poet Olivia Castellano.

“She created employment for me and transitioned my frame of reference to an institution of higher learning,” Lopez said. “She involved me in a program tutoring families of migrant farmworkers in English composition. She was a poet who trained me to become a professor of literature and to understand the transformative nature of education, and instilled in me the need to understand what it means to be an artist.”

After completing her bachelor’s degree at CSU Sacramento, Lopez spent a year participating in creative writing workshops with foundational Chicano literary figures such as Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo and Rudolfo Anaya. She went on to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at UC Santa Barbara, where she edited  an anthology, “Growing Up Chicana/o” (William Morrow & Co., 1993), which Publishers Weekly praised as 20 stories that “affirm the potency of Chicano literature.”

Since then, López has edited Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (2005-2012) and has published numerous essays, articles, chapters and reviews in books and journals, including Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, “Prose and Cons: Essays on Prison Literature in the United States,” “Ethnic Literary Traditions in American Children’s Literature” and “The Blackwell Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama.” She is completing a book project, “The Alchemy of Blood,” about art as a form of engaging with issues of trauma and violence, and collaborating on a biography with visual artist Barbara Carrasco.

She was a Fulbright Scholar to Spain in 2004 and has received grants from the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation for her work on intellectual diversity and the creative arts. As a community artist, López has collaborated with theaters such as The Mark Taper Forum, The Latino Theater Company, and Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble; and is an ensemble member of Company of Angels. She is a faculty advisory board member for the Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts and a member of a Mellon working group on medical narratives. She is a member of Campus Women Lead and the National Advisory Board of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social.

At UCR she has participated in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences First Year Experience Program and the Mentoring Summer Research Internship Program. She was recognized for her work with students by a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research in 2009.

López said she has spent her career trying to pass on to her students what she gained from her education and how to live a life of vision and promise.

“I see myself in my students,” she said. “I understand what they are searching for in terms of a mentor and a language to better navigate not only their work at the university but also their lives. It’s not just about getting them through the subject matter or a degree. It’s what Tomás Rivera talked about in ‘And the Earth Did Not Devour Him’ — the seed of love in the darkness. At UCR we are sowing seeds.”

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Poet Lorna Dee Cervantes needs a home to live and work!

In her own words...

In the Fall of 2007 I resigned from my 19 year tenured position at CU Boulder as Associate Professor of English in order to return to San Francisco following the death of my father, the artist Luis Cervantes, in on order to help out with the family community arts business, Precita Eyes Muralists Center in The Mission District and found the Mission Poetry Center near where I was born and my father lived. I had divorced and we planned to sell our house. Go this website to help

Then the economy tanked, hitting California higher education hard. Jobs for me at UC Berkeley and Santa Cruz were affected by the hiring freeze and I was soon laid off from my adjunct teaching job at SFSU in Ethnic Studies.

I resigned from my position in order to cash in what I could of my retirement to buy a prefab house on a mobile home lot in Pacifica. It seemed like the ideal retirement/housing solution and the only affordable option for myself and my adolescent son in the Bay Area. In a case yet to be litigated, I lost the house to the lot owners and their lawyer who were pressuring me to sell to them and forcibly evicted during the school year.

I am now essentially homeless, but staying with a good friend in a tiny 1 bedroom in Berkeley while storing my stuff in 3 locations not including Boulder where my son, now 18 lives and attends high school without me. I need just enough cash to tide me over until next Fall when I'm sure I'll be teaching again at my level. (I don't use or have credit cards.) I need first and last month's rent plus deposit and moving expenses as I don't drive which makes it much harder and more expense for me without a place and spread out across the Bay. Any donation you can spare at this time will be noted and repaid in some way or another when I am able.

I really need a place to work and most importantly to organize my files: a home. It has been difficult to work and apply for teaching jobs or even keep up my reading schedule and I have lost jobs reading my poetry as I've been without internet access or phone service in order to return contracts and forms; even my calendar and agenda book is locked up in a storage unit I haven't had access to yet.

So any help you can give will be much appreciated in this dire time. I feel place-poor but poetry-rich, and as soon as I can set up my printers and scanners and computers I can share some of my many writing and other projects with you. For over a dozen years I was a publisher/editor/printer of an independent press, MANGO Publications and published the first work of many of the Chicana/o, Latina/o and other writers of color and "experience" such as Sandra Cisneros, Alberto Rios, Jimmy Santiago Baca, James Brown, Ray Gonzalez, Ana Castillo, Luis Urrea, Sherman Alexie and others: all with the clause "All rights revert back to author upon publication."

Please help pass this page around and email this url to friends of yours and mine who may be able to help. I know many people teach and have taught my work. The sooner I have a place to work again, the sooner I'll have work to sell. I have a new book of poetry due from Wings Press next Spring, SUEÑO: 30-Something Of The Cruelest and I've been finishing a young adult book set in The Mission as well as my novel and two screenplays. I also have several other poetry manuscripts and non-fiction projects.

If you know me, you know I'm private and proud, and I don't ask for favors or money. Now I am asking. Maybe you or someone you know has a sublet or housesit situation in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, preferably for a year or more; that would help a lot! I'm counting every nickle to pay my phone and storage.

Sincerely,

Lorna Dee Cervantes
Poet, Professor, Philosopher, Publisher, Editor, Printer

http://www.pleasefund.com/pages/5743

DSLR Camera and Lens Combo Mambo

I am in the process of deciding what new DSLR and lens combo to buy. There are so many choices out there. What do you recommend for street, landscape and travel photography? What camera and lens combo  makes sense to you?

Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino call on congress to join bipartisan effort to pass Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act

FRIENDS update community and national leaders during 35th Annual CHCI Policy Conference

Last Wednesday, the Friends of the American Latino Museum (FRIENDS), a 501(c)(3) created to push forward the American Latino Museum initiative, hosted its annual reception in conjunction with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s (CHCI) 2012 Public Policy Conference. With sponsorship from CHCI, FRIENDS gathered Board members, Congressional leaders, administration officials, policy makers, and museum supporters to discuss the museum’s legislative progress and FRIENDS community engagement efforts.

Legislation to designate a location for the museum on the National Mall, the Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act, is still pending in Congress, yet grassroots support has remained strong and continues to build steadily. Through a combined effort of social media and direct community engagement, FRIENDS have amassed a base of over 300,000 fans, followers, and supporters of the cause. In addition, the FRIENDS have amassed a bipartisan list of over 50 members of the House and Senate who support the museum initiative. That list will continue to be a focus for the remainder of the year with the goal of hitting 100 members of Congress.

FRIENDS used the event to call Washington’s political leaders to action. Passing the Smithsonian American Latino Museum Act would designate space along the National Mall to the project and create a landmark to the culture and contributions of the Latino community to the founding and strengthening of our nation.

“This event is another exciting milestone in the journey toward an American Latino Museum,” said Jonathan Yorba, chair of FRIENDS. “We call on members of the House and Senate to support the museum legislation, and we call on all Americans who support this project to join our effort on our website or social networks. An historic achievement like this one does not come quickly or easily, but through the hard work of our supporters, this museum is closer than ever to becoming a reality.”

Eduardo Diaz the Director of the Smithsonian Latino Center stands next to photographer Jesus Manuel Mena Garza.

The reception featured the historic photographs of Jesus Manuel Mena Garza, The Chicano Photographer is known for documenting movements and leaders like Cesar Chavez and Corky Gonzales that empowered the Latino community over the last few decades. Garza made remarks during the reception noting that despite being approached by other cultural institutions, he is “holding out for a National American Latino Museum to show case my work.” Attendees of the reception also received the 2012 American Latino Museum Campaign Poster, the contest-winning poster created by the Latino-owned firm, UNO Branding found here.

Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino (www.americanlatinomuseum.org)
Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, Inc., a 501(c)(3) incorporated in Washington, D.C., strives to create a museum in our nation’s capital to educate, inspire and encourage respect and understanding of the richness and diversity of the American Latino experience within the U.S. and its territories by highlighting the contributions made by Latino leaders, pioneers and communities to the American way of life.

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The National Museum of the American Latino

One of Jesús Manuel Mena Garza's photos on exhibit next week at the Ronald Reagan Building promoting the National Museum of the American Latino. See you there.

Click photo to enlarge

Jesús Manuel Mena Garza will exhibit his photographs and speak at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gathering in Washington D.C. on Sept. 12, 2012. Garza will clarify CHCI’s work with the Smithsonian Latino Center and its efforts to celebrate the cultural richness and diversity of the Latino community. The photographer will underline the need for a physical home on the National Mall for a Museum of the Latino. The photographs on display at the Ronald Reagan Building were captured from 1970 to 1975. During this period, Garza took intimate photographs of Chicano icons César E. Chávez, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles and others. The photographs provide a retrospective glimpse from the unique perspective of the photojournalist and activist. Midwestern State University Professor Dr. Ann Marie Leimer adds, “During the past decades, Garza has extensively published and exhibited several documentary photographic series. The Chicano Photographer series explores important aspects of the American experience, historic events and cultural practices often marginalized by the dominant culture.” Photographs from the series are in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, various universities and have been published in journals and books. The Chicano Photographer series and press kit can be accessed at Garza’s website, www.jmmgarza.com. Contact: Ann Marie Leimer, Ph.D., (940) 397-4264, ann.leimer@mwsu.edu

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Cheech Marin Brings Chicano Art to the Hamptons

By Nicole B. Brewer for Hamptons.com
Photo supplied by Cheech Marin


Known the world over as half of the iconic comedy team Cheech & Chong, Cheech Marin is a renaissance man who has transcended his career as an actor to become a children's book author, comedian, director, and renowned Chicano art collector. A week before his first scheduled visit to the Hamptons for ArtHamptons (July 13-15, 2012) I caught up with Cheech who was relaxing and enjoying a day off with his family in Los Angeles but eagerly looking forward to the visit, with a laugh he said, "I can't wait to get there!" Chicano art is close to his heart and at ArtHamptons Cheech will be, "Curating a gallery there and showing some Chicano art. The work is really great! I want to introduce Chicano art to the East Coast Hamptons crowd."

Unlike many other celebrities I've interviewed he answered his own cell phone on the first ring with a friendly voice and his famous sense of humor. He was the Cheech I had hoped to speak to, the easy going guy I knew from movies, his comedy performances, and television. We spoke about his career, dear friend Tommy Chong's battle with cancer, upcoming Birthday Bash sponsored by Hamptons.com, and his amazing art collection that began nearly 30 years ago. Cheech even took time for questions posed by the Hamptons.com Facebook Fans.

NBB: How do you define Chicano art?

CM: Ha! It comes with a side of beans and salsa. A Chicano artist takes the experience of being a Chicano, whether it's historical or sociological or class or gender, and puts his or her point of view together. To put on canvas the experience of being Chicano in this country.

NBB: You've been called one of the most important collectors of Chicano art, when did that begin?

CM: I've always educated myself about art and didn't start collecting until I got some money in the early 1970s. I got started and collected art deco stuff and when I finished with that I discovered all these Chicano painters in the mid-80s, like 1985.

NBB: Any favorite Chicano artists?

CM: I don't have a favorite, I can't. It's like trying to decide between your children. There are a lot of Chicano artists and for the last 12 years I've been doing shows and spreading the word and getting it out there. I'm excited about bringing new artists out there to the Hamptons like Carlos Donjuan. Isn't that a great name? And Werc, that's his tagging name and he's really good. Margaret Garcia is another artist. It's a really good display and it's got a lot of really beautiful big works. 


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Abandonment or Struggle? Sisyphus, Chicano Style

By RODOLFO ACUÑA

When asked what I have learned from writing about Arizona and what is going to happen in the future, I feel like the legendary king of Corinth immortalized by Albert Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” You remember the guy who was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill.  Every time he felt that he was making progress, the giant rock rolled back to where he started.

The moral of the story, according to Camus, is the absurdity of thinking we can learn the meaning of life.  This absurdity compels us to turn to religion for answers — religious faith supposedly tells us the meaning of life without us having to find the answer for ourselves. It gives us faith that we can roll the rock up the hill even though it keeps rolling back.

For over forty-three years I have been pushing a rock called Chicana/o Studies, obsessed with the notion that we as a community can push the rock to the top of the hill. Chicana/o Studies would give a greater number of us access to knowledge that would free and enable us to solve the contradictions of American society.

Instead of reaching the top, the rock has become heavier and it has slipped back to where we started in 1969. Still we believe that we can reach the top of the hill despite the size of the rock. Truth be told, it would be easier to leave the rock behind and “make it in my own.”

But, some of us cannot leave the rock behind and getting to the top of the hill without the rock has no meaning.  How long can you live solely on memories of those you left behind?

Is the obsession of reaching the top collectively an absurdity? Will those of us who are pushing the rock suffer the fate of Sisyphus – reducing our efforts to the absurd? Isn’t having faith in Chicana/o Studies’ ability to push the rock to the top in fact having faith in the system?

It is difficult to accept that there is nothing more to life than the absurd. At some point, Sisyphus has to accept the absurdity of his faith. In this case not so much the absurdity of faith in Chicana/o Studies, education or the community but in the system’s ability to allow everyone to find the meaning of life because it is the absurdity that keeps faith in the system alive.

The failure to make progress in pushing the rock to the top has nothing to do with Chicana/o Studies, Mexican Americans or our failure to push the rock up the hill. It is possible to make it to the top alone but impossible to make it as a community.

Ironically, the rock ruts a path that makes it easier for a few to reach the top; unjustly those who have abandoned the rock benefit from the sacrifices of those pushing the rock.  For them, it matters little if they make it to the top of the hill without the rock and less that their desertion potentially permits the rock to crash down into the gully.

From my point of view, what gives life meaning is the struggle to make it up the hill collectively. This is how all progress has been made. As long as there has been humanity, people have struggled for the truth. The answer to the meaning in life is hope for a better and a just world. Without struggle life has no meaning.

You may ask what is so hard about pushing the rock to the top.  It would not be if everyone pushed the rock until the end. But it is easier said than done. Society or should I say those who control the system protect themselves by exerting social control through popular culture, mass media, ideological divisions, religion, and fear. Education becomes part of this “invisible hand” that makes absurdity seem rational.

This brings us to Sisyphus’ dilemma in Arizona. Many understand the absurdity of believing that the system will protect the rights of Mexican Americans within the state. But they also believe in the Constitution and in the myth of “equal protection.”

The system, however, is not constructed to protect the rights of the poor but the privilege of those who benefit from it. Today more than ever Supreme Court decisions such as “Citizens United” give the rich uncontrolled access to power – making the rock even heavier.

In Arizona, the rock is heavier because it is a state without laws and bought public officials. The absurdity of the struggle struck me as I learned more about the interests behind the anti-immigrant hysteria and why it is important to the Kochs, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), the prison industry, the gun lobby and other special interests to erase the memory of Mexican Americans left behind.

The few who have fought back are paying the price. The teachers of the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program have been fire, not because they were not doing a good job teaching students, but because they were too effective.

Making the rock even heavier — a million dollar civil suit has been filed by the Tea Party with the support of Arizona Attorney General Tom Horn for defamation against TUSD Mexican American Studies Sean Arce and José González.

Meanwhile, Arizona lawmakers are attempting to nullify the U.S. Constitution. This is so even though Arizona receives back $1.30 for every dollar it sends to Washington –contrast this to California that gets back 79 cents.

The rock gets even heavier when the weight of the Democratic Party is added. The so-called Party is too timid to fight back and the Blue Dog Democrats cringe in fear of the Tea Party, the Minutemen and their corporate “sponsors.”

For the past forty years, Arizona has defied a federal court order to desegregate the TUSD and it has avoided compliance.

Worse of all “the system” has bought off many of those who had pushed the rock in previous struggles.  Tired of struggling they abandoned the village.

In spite of the absurdity of his belief that he can push the rock to the top of the hill, Sisyphus is not absurd.  He realizes that if he lets go of the rock it could roll back and crush him or even worse tumble down and wipe out the village.

Sisyphus has no other choice but to struggle. Abandoning others pushing the rock up the hill would be abandoning his memories, abandoning his values. These are choices we all have to make.

I was once told that I could make it by changing my last name. I was light enough that I could pass. My first thought was, what about my sister? My cousin? They had the nopal plastered on their faces. Besides I loved who I was and that meant pushing the rock up the mountain.

RODOLFO ACUÑA, a professor emeritus at California State University Northridge, has published 20 books and over 200 public and scholarly articles. He is the founding chair of the first Chicano Studies Dept which today offers 166 sections per semester in Chicano Studies. His history book Occupied America has been banned in Arizona. In solidarity with Mexican Americans in Tucson, he has organized fundraisers and support groups to ground zero and written over two dozen articles exposing efforts there to nullify the U.S. Constitution. 

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Inaugural Imperial Valley Festival and Artist Showcase

Ernesto Yerena is shown with some of the political art he has created during the Inaugural Imperial Valley Festival and Artist Showcase at the Imperial Valley Mall in 2011. Click photo to enlarge.

Article courtesy of the Imperial Valley PressWritten by JULIO MORALESPhoto by JOSELITO VILLERO

When Calexico resident and lifelong artist Sergio Gaytan said he thinks of muralists, the three Mexican greats of the early 20th century spring to mind — Diego Rivera, Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco.

Like theirs, his own art often incorporates representations of iconic cultural images, social issues and historical events for effect, Gaytan said.

Yet he feels there isn’t much of a clamor to see such imagery in public spaces anymore, he said.

“Muralism is not as strong or as powerful as it used to be,” Gaytan said.

While Gaytan’s artwork has yet to be affixed to a large-scale public project, neither has he had the opportunity to make a living as an artist, instead working for about 20 years with Imperial Valley College’s counseling office before his recent retirement.

These days Gaytan continues to draw and paint and doesn’t shy away from using imagery that may offend, he said.

In that respect Gaytan cleaves close to the ethos of the Mexican muralists as well as their Chicano counterparts, who used art to examine their identity and history as well as speak out about social issues — often in a controversial way.

A combination of street art and community activism, the Chicano murals of a generation ago were seen as a way to rally and unite the community, decorating space and using it to educate the public, said Eva Margarita Nieto, professor of Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge.

“That period was intense,” Nieto said, adding that the energy that existed in the ‘60s and ‘70s is not as commonly found in contemporary artists and muralists.

Locally, the vestiges of the muralist movement are still visible in some Valley locales, but locals also speak of an equal number that have fallen to time and indifference.

“You used to see a lot of (murals) around the Valley,” said Calexico Arts Commission chairwoman Hildy Carrillo.

The local drive to produce art in public spaces was akin to a “movement,” Carrillo said, noting that a sense of hope also accompanied the popular medium of those bygone days.

In the past, Carrillo said that artwork that celebrated “our roots,” commented on the Vietnam War, or honored field workers, were the norm.

As of late, she said that she hasn’t “seen any mural around here that catches my attention or says anything.”

The Arts Commission is in the process of cataloguing the murals within the city, she said, adding that the commission is also open to funding public works. Yet such an effort may also require the help of Calexico City Council and grant writing.

While the Valley is not lacking for artists, gallery space, instructors and performance artists, Carrillo said the scene still needs lots of support.

“We don’t really have public art,” she said, noting that Mexicali has a thriving public art scene.

But local efforts are afoot. A grant-seeking proposal that would unite various arts agencies throughout the Valley is also aiming to have a small mural adorn the J. Lowe Gallery at Imperial Valley College, said Carol Hegarty, IVC humanities department chairwoman.

And, officials are considering having another Cesar Chavez mural adorn the new Campesinos Unidos building in Brawley, executive director Jose M. Lopez said.

But devoting oneself to creating public art, many said, hardly pays the bills.

As someone who was highly attuned to political issues, the civil rights movement and Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers movement, the late Domingo Ulloa produced numerous works that captured the spirit of those turbulent times, his daughter Martha Ulloa-Sanchez said.

Yet her father made a career as a house painter, she said, and is widely referred to as an “undiscovered master” in art circles.

The late Ulloa spent many decades in the Valley, where he often painted pictures depicting the struggles of farmworkers. Several years prior to his passing, the Assembly honored him in 1993 as the “Father of Chicano Art.”

“He voiced opinions through his artwork,” Ulloa-Sanchez said.

And as many contemporary Chicano artists have found, praise is hard to come by in an environment where their work is constantly being compared to those pioneering artists that exhibited an activist streak. Yet tastes and opinions keep evolving regardless of what the so-called experts may have to say, Nieto said.

T-shirt art seems to have picked up the torch and become something of a preferred and easily accessible medium, Nieto said. It is not uncommon to find Latinos producing and wearing T-shirts that often contain a deeper message and evoke important social commentary.

“T-shirts are a class-breaking type of clothing,” she said. “It’s just another kind of public space.”

Staff Writer, Copy Editor Julio Morales can be reached at 760-335-4665 or at jmorales@ivpressonline.com.

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What Is The Chicano Experience That Becomes Art?

Photograph courtesy of unidentified source

Another great article courtesy of the Huffington Post... Gracias.

This is the second article in a series by entertainer and art advocate Cheech Marin.

There are some Chicanos who don't want to be Chicanos - they want to be Mexican-American, Hispanic, or even Spanish. The same thing happened with art about the Mexican-American experience. No one wanted it to be called Chicano.

The first time I went to San Antonio, Texas in 1972, I realized right away that Chicanos were a dominant force. They ran the place; the Mayor, the Chief of Police, even the dogcatcher. But only the young dope-smoking hippies wanted to be called Chicano.

The establishment wanted stay Mexican-American or Hispanic. They worked hard for their place and recognition and didn't want to identify with the rebels.

You have to want to be Chicano to be Chicano. The hippies took the insult and turned it into a badge of pride. "Yeah, I'm a Chicano, y que?" They also thought they invented the word and that nobody had ever called themselves Chicanos before.

Chicanos and running water are endlessly fascinating. I can watch them all day.

The whole Chicano identity issue was the motivation for something that is now a major part of my life; the collection, promotion, and advocacy of Chicano art.

My interest in art must have started with my Catholic upbringing. Art was everywhere churches with its paintings, sculptures, stained glass, textiles, and fine metalwork. It was for me a portal into another world that was simultaneously soothing and scary. It held me in its thrall and still does.

I wasn't really good at doing it, however. As a kid, art meant drawing and I just didn't have a facility for it. I thought you were either good at it or not, like you could either run fast or not, or you were either tall or not. I didn't find out until later that it was something that you could learn and some people get better at it than others.

But as a kid I decided that if I couldn't do it, I would study art because I loved it. Beginning at 11 years old, I would go to the local library and check out all the art books. Page after page, I taught myself the history of art, especially painting, and kept doing it. By the time I was able to afford art, I knew what good art was because I was studying it all my life.

In 1985, I made the film "Born in East L.A." It was my first solo work after being a partner with Tommy Chong for 17 years and at the time, I wanted to learn who and what I was as an individual. It was a journey of self-discovery that led back to my Chicano roots. I started learning more Spanish and hung around with other Chicano actors and artists. Eventually, I was introduced to Chicano artists and painters, many who were around since the mid-sixties.

But they were relatively new to me, as was most contemporary art.

As soon as I saw those first paintings in person, I realized that these artists were good. Really good. I began collecting their work in earnest.

I had always been a collector of something ever since I was a kid, whether it be baseball cards or marbles or matchbook covers, whatever. I had a mania for collecting. One of the main attributes of a collector is an obsession that becomes an addiction, and I became an addict, for sure. I was in the perfect position - I knew what the art was and I had money to buy it.

What became quickly apparent was they were not getting any deserved recognition from museums and top-end galleries. They struggled and struggled for traction -- as most artists do -- but had no champion like other commercially successful artists. It doesn't just magically happen. Maybe with my celebrity and finances I could be that champion, so I started with putting together a touring Chicano art exhibition.

Ten years later, I was struggling like the artists to get the collection shown at a national level. I did my Chicano dog-and-pony show in just about every big corporate boardroom in America. I got close many times, but no cigar.

At one point, the Army was going to sponsor the show. After all, they were the number one employer of Chicanos in the country. (Wouldn't that just have frosted the cajones of all the political Chicanos? I almost did it for just that reason.) I was about to give up until Target Corporation and Hewlett-Packard Company stepped up to sponsor the show. In fact, Target stepped up for many years to support the show and connect to the Latino community, and for that, all Chicanos are obliged to shop at Target for the next ten years. Hey, it's a win-win. They have great stuff for reasonable prices. Shut up and consume.

When I finally came back to San Antonio to open my exhibit Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge, I came back as an elder statesman of "Chicano-hood". Things had loosened up quite a bit. Chicanos were still the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and the dogcatcher, but many of them were my age or younger and grew up being Chicanos with no stigma attached. There were still those old-line viejos who answered to Hispanic, but they were mostly Chamber-of- Commerce types doing out of convenience to keep from confusing the old-line white people.

We threw the best art opening party in years. Los Lobos played and there was free beer, tequila, and food. There were many Chicano converts that opening night.

But, in true Chicano fashion, there was also controversy and it all centered on the use of the word "Chicano." Many museums were averse to using "Chicano" because of its political implication and history. It was like inviting the crazy cousins to the party. To them, Chicanos were fist-waving, placard-carrying, headband-wearing, dope-smoking protesters picketing anything with the word "Chicano" that they didn't inaugurate. They especially didn't like sponsorship, which they felt co-opted their identity to serve corporate America and enslave them to beer or whatever. There was a Chicano-wide protest against Coors, which they felt discriminated against Chicanos in their hiring practices. Now we couldn't eat grapes or drink Coors beer. Was life even worth living now?

They demonstrated against any and all events that had a cactus, an eagle or an image of Our

Lady of Guadalupe that they didn't originate or approve. Fair enough. I didn't want to be defined by somebody else outside my group, especially some establishment type and end up being lard-less "Hispanic." (Besides, a Chicano event was not considered a success unless it was picketed and protested by other Chicanos.)

So the end result was Chicanos were excluded from mainstream museums. Who needed the headache? The museums labeled Chicano art as "Agitprop folk art" and dismissed it into a handmade art ghetto that had its time and "see you later."

Then a funny thing happened. The artists kept evolving, which goes to the heart and soul of what a Chicano is.

Like its art, "Chicano" is an evolutionary term. Each generation has as much right to define what a Chicano is as any generation that came before them. One of the main aesthetic characteristics of Chicano is traditional Mexican meets contemporary America. It's where they meet, influence each other, and create something totally new. That's where Chicano identity is born. As soon as a Mexican crosses the border and establishes a home in the U.S., they are a Mexican tadpole on their way to becoming a Chicano frog.

So can a Mexican become a Chicano? Sure! I think that as soon as his or her experience and length of residence in this country outweighs his or her Mexican experience, then upon declaration: "Sas que", you're a Chicano. For example, is Carlos Santana, born in Mexico but the majority of his life here, a Mexican or a Chicano? It can be argued that he is a citizen of the world - a true Chicano expression.

In Los Angeles, inner-city Latino youths have been calling themselves "Chicanos" no matter what Latin American country they come from - Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, wherever. They have redefined Chicano as being engaged with American culture while still retaining Latino roots. They recognize it as an evolutionary step in an immigration process. Either that or they got tired of explaining that "Honduras is not part of Mexico, homes".

The academic world has a mania for codification. They would like the official "Chicano Period" to be from 1964 to around 1978, and then break it up into when the "Post-Chicano Period" and then the "Neo-Post Chicano Period" would begin.

I take a much larger view of the Chicano experience. It's still in its infancy and we still don't know what form it will take. The important development in Chicano history will be the next generation. This current wave of immigration is different than all other previous migration patterns in that it is happening in all states simultaneously. It is longer confined to the West and Southwest. There are large Latino communities everywhere - New Hampshire, Mississippi, Ohio. It doesn't matter. They are everywhere and 80% of them are under the age of 25.

The question is what are these new Chicanos going to look like, act like, and be like? When a Mexican also lives as a Kentuckian, what is that going to produce, y'all? If they are raised in the Hamptons, will they wear white or turquoise after Labor Day?

The country is about to undergo a fundamental change and it will be for the good. Latinos are bringing in a much-needed new wave of fresh energy that will propel the country forward in the years to come. They came here to work, so stop hating on them. Like those Mexican-American youth in the '60s and '70s used Chicano to revisit Mexican culture, today's Mexicano youth are using Chicano to become part of American-Mexican culture. That keeps Chicano experience and Chicano art an evolving concept.

 

Follow Cheech Marin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@CheechMarin

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