NewsTaco

By DeeDee Garcia Blase, Huffington Post Latino Voices

December 21, 2012, is a thing of the past now.

We survived the end of the world even though some predicted it would end, but in my view, 12-21-2012, marks the beginning of a new era. Some of us have already caught the winds of change and the aura of a heightened awakening.

As we become more alert to our surroundings, we might ask ourselves if we want to continue to do things the old way in a time when those ideas seem to have expired and are flat out boring. I think many of us feel that things have become stale and ineffective, and we yearn for invigoration. How many more years will it take in order for Chicanos to wake up and snap out of the blind sheepmentality?

The old way of doing things is no longer working for us anymore. Chicanos have become too passive and have not asserted ourselves to changing things that have a direct impact on our community. How can we snap out of it, only to reinvent ourselves, adapt with changing times, andleapfrog things 10 years in advance? Why does it seem that more of us react to things instead working on proactive ideas?

I believe one way to get out of the rut is to look and learn from other visionaries like Steve Jobs. Jobs was no fool – he said: “One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are.” He studied the history of other visionaries like Einstein and Alexander Graham Bell as his journey in life took him on turns, valley dips and the peaks of hills.

It was his passion and assertiveness that changed the entire globe. It was his ability to master intuitiveness because he did not allow the noise and clamor of the others to take him off focus. He was a natural-born hippie that allowed him to be comfortable in his own skin as he worked autonomously with regard to key decisions he had to make. Jobs had a gift and the ability to focus, and because he believed - he often got what he wanted.

Many people did not know that Steve Jobs was emotional. He was extremely passionate and would sometimes burst into tears on matters that affected the companies he created. It is all right to be passionate. It is all right to be emotional. Jobs viewed himself an artist – and he was because an artist is a person who creates. Jobs helped to create tools that help humanity. The ripple in the pond he gave us continues to permeate even after his death.

In reading the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson, I was happy to learn that Jobs did not easily receive ideas from just anyone. He scrutinized the ideas. In my view, he wanted to be convinced. He had to be convinced. He wanted folks who were selling him an idea to guarantee why their ideas would work. He wanted to see if people had foresight and knew what the hell they were really talking about. He never seemed to just easily accept what others told him because he wanted to be resolved and had to believe in those ideas…

READ MORE HERE

This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.

DeeDee Garcia Blase is the founder of the National Tequila Party Movement.

[Photo by DonkeyHotey]

By Joe Ray, Latinovations

Growing up near the Mexican border and having spent a few of my first few Holiday seasons in Sonora as well as Arizona, provided me the opportunity to observe and take part in various Holiday traditions.

My family’s personal tradition of devotion was honoring Our Lady (La Virgen) de Guadalupe on December 12. This began around Thanksgiving by adorning our framed print of La Virgen with flashing Christmas lights, rosaries and constructing the piece into an electronic Christmas altar. We had other saints around the house, but none compared to the Virgen’s status.

This past 12/12/12, I joined about 30 others in a ceremony honoring Our Lady de Guadalupe/Tonantzin. It warmed my heart to see all of us gathered here for this touching ceremony.

Tamales, champurado, and atole. All treats that bring the Holiday season back to life for me with a great fondness. Of course, in addition to Christmas, there’s El Día de Los Reyes Magos (3 Kings Day), this being a celebratory day and one of reflection as well. I’m also touched to see this particular day celebrated more often in the past decade by more acculturated Latinos, bringing many others into the fold.

In thinking about this post, I discussed traditions with a couple of other friends who also shared theirs with me.

My friend Carlos, a Chicano who grew up in a small town in Arizona, shared this tradition/memory:

His Abuelo was the ringmaster of the family’s tamale making endeavors. This began with him buying roasts immediately after Halloween, and once the hojas hit the grocery shelves, he made sure to stock up.

One particular memory that has stuck out in Carlos’ mind was getting around his Nana’s strict guidelines for perfect masa. The test consisted of dropping some masa into a glass of warm water. If fluffy enough, it would float. Carlos’ Tata let him in on a secret…adding a teaspoon of salt would allow the masa to rise in the glass.

Since then, his masa always rose to the occasion, passing Nana’s test.

Bertica is from the Dominican Republic. She reminisced about the food on Noche Buena, but what I found most fascinating was her family’s celebration in bringing in the new year. This was a dressy affair with a big dinner (we love our food, don’t we?), where everyone was given 12 grapes. The grapes would be eaten as the 12 campanadas would ring. If you were able to do this and not choke, it indicated you would have a good year.

This sounds like something my cousins and I would have been doing, and been recipients of chancletazos. I love it.

My friend Conchita came from Cuba as a young girl. Her family’s tradition was attending mass to celebrate the Holy Day of Obligation, as well as her patron saint, Maria de la Concepcíon (whom she’s named after). Additionally, the large Immaculate Concepcíon has always been a framed, magical piece of art which serves as an altar centerpiece.  Concepcíon now resides in Conchita’s house.

Having a patron saint honored and celebrated during the Holidays has always been an extra special tradition for the majority of Latinos. It’s part of our culture. It’s in our DNA. It is our devotion and faith(s), even if we don’t adhere to our original and particular faiths and religions. It’s who we are.

These traditions are part of our new America.

It’s the evolution of Las Posadas. It’s our cultural evolution.

This article was first published in Latinovations.

Joe Ray is Vice President of Multicultural Marketing at E.B. Lane, a full service marketing and advertising agency with offices in Phoenix and Denver. Joe’s experience includes working with Pfizer, Bic USA, Dawn Foods Intl, Medicis Dermatology, State Farm, La Tradición, Super Bowl Host Committee, and The Arizona Lottery. Additionally, Joe is a conference speaker and presenter whose topics include: Reaching Latino Audiences, Health/Wellness Education for Multicultural Audiences, Brand Building, Packaging Design, Social Media, Arts & Culture, and Community Activism. He can be reached at jray@eblane.com.

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

Back in the good old, waning days leading to graduation, everyone wanted to be friends. People who had otherwise ignored you or taken you for granted for the past three and a half years all of a sudden wanted to be friends. All of a sudden everyone wanted to keep in touch. If you saw my yearbook now, you would have thought I was the belle of the ball. Page after page was littered by reminders to K.I.T. with hearts dotting every “I.” It was the middle of June and we had decided that regular school no longer applied. The students crowded the halls waiting for that doomsday clock to strike the witching hour. Graduation practice was paramount and everything else a chore.

My friend Ruben and I felt that we were above it all. We felt as if we were above their cool and influence. We had spent the last three years playing video games and flicking boogers during second period, like all the super studs of our time. We were invited to Grad Night at Disneyland during that last week. We scoffed at our classmates. There were promises of drinking and debauchery among some of the more deviant seniors, but we wanted more. We wanted something epic that would make our grandchildren blush.

Ruben’s friend Edgar was the first to suggest that we all go to Tijuana. I fell in love with the lawlessness of it all. The plan was to pool the money our parents had given us for Grad Night and spend that Tuesday night in Tijuana. We all drank the Kool-Aid and figured that the party never stopped, South of the Border. I had only been there a couple of times to pick up relatives at the airport, but I always figured there was something dark and exciting about it. I would watch as my parents rolled up their windows and locked the doors as soon as the United States was over our shoulders and I wanted it more and more.

Edgar claimed to have all the necessary connections. He said he knew of places where we could drink till the sun came up along with the women that would surely turn us into men and chase our inexperience away. We would need two hundred dollars in order to secure supplies, gas, lodging and reckless abandon. I was willing to invest 130 dollars on the venture which was a week’s pay at the time.

That fateful Tuesday snuck up on us before we knew it. I kept looking at the clock so long, that I found it hard to distinguish my left from my right, making those graduation practice drills unbearable for my row. The lump in my throat became harder to swallow as the afternoon began to give way to the night. As far as my parents were concerned I was going to spend the night with Goofy. As far as I was concerned, I was going to hang out and get goofy.

I got to Ruben’s house at about 9, only to find that he was unprepared, still waiting on Edgar. I was wearing one of my dad’s fanciest leather jackets which made me look like the Fonz wearing a black storm slicker. I smelled like I had rubbed a dozen magazines on my face in order to capture Calvin Klein’s latest income venture. We took turns blowing up Edgar’s home phone, until his dad finally took it off the hook. Fortunately, neither of us had given Edgar our money, so we decided to kill some time at the Hollywood record stores while he returned our mounting number of calls.

The plan was to spend an hour at the record store and then come back by ten, so we could be in Tijuana by midnight. However, that plan went out the window when we decided to get something to eat. We rolled into Ruben’s house by 11:30. Obviously, I could not go home since I had told my parents I would be hanging out with Mickey Mouse till dawn. Edgar finally got there, but he said that he could not align anything because his cousin who served as the connection was not in town. I wanted to be angry but the Del Taco meal I had eaten began to sink its claws into me. I told myself that I would only take a 45 minute nap while they sorted out the madness.

The next thing I remember was waking up, wearing leather jacket and all. The worst part was that I still had to go down to the school and pick up extra tickets for the graduation. It was a horrible feeling walking to that school and feeling that hangover feeling. What made it worse was that I had not even touched a drop of alcohol. I got there just as the buses arrived from Grad Night and was able to get lost in the shuffle of humanity. I learned a valuable lesson that night. In an animated pretend world of imagination, I was the biggest cartoon.

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

I have always been a fan of Halloween. It is one of the few holidays that I have taken seriously, outside of Arbor Day. I was introduced to Halloween when I was six years old. As a child I grew up in a cultural vacuum. It was my first year back from Mexico. We lived in the kind of neighborhood, no one ever attempted to trick-or-treat in. The old neighborhood was poorly lit, and the residents usually took their children elsewhere that was not nearly as depressing.

However sometimes you would get a pack of greedy kids, who wanted to brave the myths and eventually wandered down the street no one was willing to visit. My mom was not ready for these children, so instead of giving them candy, she decided that she would make some enfrijoladas for them as they waited – and yet those enfrijoladas came with a price those trick-or-treaters were willing to pay.

My mother thought it was a good idea to coax a teenager in a gorilla suit into the house. I was vulnerable enough to believe that he was an actual gorilla. After all, he did have a banana. That was all it took to convince me as I cried until I started dry heaving. After everyone in the room had their laugh, the boy under the gorilla suit emerged and began to tell me about the magic of Halloween. The thought of collecting treats, door to door was enough to get me to stop crying. I had to prepare myself for the future.

I was ready for 1984.

My sister and I were begging for costumes since September. My mom bought costumes for us at Zody’s Department Store. I remember that my sister decided to be a princess. I thought I would be one of the characters from my favorite video game. I was the mighty Centipede from the video game with the same game. The costume was brilliant. It consisted of a centipede mask, and a plastic smock that had the word “Centipede” written across the chest. My father was severely disappointed.

“You had your mother spend seven dollars on that piece of plastic. What are you, some kind of worm?”

I was better than a worm. I was the Centipede.

In retrospect, being the Centipede was a horrid idea. I honestly thought that I was going to win the prize being awarded by our school during the Halloween parade. I wanted to wear my costume underneath my clothes but my mom would not allow it. Instead, she packed it inside of my backpack. I dressed up during lunch so I could be ready for the parade. It was a hot day and my teacher, Mrs. Gardner had the class sit in the pavement. It was a hot day, and the kids from kindergarten and 1st grade were ahead of us. All of a sudden, I noticed that the plastic smock was starting to bond with the pavement. The back of my smock was melted and was beginning to look like chewing gum. My regular street clothes started to show. Needless to say, things looked pretty bad.

By the time I started making the rounds around the track the smock was more of a bib. The Centipede mask was still in place. I never did win the award for best costume. I wish there was a lesson that I could have learned. There probably was, but I was too stubborn to learn it. Instead I was back the following year with another smock and another mask, this time in tribute to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

[Photo by  stevendepolo]

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

I never figured that my father was quite the revolutionary or an agent for social change. He just did what he did, and would later state the morality at stake, as if it should have been obvious. I knew that he was a democrat with the exception of the 1980’s when the Reagan Revolution allowed him to fix the legal paperwork that gave him and my mother amnesty. My father was staunch about his pro-immigrant views. It was not because he was a tolerant man that felt that everyone deserved an opportunity, but rather because he had busted his hump for the railroad company in places like Yuma, Arizona. He felt that everyone needed to earn their keep. He figured that if he was in hell, he should not be the only one around the bonfire.

The railroad company had a wicked sense of humor. During the winters they would send him to work in exotic places like Nebraska, Michigan and Minnesota during the winter and other locations like Arizona, Wyoming and New Mexico during the summer. He would leave on a Sunday and come back as soon as his week was done. The company did not pay for plane rides, so a group of five or six of them would drive out the far reaches of the continental United States.

My father could more or less deal with the winters, but it was the summers that really cut into him. He would come home, and bring the heat with him. His work boots would be covered in tar and his lunchbox would burn upon impact. He would remind the family that he was doing it all for us and challenged any of us to do it for him. He would drink a beer and then unravel his work stories.

Arizona had to be my father’s most hated state. Most of the time they were tales about how younger, stronger, more “American” men were not able to perform his job. However, there were times when his stories became about helping his countrymen evade “La Migra.” INS would make their presence felt since the worksite was so close to the border. My father always made it a point to tell me how fortunate I was for being born here. He would tell me that sometimes they would find bodies in the freight cars. These were men, women and children who either ran out of water or had simply succumbed to the unforgiving heat. Once in a while they would find someone that was still alive. Whenever that would happen, the workers would all pitch in with a helmet here and a pair of work boots there. They would disguise the traveler as a fellow coworker as well as feed him and run a helmet for people to throw in a couple of bucks. Sometimes, the traveler would earn a ride to Los Angeles by helping my father and his coworkers fix pieces of the track that had been warped by the heat. My father said he preferred it because it made the work lighter and it was a first step for the traveler to start earning his keep. After all, the foreman never noticed. He never counted the amount of brown faces working shovels or pickaxes from his air conditioned trailer.

My father’s empathy was limited because he cheered on people who worked to live rather than lived to work. He wanted me to have a job, but he was convinced that I would never have to work. In the end, my father never respected those immigrants who thought the borders should be closed AFTER they arrived. Those people had not earned their spot in Hell yet, so who were they to decide?

[Photo by  chefranden]

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

Death was never a stranger in our household. He hung a hat and placed his keys just far away to make an entrance and leave a mark. As children, my sister and I had been to enough funerals to have a uniform designated for such sullen occasions. From a young age, I was not interested in adult conversations because they never talked about pirates, torrid love affairs or baseball. My parents and their friends primarily talked about who had died back in Mexico, who was dying, and who had the cancer. In fact, the only time they talked about baseball, was when they were describing the size of the tumors their acquaintances had been struck down with.

Then a funny thing happened, when it seemed that everyone decided to stop dying. As a family, we spent about five years without going to funerals. My parents were almost upset about it. It wasn’t that they were death merchants, but it gave them something to talk about. They were like that undertaker in that Paul McCartney song “Band on the Run.” I did not care for funerals, because it always meant an additional day of church. Just because we went to church on Saturday, it would not excuse us to miss on Sunday. I must have been nine when I decided that I would die as close to a Monday as possible so I would not have to screw up anybody’s weekend plans.

The next funeral I went to did not occur on a Saturday, but it was one of the heaviest ones I have ever attended. It was an ugly scene. I remember it was only a couple of weeks before my 18th birthday and I was sitting in second period in Ms. Giribaldi’s Italian class absorbing the atmosphere conducive to learning. My friend Ruben walked in tardy as he complained that his brother had decided not to give him a ride to school. He was only halfway through his rant when he received a summons by the office and when he came back, he was in tears. He did not tell any of us why. When he did return to school, it was to inform us that his brother Ernie had done something completely stupid.

Ernie was a decade older than Ruben, and Ruben worshipped the ground he walked on. They were close at a time when the rest of his sibling were either married or on their way there. Ernie had been in a relationship with a woman that ended poorly. She was a Spanish teacher at our James A. Garfield High School of Jaime Escalante fame. On that day, she was going to their house to pick up her possessions from Ernie. He had them all packed for her and waiting in the driveway. As she lifted the box filled with material memories, Ernie brandished a gun and shot her. Then he shot her again. Finally, he turned the gun on himself.

The funeral happened on a Tuesday. I did not know how to act. I had already outgrown my funeral clothes and my parents did not want me to attend because they considered it bad luck or maybe because they did not want to lend me money to buy some nice slacks from Sears. They instructed me not to go because they figured that the woman’s family was going to retaliate with a gang style execution drive-by shooting. I still went because I felt like I owed it to Ruben. At the burial site, his mother threw herself on the coffin. I cannot even begin to imagine what she felt.

In the end, it was a tense subject to discuss, because Ernie had left a very detailed suicide note inked in Pink Floyd lyrics. It seemed that he had been planning it for weeks. Ruben was never the same, and I doubt he ever will. He became a hermit, and I have not seen him in years. This was the last funeral I attended before I attended my parents and yet this one felt sadder only because you knew you were on the wrong side. I cannot imagine what the Spanish teacher’s funeral must have been like. She was plucked out at the peak of her life, and here we were commemorating “a mistake committed by a very confused young man.” I can only imagine what her eulogy sounded like.

[Photo by dcubillas]

By Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

I was a teenage mess. I was constructed of acne, bad hair, and flannel shirts. There was so much rage, and that rage needed an outlet. You might find this hard to believe, but girls were not paying attention to me. I had not found what I was good at, so my motivation was to find something to be tremendously bad at.

At the time some of my friends had migrated from our social pack in favor of girlfriends and female company. I must admit, our little social fraternity was not exactly conducive to the opposite sex. After all, we got a kick from throwing darts at each other. A hundred points would go to the one who could nail someone in the elbow or the neck. I am sure that if you would have swabbed the inside of our cheeks, you would have been able to find some genetic link to Beavis or Butthead.

One of the things that was popular during my formative years was backyard punk rock concerts or gigs. Every Friday night someone would throw one at their house. The music was abrasive and in-your-face without apologies. In short, it was a perfect companion for the things that I could not bring myself to say, without having a dart thrown at my neck or elbow. Nothing was funnier than watching from the back as the police would show up due to a noise complaint and the band onstage would break into a rendition of “Happy Birthday”. To add insult to injury, sometimes audio setbacks would delay a show as late as 11:00 PM only to be shut down 15 minutes later. As the popularity of these gigs grew, some of my other friends decided to start up musical bands.

There were gigs happening every weekend. Usually you would get a day’s notice, but it was definitely worth shuffling that albatross of nothingness that was anchoring down the weekend. I never had the courage to go up and talk to any of the intoxicated girls. After all, it was not like you could ask them to dance with you. Secondly, more times than not, they were usually there with their boyfriends, who always played in the most untalented bands. Coincidence? I think not. My theory was that those guys already had girls, so they did not have to waste their time crafting songs in order to find girls. Secondly, I never had to courage to jump into the pit. There was always the promise that someone would pick you up as soon as you fell, but at the same time falling down has never been an activity I look forward to. One could not deny that there was major male bonding occurring as sweaty masses crashed against one another with a soundtrack, but I found comfort in the back yelling at someone six inches away from me as we attempted a conversation.

Those were the best five or six years of my life. I think I must have been 22 when I realized that I was not welcomed anymore. I had become an old man caught up in the frenzy. It was a young person’s gig and they certainly let me know it. Besides, the music had changed. There were some bands trying their hand at being Rage Against the Machine clones, and I did not recognize the people on stage anymore. Besides, at the risk of romanticizing the past, it seemed that the older bands played for the sheer act of playing. These other bands took the stage with a mindset of how they were going to shoot the second video for that new single they had not even written yet. Punk gigs were the one thing that brought the cholos into the circle, knowing they could get enveloped by the masses, and yet come out without a need for escalation simply because you knew you were going to be all right as you emerged from the other end of the tunnel.

[Photo by copyriot]

By Oscar Barajas

It was the awful year of 1989, and I was getting ready to transition to junior high school. It all weighed heavily on my mind, because the priests and the comadres had scared my mom into believing that I was going to transition into marijuana laced unprotected sex with the devil worshiping cholos of Hollenbeck Junior High School, home of the Junior Rough Riders in East Los Angeles. My mother’s first reaction was to inquire about private Catholic school. My father’s first reaction was to inquire about the price. Ultimately economics won the battle and I became a Junior Rough Rider.

The first thing that I noticed was that I was going to school with men and women. I mean, a lot of those students looked as if puberty had done a number on them. I was still waiting on my first whisker and a lot of my classmates looked as if they had some kind of wolverine gene. I remember being scared. All this time I had been a small fish in a small aquarium and now I felt like a smaller fish in a great lake.

When it came time to pick our elective classes, we were merely given two real choices.  We could decide between music and shop. I had seen the kids taking shop. A lot of them looked like a mix of the gang members from Training Day, but at the same time they could have been 21 Jump Street undercover cops. The only thing that was for certain was that I was pink and soft. There was no way I would have been able to survive. They were all building ashtrays and birdhouses. I can only imagine them beating me up with the remnants of my haiku holder.

So I decided on music – beginning wind instruments to be exact. I remember I wanted to play something cool like a saxophone or a trumpet. However, urban myths got in the way of that decision, because it was foretold by the prophecy that the crack addicts that dwelled at Hollenbeck Park were always looking for young victims to rob. The thought of a drug addict jumping out of a tree to steal a trumpet seemed a very real possiblity then – real enough to make me decide on the flute.

If you were good, you had first choice at the instruments. The gifted individuals picked the newer instruments. A guy like me got to pick the flute that looked like a mature banana. I would rub alcohol on the mouthpiece to try and kill the memory of previous user, but you could always taste the rust. This was still better than trying to make a bong at plastic shop and calling it a flower vase.

The teacher behind the piano was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Mr. Dennis Gurwell, had long hair and the ferocity of a football coach who is two touchdowns ahead playing like he is two touchdowns behind. He would direct every note with a flow that came from his fingertips. However, anytime we went against the fingertips, he would slam the piano with an animated intensity. Sometimes we could make him lose his composure six to seven times in the span of 45 minutes. Frankly, I don’t know how he put up with us. We were a horrible class that needed the musical outlet. The instruments would be locked up and we would be forced to watch a Beethoven or Bach documentary every time Mr. Gurwell was absent. We had the tendency of driving away every substitute teacher. Sometimes they would even bring in the dean of discipline or the choir instructor in order to calm us down.

I will always be grateful to Mr. Gurwell for not kicking me out of his class. After all, I was awful and I had no reason to be there other than to butcher Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” He was one of those few teachers that believed in me despite the lack of any musical talent or ability. I do not know where I would have been without the lessons he bestowed upon me – possibly on top of a tree with a “flower vase”, preying on the next fat kid that walks by with an oboe.

[Photo courtesy hollenbeckms.org]

By Reyna Jacqueline Peña

Do you have plans this weekend?  Well, whatever you do, plan on setting some time aside to honor the memory and legacy of labor leader and civil rights activist César Chávez on March 31, his birthday.  Chávez’s birthday is currently celebrated in many places throughout the country, and it’s a state holiday in some places, such as California. Recently, President Obama officially proclaimed March 31st César Chávez Day marking it a national holiday–leaving some individuals wondering whether this symbolic gesture has more to do with election campaigning rather than observance.

The man and his legacy. César Estrada Chávez was born near Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927. Born into a Mexican-American farm worker family, he spent his early youth working on farms with his family in Arizona, later moving to California, where he continued working the land. While he did not obtain a formal education past grammar school, he was a self-taught man. He learned economics, politics, methods of organizing, philosophy and history through self-study. It’s said that he believed all education should culminate in the service to others. And service to others was what his life embodied most.

As a farm worker from humble beginnings, he was exposed to injustice firsthand. Early experiences witnessing landowners exploit workers lead him to champion the cause of worker rights. After a two-year stint in a segregated U.S. Navy and after starting family, he became involved in community service and then civil and labor rights–where his legacy lies. He founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became known as the UFW (United Farm Workers) labor union.

The UFW was successful in organizing several strikes, most notably, the Salad Bowl Strike–which lead the passage of legislation protecting the rights of migrant farm workers to unionize. Chávez’s methods of organizing and advancing the cause often included hunger strikes, and these nonviolent methods helped draw support to the UFW agenda. (Suggestion: Try a fast this weekend to commemorate Chávez.) However, some of the UFW’s tactics, like reporting undocumented scabs to INS and preventing undocumented individuals from entering the U.S., were criticized as being anti-immigrant, an allegation considered unfair and incorrect by official UFW accounts. Chávez died in his sleep at the age of 66 in 1993.

Pushing for national recognition.  Arguably the most influential Mexican-American civil rights leader, and perhaps the most well known, Chávez is considered nothing short of a hero by some and a model citizen by many more. In 1994, President Bill Clinton posthumously awarded Chávez with a Medal of Freedom, declaring Chávez a “Moses figure to his people.” César Chávez birthday (March 31st) has been celebrated as César Chávez Day in many areas of the southwest of the United States since the early aughts. It is a state holiday in California, and there are numerous events honoring Chávez in different cities.

Around 2008, a campaign was organized to make Chavez’s birthday a national holiday. Celebrities like Carlos Santana and Martin Sheen added their weight to a list of organizations lobbying to make March 31st a national holiday honoring Chávez. In April of 2008, then Senator Obama added his name to the list of people in favor of observing a national holiday for Chávez. Senator Obama would later make good on his promise.

Presidential Proclamation: Observance or Pandering?  A copy of President Obama’s 2012 presidential proclamation marking Chávez’s birthday as a national holiday has been circulating in Latino blogs and online forums.  A few cynics among us have gone as far as to question the timing of this proclamation, suggesting the White House’s symbolic gesture to honor Chávez is really geared at wooing the Latino vote.  However, before we accuse the White House of playing politics with our cherished icons during an election year, we should know that President Obama released presidential proclamations honoring Chávez in 2010 and 2011, as well–just as he said he would before gaining office.

It would appear that this is one promise to Latinos that President Obama did not let fall to the wayside.  Now, let’s not let the memory and legacy of Chávez fall to the wayside.

[Image By USGov-DOL]

California Governor Jerry Brown swore in Juan Felipe Herrera as the state’s new Poet Laureate last week.  Herrera currently serves as Chair in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Aside from being the first Latino to hold the prestigious position, Herrera is has also authored  28 books, served as professor and chair of Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno, and was a teaching assistant fellow at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Herrera’s work has often dealt with the experience of being Chicano in the United States and Latin America, using poetry and prose that has been described as “both personal and universal in its impact, themes, and approach.”

According to the official press release from Governor Brown’s office, Herrera has worked his way up from humble beginnings to an academic life full of accolades:

The son of migrant workers from Mexico, Mr. Herrera earned a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, a Master of Arts in Social Anthropology from Stanford University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. He was elected to the Board of Chancellors for the Academy of American Poets in 2011, was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry in 2010 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry in 2009.

It doesn’t seem as if he’s let all of the awards and recognition go to his head, as Herrera appears laid-back and sincere talking about his love for libraries in this video:

Spread the word! Our weekly Bien Hecho segment, highlights the good deeds and achievements of Latinos across the U.S. If you feel that someone you know is deserving of recognition, let us know at tips@newstaco.com.

[Photo By Slowking4]

By Carlos San Miguel

“American Night: The Ballad of Juan José” is a fantastic play that premiered at the 2010 Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Written by Richard Montoya and developed by Culture Clash (Montoya, Herbert Siguenza and Ric Salinas) in collaboration with director Jo Bonney, this LA tour (a co-production with the recent run at the La Jolla Playhouse) is a treat for local audiences as it retains all but one of the original performers.

Actor extraordinaire, René Millán, a Chicano from San Diego, leads the cast of nine actors, with Montoya and Siguenza serving as part of the ensemble, but noticeably absent is the third Clashero — Ric Salinas, who (regrettably for fans) is sitting this show out. Millán does an amazing job as the character of Juan José, essentially being on stage for the entire performance and transitioning from acting, singing and dancing without missing a beat. It’s a true pleasure and inspiration to watch such a talented Chicano relishing his chance to pursue his dream.

The story revolves around Mexican immigrant, Juan José, the night before he is to take his United States citizenship exam. Millán honorably portrays a man who audiences can sympathize with in his steadfast determination to find a better life for his himself and his young, pregnant wife Lydia, played by the gorgeous and equally talented Stephanie Beatriz (previously seen in the play Lydia at the Mark Taper Forum a few years ago). She and the rest of the cast, except Millán, in true Culture Clash form play a dizzying array of characters, both females and males. Each actor of the ensemble delivers 100% and, after having performed together for a full season in Ashland (about six months), they’re in perfect sync.

In traditional Culture Clash fashion this play continues to evolve the very definition of Chicano theater, as Juan José experiences a fever dream of history, becoming not just student, but participant. The play opens with a beautiful Mexican corrido and quickly establishes (for those unfamiliar with Culture Clash’s style of carpa-inspired teatro) that this play is a comedic romp – a social satire aimed at making audiences think, laugh, hopefully learn something and appreciate life from a different perspective. And yes fan favorite “character,” Kyle the Bear (who has appeared in previous Culture Clash plays, Zorro in Hell and again in Palestine, New Mexico) makes a brief but gut-busting hysterical cameo.

Along the wavering comedic/dramatic pseudo time-trip/history lesson, Juan José encounters some of American history’s very notable events and characters, including the truly nation changing and contentious 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The event created disdain, by generations of racists, towards an entire segment of American citizens –  Chicana/os. Montoya’s character in this scene draws special applause when he utters the sentiments of all Chicana/os, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!”

Filled with a series of dramatic moments, it’s fair to say this play is definitely more of a comedy inherent with Culture Clash’s biting wit. Over the years Culture Clash members have become not only superb performers, but also masterful playwrights, with each new work showing something more meaningful behind the jokes, as it so directly relates to the current political and social climate. Montoya’s mocking inclusion of well-known racist Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, is an excellent example of how he always seems to have his finger on the button of hot topics, but with this play keeps equal focus on history.

Montoya commented, “With regards to our multicultural appeal, the focus on ‘American Night’ was to enable it to incorporate and define where various cultures intersect. It’s about an African-American nurse in West Texas in 1918 healing Mexican revolutionaries and children of Klansman— through the eyes of a Mexican immigrant,” he said. “This is the stuff of real importance to me, where the cultures can intersect; even if it means we are force-feeding the viewing audience.”

Hats off to director Jo Bonney and the entire production team behind this play, especially projection designer Shawn Sagady – who did an amazing job with the moving images that permeate the stage and accentuate each scene in visually stunning ways. The full cast includes: Kimberly Scott, Rodney Gardiner, Daisuke Tsuji, Terri McMahon and David Kelly. Choreography by Ken Roht, scenic design by Neil Patel, costume design by ESosa, lighting design by David Weiner, sound design by Darron L West and projection design by Shawn Sagady.

For tickets: 

• Shows running until Sunday, April 1: Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
• Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City, 90232
• Call: (213) 628-2772

[Photo By Craig Schwartz]

Yesterday President Obama awarded the 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal to a group of selected intellectuals, including UCLA professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, and Stanford professor Ramón Saldívar.

The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.

According to a UCLA press release, Ruiz (pictured above) specializes in the social and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Spain.  He came from humble beginnings in Cuba where reportedly:

As a teenager, he was active in the Cuban Revolution, which in 1959 overthrew the regime of Fulgencio Batista. But after a friend was killed in 1960, he resigned from the revolution and was imprisoned. Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, he was released to make room for new prisoners of war. Ruiz left for Miami that year with “only three changes of clothing, $45, a box of Cuban cigars to sell and a Spanish translation of Jacob Burckhardt’s ‘A History of Greek Civilization.’”

After settling in New York, Ruiz went on to obtain his doctorate from Princeton University before teaching at other institutions such as Brooklyn College, the City University of New York Graduate Center, the University of Michigan, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

The White House honored Ruiz for for his “inspired teaching and writing” saying:

His erudite studies have deepened our understanding of medieval Spain and Europe, while his long examination of how society has coped with terror has taught important lessons about the dark side of western progress.

According to his Stanford page, Mexican-American Ramón Saldívar’s “teaching and research areas at Stanford have concentrated on the areas of cultural studies, literary theory, modernism, Chicano narrative, and Post-colonial literature.”  He was honored by the White House for:

[H]is bold explorations of identity along the border separating the United States and Mexico. Through his studies of Chicano literature and the development of the novel in Europe and America, he beckons us to notice the cultural and literary markings that unite and divide us.

Spread the word! Our weekly Bien Hecho segment, highlights the good deeds and achievements of Latinos across the U.S. If you feel that someone you know is deserving of recognition, let us know at tips@newstaco.com.

[Screenshot From whitehouse.gov]

On August 29, 1970 in East Los Angeles, a group of Chicanos got together in order to discuss how to best oppose the Vietnam War; included in the mix were Brown Berets, walkout leaders, and an assorted mix of activists. The National Chicano Moratorium Committee put on the event, which would come to be known as the Chicano Moratorium, in what was then Laguna Park.

What was meant to be a peaceful protest to address real and salient issues unfortunately turned into a riot after police said they chased robbery suspects into the park, and began harassing protestors. When the dust settled, four people were dead, including journalist Rubén Salazar.

Now this historic event will get the literary treatment when students from Monterey Continuation High School in East Los Angeles present the plays they wrote based on interviews with four participants in the moratorium.  The staged version of the plays will be presented on January 25 and 26 in Los Angeles and be titled “2012 Meets 1970.”

According to a report from Latino LA, those interviewed by the students include:  organizer Rosalio Muñoz, Consuelo Flores, artist Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin and film/tv director Jesus Treviño. If you would like to attend the free plays:

WHAT: Staged Readings of “2012 Meets 1970″

WHEN: Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 10 a.m., and Thursday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m.

WHERE: Margo Albert Theater at Plaza de la Raza, 3540 N. Mission Rd. Los Angeles, CA 90031

Spread the word! Our weekly Bien Hecho segment, highlights the good deeds and achievements of Latinos across the U.S. If you feel that someone you know is deserving of recognition, let us know at tips@newstaco.com.

[Photo By Losanheles]

After doing a little research, I discovered that only two Latino musicians have been inducted in Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.   If you guessed 1998 inductee Carlos Santana, and 2001 inductee Richie Valens, you know your Rock n’ Roll history well.

So along with the creators of the groups Induct El Chicano into the Rock’n roll Hall of Fame and Induct El Gran Combo into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we want to throw in one more potential Latina nominee who definitely deserves a place in the Hall of Fame: Linda Ronstadt.  Not only does she have a beautiful voice and can sing in two languages, she was also one of the top selling and most successful artists of the 70s and 80s.  And she managed to look so cool while pulling it all off.

What other notable Latino-American acts are missing from the Hall of Fame?

El Chicano – Viva Tirado Live:

http://youtu.be/ndjqEA37CSY

El Gran Combo – Esos ojitos negros:

Linda Ronstadt/The Stone Poneys – Different Drum:

http://youtu.be/BQ9DH_lsCSs

[Photo By Carl Lender; Videos By lelitosfs; xxjorgehlxx; RetroWilliamTV]