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By Eduardo Diaz, Dierctor, Smithsonian Latino Center

After the presidential election, much has been made of the impact of the Latino vote, shifting some of the national focus to issues that matter to this large and growing population sector. How this plays out on the public policy front remains to be seen; however, interest in tackling nagging and divisive immigration reform appears to be on the front burner.

Receiving less notice was pending legislation establishing the National Museum of the American Latino. A special commission, appointed by the President (George W. Bush, then Barack Obama) and Congress submitted its report in May 2011 calling for the creation of the museum. With the advent of a new Congress, authorizing legislation designating the museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution will likely be reintroduced this year. Most observers hope that this process will be handled with the same bipartisan spirit that greeted the 2011 report.

Given the Smithsonian Latino Center‘s commitment to preserving and promoting the historical, cultural and scientific contributions of Latinos in the U.S., I thought it would be useful to briefly describe what we are doing to further this work.

First, a comprehensive assessment of Latino collections, research, exhibits, public programs, and outreach efforts across the Institution was completed in 2012. This provided guidance on how we can build upon and maximize our strengths and holdings, where affirmative effort is needed to improve and enhance our resources, and what strategies are necessary to ensure access.

Secondly, a Latino curatorial initiative is in full swing that will dramatically increase the number of curators imbedded in our museums and research and program centers. Within a museum context, curators drive research, direct collecting efforts, lead exhibition development, and collaborate on correlative educational and public programs and web presence. They are key lynchpins in ensuring sustained Latino presence.

Thirdly, we are working to establish a Latino gallery on the National Mall. Any national Latino museum or cultural center is 12-15 years away from opening so in the meantime, we believe it is critical to establish a physical Latino presence at the Smithsonian. This will allow us to utilize Smithsonian collections and expertise to best share the U.S. Latino story with millions of visitors each year.

The Latino Center is completing a strategic plan that will focus our energies on the three areas noted above, in addition to managing core leadership and professional development programs, completing ongoing exhibition projects and public programs, expanding the creative use of technology and new media, broadening outreach and marketing strategies, intensifying resource development efforts, and strengthening the capacity of our national board of directors — the operational infrastructure necessary to build upon for museum development purposes.

Maintaining current levels of service and establishing a new gallery on the National Mall is a full plate. Unwinding from time to time helps, especially with humor. The other day I thought I’d watchBowl of Beings, a 1991 series of vignettes by the Latino comedy troupe, Culture Clash. In one of the sketches, Chuy (Mexican nickname for Jesús), our erstwhile Chicano activist and rabid San Francisco 49′ers fan, laments to a giant poster of Che Guevara that “the decade of the Hispanic turned out to be a weekend sponsored by Coors!” There is great poignancy in Chuy’s hilarious lamentation. It left me wondering if the Latino community’s time on the national cultural scene had reached the proverbial tipping point. Will a weekend, or even a decade, do? What role will potential physical presence on the National Mall play? Many questions and challenges lay ahead.

When Chuy’s 49′ers step out onto the football field, they play for keeps. In moving the national Latino cultural development agenda forward, so must we.

Eduardo Díaz is the director of the Smithsonian Latino Center and a 30-year veteran of arts administration. The Latino Center works to increase and enhance Latino presence, research and scholarship at the Smithsonian Institution by sponsoring, developing and promoting exhibitions, collections, research and public programs that focus on the Latino experience. Díaz is an advisor to the Smithsonian’s Secretary and Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture as well as to Congress and other government agencies on a range of cultural development issues related to Latino communities in the United States and their impact on diverse countries of origin.

[Photo courtesy Smithsonian Latino Center]

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]

In college there was no doubt in my mind that I would marry a Mexican. I didn’t want my culture to be diluted. I wanted to live in a Spanish-speaking household. I wore Ché Guevara berets with rebozos and Tehuana blouses. I just stopped short of wearing a poncho and purchasing a donkey just to really make a point. I wanted my partner to understand my family, and not judge them for being so incredibly loud.

Fast forward seven years and I am living with my white boyfriend. Throughout my early 20s, I avoided white guys. I didn’t want to “sell out” (though it can be debated that I always was a “sell out”). I didn’t want to live in fear of them saying something racist. I didn’t want to be their “Latina college experience.” Sometimes I believed they wouldn’t even find me attractive. I also didn’t want to have to explain what a “chancla” was or what I meant when I said I was “empachada.” I also didn’t want to explain my Chespirito references (like when I get “la chiripiorca”).

I just wanted them to understand.

But that didn’t work out. The brown men I dated didn’t do well with my independent nature. Some of them were off put by my very non-traditional beliefs and lifestyle. I’m not generalizing, though. I’m sure that there are plenty of educated brown men who are comfortable dating unconventional brown women and don’t secretly want a white girl. Please don’t send me angry emails, for I know these men exist. I, however, never met one who showed any interest in me. Believe me — I looked. Also, the further I got into my education, I’m talking about graduate school, the fewer Latinos I came across.

That is not to say that dating a white man was my last resort. Far from it. I can’t imagine a better partner for myself. I’m lucky to have found him. It’s in meeting him that I let go of many of preconceived notions. For example, not all white people eat boiled hot dogs for dinner, listen to Dave Matthews Band, and do the funky chicken at weddings. These are things I simply did not know. My boyfriend sincerely wanted to know about my culture, he valued my intelligence and was interested in my innumerable opinions. He even watched Chespirito for me. Clearly, to him I wasn’t just some spicy Latina shaking my proverbial maracas. At this point in our four-year relationship, sometimes he makes some salsas that are better than mine. He often speaks Spanish without even realizing it.

Of course, there are tensions that result from cultural misunderstandings. Having grown up poor as hell, my complexes about class have made some star appearances. Also, having been condescended to so many times in my life for being a woman of color — ”Oh how cute, that little Mexican girl thinks she’s a writer!” — I can be extremely defensive. If I even suspect someone is patronizing me, I lose my temper (cue neck jerk and obligatory “Oh hells nah!”).

Sometimes I’m wrong, though.

Most of the time, I forget that we’re an interracial couple. Once and a while, however, other people seem to be really bothered by it. I can’t count how many times a white woman has given me a dirty look when I’m with my boyfriend. And no, it’s not all in my head! Also, when we go to nice restaurants, particularly with his family, the Mexican busboys look at me with confusion and sometimes judgment and disappointment. I can’t express to you how awkward and guilty I feel at these moments.

At first, my mom was also worried that his family would be racist, which is perfectly reasonable since Mexicans are not exactly considered the upper echelon of society where I come from. I had to reassure my mother many times that my boyfriend’s parents were actually very kind to me. I used to think that the saying “You can’t choose who love” was stupid and sappy because I thought that we could, in fact, chose who to love. That may still be true, but had I dismissed the nice white man I met at the grad school mixer simply because he was white, I would have missed out on the best relationship I’ve ever been in.

There are so many interracial couples in this country, I don’t see why people are still offended by it. We all have our particular preferences. It’s very reasonable to have certain criteria when looking for a partner but consider allowing yourself to be surprised sometimes. And, I suppose, the the world can judge us all it wants because last time I checked, miscegenation was still legal.

Oh Hells Nah is a small and sassy Mexican woman exploring the relationships between poetry, culture, and food. She lives in Chicago, you can check out her blog — like hot dogs for your brain — or follow her on Facebook or Twitter @OhHellsNah.

[Photo By ♥ellie♥]