John Stewart and the Arizona Ban on Mexican-American Studies

Check out the report by Al Madrigal for The Daily Show with John Stewart on the ban on Mexican-American ethnic studies program in Arizona. It's tragic that young Mexican-American students eager to learn are not allowed to learn their history and their cultural contributions to our nation.

A thanks to John Stewart for talking about Arizona's latest cultural atrocity.

Let it be known that in Arizona sharing a burrito is subversive.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

And now the state legislatures have their eyes set on college ethnic classes.

Applecore (Baltimore): Are Chip n' Dale Mexican?

When I was a kid the classic Disney cartoons--Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and Chip n' Dale--were regular guests at hour house. We had a collection of VHS Walt Disney Home Video Cartoon Classics: Goofy Sports, Scary Tales, Halloween Haunt, Mickey & The Gang, and on any given evening one of my brothers or me would pick which to watch. As a family we guffawed at Goofy's transformation into Mr. Motor bulldozing down a cartooned 110 freeway in a yellow sports car, watched in merriment as Mickey, Goofy, and Donald traveled the open road in a silver airstream, and let our eyes widen like Donald's hungry gaping beak as Mickey shaved the last slice of bread into paper thin translucent sheets for dinner before selling the farm cow for magic beans and climbing the stalk. We practiced our best "Wahahahooee!", competed around the dinner table to see who could eat their corn on the cob like a typewriter like Donald, and memorized lines to make the others laugh, "I smell chocolate pot roast with pisnacho-- with smicshmashmi-- with mishmashmo-- green gravey!" But my all time favorites were the ones starring Donald Duck as he engaged in epic, catastrophic battles of will with Chip n' Dale.

There was something about the escalation of violence between a tightly wound, anal retentive duck and mischevious chipmunks who happily ruin all his well-made plans that tickled me pink. Donald was always so earnest and meticulous about his model trains, toy planes, about cooking a hardy breakfast, clearing his front path of snow. And at the moment he has it just right, Chip n' Dale come in to take a joyride, sneak a tower of perfectly stacked flapjacks, eat all the apples, take all the popcorn. They unapologeticaly take and take from the fruits of Donald's hard work, and even though Donald retaliates, the battle always ends with a red-faced crazy-eyed duck sitting at the center of an atomic sized pile of rubble, and the chipmunks still sitting in their tree.

Recently, I decided to introduce my 5 year old nephew to some of my favorites via Youtube: Out of Scale, Apple Core, and Three for Breakfast. We watched together, and I was reminded of all those years back sitting in the living room with my brothers and our VHS collection sprawled on the floor. He laughed just like I thought he would at all the right spots. And while he laughed, I began to see these old favorites with new eyes.

Donald in his sailor uniform, with his well-manicured home, multitude of toys, all the necessary conveniences, and the chipmunks living off the land, working on a farm, camping in an orchard, always being chased out, always being blamed for stealing all the resources (Can you say taxpayer money?). These characters suddenly started to look familiar. Is Donald an all-American, veteran conservative? Are Chip n' Dale Mexican?

In the episode, Applecore, Donald owns an apple orchard. At the beginning of the cartoon he is taking stock of his land and picking apples. He is happy out in the fresh air, on the land he owns, ripe, red apples all around him. Then he turns one over in his hand and finds it infested with small bites. He then sees that all the apples have bites taken out of them. Of course, soon he finds Chip n' Dale and battle begins. Donald wants the stealing, loafing vermin off his land, and he will do anything, even resort to chemical warfare to get them out. But who was on the land first? Who do the apples really belong to? Hmmm.




In an episode titled Out of Scale, we first see Donald driving on a miniature locomotive, conductor's hat on his head, through a miniature town and countryside, but it's not quite finished, not quite perfected. He starts planting model trees until he runs into a real tree out of scale with the rest of his plan. He decides to uproot it, move it, and put a to scale miniature in its place. Chip n' Dale, just back from a nut gathering excursion climb up their tree to find it much changed. The tree is barely much taller then them, and before they can even comprehend what has happened, Donald comes and shakes them out of the tree and tries to chase them out. I think of Chavez Ravine, Arizona, and other stories from the southwest. Chip n' Dale illustrate a classic story of displacement.

As I have explored these stories, done all the important research aka watching cartoons (I love being a poet), I was surprised to find Donald a sympathetic character. I actually feel for Donald, all his hard work, his time put in, his youth spent defending our nation as a sailor in the Navy (as his uniform suggests). He reminds me of the older generation, people from my parent's generation who take pride in their gardens, in bricking the front porch, making the perfect batch of lemonade and sitting out on the new porch to drink it. Doesn't he deserve respect? Doesn't he deserve to enjoy the house owns, the life he worked hard to create without chipmunks coming in and stealing his pancakes, using his kitchen, eating his apples? It only seems fair. It took a cartoon duck with an anger management problem to help me begin to understand the motivations of the conservatives when it comes to the immigration issue. It doesn't mean I agree with them. It doesn't mean that I think the militia or SB1070 are right, but I can see where they are coming from. Maybe someone should show those militia a couple of episodes because they would see that creating a war zone never works out well. Just ask Donald.

Here is excerpt from a poem I'm working on inspired by the cartoon:

Out of Scale: The Assimilation of Chip n’ Dale

Chip n’ Dale carve dwelling into trunk,
gather chestnuts, horde berries,
need nothing. They are chipper chipmunks
until a duck steams forward on locomotive
with plans for a model town. A duck
in engineer cap plans a model life.
More tracks must be laid, more houses
tracked, more contracts written up.
Donald pauses, ponders the possibility
of a stadium for goofy sports, serious
money, but development is halted

Publishing News

I'm excited to share one of my Chavez Ravine poems, "Mud-caked," has been published in the latest issue of The Los Angeles Review. Issue 9 features the work of Bruce Holland Rogers. Other contributors include Dana Gioia and Annie Finch.

"Mud-caked" is inspired by one of Don Normack's beautiful black and white photos that capture life in the now extinct Mexican neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine before homes were torn down for Dodger Stadium. The girl in the bottom left photo is the inspiration for my poem. I tried to give a glimpse of what her life may have been like with a thematic focus on ownership.

Photos are taken from Don Normack's Book Chavez Ravine: 1949.

Excerpt from "Mud-Caked":

Boys can battle for brown-grassed hills,
but they won’t snatch Bunny
—one mud-caked, plump-stuffed bunny—
from her tight grip. When she goes in for the night
she will tie Bunny to a pipe with twine:
her bunny, her patch of dirt, her pipe and twine.
Like a horse at a saloon, she will tie Bunny up
before going in for supper, before her mother can say,
“Don’t you dare bring that filthy thing in,”

Border Poets at Beyond Baroque this Friday

Photo by Holly Winters

This Friday November 19th at 7:30 Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center will host six amazing voices from Juarez and Tijuana, also known as the borderlands of Mexico. These poets have gone to great lengths to travel to this side of the Rio Grand to bring their unique voices and point of view to our L.A. stage.

We’ve seen the news stories, heard tales of horror, been warned of the dangers of these middle areas, and now thanks to these poets' efforts we can listen to language and narratives that capture the truth of these places like no news report ever can.

Border Poets features: Edgar Rincon Luna, Martin Camps, Bibiana Padilla Maltos, Armando Molina, Jose Rico, and Anthony Seidman.

Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center
681 Venice Bl. Venice, CA 90291
Phone 1-310-822-3006
Admission $7, students/seniors/children $5, members FREE

EDGAR RINCÓN LUNA’s collections include Aqui comienza la noche interminable and Puño de whiskey.

MARTIN CAMPS is the author of three collections: Desierto Sol, La invención del mundo and the award-winning Extinción de los atardeceres.

BIBIANA PADILLA MALTOS is a Tijuana-born poet. Her collections include Equilibri...os, Intrucciones para cocina, Los Demonios de la Casa Mayor, Los Impersonales, 25 ScoreS 25 and Mini Poemas.

ARMANDO MOLINA is this year’s winner of the prestigious David Alfaro Siqueiros grant. He also coordinates events at the library in the Parque Central of Ciudad Juárez.

JOSÉ RICO’s translations recently appeared in a special issue of Luvina dedicated to the literature of Los Angeles.

ANTHONY SEIDMAN’s poetry and translations have appeared in Poetry International, Rattle, Hofstra Hispanic Review, Luna, Crate, The Bitter Oleander, Beyond Baroque, Nimrod, Reverso, La valquiria and La jornada semanal. His collections include Where Thirsts Intersect and Combustions.

Hosted by XOCHITL-JULISA BERMEJO.

Splintered Thoughts: Poetry, Politics, and the Individual

Click here for the latest Splintered Thoughts Blogtalk show.
On today's show we listened to poet and Mexican immigrant, Erika Ayon, share narrative poems about her childhood as a street vendor selling oranges. Her poems give us a personal and touching view of a way of life many of us will never experience, but pass by (at least in L.A.) daily. She also introduced us to the Dream Act, a proposal for undocumented students to become citizens under certain moral and educational stipulations. This month is very important for the Dream Act and in order to help this proposal become a bill you can call California Senator Diane Feinstein and ask her to support the proposal, or for more information you can visit dreamactivist.org. Don't be afraid to get active. Here is something we can do now to help young, hardworking students have a brighter future.

We also spoke to Arizona-based activist, Walt Staton. He is familiar with the immigration issue as he has been volunteering with human rights group No More Deaths since 2004, bringing water and medical aid to migrants crossing the dangerous deserts of Arizona. He spoke out against the negative turn Arizona has taken, and asked us all to look for a more positive solution. Instead of making the border a full out military zone, he suggests tearing down the wall and decriminalizing immigration. Perhaps, he has a point. The more we criminalize immigrants the bigger the war will get. If we don't take a different approach, who knows when it will stop?

Fight fear with knowledge and compassion, not guns and walls. And remember that we are all human, all individuals.

Shifra Goldman and Poetic Arte!

Saturday night I attended an event of Latino American art, poetry, and academia in celebration of one great artistic mind, Shifra Goldman. If you don’t recognize her name, don’t worry, I didn’t at first either, but I assure you, you have felt her influence. A Jewish American academic, who came from a Yiddish and English bilingual family, she is attributed with being one of the first to call for the conservation of Siquiero’s whitewashed Olvera Street mural, “Tropical America,” when most people forgot it existed. Her critical analysis and books, Dimensions of the Americas, Contemporary Mexican Painting in a Time of Change, had major influence in the European and American art worlds of the 70s and 80s when many believed nothing of significance could be birthed in Latin America, and generally made such names as Rivera, Siquieros, and Orozco world-known.

All this I knew about Shifra, the writer and Latino art champion, before I walked into Avenue 50 Studio on Saturday night, but what I gained by being apart of this celebration was so much more. We began with an acoustic guitar performance by her son, Eric Garcia. After playing two songs, he invited in his preteen son to accompany him on violin, and instantly the crowd was uplifted. The shaggy haired twelve year-old talent was nothing less than charming. Next was film director and writer, Jesus Trevino, who read from his memoir, Eyewitness. He shared a section about Shifra and his time with her, and her influence. As he read it was clear that many in the room know her personally. He spoke of her work with “Tropical America," her philosophy on politics and art (they cannot be separated), and it was like I could hear the audience smiling. The next performer, a poet, Ramon Garcia, was also fortunate enough to know her personally. She had taken him at a time when he was new to Los Angeles. He appeared young, and I wondered how exactly they met. How was he so lucky to have dinners with her at a bad French restaurant in Echo Park? “Taix” he shared with the room, and many laughed. Bad food, but good discussions, a majority of the 60-70 people now crowding in the tiny art studio agreed. I realized that I was only a visitor; I have never met Shifra, but I now wish I could have.

Other poets, Gloria Enedina Alvarez, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, and George Kalmar, shared poetry and memories, as well as members in the audience, and every story told was like it’s own special gem. Artists, poets, friends, a son, all were touched by her in some significant way. And it seems if you had come to know her, you were certainly influenced by her critical and caring mind. She was a mentor to artists, and other lost children of Los Angeles, and I began to wish I was a little older, a little more lost, a little more hungry and that this surrogate mother could be mine too. I imagined sitting with her in Taix drinking a dirty martini and listening to her speak about art and revolution. I wondered what heated discussion we would have, and how she would generally “school” me as I make notes in my mind. If only.

She is bedridden now, and in the final stages of Alzheimer. Her son shared that he visits with her daily, and before coming to this event he sat with her. He recorded a minute long video of Shifra knotted in her bed, her brilliant mind somewhere locked in the darkness of the past. He carried her into the event on his white Apple laptop, and it was then I remembered Frida Kahlo.


Or I should confess, the movie Frida (Shifra may not have approved since it seems she didn’t care for Hollywood). I remembered the final scene, where Frida, one leg amputated and very ill, lays in bed on the opening night of her exhibit. I remembered the doctor’s order, and how friends carry her, heavy wood-carved bed and all, to the event to celebrate, to see the culmination of her work.

In some way Shifra was there, and we celebrated with her.

UPDATE: Sadly, Shifra Goldman died from complications to Alzheimer at 85 on September 11, 2011. For more on Shifra's life and legacy, you can read her obituary at L.A. Times here or this piece by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez at KCET. She will be missed.

Education and Jaime Escalante

The other day I walked into my house and found my father and two of my brothers sitting around the kitchen table discussing some pressing matter. This is our favorite past-time. Other families may enjoy throwing the ball around, board games, or watching sports, but nothing gets us more excited than an argument over Obama's progress or lack there of, immigrant rights, big government, the state of public schools, allocation of state money, and so forth. We sit around the kitchen table blood boiling calling each other loyal "automotrons" and other such ridiculous insults.

On this particular day the argument had something to do with education and the state of Latino progress in comparison with the rest of the nation. My brother Julio, the oldest and arguable the smartest (he went to Stanford...whatever!) mentioned a quote he had heard that the Chicano movement of the sixties and seventies did the population a great injustice by focusing on education and not on business. My brother Gabriel agreed and thought we might be better off today if they stressed becoming part of the market instead of focusing on things such as cultural studies in colleges. Basically, they argued that the movement created a whole generation of teachers and thinkers, but no money makers or government players. My only retort: "But it's part of our makeup to encourage community, culture, and education." They didn't seem too convinced, and went on to discuss those people who have made it to the upper echelons like Villaragosa and Gloria Molina. I decided to retreat to my computer and let them solve the world's problems without me.

The next morning, while getting ready for work, my father had the news on in the living room, which had a live feed from Garfield High School and the memorial for educator Jaime Escalante.

And I thought, "See, this is what it's about."

Jaime Escalante changed people's lives. More than that he changed how his students' saw themselves. He gave them tools to succeed, and what more can we ask for? That's why education and art and community are important. It reminds of who we are, and by knowing who we are we are able to accomplish more.

He told his students, "I'll teach you math and that's your language. With that you're going to make it. You're going to college and sit in the first row, not the back, because you're going to know more than anybody." He gave them an even playing field. He gave them the language and the space to achieve, and that is essential.

Valentine's Day Contest

Last month I entered my poem, "Quinceañera Serenata," (inspired by photos and interviews from Chavez Ravine by Don Normack) to Trellis Magazine's Valentine's Day poetry contest. Trellis Magazine is a great source for new as well as experienced poets for publishing, inspiration, and knowledge. They always have fun contests and great informative links.

I am excited to announce that my poem was selected to be part of their current Inspired Poetry: for Valentine's Day issue. The contest took 12 classic love poems (Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Liz Bar Browning) and asked participants to write a new poem inspired by the form, imagery, theme, etc of one of the originals.

Click here to see the current issue in PDF form. Poem is on 26 with notes on 27.

I hope everyone finds love and inspiration this Valentine's Day!

For My Grandmother: An L.A. Story

From left to right: my father, grandmother, mother, and me

In my search and thirst for the past, for the faces of our history, I have forgotten the faces that brought me to the subject of immigration in the first place. I have forgotten that the story isn’t always something out there in the world, but something right here inside my own home, inside my own family.

This past Saturday my family decided to have a Catholic mass in my grandmother’s (my father’s mother) honor. In December my grandmother was in the hospital after she suffered an episode, which many of us feared was a stroke, and that our worst fear––the inevitable truth of her passing––was upon us. Watching her, my tiny grandmother, skin as delicate as tissue paper, struggling and crumpled in her hospital bed, I tried to hold back tears, as I suspect we all did, in what seemed like an attempt to keep this fragile creature from dissolving.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a stroke, and she was back in her Boyle Heights home by Christmas Eve. To celebrate, we had a mass said in her honor this past weekend in a small Catholic church, Mission San Conrado, up above Solano Avenue, in the shadow of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium.

Yesterday, once again looking through Don Normark’s photos from the book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, I came across a black and white landscape shot of Solano Avenue and the north slope of La Loma. The homes of La Loma are gone now, but the church, the site of my grandmother’s mass, stands at the foot of that hill, and it is still green, still looking untouched. After the mass, my brother Andres took his son Armando and our nephew Gabrielito up the steps behind the church, past the ceramic alter to the Virgin Mary, to explore this greenery. I wasn’t up there with them, but I’m sure the boys played pirate, adventurer, conqueror, as I’m sure the boys of La Loma did 60-70 years earlier.

Inside the church, during the homily, the priest (speaking only in Spanish) addressed my grandmother, who with the help of her youngest daughter slowly rose to her feet. He asked her, are all your children here? She nodded. And are these young people your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? She smiled and nodded.

Some of the great-grandchildren attempting to sing for their great-grandmother

And señora, he asked, where are you from in Mexico? Teocaltiche (a small pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico), someone in the aisles assisted. Is anyone else here from Teocaltiche? My father raised his hand high up and let a proud grin spread wide over his face. And señora, how long have you been here? My grandmother laughed, shyly keeping her glance low in what seemed like an old school sign of respect for clergy, Cincuenta años. Fifty years, she told him.

And here I was trying to find an L.A. story, lamenting the loss of the culture and people of Chavez Ravine, not realizing that culture still lived in here. Normark’s photos illustrate a lost town, but the hills are still here, the Spanish is still here, and family is still here.

In 1949, Normark stumbled into Chavez Ravine. In 1949 my grandmother was raising three young children in a poor pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico (my father once told me how they didn’t have electricity in Teocaltiche, and that the children waited for full moons to play out in the streets at night). In 1949, the inhabitants of Ravine's La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde communities grew their own vegetables and milked their own goats that grazed along the green hills all around their homes. In 1949, my father scaled the hills surrounding his town with his grandmother to collect nopales (cactus) to accompany the simple meal of frijoles, chile, and tortillas that his mother was preparing back home for dinner.

My father, first on the left, with his siblings, cousins, and grandfather in Teocaltiche, Mexico

And now in 2010, sixty-one years later, the houses on the hill of La Loma are gone, but my family thrives. And my small, unassuming grandmother stands in a church beaming with pride to be surrounded by her still growing family of seven children, nineteen grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren. And in an hour two of those great-grandchildren, Armando and Gabrielito, will be conquering the hill just outside. And somehow, there is comfort in knowing nothing is ever completely gone.

Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story

Before Lasorda and Valenzuela, before we bled blue, before Dodger Stadium Chavez Ravine was a collection of three sleepy communities–La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde–existing in the hills sandwiched between downtown and Elysian Park. There, poor, mostly Mexican-American families made their homes out of shacks and makeshift dwellings, but when a young photographer, Don Normark, stumbled upon the inhabitants of Chavez Ravine, he felt he "had found a poor man's Shangri-la." He had found three communities full of life, pride, and strength. Of course, most know that the homes that once scattered across the hillsides where vacated and bulldozed, at first for a public housing project, but later the public land was sold to private investor, Walter O'Malley for Dodger Stadium. So what was once a vibrant Mexican-American enclave hidden in the hills of Los Angeles became the site of the major Los Angeles professional sport institution known as The Dodgers.

What is especially astounding to me is that Normark accidentally stumbled on to La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde, when he was searching for a wide shot of downtown, but was so inspired by the place that he came back more than a dozen times with his camera in hand. Little did he know, nor the subjects of his photographs know, that the place he was capturing would soon no longer exist.

And now because of the work of a young, novice, but inspired photographer, we have a look back at a time and a way of life that has become obsolete in wide-spread industrialized Los Angeles.This is one of my favorite photos. He is demanding his own poem.

The book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, is full of Normark's black and white photos and is accompanied by interviews with the people who once lived there. It is an amazing source, and a reminder of a simpler time when neighbors knew one another, and L.A. was green and untouched.

Here is a portion of a poem inspired by Normack's photographs and one woman's memories of life in the ravine:

Quinceañera Serenata

“And what was really, really special was that on Saturday, five o’ clock in the morning when the sun was coming out, the boys used to play the guitar and serenade everybody, and it was so beautiful to hear the music in Spanish.” ––Carmen Torres Roldan

Mi quinceañera, en tela blanca,
como linda flor de la mañana,
blushes before an open window’s light.
A virgin veil sweeps black coquettish eyes,
and hands hold prayers like fiery drama.

Dawn calls me to sing my serenata
for this child-bride, this niña querida,
versus for young apricot cheeks. Ayay,
mi quinceañera.


Poem Notes:

The form of this poem is a rondeau. It is missing the final stanza for publication purposes.

A quinceañera is the celebration of a girl turning 15 years-old. It can also refer to a girl who is turning 15. This Mexican tradition is still very prevalent among Mexican-Americans.