It’s almost payday. Some dead vato will be remembered this weekend and the people need their supplies to help in the celebration. Why not make a bit of extra cash in the process? Every year there are different spots that bring you these glories of glory, with varying levels of craftsmanship, like these simple teddy bears ones. I got to see the soft opening of a few spots in Majestic Lincoln Heights. Click ahead if you want to see just a few more.
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Wow! We must be becoming visible at last! Mexifornia, the paranoid fear of the Joe Arpaio’s, Walter “my radio is speaking to me in Spanish!†Moore, the forgotten Lou Dobbs, and the author of “Mexifornia†Victor Davis Hansen, who had to build a fence in front of his central valley home to keep the Mexicans from throwing beer cans into his yard.
On this xenophobic and paranoid produced Mexifornia driver’s license is a picture of one of the great actors in American and Mexican history, Alfonso Bedoya, who was a modern day Chicano, being born in Sonora, schooled in Houston Texas, residing for many years in Los Angeles.Â
“Badges? Badges? I don’t have to show you no stinking badges!†One of the great lines in film history, from one of my all time favorite movies “The Treasure of the Sierra Madreâ€, about three gringo wetbacks that travel into the Sierra Madre of Mexico searching for gold but end up finding other treasures (except for poor Humphrey Bogart),
Seeing Bedoya on a driver’s license gives me great pleasure, I feel so good I feel like listening to a song to celebrate. I’ll also share it with you.
And get ready for an onslaught of this type of nativist racism when the coming ussue of immigration reform is debated.
The Breed Street Shul in Boyle Hts. has announced that they will soon begin classes for local residents to convert to Judaism. The goal is to tie Latinos to Judaism so that when Latinos have more political power they will continue America’s support for Isreal.
Ricardo Montoyiswich a recently converted Chicano Jew said, “This will help re-establish the Jewish presence in Boyle Hts. and hopefully lure Canters back to the heights!” Montoyiswich, who will be teaching several classes at the Shul, said his life has changed for the better since he made the switch. “As an actor I was having a hard time getting work, but out of no where, once I converted, I started getting all these cool gigs.”
Some of the classes that will be offered include: “Putting Down Those Whiny Santos,” “How To Leave La Virgen and still Love Your Mom,” “Circumcising The Chile: Grin and Bare It,” “Menorah and Dradle Care for Chicanos (Don’t smoke it and it’s NOT Pon),” and “How To Trace Your Distant Jewish Roots.”
Sleepy Tonatiuh, a next door neighbor to the Shul and proud Aztec dancer said, “This ain’t right. They should be teaching people about the people on this land and how this land was stolen, just like the Isreali’s stole Palestine.” He plans to protest the classes once they open by having his danza group do ceremonies during class time. When asked for a response, Montoyiswich said, “Sounds like that indio needs to see the play “Palestine New Mexico” and learn how Indians are Jewish.”
Will there ever be peace in the mid Eastside?
Ron Unz announced that he was planning on opening an elementary school in the MacArthur park area to be named after his good friend and fellow Republican Jaime Escalante.
An Unz spokesman Will Garglio, stated that this will be called Jaime Escalante Westside Elementary School (JEWES). Unz plans to open a similar school on the Eastside.
JEWES curriculum will be total English immersion with a focus on media manipulation. Plans include having a student run television station just like professional Latino TV stations. They plan to staff the station with the lightest and blondest of the community, even if they have to import them all the way from Miami to do so. Will Garglio said, “We want these youth to feel like they are in the real world and that world doesn’t look or speak like them, so they need to get used to it now.”
Textbook orders have already been filed and include texts that exclude Sal Castro, Che Guevarra, Rudy Acu~a and other Chicano/Latino heroes that might instill pride in the students, something that must be avoided, according to textbook publisher: Bendover for Texas Press.
Here, have some more.
Last weekend of art activism– A Prayer for Juarez closes. This Friday and Saturday doors open at 7:15pm for final viewing of the protest art exhibit. Casa 0101 Annex, 2102 1st Street, Boyle Heights. All events are FREE!
Friday, March 26, Film Screening of El Traspatio/Backyard from Mexico. Not yet released in the US. Stars Jimmy Smits & Ana de la Reguera. [Mexico, 2009 – 122 mins]. Screening starts at 8pm
Saturday, March 27, Award Winning Reporter Diana Washington Valdez updates us on the latest from Ciudad Juarez, from an insider’s point of view. Starts at 8pm.
Diana Washington Valdez, an investigative reporter for the El Paso Times, has covered the murders in Ciudad Juarez since 2001. In her book The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, Washington Valdez contends the killings are part of a circuit of parties hosted by prominent Juarez citizens. Former FBI official Frank Evans said, “Diana Washington Valdez is a witness to the truth.†Ms. Washington Valdez has taken the message about the femicides in Ciudad Juarez to 30 cities in the United States and other countries. She is featured in the documentary Border Echoes, produced by Lorena Mendez Quiroga of Los Angeles and in Bajo Juarez by Alejandra Sanchez and Jose Cordero. Both films feature author Washington Valdez’ examinations of the Texas-Mexico border atrocities. Diana Washington Valdez has been interviewed for features on CNN, the New York Times, Aljazeera, Televisa, Channel 4 (London, England), and other news media.
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In Sunset Junction, aka the Westside,..,.some friends and I created our own comfort station for the marathoners. As the runners came by, we handed out cold cervezas and sprinkle donuts……
Pictured is a Butoh dance entitled Cihuatl 15 performed by endy, at a Prayer for Juarez on Saturday, March 20. Her endurance piece on Saturday offered time and opportunities for inquiry, contemplation and processing in response to the femicides in Juarez. In preparation for this dance movement, she laid still on the sidewalk in front of Casa 0101, as sand was poured over her body, representing the women who had died in Ciudad Juarez and buried in shallow graves.
Butoh’s source is the Japanese avant-garde of the 1960s, a period when Japan struggled with the lingering effects of the atomic bomb detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. Originally called “ankoku butoh,” or “dance of darkness,” the medium created a space for the intensely grotesque and perverse on the stage. In Japan endy studied “Sankai Juku†which means “studio by the mountain and the sea,” and implies the serenity and calm which is characteristic of the work. She also studied and has performed with Guillermo Gomez-Peña.
Voice your thoughts on the City’s decision to partner out the Barnsdall Gallery Theater, the Junior Art Center, the Barnsdall Art Center, the Warner Grand Theater, the Madrid Theater, the Willam Grant Still Art Center, the Vision Theater, the Watts Towers Arts Center, and the Charles Mingus Youth Art Center as well as a 50% reduction in the Department of Cultural Affairs budget.
What: Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee Special Meeting
When: Monday, March 22 at 10:00 am
Where: City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street
Details: Discussion of the Department of Cultural Affairs’ current budget, Department’s submittal for 2010-11 Budget, impact of the Early Retirement Incentive Program, possible restructuring of Department operations, and other related matters.
It gets harder and harder each week to keep up with everything that’s going on sometimes you know. I gotta deal with student life at taco tech, activism work with the team I’m a part of and of course keeping up with my community reporting. Then some how in between all that I gotta make time to earn some cash here and there moonlighting. Such is the life and I am forever thankful for it. Idle hands are the devils play things you know. In fact, a friend commented to me that I was dropping the ball on my reporting, which is kinda true. So, with that being said, here’s a list of things to do with weekend East of the river. I’ll catch up on here when I’m on spring break next week. In fact, I should be studying rather than blogging. Fuck it.