Mexico

La Calle: Spatial Conflicts and Urban Renewal in a Southwest City

farhana — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

In her historical work La Calle, Otero focuses on the city of Tucson’s elimination of the Mexican cultural center known as “La Calle” in the late sixties. While this event may seem minor in the grand scheme of things, Otero successfully argues that the incident was in fact proof of a bias against Tuscon citizens of Mexican descent and representative of a far larger problem.

No other United States city has remained under Mexican control as long as Tucson, which was not fully acquired by the U.S. until 1856. As a result, the city retained both a people and a culture that reflected its prolonged ties to Mexico. While the Mexican flavor was initially used as a means to attract Caucasian tourists, the city later began a plan to “revitalize” the city by eliminating such centers of Mexican culture as La Calle, a downtown area populated by small locally owned boutiques, Latin flavored restaurants, and the Plaza movie theater, which showed films in Spanish. The city of Tucson chose to eliminate this popular downtown destination in favor of replacing the area’s attractions with chain stores and strip malls designed to attract suburban Caucasian visitors, believing such a change would mean a higher profit for the city.

The bias towards Mexican-Americans also went further with realtors not selling them homes to keep them out of Caucasian neighborhoods, and restrictive mortgage policies. Otero makes her case by culling local city records and utilizing the oral history from city residents who experienced firsthand the changes made to Tucson during the sixties. Otero’s evidence clearly points to a policy rooted in a belief that Mexican Americans were second class citizens and that historical monuments tying Tucson to its Mexican history were not worth saving.

As a whole the book does a good job at pointing to the larger issue of the political implications of city planning. Otero quotes feminist geographer Linda McDowell who stated “Places are made through power relations which construct the rules that define boundaries. These boundaries define who belongs to a place and who may be excluded, as well as the location or site of the experience.”

We may take for granted that the arrangement, boundaries, as well as what is deemed worth preserving, within the cities we reside in may most likely have been influenced by racism, classism, and sexism.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, February 21st 2011

Indigenous Writings from the Convent: Negotiating Ethnic Autonomy in Colonial Mexico

mandy — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Monica Diaz

University of Arizona Press

After the Spanish invasion of Mexico, the invaders converted the existing noble class of Indians to Catholicism so that the church could regulate the lives of its subjects and help the Spanish colonial administration. The noble class in colonial Mexico had special status and though never equal to the Spanish, they sometimes allied with them against the indigenous people. The nobles wanted to maintain their status and property, they had education and language, and the Spanish wanted to use them as intermediaries to govern the natives. Women lost power and authority under Spanish rule, but noble women tried to maintain their place, at least in the convent.

Many nobles quickly converted to the Catholic religion but women were unable to enter convents except as servants until 1724 when a convent was established specifically for noble indigenous women. Their lives were even more restricted than the Spanish nuns, and their regime in the convent resembles torture more than worship. Monica Diaz, author of Indigenous Writings from the Convent, argues that the women maintained their identity as Indians and nobles by defining themselves in opposition to the Spanish nuns, and when the Indian convent was threatened by allowing Spanish nuns to enter, the noble indigenous women used the tools of language that the colonial system had given them to their advantage.

The author’s stated intent was to focus on the structure of discourse and the agency of the Indian nuns during the battle to keep the convent for Indians. The nobles relied on the colonial focus of “otherness” that had been used to discriminate against them, to argue that the convent should exclude Spanish nuns, a separate but equal argument, but of course they weren’t equal. The argument put the church into a tough spot to claim on the one hand that the Indians were capable of being nuns but on the other hand that they were incapable of running their own convent. The church wanted to minimize the antagonism, because they wanted to continue to control the women and manipulate them as a model minority. Because the church insisted on hierarchy and ethnic difference, the Indian women could use those same arguments to their benefit.

Diaz compared the writings of nuns and priests to show how the priests re-wrote the women’s work and published it without attribution. However, few writings by noble Indians existed so most of the data was from Spanish nuns. A chapter about sermon writing illustrated that when priests talked about Indian nuns, they eliminated any personal history and portrayed their good behavior as a miracle and their main positive attribute as obedience.

Because the noble Indians could write in the style of the oppressor, the author argued that they had agency other indigenous women did not have. According to Diaz, they knew how to create and manipulate alliances, they understood hierarchy and power struggles, and they used this to defend the Indian-only convent. She claims that the elites found a way to maintain their political autonomy by creating a place in the new religious order. The point of the book is that the noble women adapted to new reality but maintained an Indian identity. Since few writings of the noble Indians survived, the sample is quite small and the author’s assumptions and deductions are not fully supported. Whether the actions of the women were positive agency or defensive survival and whether they maintained their Indian heritage is questionable. As with most academic books, one must stumble over the style of writing and use of words.

Written by: Dianne Post, February 16th 2011

Each and Her

mandy — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Valerie Martínez

University of Arizona Press

It can be easy and convenient to forget facts learned and impressions made about our southern neighbor, Mexico. Because I like to think of myself as conscious and conscientious of both international news and poetry, I was surprised by my recent discovery of Each and Her by Valerie Martínez. A widely anthologized poet and former poet laureate of Santa Fe, Martínez has been recognized for a career’s worth of community outreach and education, and even for translating Uruguayan poetry.

On the back cover of Each and Her, Martínez’s mentor, Joy Harjo, admires the poet's elegance, metaphor, and noble purpose: “They were roses, those tender girls broken against the edge of the border between Mexico and the U.S. They were our sisters, our daughters, our nieces, granddaughters; they are us… There can be no more silence. These poems make an opening in the pathway for justice.”

I must agree; this is one of the most lovely and thought provoking elegies I have read in a while. Martínez bestows a quiet honor on the lives of nearly 500 victims (since 1993). She does this by encompassing their names in her larger meditations on the cultivation of roses, and on representations of cultures that value (or devalue) those who are vulnerable, female, and poor.

Each and Her is, essentially, a book-length poem; there are seventy-two numbered, title-less meditations that follow a starkly written introduction to the paramount problem: many females, often students or factory workers, have been (and continue to be) murdered in or around Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico. Martínez’s objective, page-long prologue tells us that the murders are linked by evidence of sexual violence, torture, or mutilation, and that the numbers each year are steadily rising (from twenty-eight in 2004 to eighty-six in 2008). The problem is getting worse, and in its background we see a drug and labor trafficking culture, and exploitation in the maquiladoras, the export assembly plants where some of these girls are employed. In one of her many numeral-rich poems, Martínez cites the number of girls and women who currently work in that industry:

472,423
while they can be hired legally
at the age of 16, it is common for these girl-women
to get false documents
start work at 12, 13, 14

Martínez arranges beautifully sparse facts next to rich details that mesmerize with their quiet reality (“Amalia went back to Juárez / dirt floors/ sheets for doors/ Coca-Cola in small bottles/ in wood crates stacked/ bundles of tortillas and tamales/ out the front window/ pesos and dollar bills/ crushed on the ledge”). Moments like these, and small poems like “this / way” or “I refuse” helped me contemplate the horror (“right breasts severed / left nipples bitten off”) while holding onto glimpses of how these women and girls may have lived before they were tortured and killed (“crush of the crowded Juárez market / Malia is first / hand clutching mine/ Grandmother behind / tethered to Mom”).

I admired how Martínez incorporated found poems, such as selections from the Orthodox veneration of the Virgin Mary and Eve and “the missive / from the attorney general / of the state of Chihuahua,” into the same long poem as her narrated lesson on worthy ancient women: “finally, a great throng of women deserving to be named, some as Greeks, some as muses, some as seers, for all were nothing more than learned women held and celebrated…” Whether suggesting the beauty and toil of flower harvesting labor, evoking the motif of sisterhood, or considering the working conditions of women, as in poem "36." (“a typical maqui working schedule/ 60 hours per week/ typical daily wage—$8.29”), Martínez left me amazed at the breadth of her careful poetry.

The emotion of each experience—of a girl-woman and her loved ones—is nodded to and transcended. Martínez understands that the deep icon of the rose radiates out from what mathematicians or ethicists can understand about these brutal murders. I was literally propelled through these poems by a need to privilege these lives with my attention, by a kind of reverent curiosity about these girls’ and women’s stories, and by the utter pleasure of Martínez’s lovely, sparse, and thoughtful language. Justice often comes through awareness and empathy, and the way that Valerie Martínez reverently and tenderly handles her collection of meditations about this terrifying cultural pattern buoys the possibility of justice, and hopefully, a remedy.

Written by: Julie Ann, January 21st 2011

Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera

mandy — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Georgina Guzman

University of Texas Press

Making a Killing is a collection of essays exploring the history and social/political/economic context of the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico from 1993 to the present day. Essays analyze the economic context of free trade that has contributed to a culture that devalues women workers and sees female bodies as expendable in the making of cheap products for American women. Essays examine activists’ and artists’ efforts to gain attention for the plight of women in Juarez, analyze the culture of law enforcement in Juarez, and vividly portray the efforts of mothers and relatives to get justice for their missing and murdered daughters.

Though the essays collected here are primarily academic, they are easy to read and will be of interest to the general public, not just other academics. The collection provides a thorough history and a complete picture of the efforts to stop the violence against women in Juarez throughout the last two decades. Though the subject is difficult, I enjoyed the book a lot.

I lived in El Paso, Texas for fifteen of the last twenty years; the stories of Mexican women being raped, murdered, and dumped in the desert on the outskirts of Juarez, Mexico filtered into my consciousness early. But so did the stories of narco-murders. In the last three years, the world has lost its preoccupation with the murder of women in Juarez and turned its attention instead to the mayhem and murders of over 25,000 Mexican citizens in the drug cartel wars ripping the nation apart. Juarez is the city most affected by these murders (3,000 in 2010 alone).

If I have one criticism of Making a Killing, it is that it pays little attention to the general culture of killing in Juarez. The murders of women didn’t begin in 1993—nor have they stopped. And the narco-murders didn’t begin in 2007—and who knows when they will end? Because the editors focus on femicide, only one essay suggests that the femicides overlap or are inextricably intertwined with the narco-murders. The culture of violence in Juarez envelops the femicides—but exceeds them as well. If we fail to explore and analyze this truth, then the murders of women by individual men and groups of men will be forgotten as we increasingly pay attention to the drug cartel war instead.

Written by: Jessica Powers, January 15th 2011

Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Américas

mandy — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Edited by Cynthia Bejaranos, Rosa-Linda Fregoso

Duke University Press

Terrorizing Women is a collection of papers written on the subject of feminicidio (feminicide), a term Marcela Lagarde y de los Rios used to identify the genocide of women when conditions exist “that allow for violent attempts against the integrity, health, liberties, and lives of girls and women.” As such, feminicide is an extreme form of gendered violence that involves the violation of women's and girls' human rights, is a threat to their safety, endangers their lives, and culminates in their murder.

Ciudad Juarez, probably the world’s best known city with an unimaginable rate of feminicide, has seen the murder of more than 600 women and girls and the disappearance of at least 1,000 more in time frame spanning less than two decades. Although there are many factors that allow for such a high rate of feminicide to continue undeterred in a border space such as Cuidad Juarez, feminicide is a widespread occurrence beyond Mexico, reaching into all of the Americas, with many different roots, but with similar factors underlying the opportunity for, and the impunity with which such violations of human rights continue to occur.

Terrorizing Women is divided into three parts, each part starting with a personal testimony of Mexican and Guatemalan women directly affected by an act of feminicide. These testimonies offer a glimpse into the terrifying and painful experiences the survivors of victims of feminicide have to endure.

“Localizing Feminicide” focuses on the location, or territories, where feminicides are rampant—including countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala and cities such as Ciudad Juarez and Mar del Plata—and the social and historical reasons behind the feminicides. “Transnationalizing Justice” exposes some of the reasons into why feminicide has been allowed to continue, with no end in sight, by exploring the roles of governments, NGOs, economics, accountability and justice systems with a focus on Ciudad Juarez. Part Two concludes with a photo essay, “Images from the Justice Movement in Chihuahua, Mexico.” “New Citizenship Practices” explores the role of poor migrant women’s citizenship and human rights in the border space; the role and limitations of the term feminicidio; the uses of the term in Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico; the paradox of the Ni Una Más (Not One More) campaign of Northern Mexico; and the symbolic leaders of the movement, the Mujeres de Negro (Women Dressed in Black).

Terrorizing Women is an eye-opening examination of the staggering numbers of feminicides occurring near the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and throughout Latin America, an exploration into the motivation behind the killings and the reasons for the impunity received by criminals, and an insight into the strength, courage and determination of the surviving relatives of those who disappeared, to continue the fight for justice.

Written by: Nilki Benitez, September 11th 2010

The Tyranny of Opinion: Honor in the Construction of the Mexican Public Sphere

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Pablo Piccato

Duke University Press

A coworker who saw this book sitting on my desk commented, “The tyranny of opinion? Isn’t the whole point of an opinion that it’s free from tyranny?” Not quite. Even today, public opinion can make or break a celebrity’s or politician’s career. In The Tyranny of Opinion, Pablo Piccato weaves an intricate web connecting a variety of aspects of nineteenth century Mexican society, examining the notion of how honor was closely tied to one’s place in society and how public opinion affected people’s public and private lives.

Since honor was one of the most important—if not the most important—form of social capital one could have, people went to great lengths to maintain (or attain) it. Journalists at the time, for example, had a dualistic connection to public opinion. On one hand, they were responsible for publishing the material that helped create it. On the other, many journalists were underpaid and worked in poor conditions, and their upward mobility in society was closely tied to their success as writers. As such, establishing one’s reputation sometimes took precedence over objective reporting, which in turn had an impact on how public opinion was shaped.

Love affairs, student protests, public riots, and duels are also subjects of analysis in the book. Lest one think that he focused solely on the honor of the upper class, Piccato actually covers a broad spectrum of race and class. He is also careful to include a gender-based component in his analysis. Although the book focuses largely on the honor of men, Piccato examines the reasons why women—especially “respectable” women—were largely excluded from public life. In his conclusion, he notes how his analysis regarding women, domesticity, political narratives, and moral economy serve to contribute to a larger academic conversation about these subjects.

Piccato grounds his work in close readings of primary sources, interpreting everything from published newspaper stories to court documents. His knowledge of the historiography on the subject is evident, as is his knowledge of Mexican culture during the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. The strength of the book lies in Piccato’s ability to convey the context of his analysis. The Tyranny of Opinion will surely serve as an excellence resource for Mexican history scholars.

Written by: Melissa Arjona, July 12th 2010

Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Gabriela Soto Laveaga

Duke University Press

Professor Gabriela Soto Laveaga’s newest monograph, Jungle Laboratories, is a telling history that unravels the transnational political economy of barbasco yam production in Mexico from its discovery to its use in the early medicalization of synthetic hormonal steroids that created the birth control pill. According to Laveaga, the developing country context of the Pill’s history was so successfully erased from history that even the “peasant” culture in Oaxaca has allegedly forgotten its own crucial role in one of the past century’s most important scientific breakthroughs. Part of what Marxist theorists would call the “false consciousness” of history is revealed in this book.

Although production of synthetic hormones in Mexico predated World War I, controlling the barbasco trade in the the early to mid-1970s became a national project for the Mexican government. After reading Jungle Laboratories, I got the sense that “making the pill” was part of a larger initiative of “making a nation” consisting of “biocitizens” who were not just part of elite scientific knowledge production but were also expected to self-regulate their own population growth as part of President Luis Echeverría’s vision of a new Mexico.

While women were targeted for birth control campaigns, “male campesinos were encouraged to read agrarian law and technical manuals to become better and more productive citizens.” It is clear from these examples that women were positioned as part of the "population problem" to be acted upon by policies, whereas men were seen as the future policymakers and the population empowered by educational campaigns. Although the author could have written a feminist analysis of the nationalist projects, she did not; this is my own feminist reading taken from separate examples in the text that were separated by almost a hundred pages in Laveaga's book.

In general, Laveaga could have drawn out more of a critical analysis. The introduction gave an anthropologist like me high hopes for the inclusion of social theories ranging from Nikolas Rose’s biocitizenship to Michael Taussig’s theories on the layering of history and the magic of the state. However, with the exception of a couple of mentions, the theoretical underpinnings to this story were almost invisible. Given its gripping narrative, and implications for social theories pulled from elsewhere, Laveaga’s book is a good buy for an undergraduate curriculum such as reproductive health and medical anthropology. It is also an engaging read for women who are curious about the political economy of the pills they are popping on a daily basis.

Written by: Maya N. Vaughan-Smith, May 1st 2010

The Lacuna

admin — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Barbara Kingsolver

Harper

A Barbara Kingsolver novel can often be defined in just one word: captivating. In her first work of fiction in nearly a decade, The Lacuna delivers (in true Kingsolver style) with intricate characters, potent settings, and a sturdy construction built on extensive research. The end result seems so effortless, but Kingsolver’s strength in The Lacuna lies in her use of an unassuming main character by the name of Harrison William Shepherd to viscerally guide the reader through pivotal historical events in Mexico and the United States beginning in the late 1920s through the early 1940s.

The story of Shepherd’s life is that he belongs nowhere and to nobody. Born in Virginia to a small-time federal employee and a Mexican flapper, Shepherd’s entire life experience is shaped by always feeling like a foreigner no matter where he lives. Matters aren’t helped by having parents who show little interest in him (Shepherd’s friend Leandro comments, “Mi’jo…your mother can’t even remember the day she gave you birth.”), and he exists perpetually on the periphery due to his reclusiveness and homosexuality.

Yet in Shepherd, who is naturally drawn to and gifted at writing, the reader has the perfect observer in the tumultuous events that surround his life. Although he tries his best to live an unassuming life, his talents lead him to fascinating interactions with historical figures like Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky. Later in his life, he becomes part of history as a famous American writer.

What’s incredible about Shepherd is that he never has an agenda. While he does care deeply for Kahlo, Trotsky, and Rivera, he never becomes immersed in any ideology to the same degree as his friends. In fact, when he eventually moves to the United States, Shepherd always seems to give his birth country the benefit of the doubt. For instance, Shepherd responds to a letter from Kahlo regarding the Japanese internment by writing, “Don’t listen to nonsense, Frida. The idea of putting American Japanese in concentration camps is fantastical…Have faith in our Mr. Roosevelt…he is our own kind of Lenin, charting the new American Revolution.”

But despite Shepherd’s faith in the American government and his struggle against celebrity once he becomes a famous author, the sweeping effect of senator Joseph McCarthy anti-communist witch hunts eventually set their sights on Shepherd. It starts small with an article about Shepherd containing false information about his political beliefs and then snowballs until his fans nationwide have joined the crusade against him. The scene is reminiscent of recent history where campaigns were led against musicians who voiced anti-war sentiments, and events like bulldozing a pile of Dixie Chicks CDs became a threatening way to silence artists unless they wanted to risk their careers. Even one of the few close friends Shepherd has completely severs their relationship after learning of Shepherd’s supposed political leanings without asking for Shepherd’s side of the story.

Shepherd’s story is a telling reminder of how easily some become swept up in a political ideology without really knowing any of its substance. Kingsolver summarizes this beautifully through Shepherd’s friend and legal advisor, Artie Gold. Gold says, “What these men are doing could become permanent…You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark, or sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what’s broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it’s broken, you are automatically disqualified.”

Although the story is mainly told through diary entries and letters written by Shepherd, Kingsolver illuminates this time in history. Despite much of the novel being politically oriented, it does not sway toward becoming preachy. Instead, the reader is left with a beautifully written story and many questions to ponder.

Written by: Beverly Jenkins-Crockett, April 24th 2010

Societies of Peace: Matriarchies Past, Present and Future

admin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Inanna Publications

In a time when it seems we have lost our sense of humane, egalitarian living Societies Of Peace stands out as a guide to what we can learn from matriarchies in order to save ourselves from self-destruction. This book is a collection of the presentations from the two World Congresses on Matriarchial studies. The lecturers spoke about matriarchal theory and politics and the origins of patriarchy, and profiled historical and present day matriarchs who vary ideologically from patriarchs in four main societal sectors.

Politically, matriarchies are free of power structures. Everyone in the clan has one vote and decisions are based on consensus. Hence, the society is egalitarian. This structure allows for a balanced economy, the second variance from patriarchies.

Most of these economies are agriculturally based, which makes wealth hoarding impossible, and without the ability to accumulate wealth, there is very little conflict or war. Hospitality and compassion for those less fortunate is also valued in these societies.

Becoming a woman, being pregnant, giving birth, and becoming a grandmother are sacred foundations of matriarchies, and the mother is the center of society. Clans live together in the same house and family lineage is marked through the maternal bloodline. Daughters do not leave their homes; rather, husbands join their wives’ clans. Spirituality is based on an omnipotent goddess, the creator of all that is manifested in every living person, plant, and animal. From daily worship to festivals, spirituality an integral part of the society.

The following seven parts of the book provide examples of the differences in practice in matriarchies gained from individual community studies and are divided by global region. In “Matriarchal Principles for Economies and Societies of Today,” Veronica Bennholdt-Thompson describes what the patriarchal Western economy can learn from the Isthmus-Zapotec community of southern Mexico. The market prices fluctuate depending in the customers’ loyalty to the vendor, which encourages a close-knit, community-based economy. Bennholdt-Thompson comments that Western woman finding salvation in wage working is alienating and unnatural and that since women are inherently linked to creation, not realizing one's role as a giver of life is a betrayal of one's female existence.

Malika Grasshoff (Makilam) describes the influence of modern Islam on the ancient spiritual practices of the Berber people of modern day Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The Berber language is only spoken, not written, and is passed down by elders who are considered to be living holy books. Accordingly, older tribal spiritual practices still have modern-day influence. These spoken word histories are called taqbaylit, which is also the same word for “woman.” Despite French colonization of the region and widespread conversion to Islam, the traditions of this society still remain a stronghold.

The last remaining sections of the book offer theories of the origins of patriarchies. In “Saharasi: The Origins of Patriarchal Authoritarian Culture in Ancient Desertification,” James Demeo credits droughts, starvation, and malnutrition for the fall of matriarchies in central Africa. The human body, when put under such circumstances, has less emotional and sexual energy, which puts a strain on the ultimate foundation of the creation-based matriarchies: reproduction.

Societies Of Peace is truly fascinating on an anthropological level. It is also as a call to action to create egalitarian and peaceful societies.

Written by: Sara Custer, April 3rd 2010

No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:03:00 +0000

By Cynthia E. Orozco

University of Texas Press

So often, when studying the history of civil rights in the United States in school, the curriculum concentrates on the struggles faced by African Americans and white women. The plights of other minority groups though, such as Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans, are often omitted from the textbooks. In those rare instances when these other groups are mentioned, their histories are condensed into a paragraph or side note. Cynthia E. Orozco attempts to shed some light on one of these ignored civil rights movements in her book, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed. Her chronicle is a fascinating exploration at an overlooked chapter of American history.

I grew up in Texas, graduated from a Texas university, and currently teach in the same district where I attended school as a youth. Suffice to say, I have some experience studying Texas history. I found Orozco’s book, which focuses mainly on the region of South Texas, to be extremely eye-opening. Orozco outlines the history and development of the Mexican American culture and civil rights movement, starting with the early 1900s and concentrating mostly on the cities of San Antonio and Corpus Christi. She draws readers in, not with flashy writing or hooks, but with historical data and simple statistics that are interesting and to the point.

The book starts out by defining the cultural differences between Mexican Americans whose families have lived in Texas since before it became a state and recently immigrated Mexicans—a difference that many modern Americans still struggle with. Orozco then delves into the history of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC as it is commonly known by, as well as other organizations that were influential in the Mexican-American civil rights movement. She also takes on the issue of gender inequality within Mexican-American society and how this affected the civil rights movement and modern scholars’ perception of the women who participated in it.

For those interested in American history, civil rights history, women’s history, or Mexican American history, this book should be at the top of your reading list. After completing this book, I found myself wanting to know more about the people and incidents discussed. One can only hope that more books like this one will be published so that people can be educated on all facets of the civil rights movement in America.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, February 20th 2010

Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Richard T. Rodríguez

Duke University Press

Anyone can tell you that family is important to Mexican and Chicano culture, and we can all venture guesses as to why. However, where exactly this family unit seems to be headed and how it has evolved in U.S. popular culture over the past 25-30 years is what Richard Rodríguez chooses to scrutinize in his study—and he does so with unexpected wit.

Rodríguez's Next of Kin is structured into four chapters framed by an introduction and an afterword. His first chapter, "Reappraising the Family Archive," examines the predominance of the family in Chicano cultural production since the establishment of the explicitly Chicano movements in the early '70s. Here, Rodríguez displays evident skill in his pictorial analysis, a talent that is augmented by the inclusion of various reproductions of the materials that he is analyzing.

In the aptly named second chapter, "Shooting the Patriarch," Rodríguez's analysis traces the same phenomenon as it appears in the medium of film and television. Although he looks at many films and programs produced by Chicanos, he primarily focuses on the film Mi Familia. Remarkably, Rodríguez manages to avoid using the word "stereotype" in this chapter, at least for the first part of his breakdown of the film.

In the third chapter, "The Verse of the Godfather," Rodríguez very thoroughly traces the origins of Chicano rap music and hip-hop culture. However, we can only lament that he did not extend his discussion to specific lyrics, since he is especially skilled at textual analysis. We finally find this skill put to use in the too brief final chapter, entitled "Carnal Knowledge," where carnal refers to the Mexican Spanish "brotherly" aspect of kinship. Rodríguez investigates the construction of gay Chicano Culture, but once again, the chapter seems underdeveloped and this begs the question of insufficient material, since Rodríguez dates the outing of gay masculine Chicano culture as far back as 1981. Seeing as the book is otherwise well written and informative, we can but lament that almost one third of the book (some 80 pages out of 257) are devoted to notes and bibliography.

Much of Rodríguez's analysis in Next of Kin revolves around the construction of the Chicano identity as different from (and similar to) the construction of other gendered identities, such as African American identity. This comparative aspect is one of the conclusions that Rodríguez's book implies, but does not mention explicitly in its afterword. As American culture becomes more and more heterogeneous, it is undeniable that the (supposed) melting pot society will constantly construct new permutations of the Chicano identity and, as Rodríguez concludes in his afterword about the family, "community is made, and remade, ideally over and against normative familia romances whose hopeful passing will call forth its next of kin."

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, November 23rd 2009

Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Bárbara Renaud González

University of Texas Press

Golondrina is the Spanish word for a (female) swallow, a noun. But to accept that in such strict terms would be an injustice to this literary artwork laid out by Bárbara Renaud González in Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?. To swallow—the verb—would be to envelope or take in and also to accept or believe without question, anger, or protest. To embrace the former, this long-winged migratory bird with the deeply-forked tail is to embrace all of these definitions within the context of Amada García’s journey.

Amada’s story is intricately woven within the delicacies of Mexican cuisine and through the eyes of her second daughter, Lucero. Her journey begins and, dare I say, ends in Mexico. The Mexican Revolution would seem to better serve as a prelude rather than a catalyst for the bitterness that unmercifully surrounds Amada. For if it were a prelude instead of a catalyst, time may have been kinder to her.

Having to be taken out of school at the age of thirteen, Amada decides to educate herself. This education came in the form of a rebellious quinceañera gift to herself: a brutal marriage to a man her father’s age and a daughter, Salomé, forced to grow up without his love. Amada decides to leave Mexico and Salomé in search of a better life for herself and she hopes the daughter will join her eventually. She falls in love with the man who takes her across the border, but chooses to marry a man who is only in love with the land taken from his people. The love Amada so wishes to have is the love she gives to her eight children and the physical and emotional nourishment she provides for them.

González is a masterful storyteller with the ability to unapologetically simmer pain, desire, and despondency with the richness of words that conjure up beautiful culinary imagery. She refuses to romanticize the brutality of the journey, yet still creates a longing in the reader that allows us to take in this journey with more philosophical resignation than question, anger, or protest. Amada García’s story is that of a heart that migrates across what seems to be three lifetimes: her life in Mexico, her journey from Mexico to Texas, and her life from Texas on forward. Amada's journey starts in Mexico, and even though she is physically in another country, those lessons that have so deeply etched themselves into her heart seem to remain loyal to her motherland.

In Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me? González beautifully and artfully leaves us content with nothing to protest.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, November 19th 2009

Turquoise and Carnelian Sterling Silver Earrings

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:48:00 +0000

By Amy Holton Designs

You can’t get Mexican food in Kolkata to save your life. Sure, some places say they have Mexican, but when you get there all you find is some wack version of nachos that are so tasteless and bland that even the most spice-phobic person would beg for something to liven up the dish. You can get passable tapas if you’re willing to spend a pretty penny, but that's hardly the same. In other words, if you want the real deal, you’ve got to make it at home.

This lack of Mexican food here makes no sense to me considering the abundantly similar ingredients used in Bengali and Mexican cuisines. Beans? Check. Tomatoes? Check. Onions? Check. Cilantro? Cumin? Hot peppers? Chili powder? Check, check, check, and check. Massive quantities of oil? Check. And these are just what is readily available.

Easy to obtain, Punjabi rumali roti can easily substitute for a flour tortilla, and different varieties of cheese (though expensive) can be obtained with little effort from Spencer’s, a one-stop shop similar to SuperTarget. Sour cream can be made with a little time, lemon or buttermilk, and heavy cream, so really, the only thing missing is avocado—but that is only absent because I simply refuse to pay $4USD per avocado to the exotic food scoundrels in New Market when there are better uses for my hard earned cash.

The one and a half year absence of this culinary staple has made it a mental focal point, so when I saw the brilliantly blue turquoise and carved carnelian gemstone earrings by Amy Holton Designs, I immediately longed for Cancún. Granted, I’ve never actually been to Cancún, but I imagine it has a effervescent feel similar to this delectable pair whose price tag ($25) won’t break the bank. The lightweight design and sterling silver ear wires make them easy to wear all day long, which is good because the unique style will have you coordinating your outfits to match your earrings instead of the other way around.

Amy Holton started making jewelry after being laid off from Enron during the 2001 scandal. Turning her corporate disillusionment into personal artistic fulfillment, Amy’s creative fuse was lit while working with the Houston Ballet and subsequently exploded after she and her husband moved to the indie arts and music capital of the Southwest—Austin, TX—in 2007. Taking the opportunity to launch her own business selling hand-made jewelry, Amy Holton Designs pushed its way into existence.

Clearly inspired by nature, each piece is a unique creation mined from the earth and sea. Don’t mind my excess salivation while wearing the Turquoise and Carnelian Sterling Silver Earrings. I’m simply recollecting the tart and tangy taste of a margarita. Mmmm.

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, October 14th 2009

Gabriel García Márquez: A Life

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Gerald Martin

Alfred A. Knopf

In his exhaustively researched biography of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Gerald Martin, who spent seventeen years examining every aspect of Marquez’s life and interviewing over 300 people, beautifully takes the reader through the life and times of one of Latin America’s most influential writers, a Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most popular novelist in the last fifty years.

Martin traces Márquez’s (or “Gabo” as he is affectionately referred to throughout the biography) early beginnings back to Aratacata’s early days and to the life of Colonel Nicholás R. Márquez Mejia, Gabo’s maternal grandfather, who played an influential and supportive role in the young boy’s life until he was swooped up by his nomadic parents at nine years old. It’s during that time, Martin writes, that the inspiration for One Hundred Years of Solitude was born and where Gabo learned of magic via his superstitious grandmother.

Living with his parents, Martin writes of the antagonistic relationship with his philandering father, his secondary school years where writes poetry and is acknowledged as a brilliant young scholar, to his University days as a law student, who has no interest in the law, but in literature.

Martin painstakingly examines Gabo’s career as an investigative journalist, his travels to Europe and later to Mexico, where he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. The novel was published six years later, catapulting Márquez to fame, fortune and friendships with notable leaders of the left including Spain’s Felipe Gonzàlez, France’s François Mitterand, and Cuba’s Fidel Castro—a source of controversy and criticism for the author who has been a lifelong Liberal.

Gabriel García Márquez: A Life is a magical and intoxicating book that is much more than one man’s life story; it is part history, part cultural studies, and part political science. Gerald Martin provides a mesmerizing tribute to an extraordinary writer.

Written by: Rebeca Schiller, June 28th 2009

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:01:00 +0000

By C. M. Mayo

Unbridled Books

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is the type of book that serves as a virtual passport allowing the reader to travel from one reality into another. The story is set in Washington, D.C. and Mexico City at a time when America was in the throes of civil war and Mexico was struggling to find its own place in the world under the reign of Archduke Maximilian von Habsburg. It is at this critical place in time that we meet the main character, Alice (later known as Alicia). She is a wistful, optimistic, and adventurous young lady who unwittingly finds herself falling in love with the much older son of a dignitary, Angel, who is known as Angelo. From there, the story becomes more complicated, with twists and turns and philosophies and Mexicanismos and Americanisms.

Mayo’s ability to make language malleable and without borders gives the reader a sense of what it meant to be 'important' in those days when slavery, sexism, racism, and generalized oppression were sanctioned by both church and state. Furthermore, the novel helps us to recognize how much we, as a people, have yet to accomplish concerning these issues.

Mayo’s novel evokes feelings of sadness and concern for the present day reality that has unfolded between the nations of Mexico and America—a sadness, for the loss of generations of writers whose voices were silenced and a concern that the echo of their lives is yet to be discovered. Mayo stands tall, a leader in the world of literature. My hope is that, through her writing, she is providing the spark that will propel new voices to be recognized and applauded. The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a verdant, thoughtful, and intellectual while also being savage, carnal, and raw. The thoughtful reader who appreciates a well written tome will enjoy this book again and again.

Written by: Susan G. Reyes Vasquez, June 6th 2009