Arizona

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

Waking Up in the Land of Glitter: A Crafty Chica Novel

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Kathy Cano-Murillo

Grand Central Publishing

Waking Up in the Land of Glitter is Kathy Cano-Murillo's first foray into the world of novel writing. The author, known to her crafting disciples as "Crafty Chica," already has a well-established fan base because of her popular crafting books, web series, nationally syndicated newspaper column, instructional craft cruise to Mexico, and product line.

A few pages into the book, I could have sworn it was written by the same author as Houston, We Have a Problema. I quickly detected the same seemingly recycled character types: the young fiery Latina with no sense of direction, and her suave Latino love interest, always so cunning and elusive. Admittedly, I’ve grown sick of these caricatures, but I’m happy to report that Waking Up in the Land of Glitter scores much higher marks than its doppelganger.

Murillo’s first novel tells the story of Estrella (Star) Esteban, the wacky, spoiled daughter of two of Phoenix’s most prominent proponents of the local art scene. Star's parents own La Pachanga, a restaurant/community center/art space that also happens to be where Star works, doing what can only be described as a half-assed public relations job.

Crafty Chloe, the villain for the first two-thirds of the book, first comes into Star’s life when she interviews her after someone defaces a popular mural at La Pachanga, which happened to be created by local artist and Star’s sort-of-boyfriend, Theo Duarte. What Chloe doesn’t know is that Star did the defacing herself after one too many tequila shots.

What ensues is not original, groundbreaking, or thought provoking—it’s simply cute. After Theo and Star's parents find out she’s the one that ruined the mural, Theo breaks up with her (though they were never really together; "it’s complicated"), and her parents fire her, making her sign a contract saying that if she doesn’t get her life together she’ll have to move out of their home and stop working at their restaurant.

It is during this time we get into the cheesy coming-of-age tale, in which Star bands together with her best friend Ofie, an obsessive crafter with no crafting talent, Chloe, and a young gay teenager named Benecio to create centerpieces for what’s called the Crafting Olympics. It is also around this time that Star becomes an artist after talking about it for years, despite never picking up so much as a pen.

Despite clichés, bad dialogue, and not-so-intriguing characters, I was pretty hooked on this book and read it in just a few days. I suppose I’m a sucker for stories revolving around charmed lives—you know the type: it always works out for them in the end. And for Star, it all works out: She has an art show at her parent’s restaurant and sells every piece within hours, Theo proposes in a ridiculously elaborate way on her birthday, and she has enough money to buy a property on the same lot as La Pachanga so she can open her own crafting studio.

As I get older, I realize that not every book I spend time reading has to be an earth shattering, groundbreaking, eye-opening event. What you get with Waking Up in the Land of Glitter is a cute though trite little tale that will leave you wishing real life worked out as seamlessly as it does in books.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, March 25th 2010

A Place for Dialogue: Language, Land Use, and Politics in Southern Arizona

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:34:00 +0000

By Sharon McKenzie Stevens

University of Iowa Press

Sharon Stevens has dual intention for A Place for Dialogue. She has brought to light the conflicts between ranching, grazing and conservation in Southern Arizona. Stevens also brings forward the manner in which distinct groups dialogue to move people from “representation to relationship.” The many sided debate between ranchers, developers, conservationists and public officials moves through the book as she insightfully defines the methodology in finding collaborative space. The author’s approach to the situation was done in such a manner to present all perspectives without bias, illuminating the need for engaging people at the local level to build understanding within groups whose “primary allegiance is those they identified with.” There, she describes the conflicts and the impact our changing society has had on everyone involved.

The contention in creating space for collaboration is not solved here – the process of experiential methods within the context of public land use is described, defined and the reader is taken through the experience step-by-step. The struggle between these entities described is impacted by stereotypes compounding how, in negotiation, someone is bound lose and how parties prioritize the importance of their own success above the needs of others.

Written by: Mary O'Hara, May 23rd 2007