Did Romney Don Brownface?

So, did he? The internet was absolutely on fire after Mitt Romney showed up at his Univision interview looking an unhealthy shade of bronze. Has the presidential hopeful gone brown in a misguided effort to win the trust of Latino voters? Or did he simply have an unfortunate run-in with a self-tanner?

Check out my theory over at In These Times' ITT List.

Dear Underclasses: Please work harder.

Today, a Tory MP joined the international movement to ask poor folks to work harder and stop being so damn broke. Here's my take on the issue via the ITT List blog at In These Times.

FARC Goes Viral

My take on FARC's announcement that it will participate in peace-talks via a (rather shoddy) DIY rap video.

Check it out here, via In These Times.

Pringles Markets Maya Chips

What would you say to a company that used images of the Vatican to sell its foodstuffs? Potential products could include Holy C Wafers (high in vit C!), Original Sin Apple Pie or Thicker than Water red wine.

Maybe it is a bit distasteful. So then why do Pringles feel they can use a cartoon version of El Castillo, a Mayan temple in the ancient city of Chichen Itza located in present-day Yucatan, to sell Mexican Layered Dip chips? It's such a faithful representation, I'd guess the designer Googled "Mexican pyramid" and copied the first image she/he saw. Trying to decide whether a generic-looking pyramid would have changed my reaction.

Working in SF, nearly half my restaurant coworkers were Yucatec Maya, some Catholic, some not. Reality check: there are people who hold traditional Mayan beliefs in the United States and would undoubtedly be concerned by the choice of packaging here. Majority religious groups would be in an uproar over a cartoon- mosque or synagogue or temple being slapped on a snack that sells for $1.50. How about some respect for indigenous minority religions?

Don't want to be the PC Police, but the Maya civilization was one of the first in the world. Trivializing human origins makes this ancient history enthusiast repulsed.

Here's El Castillo in it's non-animated splendor. 

Spanish San Francisco

Inside Mision San Francisco de Assisi. The system of California missions was created by the Located off of the original route of El Camino Real - the Royal Road - the chapel was constructed by native Ohlone people, many of whom were buried on-site. Known locally as Mission Dolores, the chapel's colloquial name comes from a since-dried up river that once ran down 16th Street, Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.


The reredos (the gold wall behind the altar) clashes violently against the hand-painted ceiling. While it's been restored over the years, the design and colors are original. The pattern itself is supposedly of Ohlone origin.


Beyond the Mission is a small cemetery where prominent San Franciscans were once laid to rest. A small Ohlone hut and a memorial to "loyal" natives feature prominently among the sea of graves. Completed in 1918, Mission Dolores Basilica was built next to the Mission on the corner of 16th and Dolores.


Mission Dolores is the oldest standing structure in San Francisco, founded in June of 1776. The Presidio, a Spanish military base, was established near the SF Bay the same year to protect Dolores. Its single wall, now part of another building, is the only other original Spanish structure in the city.

Reading Poor & Foreign

What happens when you piss off your waitress.

"Excuse me, miss? We have to ask - are you Eastern European?" he asked, exaggerating each syllable like he thought I didn't speak English. The great grey eyes hiding behind horn-rimmed glasses blinked in anticipation.

I glanced around the dining room. My fellow servers were Malaysian, Vietnamese, Chinese - the bus and kitchen staffs were all native Spanish-Speakers. What he'd wanted to say was - "You must be foreign - because if you're just white, why are you working here?"


But he looked Eastern bloc himself - Ukrainian, Belarusian perhaps with a wide forehead and hair more peppery than salt. The woman in the booth next to him  let out a rich laugh, marveling at my confusion. The neon pink-lined smile went limp when I answered in my flat, Midwestern accent.

"I mean... I guess. Like a quarter? Polish. Does that count?" Cold War tactics. Don't let them see you sweat. "Now what can I get you to drink?"

My skin crawled in anger and disgust; the question hounded me all the way back to the beverage station. I am part Eastern European. So why did I feel so offended?

...

 Just a week before an Irish Catholic priest had beckoned me to his seat.  I grabbed the coffee pot and strolled over to pour another refill. Pot in midair, he gestured to me to come in closer before I could reach the near-empty glass.
 
"I heard you talking to the busboy in Spanish," he whispered, leaning low over his place mat and scanning the surrounding tables for informants. My blank face must have convinced him I didn't understand his meaning because he continued: "Are you...are you Mexican?" I straightened up and poured diner sludge into the tall hot chocolate glass - if you give Father a short mug, you'll be topping him up every five minutes. 
 
"I'm from Indiana."
 
"But before."



"Are you asking if I have papers?" I snapped with my bitch-face on.


A crisp $10 bill waited for me, tucked under the glass the good Father had left half-full.

...

What seemed like the next day, a Japanese woman stomped up to the cash register. A woman, maybe a granddaughter, trailed behind her, not taking her eyes off the ground.


"Dear - dear? You're half Asian, aren't you? Japanese, maybe?" Her pitchy voice pinched my eardrums. The younger woman looked up, mortified - doubly mortified, I realized, because we had a class together this semester.  


"No, I'm not," I said, forcing a smile. "Total's $27.13. Debit or credit?"

...

I'm not sensitive about my ethnicity - seriously. But it really gets my goat when people question me about it in the most presumptuous ways. Oddly, exchanges like those I described were a rare occurrence for me. And even though I'm biracial, people almost always assume I'm white - at school, in restaurants or on the bus.

No, I'm convinced these customers were spurred to test the limits of courtesy not only because I had an apron tied around my waist, but because of the environment. Nature versus nurture shit right here. 

Take a peak into our kitchen and at best you'll hear a smattering of English words like "hasbrown" or "cheese burger". The space between is filled with a Spanish-Yucatan Maya hybrid chatter. Stand behind the register long enough and you'll be speaking fluent Mandarin.

And then there's me - the white-looking, English-speaking out-of-place waitress. Many diners had to make me fit into the environment, forcing me into one of the Asian/Latino demographics of the restaurant. Others just assumed I was another Russian in the Richmond District of SF. 

The problem isn't being called those things (I am Mexican- & Polish-American), but being called them in an inquisitive tone by people who think they've solved the riddle: "Who is this girl to work in a run-down diner?" The answer can't be a straight penniless?
 

What is boils down to is vicious and blatant race-based classism (or viceversa, depending on your reasoning). In "affluent" spaces like the university or a mall, I (and many bi/multiracial people) read "white". People have laughed in my face when I identify as Chicana or mention being Mexican-American. But when I'm somewhere poor people hang or work, I'm suddenly foreign? Not only foreign, but undocumented?
 

The behavior I've witnessed speaks volumes about the saying: "Immigrants do the jobs Americans won't", but it's more than that. If you don't scale down who you are for consumption, someone else will do it for you.

#YoSoy132 in Song

Yo Soy 132 was born of necessity. During an appearance at Ibero-American University on May 11, now President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto infuriated a crowd of students already opposed to his candidacy. Responding to student concerns, Peña Nieto addressed the Atenco incident, a violent clash between state police (called in by Peña Nieto, governor of the State of Mexico at the time) and local flower vendors at the Texcoco market outside of Mexico City.
 
Human rights groups have condemned the action that resulted in two deaths and a host of sexual assaults by police. But Peña Nieto defended his decision to call in police, igniting the crowd's fury. He fled the scene to take refuge in a bathroom as the sea of Ibero students shouted "Atenco no se olvida" after him.

The appearance was a disaster for Peña Nieto and it was quickly sanitized for the public. The then-presidential candidate's PRI and the mainstream Mexican media accused the opposition of packing the audience with their supporters, but their campaign to assuage Mr. Peña Nieto's embarrassment backfired when rally attendees took to Youtube to dispute the claims.

131 students answered the call, simultaneously challenging Mexico's ruling party and mainstream media with 11 minutes of pieced-together footage. Each student states their name and matriculation number, waving ID cards in front of their webcams as defiant proof the audience wasn't paid for by opposition PAN or PRD. A 21st century  masterpiece of new media emerged; a social movement took root. Mexicans country-wide took to the streets with gritas of "Yo Soy 132" - I'm 132.

The Left has drawn comparisons between #YoSoy132 and #Occupy - maybe it's the hashtag? But the two are vastly different. For me, there's one key difference - no one can take credit for #YoSoy132. Like the Arab Spring, the "Mexican Occupy" as it's sometimes called, responded to a concrete event. It was organic. The concept of #OWS emerged from an Adbusters' editorial meeting.

A Song for the Streets
Another thing #YoSoy132 has that #Occupy doesn't? An anthem.

Written by singer/songwriter Natalia Lafourcade for and inspired by #YoSoy132, "Un Derecho de Nacimiento" has become something of a theme song for the movement. Lafourcade brought some of the biggest names in Mexican indie pop together for the official version of the song, which she originally performed solo in Mexico City's Zócalo.

Lafourcade's version is eerie, painful and unsettling even. Unlike other protest music, it's not matter-of-fact, not a simple chant-along. It's complexity captures the inherent tragedy of #YoSoy132 and the suffocation of Mexican civil society.

As moving as Lafourcade is solo, the ensemble version takes on a different character that doesn't disappoint. Performed under the name Músicos con Yo Soy 132, is less "We Are the World", more a singalong you'd have with friends at a rooftop party. Your über talented friends. But the video, recorded in the Zócalo on June 26th, is what gives the song a bigger voice and larger audience.

Reminiscent of the original "Yo Soy 131" Youtube spot the Ibero students created, the video employs closeups of individual musicians only to zoom out and pan around the circle of artists - a literal visual representation of the role of the individual in a popular social movement.

"Un Derecho de Nacimiento" has a deeper significance for Mexican culture as one of a handful of Spanish-language songs to cross the border without being of a specific (traditional) genre. Sung by young, hip, beautiful people, the song and video lend legitimacy to a movement on the international stage, crashing through stereotypes of what Latin American "rebels" and "trouble makers" look and sound like. Lafourcade and crew force English-speaking audiences especially to challenge their preconceived notions of what "the Mexicans" are like (i.e. with the same concerns as gringos) and perhaps reevaluate the attitude toward immigrants in this country. One can hope.

But that's not to say everyone is thrilled with the song or the artists featured on the track. Some bloggers and other artists have mocked Musicos con Yo Soy 132's contribution to the movement, calling it opportunism and a marketing ploy from musicians who benefit from Televisa exposure. In fact, some of the artists have recently been featured on the company's musical variety show, Mexico Suena. The roots of the conflict between authentic and inauthentic art stretch far back into Mexico's history.

Translator Natasha Wimmer recounts in her introduction to the English version of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives the author's founding infrarealism as a reaction to state-sanctioned literature. 

She remembers:

"[Bolaño and friends] disrupted the readings of poets whom they held in contempt, shouting out their own poems. The poets they chose to torment usually had one thing in common: they accepted money from Mexico's PRI government, which made a policy of supporting (some might say paying off) Mexico's top writers and thinkers" (xiv).

So, the visceral reaction some artists have had to the song is understandable. Musicos con Yo Soy 132 may not have accepted money from the government, but some have accepted publicity and tacit endorsements from the movement's other archenemy by performing on Televisa's Mexico Suena. Of course, this doesn't mean the artists approve of the channel or its control over the Mexican media. Only time will tell if the performers support for the goals of Yo Soy 132 will change as the movement loses steam.

And if not, at least they've repented.

(Inexpert) Translation of "Un Derecho de Nacimiento" or "A Birthright"/ "A Right of Birth"

I will create a song to be able to exist
To move the earth, men and survive
To heal my heart and mind and let it flow
To lift the spirit and let it reach the end

I wasn’t born without cause
I wasn’t born without faith
My heart beats hard to scream at those who don’t feel
And chase happiness

I will create a song to respect the sky
To move the roots of this land and make it rise up
To cleanse the water of the green venoms it holds
To lift the spirit and let it live in peace

I wasn’t born without cause
I wasn’t born without faith
My heart beats hard to scream at those who lie to us
And chase happiness, and chase happiness

It’s a birthright
It’s the driving force of our movement
Because I demand freedom of thought
If I don’t ask for it, it’s because I’m dying

It’s a birthright
To see the fruits of our dreams realized
It’s one voice, one feeling
And so that this scream cleanses our wind

I will create a song to be able to demand
That they don’t take from the poor that’s cost them so much to get
So that stolen gold doesn’t crush our future

And so that those who have plenty don't find it so hard to share

I will raise my song to be able to wake
Those who go through life asleep without wanting to look
So that the river doesn’t carry blood but carries flowers and the sea heals

To lift the spirit and let it live in peace

It’s a birthright
It’s the driving force of our movement
Because I demand freedom of thought
If I don’t ask for it, it’s because I’m dying

It’s a birthright
To see the fruits of our dreams realized
It’s one voice, one feeling
And so that this scream cleanses our wind

I wasn’t born without cause
I wasn’t born without faith
My heart beats hard to scream at those who don’t feel
And chase happiness

Que es un derecho de Nacimiento...