365 Days of Latino Heritage

classicladiesofcolor: Maria Tallchief January 24, 1925~April...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:33:12 -0400

Maria Tallchief

January 24, 1925~April 11, 2013

Ms. Tallchief was the first Native American (she was of the Osage Nation) to become prima ballerina of a major company.

Puerto Rico to pay more than $35M in back wages to nearly 4,500 workers for unpaid overtime

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:32:57 -0400

Puerto Rico to pay more than $35M in back wages to nearly 4,500 workers for unpaid overtime:

The agreement to restore unpaid overtime wages to workers at Puerto Rico’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is part of a consent judgment approved Friday by a federal judge in Puerto Rico. It’s one of the largest such settlements in Labor Department history.

native-detroiter: afrodiaspores: Twerking among Black women...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 03:18:28 -0400

native-detroiter:

afrodiaspores:

Twerking among Black women has recently emerged as a threat—to the “politics of respectability” that associate proficiency in art forms dismissed as “low class”/”ghetto”/”ratchet” with moral turpitude and intellectual degeneracy; to the notion that Black women (both cis and transgender) and gay men adept at dances that focus attention on the torso merit contempt instead of praise; to the belief that if a person (especially young and Black and/or Latino/a) provokes desire, whether purposefully or unwittingly, they/s/he deserves violent exposure to the worst of contemporary “rape culture,” from internet trolling to physical abuse; to the the idea that historically Black innovations (such as AAVE and queer men’s and trans women’s ballroom voguing) exist merely to be decontextualized, commodified, and jokingly imitated, rather than commemorated as collectively affirmed vectors of value and ongoing modes of resistance.

In the online exchanges concerning Black women’s twerking and the subsequent appropriation(s) of it by white performers, some have questioned the extent of its linkages to older African-derived dances. Others know far more about the topic from first-hand experience and have more to offer in terms of analysis. I would like to expand the discussion slightly to draw a few more connections across the African Diaspora—between African-American dances as currently performed and Caribbean movement traditions—than those I have seen elsewhere. For instance, I would propose comparison not only with the “limin,’” “wainin,’” or “winin’” of Jamaica and Trinidad, but also with Cuban dance styles that share with certain West and Central African forms an emphasis on the buttocks as punctuation marks for the narrative told by the legs of the dancer. Rumba guaguancó, with its characteristic thrusting vacunao, is a textbook example.

Another complex of dances that would reward consideration alongside twerking are of Haitian origin (and with which I am unfortunately less familiar, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies). For example, the lwa, or spirits, of the Gede clan enjoy dancing the hip-swiveling banda, and seeing it executed for them. Gage Averill relates,

The Gedes (including Bawon Samdi/Papa Gede, Grann Brijit, Gede Nibo, Bawon Lakwa, and others) are spirits who guard the secrets of death and the cemetery and also have a special relationship to crossroads. The dance of the Gedes is the highly sexual banda, with its accentuated rolling of the pelvis, and the Gedes have a privileged position from which to interject humor and sexuality into all of their interactions.

Yvonne Daniel disputes the interpretive focus on sex, arguing that banda communicates the need for “keeping life vital,” but not the importance of banda in ritual practice. While banda performance may also turn explicitly oppositional, as when the Gedes demand resources or rights from the powers-that-be, it is difficult to think of a celebration of survival among people of African descent that would not be—in multiple senses—political.

Similar movements are not confined to ceremonies explicitly centered on the lwa. As in the footage seen above, filmed by Maya Deren between 1947 and 1951, participants in the Lenten (usually Easter Week) festival called Rara visually cite banda and have developed genres of performance that strategically use the hips and hindquarters as tools of expression. The poses struck by these majò jon or ”baton jugglers,” convincingly traced to Kongo precedents, complement the bodily attitudes assumed by the ”queens” of Rara bands. Elizabeth McAlister observes,

A quality Rara queens seem to share with their hip-hop counterparts is their irreverence toward the dominant culture’s moral stance, which would seek to repress their sexuality as women. Rara queens, as well as rappers and other women artists in Black Atlantic performance traditions, fashion and perform a publicity that projects images of female sexual freedom and economic control.

She continues:

One common feature of many forms is the celebration of the African female behind. Future scholarship might well look into the possibility that the “bottom-heavy” hip-rotating dances like gouyad, whinin’, and “doin’ da butt” “had one meaning in African culture and came to be integrated into bodily performances of opposition in the American setting.”

At the end of this passage, McAlister quotes Judith Bettelheim’s 1990 paper, “Deconstructing the Mythologies: From Priestess to ‘Red Hot Mama’ in African and African American/Caribbean Performances.” This title hints at the work still to be done in order for twerking to be understood more widely as part of a larger family of Diasporic dances, and for its mastery to be appreciated as a unique recombination of skill, knowledge, and kinship.

span

thinkmexican: 150 Years of Mexican, Mexican American History...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 03:17:46 -0400

thinkmexican:

150 Years of Mexican, Mexican American History Now Online

The UA Libraries has just made 150 years of regionally published newspapers documenting the voice of Mexican and Mexican American communities digitally available for the first time.

A new digital collection at the University of Arizona Libraries makes accessible more than 150 years of news coverage documenting the voice of the Mexican and Mexican American community.

Curated, researched and digitized by librarians and archivists, in consultation with UA professors, the collection features 20 significant Mexican and Mexican American publications, many in Spanish.

The newspapers and magazines were published in Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sonora, Mexico from the mid-1800s to the 1970s.

Read more at UANews.

Visit: The Historic Mexican & Mexican American Press Collection.

lucitania: “Singer Yma Sumac, a descendant of Atahualpa, the...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:16:47 -0500

lucitania:

“Singer Yma Sumac, a descendant of Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor, 1950s”

Richie Perez Radical Library and Benefit Hip Hop Concert!!!

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:26:42 -0500

Friends of Guests · By Rebel Diaz, Claudia De la Cruz and Sky Cohen.

Sunday, February 10, 2013.

5:00pm until 8:00pm in EST.

478 Austin Place - RDACBX

DACBX and Bluestockings Books present: The Richie Perez Radical Library and Benefit Hip Hop Concert… Sunday February 10th, 2013 5pm-8pm… 478 Austin Place ( 6 Train to 149th) Come and learn about the new project we are working on… over the last couple of months along with Bluestockings we have gathered hundreds of books on Hip Hop, Politics, Latino/a and Black History, books on Malcolm X, Mumia Abu Jamal, Che Guevara etc… Join us as we raise funds to further move along this project and come check out the books we already have! Time to make books and reading cool again. See u there.
Don’t miss this event!! In honor and celebrating the legacy of Richie Perez… RDAC-BX and Bluestocking Bookstore have come together… We got some very special Surprise Performances, Martha Laureano will be with us… Check it out…
Sliding Scale Donations taken at door….$5, $10, $20

comeuppance: If the administration were serious about DACA...

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:22:39 -0400

comeuppance:

If the administration were serious about DACA approval, they would be approving at a higher rate.

A Nuyorican in LA: No more metal detectors (and other back to school surprises for my kids)

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:09:18 -0400

univisionnews:

Little Gaby at her new school.

By MAEGAN “LA MAMITA MALA” ORTIZ

Call me a New York City supremacist. After successfully navigating my two daughters through the largest public school district in the United States, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) was going to be a cakewalk. Or so I thought.

Read More

Latino turnout: The big picture

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:53:38 -0400

univisionnews:

The issue of Latino turnout at the polls is complicated, but there’s reason to believe Latinos will play a pivotal role in 2012.

By EMILY DERUY

Latinos are constantly touted as key players in the upcoming election, even capable of swinging red states like Arizona blue. And there’s little doubt that they can make a difference in the outcome of not only the presidential election, but state and local elections as well.

The real question, though, is will they?

Read More

oposicionpinera: BASTA!

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:33:35 -0400

oposicionpinera:

BASTA!

Photo

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:40:51 -0400

The CFC: A Meeting at the Kitchen Table: POC Feminists Envisioning the Future

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 11:04:23 -0400

The CFC: A Meeting at the Kitchen Table: POC Feminists Envisioning the Future:

crunkfeministcollective:

A Meeting at the Kitchen Table: POC Feminists Envisioning the Future

POC Caucus CFP SEWSA 2013

Calling on some of our People of Color feminist foremothers, the POC Caucus panel hopes to examine where we are as POC academics, cultural workers, and artists and where we’d like to be. As…

Julia de Burgos y la Frida - El Barrio NYC From Yasmin Hernandez...

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 15:23:20 -0400

Julia de Burgos y la Frida - El Barrio NYC

From Yasmin Hernandez

lanenalmar: rscspokenword: Yessssss! The difference between...

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:05:29 -0400

lanenalmar:

rscspokenword:

Yessssss! The difference between America and the US

^^^^

I know I should be nice

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 17:09:07 -0400

wildunicornherd:

but I am tired, bone-dead tired, of choking on my anger at systemic, structural injustices to appease insecure white men who are really trying.

You don’t have to be nice

The LatiNegr@s Project: New York Daily News Apologizes for Printing Cuban Flag on Puerto Rican Day Parade Announcement

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:38:43 -0400

The LatiNegr@s Project: New York Daily News Apologizes for Printing Cuban Flag on Puerto Rican Day Parade Announcement:

latinorebels:

Just hours after an editor from Latino Rebels uploaded the following picture to our Facebook site, which shows New York Giants boricua star Victor Cruz in front of two Cuban flags promoting the June 10 Puerto Rican Day Parade in the “viva New York” section of the New York…

Puerto Rican flag mistaken for Cuban flag in the NY Daily News

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 16:38:15 -0400

fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory:

univisionnews:

New York Giants’ Victor Cruz…and Cuban flags to promote the Puerto Rican Day Parade.

Read More

Red triangle, blue stripes=Cuba.

Blue triangle, red stripes=Puerto Rico.

Did you know that the current flag of Puerto Rico was created in New York City in the late nineteenth century?

empoweredafrolatina: Meet Carolina aka Miss Rizos. She is a...

Thu, 24 May 2012 17:26:01 -0400

empoweredafrolatina:

Meet Carolina aka Miss Rizos. She is a Dominicana and is leading the natural hair movement in the Dominican Republic. Miss Rizos founded www.missrizos.com after going natural a year ago after 15 years of ‘alisado’ or relaxers. This is huge especially in DR. When I visited, I saw about 3 women who wore their hair without a relaxer. My host said people immediately asked if I were from Brazil or Curacao because I could not be from DR because I wore my hair curly. Miss ‘Curls’ is here to offer her support, advice, tips and amazing personality to those seeking the natural way. Visit La Tiendita de Lolita. Follow her on twitter for updates!

Do you wear your hair ‘natural’?

Translation : 1 worker’s day, 364 days for the...

Tue, 01 May 2012 18:23:06 -0400

Translation : 1 worker’s day, 364 days for the employer. Stop the exploitation! Transnational (corporations) out!

youlikemealready: champagnecandy: hawt. This.

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:04:22 -0400

youlikemealready:

champagnecandy:

hawt.

This.