Elenamary

I was on a walk with my dear friend Miles Curtiss of Marvin the Robot fame and we were discussing local politics. I had mentioned that maybe some day I’d like to run for mayor of Columbus and that I do know a fair amount of people in the city.  Miles responded that I also had more experience than Sarah Palin. I begged to differ, I mean she has been mayor of a city of 9,000. To which Miles responded “You definitely have more foreign policy experience than she does. You ran for Mexican congress.”

A few years ago I ran for what would be the equivalent of a congressional representative for the Instituo de Los Mexicanos en el Exterior to represent Mexicans living in the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana region. My archives are still down from when I ran but you can read some of the great endorsements I got at the following links: Entrevista a Elena Mary, Elena Mexican Representative at Large, Elena Mary pa’ presidenta (well, representative), Candidate Elena, Elenamary en Planeta Grenada.

Anyway, the point of all this was, OMG! I do have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin! That is not okay. I cannot tell you about the upheaval going on in South Africa right now, I cannot explain to you why Bolivia is…well Bolivia,  I cannot begin to understand the diplomacy needed for North Korea. And I should not be vice president of our Country.  Our country should be lead by our best, our brightest, like people that have been President of the Harvard Law Review not those that had to try half a dozen different colleges before they found one they could get through.

Wow, I Elenamary, have more foreign policy experience than Sarah Palin, that is WRONG.

When I first started keeping track of blogtitlan it pretty much consisted of Cindylu, Julio Sueco, El Pocho Abogado and El Daily Texican. Cindylu was an undergrad El Pocho Abogado was getting ready to start law school. Now Cindylu is almost finished with her PhD, El Pocho Abgoado is a practicing Abogado, Daily Texican stopped blogging while he is in Law School and Julio Sueco is still as far as I am concerned the Godfather of Xicano blogging.

In the early days it was easy to keep track of Blogtitlan, we were small, we all knew each other, we all read each others work. Now, there seem to be hundreds of Latinos bloggers and I have not updated Blogtitlan in years. I am wondering if it is even worth updating. We’ve got blog search engines now and we have technorati, those resources didn’t exist when I started keeping track of blogtitlan. So my question to those in blogtitlan, should I got ahead and update my blogtitlan list or should I just delete it? Does it really serve a purpose anymore? How do you filter the good from the bad?

(I realized today how out of it I am in that only today did I discover Luis’ SerLatino…and this only more so drives home the feeling that there is too much information and too many blogs for me to keep up with.)

I went looking for some music by Chuy Negrete who I first saw preform in 1997 at the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) convention. That lead me to watching a lot of you tube videos. It was through FLOC that I first became active in mobile medical clinics, it was through FLOC that I began to learn about community organizing, it was FLOC that I began to understand the importance of actively fighting for labor rights. It was also through FLOC that I learned of and admired the work by the National Farm Workers Ministry who always seemed able to get volunteers to wherever they were most needed.
My difficulties here in Ohio is that people tend to think that migrant farm working is something isolated to California. And, I am not sure how many understand the working and living conditions of migrant farm workers. The National Farm Workers Ministry put together a two part youtube video called Harvest of Justice (I and II), I think it is well done and offers a good summary of activism, labor and living conditions and organizing within migrant farm working communities.

I leave you with an emo and not very infromational, but yet touching,  NFWM video of FLOC organizing in 2007 in North Carolina…for you non-emos it gets good at about 1minute 20 seconds into it…

Which one of these two makes you laugh more and which one of these two gets you the most excited to go vote for Obama?

¡Ándale mi gente! ¿Cual de los dos te hace reír más?

Read the rest of this entry »

So the big news this past week was a raid in Fairfield, Ohio. I am tired of this stuff, and it hurts every time it happens. Reminds me of the 1930’s or last week. Here are the headlines for Latino happenings in Ohio:


160 immigrant workers arrested in raid on Ohio poultry plant
World Socialist Web Site - Oak Park,MI,USA

Early Tuesday morning, 300 federal immigration agents, aided by local police and sheriff’s deputies, descended on a poultry processing plant outside of Cincinnati, Ohio and arrested 160 immigrant workers.

I found this next one funny because it was written up by WorldPoultry.net located in the Netherlands?!

Ohio chicken plant raided for illegals
WorldPoultry.net - Doetinchem,Netherlands

Following a 2-year investigation, some 160 people were arrested in an immigration enforcement raid at a Koch Foods poultry processing plant in Fairfield, Ohio

Man seeking to cool off drowns in Ohio River
Kentucky.com - Lexington,KY,USA

A construction worker looking to cool off drowned in the Ohio River, Oldham County police said…Police have not released the man’s name, but said he was 38-years-old, Hispanic and from the Louisville area

.


US immigrants worry as families face deportation
Reuters Canada - Toronto,Ontario,Canada

A day after one of the largest workplace immigration raids in Ohio, the Hispanic community in Cincinnati’s suburbs was scrambling to track down missing family members and arrange care for children whose parents were caught up in the raid.

Increase in SAT participants is encouraging - an editorial
The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com - Cleveland,OH,USA

Just as impressive, this year’s group includes record numbers of Hispanic, black and Asian-American participants, as well as a much larger number of low-income test-takers.

Toledo, Ohio is also home to the Farm Labor Organizing Committe (FLOC) an AFL-CIO union in existence since the 1960’s it is our Midwest version of the United Farm Workers (UFW). FLOC has strong union roots in Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina, particularly with pickles and tomatoes.

AFL-CIO’s Linda Chavez-Thompson in Toledo for Labor Day Parade
Toledo Blade - Toledo,OH,USA

The daughter of Mexican- American sharecroppers, she rose through the union ranks to become executive vice president of the AFL-CIO. She is the first Hispanic to hold the office.

The raid cost $4 Million dollars? To arrest 161 people? That is aproximately $24, 845 per person ignoring the fact that a lot of those people were later found to either legally be here or granted humanitarian stays.

Aid sought for raid detainees
Cincinnati Enquirer - Cincinnati,OH,USA

The federal raid on a Butler County company that led to the arrest of 161 suspected illegal immigrants Tuesday cost $4 million, a state official told more than 40 people who met Saturday to determine how to help families affected by the raid.

Raid Impacts Hispanic Community
WKRC TV Cincinnati - Cincinnati,OH,USA

One of the main concerns for Latino leaders is that amongst the people that have been detained and put in those buses, are parents of children who’s future right now, is uncertain. Jorge Neri, President of Lulac in Butler County: “Most of these kids are US citizens, they are in school right now, what is going to happen to those kids. A lot of single mom’s a lot of women work in this plant.”

Cincy Hispanic Community Not Happy With CC’s WLW
Streaming Magazine - West Palm Beach,FL,USA

Cincinnati’s Hispanic community says Clear Channel’s WLW-AM is guilty of “blatant racial discrimination against them” following the recent airing of a segment called “Speaking to An Illegal Alien,” which featured translations of Spanish phrases such as, “Be careful with those hedge clippers around the garden….The previous instance of offense came in May, when the station put up billboards featuring a Hispanic man and a donkey, called “The Big Juan.”

Cincinnati Hispanic Fest largest in region
Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph - OH, United States

Volunteers, exhibitors and, of course, guests, are invited to attend the annual Cincinnati Hispanic Festival, held at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds Sept. 8-9.

(Thank you to Irasali’s husband who tipped me off).

SHEETROCK® Brand drywall is currently hosting a contest in Chicago: El Mero Mero Drywalero.

El Mero Mero: The one, The Magnificent, the very best and only; a pure Mexican idiom.

Drywalero: One may argue a “pochismo” — a water downed Mexican-Americanism, but I wouldn’t call it a pochismo. I would call it a Mexicanism made by the immigrant because there is no word for el drywalero. It is a term of necessity and acquisition, rather than a pochoizing of an English word for one that already exists in Spanish.

This all reminds me of a translation of a document I did. The document was for housing code violations and what needed to be fixed. The problem was that the words I was translating were words that the “Spanish reader” knew in English not in Spanish. For example wafer board, dry wall, oriented strand board, and plywood while some of the words may exist in Spanish (though for the most part not) they are words that are generally not encountered until el imigrante gets to the United States and works in construction. Anyway, I love the idea of a competition of El Mero Mero Drywalero almost has much as I love the title of it.

With my constant changing of the blog design I have lost all my entries and posts from the end of 2004 on. As such I’ve also lost my page that listed my reviews of Blogtitlan sites and links to their sites. Here is a rough start with the ‘A’s. As I improve the site keep checking back to my Blogtitlan page for the most up to date Blogtitlan, also if you want to know what I read there is always my public bloglines.

My definition of Blogtitlan:

A community of bloggers of different backgrounds brought together by their interest in Latino identity in the United States. The blogs are not just political, not just personal, and the people that read them form the community that may have started reading for the intellectual stimulation but stayed for the warm coffee too.

The A’s of Blogtitlan. (if you want me to change a definition please let me know or if I forgot someone please let me know)

Ana Castillo: Official Blog of Ana Castillo - poet/novelist/artist/essayist

Angry People of Color, Inc.

The Art of Brownsville: A blog about art and life in Brownsville, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley/Tamaulipas, Mexico Frontera.

ART-Late Czechia: Diary of a Colombiana Americana that lived in Prague

Author’s Diary: Raul Ramos y Sanchez News and views from the author of America Libre.

Autumnoval: El trayecto acabó, el conductor paró el taximetro y,…me hizo a quedarme a acabar de oir otra canción en la que Morente añoraba a la mujer que había dejado en su tierra natal y que lloraba como la lluvia… Igual sigo desconcertado

Day before yesterday I was on amazon.com trying to get to my wishlist and I typed in my handle “elenamary” into the amazon search engine and up popped this book: The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English. I was shocked they had used The Daily Texican’s word of the day Naco, and the conversation that ensued over disagreements on the definition.

When I saw that this dictionary had published a random comment I’d left on a blog I was excited. History really is made by those who write it down. Who am I to define anything? Yet, I was still excited and forwarded it to a close friend. A friend who lovingly calls me his Cracka’ ass Cracka’ or his Consuela. He teases me for being white and being Mexican. I found his response to my definition of Naco quite funny:

Haha, a pocha is setting the definition for naco. That’s like an upper arligtonian white chick being quoted for the definition of niggerish. LMAO

While he is joking he is also kind of right. People will look back and say we see the term “Naco” documented on a website back in 2004. Who are we to be defining Naco? Are we the ones that now manipulate mainstream Chicano studies and identity solely because we have access to the internet?

Oh lord have I missed blogging. And dear lord do I know that this current blog is ugly. I have no idea where my years and years of old blog entries have gone. And once I find them I am not sure I will know how to upload them. I no longer know how to maneuver around wordpress (thought I still did). I have no idea how to get my RSS feed to stay constant, how to get my comment gravatars up and running. To find my old descriptive blogroll or definitions of terms. Nor how to filter the spambots more efficiently.

In a way though it matters very little. I had forgotten about my blogtitlan (a term I believed coined by Cindylu). I had forgotten about the community I had developed. The people who I was worried about and worried about me. The people who got me to grow and self-analyze.

I was first brought to blogtitlan by el Padrino de blogtitlan, Julio Sueco of Yonder Lies It. He left a comment on my blog and it startled the shit out of me. It was back when I blogged for shits and giggles, never thinking people would question me, or get me to think about what I was saying. I’ve come to expect and look forward to people having a real discussion with me and causing me to stop and think. I was also shocked that Julio added me to his blog roll and commented about me right next to Ana Castillo. Damn! I was shocked. An academic Xicano reading my blog?! An academic Xicano who would put my blog right next to Ana Castillo’s blog?! She was someone I read about in class. She was someone who had authority to speak about being Latino, about Xicanoism, about Latino Studies. Why link to me?

Two springs ago I went to the NACCS annual convention. It was there I decided I could be a Xicana (something I still struggle with) and a Xicana authority….because really all Xicanos are an authority on their own experience. I may not write nor do I desire to write for academic journals on the development of the Xicano identity within blogtitlan and the digital racial divide but I can tell my story. I can tell me story and accept it as Xicano fact. And I can try and accept myself as a Xicana, even though sometimes I think “No, I am a USian”, “No, yo soy Mexicana”, “Chicanos are those people that don’t really have a culture”. In the end blogtitlan and my Latino Studies classes taught me that I shouldn’t just accept myself as a Chicana but as a moxie Xicana.

However, that said, I  leave you with this quote from Julio:

Off course it still irritates me to be xicano in the vicinity of my gringo cousins because though I speak english I am not a US citizen. Here in Sweden they a saying about Germans: there is a little Hitler in every German. I can say this about my gringo Xicano cousins: there is a little migra in every US born Xicano.

I’ve never understood the obsession with La Malinche until now, and only because I am using her as an icon in with whom I can identify with, who can help me define my behavior, my sexual relationships, my personal identity—yes ladies and gentlemen, I have become Xicana.Who is La Malinche? She is a women known by many names; Mother of Mestizos, La Primera Madre de nuestra nacionalidad (the first mother of our nationality), La Madre Violada (the raped mother), Malintzin, La Chingada (the fucked/raped one), Doña Marina, the traitor, the womb, the tongue…

Malinche was a translator for Hernan Cortez. Some texts will argue that she was an Aztec princess sold to Hernan Cortez, she was neither Aztec nor a princess. A description of her as princesses was not used until she had a child by Cortez, and was needed to be described as “noble” by Spanish historians after the conquest. Also, most texts of that time make note that she was not Aztec but Chicanos have made her Aztec, they pretty much have made almost all Mexicans Aztec—which we are not—but that is another story.

So, La Malinche is this women who has been sold as a slave since childhood between many tribes. She learns not only their languages but the ethos of their languages. She is sold to the Spanish where she learns Spanish and is then given to Hernan Cortez with another 20 or so women. It is here that it is noticed that she can be valuable as a translator for Cortez. She warns Cortez of an uprising against him. Cortez using this knowledge goes out and slaughters a whole town where the uprising is supposed to be coming from, and this is argued, is what leads him to take full control of México. La Malinche gives birth to what is argued is the first Mestizo child (Cortez being the father) and this child is taken away from her and to Spain where he can be raised correctly. All of this is oversimplified but you all get the jist.

So, Xicana feminists love reclaiming La Malinche because she is the virgin/whore dichotomy in one. She is super intelligent and yet portrayed as a whore. She is thought of as a traitor to her race (the indigenous people of Mexico) and yet as the mother of La Mestizaje. She is referred to in text as only body parts, tongue and womb. Her tongue a tool used to bring down the people and equated with evil, her womb equated with goodness and the carrier of the Mestizo people. She is a whore and a mother. She is referred to as La Chingada (the fucked one), Cortez as El Chingon (the fucker) and her children as the hijos of la chingada (children of the fucked–the byproducts of rape).

I like la Malinche because she is really misunderstood (not that i think she will ever be understood). But for christs sake, my people, the Purepecha, like others could be blamed for the fall of the Aztecs. The Aztecs sent messengers to the Purepecha for assistance, and the Aztec messengers were sacrificed. It wasn’t one person like La Malinche, or one group of people like the Purepecha that brought the fall of multiple nations, but many factors.

Sometimes, Mexican or Chicana women who date or marry outside of Latino are referred to as Malinchistas. I like this in that it gives me something I can grab a hold of reconstruct and return to the world. Go ahead, I want to be a MALINCHISTA! I am hija de una chingada. But I will not be a chingada nor will I be a virgin, nor am I Eve your temptress. I am smart and quick tongued, and all the goodness and sexuality of the womb.