An Evening with Spike Lee

An Emphasis on Education

An evening with Spike Lee included his narrative of education, coming into film-making, studying at Morehouse College, the impact of the Summer of 1977 with an 8mm camera and his experience in the film industry.

Lee advocated loving what one does, feeling blessed that he's been able to do something that he is passionate about--he said that grad students choose what they love.He began by saying, "Parents kill more dreams than anybody."While attending Morehouse, Lee said there were a lot of expectations for the students because Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had attended Morehouse, so a lot of young men came with their parents' expectations to be doctors and preachers. Most parents wanted better for their children than they had, so a lot of them sat their children down when they said they wanted to do something in the arts. He said that many parents explained, "Me and your mother did not work two to three jobs so you could wait tables or drive a taxi--and if you're living under my roof, wearing my clothes and eating my food, you'll get a good job and get a good pay check every two weeks."

There's a lot of pressure, he said, but many years later you'll be a miserable human being. He said you have to 'cut the umbilical cord' because the decision we all make in college impact the rest of your life--it's not just a random thing--and if you think it is, then you need to think about it again. Being in college, we have the chance to take liberal arts classes and discover gifts. He still considers himself lucky that he found film through the 8mm camera that he got as a gift from someone he can't remember.

The film he shot in NY during 1977 turned into a film that was well received by his fellow students, encouraging him to pursue film further.Lee explained that film school taught him the grammar of film; like the grammar that constructs a paragraph, film school taught him what went into telling a story through film. But at the time, he said the main thing that film school allowed him was access to equipment, something that's not as large an issue, given the 'digital revolution. 'Wanting to attend USC film school, Lee said he didn't score astronomically well on the GRE, so he wasn't accepted, but he got into NYU, where they understood that GREs had little connection to film.

At NYU, he said everyone got the chance to make film. At USC, one had to submit a script to faculty to have the chance to film--it was run like a studio system. At NYU, he won an award, which got him an agent, but he didn't get any offers. While fellow students were getting music videos and after school movies, Lee was asking his agent to try and get him an after school special. Waiting for offers to roll in, he realized his award wasn't going to get him offers handed to him.He put a script together, got some actors together for pre-production, but when no money came in for funding, he realized that he'd written a movie with helicopter and car chases that he'd never be able to technically film with no budget.

Crawling before running was what he learned, in addition to the lesson that the script would've turned into a bomb that would've ruined his career. So he put together She's Got to Have it, which Lee said, in addition with Hollywood Shuffle ushered in a Black renaissance in film. A fan of Woody Allen, Lee said that he liked Allen's films, but asked 'what New York' was he showing?'
I'm going to have to post more later, but I just had to post this picture of Mr. Lee and I looking at different cameras. We take, and take, and take only to want more from our public intellectuals, and I never thought I'd say it, but it was harder to get a picture with Mr. Lee than with Salman Rushdie (another picture for later blog post).

Leslie Silko's Reading

Vine Deloria, Jr. Distinguished Indigenous Scholars Series

(Leslie Silko & myself at the book signing following her reading)

Presented in part with the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Arizona, Leslie Marmon Silko spoke to a crowded lecture hall about the influence of Vina Deloria Jr. on her life and writing, reading pieces from her novels Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead.


Silko noted that when Deloria's Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto came out, it was at a time when many Native American voices had been silenced, and even though Silko said she had yet to decide to pursue a career in writing, Deloria inspired her. Having also began a study of what she described as "Anglo American" law like Deloria, Silko wanted to follow Deloria's work of advocating for Native rights.

After completing three semesters of her study of law, Silko felt as though she could better criticize inequalities through the mask of fiction. Her recent writing has revolved more around nature after having lived in the Tucson mountains for the past 30 years--she jest something to the effect of, 'after all, what's more subversive than writing about grasshoppers?'

MOVIMIENTO OLLIN MOVEMENT

HUEHUETLAHTOKAN & IN XOCHITL IN CUICATL
ELDERS GATHERING & FLORICANTO
DEC 3-6 UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA & El RIO NBHD CENTER TUCSON AZ

Below is the announcement of a great event and the link to the pdf.

The Dec 3-6 events at the University of Arizona & El Rio Neighborhood
Center will be historic. It will bring together elders from throughout
the country, along with elders from AROMAS & Los Universitarios. This
gathering will permit my students in my Movimiento Ollin Movement
class (MAS 350) to present their research on Tucson’s/Arizona’s
Movimiento/Movement. They will present their work, both to elders and
to the public. Other students from the U of A and Raza Studies-Tucson
Unified School District students will also present. The idea behind
this is rooted in the idea of elder epistemology – that the knowledge
of our communities comes from elders and that students must return
that knowledge back to the elders and our communities.

Students will present on Dec 4 & 5, symposium-style, in front of
AROMAS or the abuelitos & abuelitas associated with the
Chicano/Hispano Centro on campus & Los Universitarios – a group active
on campus since the 1950s. Some will also present their research in
poetry, hip-hop, song and theater. Capping the event will be a 7:30 pm
rally on Sat. Dec 5 in support of Raza Studies – from kindergarten
through the proposed PhD at the U of A. Raza Studies remains under
attack nationwide, particularly in Arizona. Part of this rally will
include a concert by Aztlan Underground which has just released their
first CD in 8 years. Suggested donations are $10 students and $15 gen
adm. It will be $15 students at the door and $20 gen. adm. at the
door. See enclosed flyer for details.

All the transportation & housing has been covered for the invited out
of town elders. Quite a bit still needs to be raised to cover
honorariums, food, etc. Due to the economy, here is a creative way to
raise the needed funds. Please consider making a donation (from you or
your organization). Any amount is welcome. If you donate $50, Dr.
Patrisia Gonzales will make her book: The Mud People, available for
this donation. If you send $100, you will get The Mud People and a
historic book I wrote in 1984: Assault With a Deadly Weapon. It has
recently been reprinted. Whatever you can donate will help us put on
this historic event.

To contribute, make CHECK payable to: The UA Foundation, and mail it
to: Department of Mexican American & Raza Studies: Attn: Veronica
Peralta. Cesar Chavez Bldg., Room 208, PO BOX 210023 / Tucson, AZ
85721-0023. CREDIT CARD: Please send an email to Veronica Peralta at:
vperalta@email.arizona.edu for instructions. Pleas indicate if you
want the books.

All contributions are tax-deductible. For more info, write me at:
520-626-0824 or rodrigu7@email.arizona.edu

* If you would like tickets for the Dec 5 Raza Studies Rally-Aztlan
Underground Concert, please contact MEChA directly at: Jessica:
jfmejia@email.arizona.edu or Tiffany at: esc@email.arizona.edu.
Proceeds from the concert will go toward building the Dolores
Huerta-Cesar Chavez Arch, slated to be constructed in front of the
UA-Cesar Chavez building. My earlier books, The X in La Raza & Codex
Tamuanchan have been recently reprinted and have been donated to
UA-MEChA in their efforts to build the arch. Contact Jessica & Tiffany
above for further info.


Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
Assistant professor
Mexican American & Raza Studies-UA

Reposted from Frente de Mexicanos en Canada by request of Roberto Rodriguez

Gear Up College Outreach

Sunnyside Field Trip to the University of Arizona

Dr. Roberto Rodriguez, a.k.a Dr. Cintli spoke to Mr. Siqueiro's junior U.S History class from Sunnyside High School. He showed a clip of his film Amoxtli san ce tojuan: we are one: nosotros somos uno, before handing out copies to members of the class and Mr. Siqueiros.



Instead of posting more pictures with very little in the way of context, I'm attempting to integrate a simple power point I put together from the day's events.

Click on this Link to the Power Point

Thanks to Darcy Felix & Dr. Rodriguez in Mexican American/Raza Studies Dept, as well as Faith Kurtyka, Nicole Esquivel, Mel Agostini, Melissa Rodriguez & friends for all of your help.

Exhibition at U of A

Ritual Beauty: Art of the Ancient Americas

This is almost to serve like a note to self, but I need to make a point of visiting the UA Museum with my 101 class this summer.

Can a blog serve as a note to self? I guess I'll see. Check out the slideshow

Student Docs from Native American UA Students

Citizen Journalism from KUAT

This past Friday evening, as a part of KUAT's citizen journalism series, I caught three student produced documentaries by Native American students at the University of Arizona.

Click on the link to check out the docs on-line.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! This evening I'm planning on checking out the student presentation from Curtis Acosta's Raza Studies class--hopefully a good link to follow.

Controversia: Julio Cammarota

How does pedagogy change when working with socio-economically challenged Mexican-American students?

This is a question I found myself thinking when I went to speak to a Latin-American Literature class at Cholla High School, where the teacher pointed out a few of his 'better students' who were earning Cs.

From my experience attending school in Ontario, California (with a similar working-class population that didn't emphasize education), I wondered what is it that educators can do to connect with potentially resistant students.


I had the opportunity to see Julio Cammarota speak at the U of A Little Chapel, where he spoke about the research that he did for his book Sueños Americanos: Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities.

Cammarota did his research in northern California, working with youth in Latin American communities, talking to them about their different reasons for not continuing with education.

Issues of profiling seemed to be a common thread amongst most of the males & females were spoken to as though them becoming pregnant was an inevitability (a sentiment that I've heard is also echoed in the Mexican-American Tucson community.)

What most seemed to stand out about Cammarota's research was that he found that cultural identity played a large role in how the high school students, with whom he spoke, thought of education. Cammarota found that if the students found a link between their education and helping their family, they were more likely to become invested in education.

Welcome & ¡Bienvenidos!

My name is Cruz Medina. I am a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona in Rhetoric, Composition and the Teaching of English.

This blog is dedicated to my scholarly, professional & writerly interests.

I will be highlighting my on-going correspondence with Latino scholars regarding their pedagogical approaches, as well as contributions from the Latino community outside of academia.

My research interests include, but are not limited to, borderlands rhetoric, and new media, as well as the intersections of the two.

Before beginning the RCTE program at the University of Arizona, I earned an MFA in creative writing, as well as an MA in Literature. This blog will also highlight those experiences I've had as a creative writer, as well as a published journalist.

Be sure to check back for updates.