Arizona Loteria and the Fate of Latin@s

Roll of the Dice
Thanks to Ana Ribero for turning me onto this take on the Loteria cards with critical representations of how Arizona and Latin@s relate. In light of the recent passing of the gutted SB 1070, the metaphor of the roll of the dice and leaving it up to fate seems apt. In the Kafka-esque landscape of Arizona, you never know what laws legislators will write up, pass, and enforce with extreme prejudice.

KQED A Year Without Mexican American Studies

Listen to the KQED Story
From the story:
"It was horrible," Lopwez says. "It was heartbreaking to have students who've experienced this class in the first semester, and know the potential and know what they should be getting ... and just have to stop."

 Listen to the story here: http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/06/24/98801/a_year_without_mexicanamerican_studies_in_tucson?source=npr&category=education

Thanks to Three Sonorans' DA Morales for posting the link to his FB.

Coming Soon: the Return of Natalie Martinez

More from Guest Blogger Natalie A. Martinez on Prisons

AcademiadeCruz welcomes back Natalie A. Martinez, who wrote an amazing post "Poch@ as Queer Racial Melancholia"  and Martinez will be back soon with another thought-provoking post based on work with prisons.

From Martinez's last post:
"In the past few years I have experienced what queer theorist, Anne Cvetkovich would call “an affective life.” It is a life where “[an] archive of emotions [has resulted] from ungrievable losses…”  called into question for me long held assumptions about agency, memory within the body, and the effects of trauma not just on an individual but collectively (qtd in Eng and Kazanjian 15). This affective life I speak of consisted of a few things in the span of two years:  First, I lost my father not to death, but to unspeakable trauma, and thus I lost a living link to my identity as a latin@. That same year I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A year later after moving to Tallahassee, Florida from Arizona, I lost my partner from the stress that illness put on our relationship and the very real struggles queer people encounter daily, advocating on behalf of, or for the rights and health of their loved ones in a system that does not recognize their relationship as valid in the first place. "
Read the rest: http://writerscholarprofessional.blogspot.com/2011/06/guest-blogger-natalie-martinez-on-poch.html


Video accompaniment from the post:

United Farm Workers Say NO to Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh's Comments on Huerta and Women Synecdoche for Conservative War on Women
Thanks to Elias Serna for turning me onto this article on the UFW site:

From the article: "On Russ’ May 30th Show he said, "The Presidential Medal of Freedom is now being rendered meaningless. It’s just a political award. That’s all it is. It’s been politicized. It’s another great tradition, institution down the tubes. "
Not only that but he insultingly said, "As a young adult, Huerta taught school—though she never had an education degree—until 1955, when, as a single mother of seven children—she now has eleven—she launched her career as a political activist. "
Read the whole article here: http://action.ufw.org/page/speakout/stoprush
Below is the video of Limbaugh posted on the UFW's site:

Judge bars state intervention in Mexican American Studies

From Three Sonorans

"Tucson, AZ – Today, a Tucson federal court barred the State of Arizona from intervening in an ongoing school desegregation case involving discrimination against Latino students by the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). The State sought to intervene in order to impose arbitrary restrictions on ethnic studies courses in Tucson schools based on a 2010 state law, A.R.S. 15-112, that was proposed and has been used solely to target Mexican American Studies courses. The court rejected the State’s attempt to intervene, ruling that ” [a]ny state law or state interest found to be contrary to or an impediment to the desegregation efforts mandated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals…must yield to the supremacy of the Federal Constitution.”

Read the whole article:http://threesonorans.com/2012/06/14/judge-bars-state-intervention-in-mexican-american-studies-case-is-tucson/

"Minority Unemployment" in the Media

Al Madrigal on the Daily Show
On the Daily Show, Al Madrigal turns the conversation from the topic of "minority unemployment" into a criticism of the lack of Latin@s on TV.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Link to the Daily Show