This online writing environment digitally archives the embodied rhetoric, issues and projects that relate to me as Associate Professor at Santa Clara University and Bread Loaf School of English faculty. E-mail me at: cnmedina AT SCU DOT edu.
From a NPR story, the diagram shows how members of a prison lobbyist organization were the writers and fundraisers of SB 1070 for the purpose filling prisons with undocumented women and children.
Read the entire story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741From the story: "NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.
The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them."
An Interesting Documentary I had the opportunity to attend some of the panels for the Conference I mentioned in previous posts. I still have notes I took that I should post because of the great point that were made, but for right now, I'm posting a video I saw from a group of Berkeley grads who participated in a Decolonizing Conference.
Update
In the dialogue of the State of Arizona, Dolores Huerta recounted her role in both the Chicano Labor Movement and the attack on Tucson Unified School District's Ethnic Studies program. The highlights of her role working Cesar Chavez was her coining of the now iconic "Si se puede" mantra/motto/dicho. Apparently, while signing up voters, a woman told Huerta that she couldn't register to vote, to which Huerta spontaneously responded, "Si, se puede."
I originally joked I thought Edward Jame Olmos had coined the phrase because I attributed all Chicano accomplishments to him (my father was a fan beginning with Zoot Suit, then on to Blade Runner, and Miami Vice before Stand and Deliver, while the rest of the Mexi-nerd, cyber-Aztec family members are Battlestar Gallactica-tecas).
Huerta also explained how she told TUSD high school students that Republican representatives in Arizona something to the effect of not caring about Mexicans. Opponents of TUSD Ethnic Studies like Tom Horne and John Huppenthal took this quote and ran with it as though there had been no history of subjugation of Latin@s in the Southwest. (See Jane Hill's "Hasta La Vista Baby" for a discussion in greater depth).
Inspired by Huerta's discussion with TUSD Ethnic Studies students, they organized protests when an Arizona school official spoke to the school with the stipulation that there would be no questions asked of the official by students.
Conference at UA Dec 2-4
Highlights from Friday Dec. 3 alone include (from Dr. Cintli's blog):
10:45-11:45amDECOLONIZING THE UNIVERSITY AS SOCIAL MOVEMENT
Cesar Chavez # 205 and 209
Samuel Bañales (UC Berkeley). "Challenging the Coloniality of Organizing with Activism
from Below"
Mattie Harper (UC Berkeley). "We Are Still Here: Confronting Myths of the Vanishing Indian Within the
Western Academy"
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Rutgers University). "Next Steps: A Latina/o Academy of Arts and Sciences."
According to NPR: "A report released Thursday says the boycott has cost the state $141 million in lost meeting and convention business since Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in April."
I've posted previously on those artists who joined the SB 1070 boycott, and it's interesting to hear that Arizona's economy has been negatively impacted by the support of this bill. Now that the ficticious narratives about dangerous South Arizona borders have died down, maybe the red-staters will return to thinking with their wallets and realize the error of their mistakes.
From Mark Hugo Lopez and Paul Taylor's report: "When asked in an open-ended question to name the person they consider "the most important Latino leader in the country today," nearly two-thirds (64%) of Latino respondents said they did not know. An additional 10% said "no one."This is a saddening report, yet speaks to the great issue of the need for positive representation in politics, media and other public forums that have the potential to positively affect the perceptions of the next generation of Latinas/os. These finding are in line with those reports that show students migrating to the U.S. outperform their U.S.-born Latina/o peers with one of the factors being the positive, professional role models the migrant students had in their birth country.
Pop Culture Artifact Señor Clean Charged with Meaning
The TV show Robot Chicken has provided examples of cliche stereotypes about Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the past (http://writerscholarprofessional.blogspot.com/2010/07/shared-assumptions-about-mexican.html). But when I saw the "Señor Clean" short below, I was reminded of Brummet's Rhetoric in Popular Culture and the discussion of meanings submerged in belief systems that hide reality. Speaking about the validity of the signs we see in the artifacts of pop culture, Brummet writes: "all signs are meaningful, and that artifacts in particular are signs that are charged with extra meaning"(31).
The caricature plays on the subservient role of the Latino domestic, representing the essence of the Mexican with a poncho and sombrero, but then takes a sexually aggressive turn. This suggestion reinforces the role of exoticized 'Other,' the symbolic reminder of inferiority.
A few friends went to the All Souls Procession yesterday and one of the local news channels said a few people found the procession to be a good place to vent about Prop 107 banning affirmative action in AZ (http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13460971).
(photo from coachella.com website)
It's only slightly ironic that the channel is K-OLD when in fact the Souls Procession is linked to the Dia de los Muertos celebration of those friends and family members who've passed away because it is a kind of show of respect many times for elders who are no longer with us. But the disappointing situation with the passing of 107 means that much of the progress to reverse structural inequality that makes it difficult for people of color to succeed in higher education will be lost. NPR has a good story on the current debate (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129216337) and what seems to be overlooked many times by students who claim to have their places in school 'taken by less qualified students of color' is that less qualified non-students of color (athletes, legacies & children whose parents make endowments) might be taking their spots. Still, it's easier for these entitled students to argue for what should come to them, even though affirmative action was started to offset the balance of educational inequality in public schools. It's too bad voters are the last to know that 'pulling oneself up by their bootstraps' is a myth because it doesn't account for the support of others or the presence of a functioning educational system.
From what I understand of this website http://www.xtranormal.com/makemovies/, you can create a computer generated dramatization of your writing by simply typing in a dialogue (note to self: create my own later). While this is a great resource for the Controversy Analysis assignment that we have students research and then turn into a Public Argument, the subject matter in the video I've embedded is a bit depressing as someone earning a PhD in English.
For some reason, I feel as though I'm not going to get around to doing as much writing today as I would like to, but if you have some writing you'd like to submit to the National Gallery on Writing, click on the image; it goes to the NCTE online gallery.
Author Ceclia Rodriguez-Milanes Talks Writing and Recent CD
From the Yo Soy Latino website: "if its Noon time and Saturday its time for Yo Soy Latino with Jose Miranda & Haydee Ayala on the Big 810AM in Orlando, Florida or on line at www.yosoylatino.us just click the listen live button and enjoy."
Selena and the Conflation of Sexuality with Criminality
Studying for my Comprehensive Exams, I realize that I have neglected to post much on my blog. Fortunately, since this blog serves as a space of synthesis, I was inspired to post on The Decolonial Imaginary by Emma Perez.
Perez comments on how the life of Tejana artist Selena was mediated through the lens of her father. Thinking about this film, I had always thought of it through the lens of Latina/o students who listen to the music of Selena and relate to her music and life as someone who successfully navigated Mexican and Mexican American culture in the borderlands of Texas. Perez explains that “I was grateful that Nava had provided Latina/o communities with a story that would help us remember something of a young woman still revered by many”(119).
An aspect of the film and the life of Selena I hadn't taken into consideration was the murder and the complications of the relationship between Selena and Saldívar. Perez explains: “The charge of lesbianism was made by disgruntled fans, but also by Selena’s father, to discredit Saldívar further, as if it were not enough that she stole, cheated, lied, and murdered. To his credit, director Gregory Nava ignored the lesbian rumors in the film, instead portraying Saldívaras a liar who betrayed her best friend”(119).
Perez points out the survival and revival of rhetorics of deficiency that conflate criminality with sexuality, attempting to use one to exacerbate the negativity associated with the other.
From the story:
