Black in Latin America

With a little break in the school year, I finally sat down and watched all of Henry Louis Gates’ Black in Latin America PBS series this weekend. There are four 50-minute episodes, and each is worth your time. Luckily, they are all free to view on show’s website.

There are quite a few aha moments to be had in the series. For instance, I had no idea that Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic for 22 years in the mid-19th century (episode 1)—an event that really began the shaping of Dominicans’ conception of “blackness,” as well as their feelings towards Haitians. I also learned about the racially charged character Negro Mama (episode 4)—a bumbling blackface thief played by comedian Jorge Benavides on Peruvian TV.

There is also quite a bit in the series about food, which meant that I was constantly hungry while watching it. At one point, Gates is having a discussion with a Mexican historian about fufu (episode 4), which is a popular savory dish in the Caribbean that has its roots in the cuisine of West Africa. Their discussion made me think of an entertaining episode of Internets Celebrities from a couple of weeks back about mofongo (just another word for the same dish) in Corona, Queens, NYC.

Gates himself seems most taken with the country of Brazil (episode 3), which has over 75 million people of African descent and was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. Personally, I was  most interested in the complicated path of racial identity in Cuba (episode 2). But I got a ton out of each and every episode. Check it out!

The twit who tweeted

I just started a little Twitter account: @SpDilettante. Mostly I just use it to follow twittering news feeds and whatnot, but occasionally I’ll post or retweet something of interest about Spanish, Spain, Latin America, copyright information, dumb stuff, etc.

Information wants to be free

I’ve been doing English- and Spanish-language proofreading for Project Gutenberg for a little while now, so I figured it was well past time to put in a plug for the site…because it’s awesome.

PG is the largest collection of free ebooks anywhere. Currently their catalog contains over 36,000 titles, and it grows every day. What’s better is that PG titles are usually available in multiple formats: everything from plain, simple-text ASCII code that can be read by even the most ancient computers to files for portable devices like Kindles, iPads, iPhones, and Android OS toys. And again, it’s all free! The catalog even includes audiobooks.

But more importantly, there are a tons of free Spanish-language ebooks. Here’s a highlight of some titles:

Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Zorrilla’s Don Juan Tenorio (bilingual); translations of Voltaire’s Candide and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Valera’s Pepita Jiménez; Alarcón’s Novelas Cortas (good intermediate text with vocab help); Colección de viages y expediciónes à los campos de Buenos Aires y a las costas de Patagonia (edited by Pedro de Angelis).

Hey you! What are you listening to???

Back in May a guy named Tyler Cullen posted a short video on YouTube called “Hey you! What song are you listening to? NEW YORK.” Basically he just wanders around NYC with a camera, stopping people with headphones on and asking them what song is spinning on their device. Pretty ingenious really…and also fascinating. The idea has quickly spread around the internets, and now cities all over the world are being asked, “What song are you listening to?” The top video is from Buenos Aires. The bottom video is from Salamanca, Spain.

(And btw, I’m listening to my favorite little Latina from my wife’s and my newest guilty pleasure—Xenia covering “Breakeven.”)

The ups and downs of a bittersweet and lonely harvest

Yesterday I made my way down to the Missouri History Museum in order to take in the exhibit Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942-1964/Cosecha Amarga Cosecha Dulce: El Programa Bracero 1942-1962 and a special screening of the film Harvest of Loneliness. I’d had the date circled for weeks on my calendar because I was ecstatic that the museum had put together a program about such an important but not-well-known part of American history.

The Bracero Program was a guest worker program that brought millions of Mexican agricultural laborers into the United States in order to do field work for US companies. Initially this meant harvesting sugar beets in California, but eventually it meant just about any backbreaking job that food producers wanted done for as little pay as possible. During World War II, there was also a parallel railroad bracero program that provided Mexican labor for train track maintenance.

Braceros were supposed to receive decent wages, healthcare, and housing. In reality, most got ripped off and were forced to live in squalor and labor under dangerous conditions. Employers essentially had their way with them. They’d pay them whatever they wanted and made them sleep on planks, work in the burning summer temperatures of the US Southwest with no breaks or water, and would dump them back across the border if they got sick or died. In 1959 alone, at the height of the program, almost 450,000 Mexicans were brought to work in United States through the program.

Bittersweet Harvest (on display in St. Louis until July 31) brings together pieces from oral histories from former bracero workers and historic images from the time. The braceros’ experiences are culled from the Bracero History Archive, which is a truly awesome collection of oral histories, artifacts, and resources related to the Bracero Program. However, (*SIGH*) the exhibit at the Missouri History Museum isn’t very good. And my experience with the show even started out on a sour note because I couldn’t find it at first. When I asked an attendant at the information desk where it was, the person didn’t even know what I was talking about until I pointed to a reference to the show on a handbill. “Oh, that. It’s through there…all the way in the back.” And in the back it was. Located in a small gallery that’s connected to a room richly filled with artifacts from the World’s Fair (related to the braceros how?), fifteen banners with short quotes and a couple images each surround the walls of the room. And that’s it. No listening station. No objects. No books. No videos. For a brief moment I even thought to myself, “My goodness, they haven’t finished putting the show up yet.” You see, the exhibit is a traveling show put together with the help of the Smithsonian, and for that reason I was expecting more…much more. Below, for example, is what part of the show looked like when it was at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose.

But there was one huge saving grace to my day out at the museum…and that was the screening of Harvest of Loneliness. The film was made by Vivian Price and Gilbert Gonzalez and uses a combination of archival footage and recent interviews with former braceros to deftly tell the story of what the program was like—from the worker selection process in Mexico to the effect on Mexican families to the conditions in the field and the reactions of organized labor in the US to the program. The film is not apolitical, however. It clearly makes the argument that the Bracero Program was a lose-lose situation: both Mexican and US workers suffered because of it. It also argues that the Bracero Program institutionalized the exploitation of agriculture workers in the US and the naive expectations of Mexican migrants, which was only made worse by NAFTA—a formula that has led us to our current immigration situation. This point of view was reinforced after the screening by co-director Gonzalez during a Skype-based Q & A (Gonzalez is a Chicano Latino Studies Professor at UC Irvine). The following is the trailer for the film.

There was one disappointing thing about the movie though. Including me, there were only about eight museum patrons there—along with a handful of museum workers. Ugh, St. Louis! Seriously? We can’t even get a couple of dozen people out to see a free movie at the history museum? No wonder they didn’t feel the need to jazz up the exhibit.

England 3,139 Argentina 1

“No hay mucha diferencia entre Patagonia y las islas. Somos Latinoamérica.”–James Peck

In a major PR coup for Argentina and President Cristina Fernández yesterday, James Peck, who was born in the Falkland Islands, received an Argentinian national identity card, which gives him official status as an Argentine. He’s the first Falkland Islander to do such, even though Argentina has been offering the Islanders that opportunity since…basically forever. And this all fascinates the heck out of me.

As you probably know, the Falkland Islands (called las Islas Malvinas en español) are an archipelago off the coast of Argentina that have been recognized as British property since the mid-19th century…except by Argentina. Argentina ill advisedly invaded the islands in 1982 in order to recoup their property (called the “Falklands War”) , but weren’t around very long before the British army gave them the boot—though not before roughly 1,000 British and Argentine soldiers died in the process. The vast majority of those who live in the Falklands (perhaps everyone) sees themselves as British subjects and has no interest in becoming Argentines. At least that was the conventional wisdom until James Peck came along.

Peck with la presidenta

Peck was not only born in the Falklands, but his father fought there for the British military during the Falklands War. However, Peck’s situation is a bit more complicated than all that. His ex-wife and children live in Buenos Aires, so he moved there a while ago in order to a part of the children’s upbringing. So he doesn’t actually live on the islands anymore anyway. Nonetheless, it makes a good story, especially during a time when President Fernández has been working hard to get the British government to resume talks over the disputed territory.

Chupacabras in Maine!

During my webby absence I did some traveling around the US, including a nice jaunt to Maine. While there, I took in the International Cryptozoology Museum, which is located in downtown Portland. I came on a good day because I was lucky enough to get a personal tour with Mr. Loren Coleman himself, who is the founder of the museum and is perhaps the most famous cryptozoologist in the United States.

Cryptozoology, if you don’t know, is the study of animals whose existence hasn’t yet been proven or which are thought to be extinct: dinosaurs, Big Foot, Ogopogo, my imaginary dog from 5th grade, etc. Keeping that in mind, I suppose it wasn’t too big of a surprise to me that Coleman keeps a small collection of chupacabras-related items in the old house of mysteries. But I was certainly happy that he does.

You probably don’t need me to tell you that chupacabras (chupar  “to suck” + cabra “goat” = goat sucker) are mythical creatures that were first reported in Puerto Rico in the mid-90s and which pop culture in the US usually associates with Mexico and Texas. The nasty little fellows are known for sucking the blood out of livestock—particularly goats. But what I loved about the museum’s collection on the topic is that beer bottle in the top photo: Cucapá Chupacabras Pale Ale. I had never heard of it before.

Apparently it’s a Mexican craft beer marketed to Americans who want the rich flavor of goat’s blood in the form of a cold, refreshing ale. So…drink up!

RPM Miami: US Media’s Spanglish Future?

There was a great feature on BBC Mundo yesterday by Eulimar Núñez about a new bilingual show on Telemundo’s sister station mun2 called RPM Miami (BBC story: “El ‘spanglish’ se expande en la televisión hispana de EE.UU.”).

The show is being promoted as the first bilingual program on US television (with apologies to Dora). The characters are constantly switching back and forth between English and Spanish (“Maybe vamos mañana a cantarte ‘Happy Birthday’. Beso, bye.”), and the program is clearly aimed at Latino youth who were born in the US. Mun2 itself, which is operated by Miami-based Telemundo and owned by NBC Universal, was developed for the Latino youth market by putting together a programming schedule that includes sports coverage, lots of music, and a heavy rotation of English-language shows mixed in with its normal Spanish-language programs.

RPM Miami (full episodes available here) is about a young Iraq War veteran named Alejandro who has returned to South Florida after being discharged.

Cuenta la historia de Alejandro, interpretado por el salvadoreño Adrián Bellani, quien regresa de la guerra de Irak para reunirse con su familia en el sur del estado de Florida y encuentra que su padre está desaparecido.

But a lot has changed while he was gone and Alejandro finds himself drawn into the world of underground street racing when he discovers that his father is missing and that his family is struggling financially.

Now I don’t know if this show will be any good, and I haven’t had a chance to watch the first episode yet…but I do know two things. First, my Spanish professor would hate it. As a first generation, old school Colombian immigrant, nothing gets on his nerves as much as Spanglish (“¡No lo entiendo!”). But my perspective is that it’s only natural for languages to mix in countries like the US, and that this is the way new languages are born. As we all know, Spanish itself evolved from Latin and didn’t fall out of the sky as a fully formed human tongue. Second, if the census numbers released this year tell us anything, it’s that we’re going to see more and more bilingual media in this country soon, whether RPM Miami is a ratings hit or not. So, chau chicos. Nos vemos soon, okay?

Los Isleños in Louisiana

I gave a presentation in Spanish class today about the Isleños community in Saint Bernard Parish, and I thought I’d share a little bit of what I told my fellow classmates this morning.

Los Isleños are the descendants of Canary Islanders (Canarians) who came to the New World in the 18th century. Many settled in parts of the Caribbean and Venezuela, as well as Mississippi and Texas. They were instrumental in founding San Antonio, for example. But between 1778-1783 about 3,000 hardy Canarians (called “Isleños” or “islanders,” as opposed to “Penisulares,” which are people from the Spanish mainland) made the trek to Louisiana in order to build four colonies for the King of Spain in attempt to secure Spanish territory against possible British incursions into the region. The population grew from there and mostly in Saint Bernard Parish. Amazingly, they were able to maintain many of their cultural traditions, as well as their form of the Spanish language, throughout the next couple hundred years.

Perhaps the most important part of Isleños culture is their music. In particular, los Isleños sing songs called “décimas,” which were originally ten-lines long—hence the name. The singers, of course, are called “decimeros.” Décimas are about Canarian and Isleños history, interesting characters in the community, and the day-to-day working life of the people. The most famous decimero of late was Irván Pérez (he passed away in 2008), a fierce protector and promoter of Isleños history and traditions. (You can hear Pérez singing the décima “El trabajo de Welfare” here, and that’s a picture of him below.)

Every March Saint Bernard Parish throws a Los Isleños Festival that attracts visitors from all over, including quite a few musicians and other attendees from the Canary Islands, as well as other Spanish dignitaries…even the King and Queen of Spain if it is a particularly good year. Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society, along with other Isleños groups, has done a good job maintaining strong bonds between the community in Louisiana and all the other places in the world touched by immigration from the Canary Islands. Though a bit dated, there is interesting documentary about los Isleños called Mosquitos and High Water: El mosco y el agua alta that you can watch for free here. The following is a trailer for the film, and it starts with Irván Pérez again!

Unfortunately, los Isleños have had a rough time of it over the past half decade. First, Hurricane Katrina ruined large portions of Saint Bernard Parish, and many feared that the population was going to have to effectively flee the area. Then, just as things were beginning to look up, the BP oil disaster last year contaminated much of the traditional fishing and hunting grounds of los Isleños. Historically the community has consisted primarily of trappers and fishermen, and they are particularly well known for the skills in hunting and trapping ducks, muskrats, and mink. With all the environmental destruction of the area, however, a lot of young Isleños have left. So, will the Isleños form of the Spanish language and the cultural traditions of the community live on during this new diaspora?

The bookstore with only one book

What kind of statement is made when a bookstore sells only one book. Is it performance art? Is it a joke? Does it mean the end of life as we know it? I’m not sure, but it’s doing swift business.

Ed’s Martian Book is a store located in a small space in NYC’s West Village, and it only carries the book Martian Summer by Andrew Kessler. Kessler also happens to be the store’s owner and proprietor…at least until his lease is up and a coffee shop goes into the location this summer.

The book is about Kessler’s time working in mission control for NASA on its Phoenix expedition—the same one that famously located evidence of water on Mars. But at Ed’s Martian Book you don’t need to look for the title just in the science section, it can also be found in bestsellers, new & notable, staff picks…heck it’s on every shelf and in every display in the store.

Kessler bought 3,000 copies of the book from his publisher in order to stock the store, and he has already sold hundreds of them for the cover price of $27.95. He refers to himself as a “Monobookist,” and I love the way this idea turns the book into a fetish object. It kind of feels like the Kindle just got punk’d.

(photos: Rachel “Cupcake Blogger” K. @ yelp)