Ken Burns Hates Mexicans

Blame the Wetbacks

Not that anti-immigrant hysteria in the media is anything new, but it's sobering, sometimes, to see the venom edited into one three minute clip.

Damn Those Multiculturists!

Pre-John McCain, during those wacky Giuliani/Romney/Tom Tancredo Blame Jose, Sanctuary City days, the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republican presidential primary led many of us to believe that the scapegoating of undocumented workers would become a daily talking point of the 2008 campaign. But as even this Wall Stree Journal op-ed by Jason L. Riley reports "the issue seems to have faded, if not disappeared entirely." So far. We'll see.

McCain's recent jettison of once-core beliefs in his quest to be President would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic and sad. The once strict anti-torture dude now OKs waterboarding. He used to call Jerry Falwell and his ilk agents of intolerance. Homeboy now welcomes their endorsements. The day John McCain advocates building a bigger wall is not far off.

But back to the WSJ op-ed and its "reasoned" tone of how Americans actually don't want to send immigrants back -- at least not those who have properly assimilated. (The big question, of course, is what does one mean by "assimilation." Some say it's Latinos speaking English. I suggest it's Hillary speaking in guacamole metaphors and eating at King Taco, not to mention Spanish language TV dominating the ratings and gringo kids watching Dora the Explorer. Assimilation, wonderfully, is a two-way street.) Equating assimilation with English language proficiency, however, is the particular narrow metric the WSJ piece argues today.

The historical pattern is as follows: The first generation learns enough English to get by but prefers the mother tongue. The children of immigrants born here grow up in homes where they understand the mother tongue to some extent and may speak it, but they prefer English. When those children become adults, they establish homes where English is the dominant language.

There's every indication that Latinos are following this pattern. According to 2005 Census data, just one-third of Latino immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well. But that proportion climbs to 75% for those here 30 years or more. There may be more bilingualism today among their children, but there's no evidence that Spanish is the dominant language in the second generation. The 2000 Census found that 91% of the children of immigrants, and 97% of the grandchildren, spoke English well.

Nothing to dispute with these facts and figures. Especially when they explain how my 4th Gen Chicano ass has trouble with future perfect tense conjugation of certain Spanish verbs and always mispronouncing Tenochtitlan. But Riley doesn't stop there. Apparently American culture is under attack and it's not the homies looking for jobs at Home Depot parking lots doing the damage.

If American culture is under assault today, it's not from immigrants who aren't assimilating but from liberal elites who reject the concept of assimilation. For multiculturalists, and particularly those in the academy, assimilation is a dirty word. A values-neutral belief system is embraced by some to avoid having to judge one culture as superior or inferior to another. Others reject the assimilationist paradigm outright on the grounds that the U.S. hasn't always lived up to its ideals. America slaughtered Indians and enslaved blacks, goes the argument, and this wicked history means we have no right to impose a value system on others.

Believe me, I have many issues with white liberal elites (see Ken Burns) but a made up aversion to assimilation is not one of them. In any case, Riley advises his fellow right wingers that their hatred of Mexicans is misplaced:

Social conservatives who want to seal the border in response to these left-wing elites are directing their wrath at the wrong people. The problem isn't the immigrants. The problem is the militant multiculturalists who want to turn America into some loose federation of ethnic and racial groups. The political right should continue to push back against bilingual education advocates, anti-American Chicano Studies professors, Spanish-language ballots, ethnically gerrymandered voting districts, La Raza's big-government agenda and all the rest. But these problems weren't created by the women burping our babies and changing linen at our hotels, or by the men picking lettuce in Yuma and building homes in Iowa City.

Keep the immigrants. Deport the Columbia faculty.

And, apparently, all will be right in the US of A: docile maids will continue to clean bedrooms, gardeners will keep trimming trees, and the pesky new immigrants won't be be speaking English for at least thirty more years. Much too long to tell Mr. Riley that his jiu jitsu attempt at appearing to critique nativist idiots all the while embodying their condescending attitudes toward brown people won't go unnoticed.

Same As It Ever Was...

Of interest for that small subset of "Those Latinos Who Care About Such Things" (meaning that subset of raza who also care about box office numbers...perhaps all five of us) the numbers for the new immigrant movie La Misma Luna ("Under the Same Moon") has broken a record. Apparently someone's been keeping track of "three day opening weekend grosses for Spanish language films" and La Misma Luna's $2.8 million shattered the previous benchmark.

This category of "three day opening weekend grosses of Spanish language films" is, of course, not to be confused with "films that feature evil one-dimensional gringo characters" or even "films which feature assimilated Chicano characters who don't speak Spanish and act like idiots." Both categories of movies which La Misma Luna would certainly qualify. Not to say I didn't like the movie -- I did -- let's just say the film never met a convenient and coincidental plot point it didn't like.

Two weeks ago I attended the conference of the National Association of Independent Latino Filmmakers. A membership group of U.S. Latino filmmakers from across the country. Highlights of this year's annual event featured a special screening of La Misma Luna on Friday night; an opening plenary session with a lone U.S. Latino among four Mexicans discussing "Creating a Pan-Latino Cinema With Global Appeal," and two special luncheon conversations sponsored by HBO with the makers of the joint Mexico/Spain co-production Pan's Labyrinth on Saturday, and on Sunday Carlos Cuaron discussing his upcoming soccer movie starring the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of the Latino world, Diego Luna and Gail Garcia Bernal.

If you're detecting a non-U.S. Latino theme in these signature events in a conference dedicated to the efforts of U.S. Latino filmmakers striving for cultural self-expression you're not the only one to notice. And while this isn't so much a critique of the organizers of the NALIP conference -- after all, you can only reflect what's out there in the marketplace -- what's happening is that more and more the notion of what defines a "Latino" film, especially to studios and/or white producers, is that a Latino movie has to be about immigrants and has to be in Spanish. Absent from this narrow view of contemporary Brown life is anything deviating from the stories of humble maids and busboys, intrepid border crossings, the dreaded migra, and "lessons to be learned from it all."

From a must read post on writer Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez's blog:

In 2007, Touchstone Pictures pulls the plug on "Deep in the Heart of Texas," a feature film starring Eva Longoria, about a fully assimilated Mexican American woman, saying there is nothing particularly "Latina" about an educated, professional shopaholic from Texas; meaning, the character is "too American" for audiences to believe as "Latina". (Meanwhile, Texas is no longer a majority-white state, and most Latinos there speak English…)

While Eva Longoria wouldn't be my first choice to articulate the complexity of raza life circa 2008, you get the picture. Hollywood's probably the only place in America where an illegal immigration status is beneficial for career advancement. As my friend filmmaker Alex Rivera (The Sleep Dealer -- see NYT mention here) says, we're in a crisis here. By my admittedly off the top of my head reckoning there has only been one indie and/or major studio release by a U.S. Latino filmmaker in the last five years -- and that's only if you're generous and count Kenny Ortega's High School Muscial 2. (Which I actually did, in this earlier post.)

In any case here's the La Misma Luna trailer. I saw the film at the $14 a seat Arclight Theater in Hollywood. Never saw so many Latinos in the hoity toity place. There's no question a market exists. And judging by the positive audience reaction the movie succeeds on an emotional  level, despite the clumsy and on the nose storytelling. And the acting's not bad. Especially Mexican comic actor Eugenio Derbez. Even the kid was ok -- at intervals. Like with most child actors, you alternate between wanting to throttle the cloying brat or chuckle at his precociousness. Me, it was hard getting past the kid's neatly combed hair. Kept reminded me of a midget Mitt Romney. Anyway, judge for yourself. And go buy a ticket. Who knows? Maybe some enlightened studio exec will be motivated by the box office numbers and greenlight something more interesting. If so, I got a couple of scripts to show him or her. Until then...

Hero of the Day

Geraldo Rivera is a badass. Lou Dobbs sucks. Go here to watch.

Big Love - Mexican Style

After a week of holiday break I will ease into my first post with the help of Think Progress. As you probably know by now, the vile GOP candidate Tom Tancredo has, thankfully, left the building, but not without endorsing another Straight White Guy Who Wants to be President. As Henry Fernandez, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress put it in this Think Progress post, Tancredo "did something quite odd — he endorsed Mitt Romney, the only candidate whose father was born in Mexico and whose family made use of the porous border to immigrate between Mexico and the United States." Apparently Romney's family is full of anchor babies, border crossers, and illegals absconding from their host country's immigration laws. Fernandez's story is too delicious in its absurd narrative enjoyment as well as its exposure of more Republican hypocrisy to edit. So here goes, in its entirety...

Mitt Romney’s father George was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907, the son of Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt. Three generations of Romneys lived in Mexico because Miles Park Romney, a polygamist, moved the family there in 1884 as it became increasingly clear that the U.S. government would not tolerate polygamy in the Utah Territory. The 1882 Edmunds Act stripped polygamists of the basic rights of U.S. citizenship, denying them the right to vote, serve on juries or hold office. Not dissimilar to current immigration raids, U.S. federal agents hunted and arrested polygamists. Polygamists were forced to leave the country or risk jail.

Miles chose to leave the country, bringing his multiple wives and children with him across the southern border. In his 1902 book The Story of the Mormons, author William Alexander Linn states that the “Secretario de Fomento of Mexico” related that “The laws of this country [Mexico] do not permit polygamy,” and that the contracts for the establishment of Mormon colonies in Mexico required the same. If true, Miles Romney then knowingly arrived in direct violation of Mexican immigration law.

Utah became a state in 1896, only after laws were passed there prohibiting polygamy. While polygamy may have been illegal in both countries, the Romneys still found Mexico more to their liking. All four of George’s grandparents would live out their days in Mexico, with Anna’s mother Dorsey being the last to die — in Chihuahua in 1929.

Gaskell and Anna (who were monogamous) were married in 1895, and according to George’s biographer Tom Mahoney, lived in Chihuahua until the height of the Mexican Revolution in 1912. Relative Junius Romney negotiated with rebel leaders to get women and children out of the colony for their safety. Anna, with Mitt’s father George in tow, fled across the U.S. border by train (with no apparent delay or search at the border). A short time later Gaskell, like many Mexican immigrants before and since, covered hundreds of miles under a hot sun, crossing by land into New Mexico.

As a Mexican born immigrant, George would do quite honorably, becoming Governor of Michigan and running for the Republican nomination for President in 1968. His support for civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War resulted in his loss to Richard Nixon. His son Mitt is of course where this post began.

Perhaps it’s not just Tancredo who needs a quick reminder of the Romney family history?

A decisive wedge issue in the upcoming election of 2008 will be immigration. Republicans will try and out macho each other in scapegoating immigrants, and in the general election try and bait the Democratic candidate into participating in their blame game. Hopefully when attention is paid to the voters NOT in 99.9 percent gringo Iowa, cooler heads on both sides of the multiculti coast will prevail. But I'm not holding my breath.

Quien es Mas Macho Part III

The Republicans debated on Spanish language TV a few days ago in an attempt to make peace with Latinos, and, of course, two days later, reverted to their usual inflammatory rhetoric, draconian policies towards immigration, and continued use of the complex issue to demagogue and out macho one other. Oh well, nothing new there.

So it's no surprise, really, that this morning Mike Huckabee proudly announced the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the anti-immigrant group the Minutemen Project. Gilchrist joins action hero Chuck Norris in their opinion that Mike Huckabee would make a fine President of the United States.

Where to begin? With Preacher Mike and his belief that AIDS patients should be quarantined or that wives should submit "graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands?" Or with Gilchrist and his belief that the children of illegal immigrants be denied schooling -- that is, of course, before authorities can root out the illegals and their parents for immediate deportation? Huckabee, as Arkansas governor, once supported scholarships for the children of illegal immigrants, hardworking High School students who graduated at the top of their class and wanted to attend college. Huckabee has also, in the past, spoken eloquently about American's values of tolerance and compassion, traits the campaigns should strive for, rather than wallow in the hateful rhetoric normally spouted by fear-mongering GOP candidates eager to exploit xenophobic hatred.

That was then this is now. Huckabee today embraces the political endorsement of Gilchrist, a white supremist who once welcomed the volunteer efforts of neo-Nazis for Gilchrist's failed race for the U.S. House of Representatives. And Huckabee's once critical opinion of the Minutemen? Forgiven. As the Washington Post quotes him, "Frankly, Jim I've got to tell you there were times in the early days of the Minutemen I thought what are these guys doing, what are they about," Huckabee said. "I confess I owe you an apology." He said of Gilchrist, "nobody can question his commitment to his country."

(As a side note, Huckabee also plays bass in a classic rock cover band called Capitol Offense. I'm not kidding. Go here to see them play Lynyrd Skynard's Free Bird . And to cleanse your musical palate go here to see the real band play the classic rock staple.)

It's no surprise Preacher Mike wants to get tough on illegals. They don't vote and the fine white people in Iowa do. Huckabee's endorsement comes the day after his chief opponent Mitt Romney came out with an attack ad blasting Huckabee for his "soft" stand on immigration. Despite the lessons apparently not learned from California Governor Pete Wilson's anti-immigrant, Prop 213 187 debacle a decade ago, this is the kind of in-fighting I expect from Republican candidates duking it out for their party's nomination. The question still to be asked, however, is if in the general election, this tactic of anti-immigration rhetoric will force the Democratic nominee to follow suit. To get a preview of what may follow, go here to see the Romney video. But I leave you with this TV spot from Huckabee. Gotta admit, it's kinda funny. Which makes his folksy appeal understandable, and that much more frightening.

Quien es Mas Macho?

Having already replayed my TiVoed Dancing With the Stars finale -- twice -- I had nothing better to do last night than watch the YouTube Republican Presidential debate. One viewing was quite enough, thank you very much. After careful consideration of the candidates' nuanced arguments over how best to lead this country for the next four years I can come to no other reasoned conclusion than this: these scary white dudes are a bunch of mean and heartless assholes.

When these best and the brightest of the GOP weren't condoning waterboarding, speculating whether or not Jesus would support the death penalty, bragging on how many guns they own, promising to criminalize abortion, or comparing anyone who opposed the war in Iraq as Hitler enablers, vatos were falling all over themselves trying to outdo one another on how best to stick it to the immigrants. Apparently their internal polling data tells them xenophobic hysteria is a winning strategy for 2008. I fear they may be right. Not so much in the plan's success, but in its recognition of a dark, general mood across America anxious over all the Brown people speaking Spanish.

The immigration fireworks started from the opening bell as Mitt Romney accused Rudy Giuluani of running a sanctuary city, otherwise knows as New York. Hizzoner then retorted with the charge that Romney operated not only six sanctuary cities while governor of Massachusetts, but  a "sanctuary mansion" as well, pointing out the fact that Multi-millionaire Mitt once hired illegals to do some extreme makeover on his big house. As you can see the level of incisive and trenchant discussion over this complex issue was up to the usual standard of Republican debate.

In the same spirit of compassionate conservatism Romney recently came out with an ad promising to keep out the brown people. But as Think Progress points out, Romney's tough stance doesn't seem to apply to a certain type of Brown person:

“I can tell you my inclination would be to say as many Cubans as want to come here should come in,” Romney said in an interview Tuesday with The Tampa Tribune editorial board. […]

Romney replied that Cuban Americans are exemplary citizens who have brought “great vitality, skills and energy to the American experience.”

“In my opinion, the more the merrier,” he said.

Here's how the Governor feels about everyone else, that is those raza not comprising “a coveted voting bloc in past presidential elections.” 

Of Gringos and Butterballs

Long Thanksgiving weekend. And, yes, I do celebrate the holiday, if by "celebrate" you mean eat turkey, hang out with family, and watch the Dallas Cowboys. But since I pretty much work from home the concept of "taking the day off" is sort of moot. Interesting discussion going on over at Guanabee.com where skeptical raza are furiously debating whether or not Thanksgiving is a "white" holiday, and consequently a dorky celebration open to scorn, befuddlement, and bemused Latino estrangement. Set aside for a moment what is meant by "white"-- since that's a whole semiotic and cultural thicket worthy of someone's ethnic studies dissertation and not a mere blog post -- but the issues raised are fascinating. So for this discussion, let's assume by "white" we mean gringo, corny, and Norman Rockwell.

Guanabee is great. I read it everyday. Amidst the well-written snark, funny Wilmer Valderrama put-downs, and forays into international politics via the site's sometimes comedically suspect right-wingish pokes at Latin American lefty strong men (Castro, Chavez, and Che), there occasionally emerges from the posts and comments section insight into All Things Brown and contemporary. The "Is Thansgiving White?" flareup is one of them.

The tendency by some of the commentators to reduce an American ritual circa 2007 as "white" is as lazy and simplistic as Ken Burns reducing the discussion of race in this country as a Black/White thing. Thanksgiving, like most cultural events in the United States, is actually transformed by ongoing Latino participation from its gringo, Norman Rockwell origins to something more complicated. Try telling a couple of biker-looking 250 lb. 4th gen Tejano's standing in line at the HEB with their 20 packs of Bud Light and Tony Romo Cowboy jerseys stocking up for the holiday that they are being "white." What these vatos are looking forward to during their four-day weekend is Butterball turkey, Tia Nesta's pinto beans next to the cranberry sauce, and kicking back with tios, tias, and cousin Esperanza's boyfriend from college named Jeff, but he's cool, since his gabacho throwing-arm is an athletic talent highly coveted during the annual touch football game held in the street every year after dinner.

Raza Thansgiving Anxiety doesn't break down into a Brown/White thing, but rather, I believe, into an immigrant vs. homegrown thing. And "immigrant," as old school Nuyoricans and 3rd and 4th gen Mexican Americans all across Aztlan will tell you, doesn't necessarily encompass all that is Latino. That's not to say the sight of a giant Underdog balloon at the Macy's parade isn't strange. It's like when I felt when was in D.F. during the World Cup. Bewildered. Or the way I feel when forced to watch El Chavo de Ocho at the laundromat, I mean, I understand it's supposed to be a comedy -- actors mug for the camera and a laugh track points out the punchlines -- but for warm and fuzzy childhood memories of after school TV delight give me Gilligan's Island any day.

There is value, however, in the scrutiny. Kind of makes you think about U.S holidays in general and why we recognize the events and how we do it. Is Memorial Day a "white" holiday given the overwhelming number of raza veterans dying for a country that for years discriminated against them? Is the Fourth of July a "white" holiday? How about Cinco de Mayo, especially as practiced and sponsored by U.S. beer companies. And, finally, a consistent immigrant observation/critique of the holiday points out the problematic Pilgrim - Indian origins given the subsequent genocide of Native Americans by this country. What's up with that?, they say. A useful question. And while I don't have the answer, I welcome the examination.

Where the Air Is Clear

Echo Park, Los Angeles. And outside, for the first time in a week, it's not pink. The flames are gone and with them the red sky which had thickened the daylight around here with this strange filtered haze. The stats are staggering. Almost a million people displaced, two thousand homes destroyed, 12 people dead, so far, including four illegal immigrants caught in a gully as a firestorm swept through.

What struck me most about the past week is the contrast from these cataclysmic scenes of absolute destruction to the banality of people sipping lattes at the Starbucks on Vermont just a few miles away, or waiting for a bus downtown, or even those of us blogging from Echo Park. No wonder these simultaneously indifferent and apocalyptic SoCal events have been the inspiration for badass art from writer Nathaniel West and his Hollywood burning scene from Day of the Locust, to the John Valadez painting of a couple of Chicanas by a pool washing a dog while hills burn behind them (see image above), to this Courtney Love Hole video. As Mike Davis would say, let Malibu burn indeed...

Connect the Dots

Was away for a few days helping a friend move from my old stomping grounds of San Francisco down to a grad program at UC San Diego. Crazy trip that took us in a rented U-Haul from the gentrifying streets of the Latino Mission District where pupuso joints give way to hipster martini bars, through a pit stop at my Echo Park Los Angeles neighborhood, to an upscale strip mall in La Jolla where you can get tofu burritos at Whole Foods for 4.99. As I wrap my head around my journey through the various Latino outposts and their individual cultural expressions here's what's been happening in the world of images, teatro, and noise...

The Democrats stood on a stage in Miami Sunday night, debated the issues, and in the process made TV and presidential election history. The questions were asked in Spanish and after a few seconds of the candidate's English language response a disembodied Spanish speaking voice would come on to translate the answers back into Spanish for the Univision TV audience. It was as awkward and meandering a spectacle as that last sentence of mine. To keep things "fair" the two Democratic candidates actually fluent in Spanish, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, were not allowed to speak the mother tongue, and unable to dazzle the audience with their ability to roll their r's, show off their mastery of the future subjunctive tense, and thus demonstrate their ability to hang with the homeboys. Jennifer Woodward Maderazo over at Huffingtonpost has a great write up on the debate here. A similar Univision debate invite has been extended to the Republican presidential candidates and so far only John McCain has accepted. I'm guessing Rudy Giuliani and Co. realize that even with the soothing voice of a translator such phrases as "build a wall" and "beaners go home" would not go over so well.

Alberto Gonzales is still a Mexican without a job. For a quick overview of Latino blog reaction to Alberto "The Geneva Convention is Quaint" Gonzales's resignation last week Latino Pundit has compiled a comprehensive list. Sentiments range from the "you make me ashamed to be Latino" variety to the "you make me really ashamed to be Latino" variety. Now if Raza could only come to agreement on the never ending flour vs. corn tortilla debate there would be peace in Aztlan. And for anyone interested in my opinion on the perennial argument I vote "Flour."

TMZ reports Beyonce has told Latina magazine in an interview that she's "just jealous that [she's] not born Latina." The singer went on to elaborate: "The culture is so beautiful...I noticed a big difference between speaking to all of the Latino stations and speaking to the pop stations or the other stations. With the Latino stations, there was so much love and everyone is so genuine." It's unclear from the short article whether Beyonce wants to be Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, or Mexican. Given the fact that homegirl is from Texas I'm guessing Chicana -- in which case the "much love" part usually manifests itself after a six pack of Bud Lights bought on sale from the H.E.B.

And finally, L.A. Times reviews Junot Diaz's long awaited novel The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, calling it "panoramic and yet achingly personal. Impossible to categorize, which is a good thing." It continues: "There's the epic novel, the domestic novel, the social novel, the historical novel and the 'language' novel. People talk about the Great American Novel and the immigrant novel. Pretty reductive. Díaz's novel is a hell of a book. It doesn't care about categories. It's densely populated; it's obsessed with language. It's Dominican and American, not about immigration but diaspora, in which one family's dramas are entwined with a nation's, not about history as information but as dark-force destroyer." As my man James Joyce once said, "This race and this country and this life produced me, I shall express myself as I am." Diaz, it seems, embodies this sentiment/strategy perfectly. I mean, any novel that can reference Love and Rockets, Tristram Shandy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Domincan history in one place has for sure got that whole hi/lo, pomo stuff down pat. I am on my way to buy this book today. Will blog a reaction soon. Till then, for another rave review go to Carolina Gonzalez's review here.