Ethnic Family Toys. Mexican MP3s. SW Audio history.

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

You probably didn't get your kids any of Playmobile's "Families" for Xmas, so here's highlights of what you could have bought. In most cases, the Families don't seem to do much to portray ethnicity, which might say more about corporate America's understanding than it does about what makes us unique.

First comes the Egyptian Family, who skin tones seem light enough to be from a well-tanned gringo family in some school play. With very little imagination, they could also be used as a not very tanned family of pre-Colombian Mayas.

Next comes the Amerindian family, who might be preparing to entertain tourists on the reservation. It may be culturally accurate, only in that sense.

The Asian Family obviously have eyes much different from other models, but the distinguishing factor is that the dad is holding a camera, as you'd expect.

The African American Family does at least look black and one of the kids has a basketball, of course, with the mom wearing what might be an African-motif blouse. What dad's wearing on his head is a question, as well as why any black dude would wear plaid.

The Caucasians have two blondes, appropriate skin tones, and the males are holding the all-American baseball equipment. Why they wear nothing on their heads like all the other families is unknown.

Here's the tough one: the Mediterranean/Hispanic family. How these two cultures can be represented by one family model is also an unknown. The girl is mysteriously riding a wooden horse that few American kids would ever want, and the boy is on a skateboard that wouldn't seem to be more Hispanic or Mediterranean than it is part of dominant culture. However, the dad is wearing a construction hat, so it might make you wonder why the mom wasn't dressed in a maid's outfit.
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Mexican children's songs

From Gustavo Arrellano (Ask a Mexican columnist) comes this info about Mexican composer and children's songs performer Francisco Gabilondo Soler, who recorded and performed under the name of Cri-Cri: El Grillito Cantor ("Cri-Cri: The Little Singing Cricket"). If you're looking for a huge collection of delightful children's music that is easily comprehensible, or want material for bilingual children, go here. There's an aviso at the top about copyrights, etc. that you should read.
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New Mexico History Special
January 12, 2012

In commemoration of the New Mexico Centennial of Statehood, Frontera NorteSur is pleased to officially announce a new section on its website dedicated to different issues of importance in the southern New Mexico borderland from 1912 to 2012. Readers will find articles published during the last three years that explore agricultural history, Mexican immigrant labor, economic development, the North American Free Trade Agreement, African Americans in Dona Ana County, and much more. Community histories of the rural towns of San Miguel and Vado-Del Cerro are among the many topics covered in Frontera NorteSur’s Centennial section.

In addition to print stories, the public can listen to a pair of radio documentaries, one in Spanish and one in English, which were earlier aired on KUNM-Albuquerque and KGLP-Gallup. The English-language program, "Behind the Truck Stop," takes listeners on a journey to the small town of Vado-Del Cerro near the Mexican border. The Spanish-language documentary, "La Trailita," examines the displacement of farmworkers in southern New Mexico from mechanization and free trade.

Although the website might be of special interest to university and high school instructors specializing in New Mexico and borderlands history, it contains many broad themes of interest. Universal issues of migration, community formation and identity, foodways and more are all examined in the series.

Contributing scholars include Guillermina Nunez-Mchiri, University of Texas at El Paso; Connie Falk, New Mexico State University; Dionicio Valdes, Michigan State University; Clarence Fielder, New Mexico State emeritus; Jim Peach, New Mexico State; and Lois Stanford, New Mexico State.

The series was made possible in part by grants from the New Mexico Humanities Council, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs and the McCune Charitable Foundation. Watch for new print stories and audio pieces in 2012.

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Debra la tardita–among others–still here

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

Everything's connected, whether or not we recognize it. Some connections are obvious, some subtly disguised through our filtered interpretations of what's around us. Sometimes we need others to help remove the filters.

In response to my post last week about Debra la tardita, two of my fellow La Bloga contributors Michael Sedano and Melinda Palacio disagreed with my notion of removing myself from voter registration.

Sedano's post: "not voting though you can is letting that half of the rest of them win." My take on this is that voting for "change" in fact helped "that half of the rest of them win." Bank & mortgage co. bailouts, our new spreading wars, Guantanamo's continuation, massive legally-sanctioned arrests and deportations by that President show that "they" won. Our votes insured that, rather than our "winning." So, recent history tends not to support Sedano.

Melinda's post: "This story is important, as is your vote. We have to keep believing." I will keep believing. And I would register again when I felt there was something to vote for. Something hugely different. Not just "change" as in another President, though of a different skin color, apparently as dark on the inside as his lighter skinned predecessor. I think Debra la tardita would agree with me.

I did hear that during a non-writing time this week during her school day, she requested permission to write a letter to her dad. I don't know the letter's contents. However, the act itself--a request outside of the normal curriculum schedule--and the risky confidence of a child wanting to put her thoughts down with paper and pencil, neither of which she has mastery of, is something to believe in, draw some inspiration from.

To my same post last week, where I included my statement about Occupy my country, Esteban Chavez wrote: "Does Occupy Aztlan ring any bells? History is moving against the 1%." I do agree with Chavez's second point; his first point appears to have been bypassed by gente and people going beyond it, spreading the Occupy to more than the Southwest and Mexico. As it should be.

I watched the news this week about China moving to cover bonds for the Greek debt-crisis that the Greek people have already Occupied Greece over for some months. Apparently the international 1% seem to be willing to take write-off loses to salvage their European/Western/worldwide economic system. People in the U.S. who didn't believe the 60s and 70s anti-war protests didn't do any good to ending our invasion of Vietnam might be some of the same people who today might not think the Occupy actions have had anything to do with the 1% acting to save the existing economic system in Greece.

I'd suggest we all think again. I can't explain the Occupy movement better than anyone else, but Occupy does stand out in one obvious way: there's no list of demands. Occupy goes beyond getting rid of any current despot/tyrant/ruler/democratically elected President. It goes beyond 99% of the Greeks refusing to pay for their country's economic crisis. Beyond ending corruption or profiling of latino-looking people or just lowering a country's college-debt load before young people have gotten their first job.

By not having a list of demands, Occupy just says: ya basta. If that sounds familiar, it might be because it's been used before. Think Zapata or the Chicano Movement or thousands of other times in history. Voting wasn't usually a major strategy.

Debra la tardita's father will assumedly receive her letter sometime in Nov. Whatever she wrote probably won't include advice to her father about making sure he registers to vote. Nor would it include anything about her being ready to Occupy, though I wouldn't doubt she has the heart for it. At least, she might not be including it her letters, just yet.

Below I reprint a piece from Frontera NorteSur about Occupy Tijuana. It's followed by an appeal from Frontera so they can continue providing alternative news about what's really going on in the Southwest and Mexico. Frontera probably won't cover the return of Debra la tardita's dad, should he lose in deportation hearings.

But consider supporting Frontera, since your local newspaper and broadcasting doesn't usually cover enough of what goes on in our country. You'll want to be one of the first to know how the Occupy Tijuana/Aztlán/my country movement goes. Or comes and goes. Or maybe one day just stays. And lets working people like Debra la tardita's dad stay.

Occupy Tijuana tests rights

October 22, 2011 – Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, a protest in Tijuana is shaping up to be a test between the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and the desire of authorities to maintain public order.

In the wee hours of the morning of Tuesday, October 18, dozens of state, municipal and possibly federal police officers raided Occupy Tijuana’s encampment in the border city’s Plaza Rio zone and arrested 27 people, mostly young professionals and students, for violating city ordinances like urinating in public and allegedly possessing drugs. Some of the detained individuals were then paraded in front of a judge and either slapped with fines amounting to be about $80.00 each or ordered to perform community service.

Tijuana Mayor Carlos Bustamante Anchondo later defended the police action, arguing that if protesters wanted to demonstrate they should have picked a safe place and not be in a position to physically expose themselves in public. Bustamante contended that the site of the protest encampment, a median across from Plaza Rio, was a congested, public thoroughfare. “The criticism is that (protesters) could cause an accident or worse,” Bustamante said.

The Tijuana mayor rejected contentions that excessive force was used in removing the demonstrators, adding that some of the young people camped out were consuming alcohol. However, Bustamante confirmed that he was not present at the scene of the eviction.

“We are students, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, artists, workers; we are the 99 percent,” the protesters said shortly after last week’s break-up of their encampment. “We are not paid killers, delinquents, bums or ninis (Mexican slang for young people who do not work or study).” Stories and video clips covering the eviction and the Occupy Tijuana movement have been posted on You Tube.

In a press statement, the non-governmental Northwest Citizen Human Rights Commission protested that Occupy Tijuana’s rights to peaceful assembly, redress of grievances and due process of law were violated by the police raid. While carrying out the eviction, some officers were hooded and did not display official identification, the Mexican human rights advocates charged. In addition to trampling on constitutional guarantees, the October 18 police raid violated international treaties, the statement asserted.

“It’s worrisome that the civil authority reacts in this way to citizen protests, inflicting an injury that is added to the climate of violence and insecurity which the country is going through,” the citizen commission said. “We don’t know the motive which prompted the authorities to repress the rights of assembly and association, but it is noteworthy that there was a convergence of the three levels of government to carry out the eviction of the demonstrators.”

The Northwest Citizen Human Rights Commission demanded a legal investigation of eviction, and called on the official human rights commissions of Mexico and Baja California to likewise probe the matter. The group also urged Baja California Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan to uphold the constitutional rights of the citizenry and punish those responsible for human rights violations. Copies of the press statement were addressed to other state and local officials, as well as to Javier Hernandez Valencia, Mexico representative for the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights. Heriberto Garcia, Baja California human rights ombudsman, has initiated an investigation of the October 18 incident.

Occupy Tijuana was expected to resume its protest against global economic policies and war on the weekend of October 22.

Additional sources: El Sol de Tijuana, October 22, 2011. Frontera.info, October 21, 2011. La Jornada, October 19, 2011. Article by Antonio Heras. Signonsandiego.com, October 18, 2011. Article by Sandra Dibble.

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Please support Frontera NorteSur

October 25, 2011 – You may know what an important role Frontera NorteSur (FNS) plays in filling the information gap during these critical times along the US-Mexico border. Whether FNS delivers stories about the drug war, immigration, Mexican politics, or the effect of the border wall on the natural environment, here you read the stories you won’t find elsewhere. FNS news service provides a unique blend of press summaries, original reporting and seasoned analysis to help you make sense of the realities of the border region during these turbulent times. Never has an independent news service been more necessary, and FNS is proud to be here.

But we can only continue this vital work with your help. Readers' tax-deductible donations have helped us overcome budgetary challenges in the past and expand the news services we offer. But now more than ever we need supporters to step up to the plate and support FNS. We know times are tough for everyone, but by donating today you can truly make a difference. With the situation along the US-Mexico border continually evolving, you cannot afford not to be informed. Donations of $75, $100, $150 or more are especially needed and appreciated. We urge you to pass this information on to anyone who might be interested in supporting the FNS project. We also welcome any serious referrals to foundations or individual donors. Every little bit will help FNS keep providing the news you need.

Please follow the easy instructions below to donate to FNS today. And thank you! We wouldn’t be here without your generous interest and support.

All best wishes,
Dr. Iñigo Garcia-Bryce, Director
& Kent Paterson, Editor, Frontera NorteSur
Center for Latin American and Border Studies,
New Mexico State University

Donating to Frontera Norte Sur on-line has never been easier. Simply go the NMSU Foundation website at: http://giving.nmsu.edu/giving.php. There you will be prompted to “Find a Giving Area/Fund” Click the button and type in Center for Latin American and Border Studies. You will then be prompted “Tell us How You Want Your Gift Applied.” Just type in: Frontera Norte Sur. You can also add a personal comment if you wish.

If you prefer to donate by mail, simply mail a check or money order to:
Dr. Dennis Prescott
Vice President for University Advancement
Box 3590, Las Cruces, NM 88003

Checks and money orders should be made payable to: New Mexico State University Foundation Inc. On the memo line of the check, in the bottom left hand corner, put: "Frontera NorteSur."

es todo, hoy,
RudyG

Climate disaster & denial grows

Aztlán & Méjico burn

[this article originally appeared on Frontera NorteSur]

In the Southwest US, smoke from massive wildfires contaminates the air and forces evacuations. 200 miles from the mammoth Wallow Fire, the skies of Albuquerque, have recently resembled Los Angeles and Mexico City in their worst years of pollution.

Stretching from Texas and New Mexico and deep into the Mexican interior, drought parches vast expanses of land. Mountain lions, bobcats and bears wander into urban El Paso and Albuquerque.

A major fishery for the US, Mexico and other nations, the Gulf of Mexico is poised to suffer its fourth environmental calamity in less than six years. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the so-called dead zone, which is traced to nitrogen-rich fertilizers washed into the Mississippi River and then into the gulf, could expand to a record size of between 8,500 and 9,421 square miles this year due to increased run-off from this year’s heavy flooding.

Although the reports are dramatic and growing, consumers of the US mass media will find little or next to nothing that suggests that the environmental catastrophes are in any way connected to the broader issue of climate change.

Almost as striking as the disasters themselves, is the systematic, noticeable failure of the US mass media to raise the possibility these climatic upheavals stem from human-caused releases of greenhouse gases, let alone devote any thorough attention to the growing pile of scientific evidence that confirms climate change. Instead, events are often presented in an episodic manner, or described as the consequences of a normal La Nina year or just the hot, dry weather of the pre-Monsoon season.

Broadcast across hundreds of radio stations, the voices of personalities like Rush Limbaugh, who calls climate change a “hoax” and a “costly myth” akin to the Santa Claus tale, arguably get more play than the sober studies of organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Research Council.

Yet even the US military takes climate change quite seriously and is planning for its possible outcomes. A 2010 Pentagon report, for instance, noted that the Department of Defense is actively formulating future policies and missions based on the premise of climate change.

In a commercial media market that treats the climate change story with routine omission or outright denial, a recent Associated Press story illustrated the limits of coverage. The piece recounted how extreme weather events-tornadoes, floods, wildfires and the like-had sowed havoc this spring, reaching virtually unprecedented numbers during April alone.

While hinting at climate change, the story pulled back from the political limb when it quoted Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center in North Carolina, who cautioned against focusing on any single cause for the freaky weather but still affirming that “clearly these things interconnect,” without giving further explanation.

On the other hand, essayist Chip Ward [Fire's Manifest Destiny] cut to the chase in his depiction of an arid western United States that is “burning up and blowing away” in front of our very eyes.

“Global warming, global weirding, climate change, whatever you prefer to call it--it’s not just happening in some distant, melting land out of a storybook,” Ward wrote. “It is not just burning up far-away Russia. It’s here now.”

On the ground, the environmental disaster bubbles and bursts across borders. Like the southwestern US, a huge swath of Mexico reels from epic drought. In the northern state of Tamaulipas, thousands of cattle have reportedly died because of water shortages, while in another border state, Chihuahua, small ranchers draw water from wells meant for human needs in a desperate bid to keep their livestock alive.

Jose Luis Luege, head of Mexico’s National Water Commission, acknowledged that 40 percent of his country is afflicted by the worst drought since 1971. From January 1 to May 19, nearly 300,000 personnel from federal, state and local agencies, as well as from civil society, battled 8,900 forest fires affecting close to 1.5 million acres.

Representing farmers, the National Campesino Confederation is demanding that the federal government declare 15 Mexican states disaster areas. “If this implies reorienting the budget, or additional resources, than it is necessary to do so,” said CNC President Gerardo Sanchez.

Already, climate disasters are costing Mexico a pretty penny. According to the Secretariat of Agriculture and Livestock, the federal government has budgeted more than $1 billion this year to pay for farm and ranch losses arising from droughts, freezes, hailstorms, cyclones, torrential rains, and flooding. An additional amount in the neighborhood of $100 million has been set aside by various governmental agencies to cover insurance, the secretariat said in a June 22 press release.

In the short and medium term, the climate disasters could keep driving up the price of food. A report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicted 30 percent higher food prices within the next decade. That’s on top of the 40 percent increase registered over the course of just the past year.

In the long-term, some scientists contemplate much grimmer scenarios. At an April meeting in England, 27 of the world’s leading ocean experts warned that global warming, acidification and dwindling oxygen levels are threatening the mass extinction of marine life. Emerging ocean conditions resemble those that preceded the five mass extinctions of life on the planet, according to the group.

“The results are shocking,” said Alex Rogers, an Oxford professor who co-authored a report by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean. “We are looking at the consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime.”

Additional sources: AFP, June 20, 2011. Article by Marlowe Hood. El Diario de Juarez, June 19, 2011. Guardian (UK) May 21 and June 18, 2011. Articles by Jules Boykoff and Rupert Neale. TomDispatch.com, June 16, 2011. Article by Chip Ward. Associated Press, June 16, 2011. Article by Randolph E. Schmid. La Jornada, June 2 and 19, 2011. Articles by Ariane Diaz and editorial staff. El Universal, June 3, 14 and 19, 2011. Articles by Adriana Covarrubias, Notimex and editorial staff.

© 2011 Frontera NorteSur:
on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Ciudad Juarez Students Rise Up

For at least the last three years over six people have died each day, violently, within view of the U.S. Almost 200 people a month, many of them young people. Over 2,000 each year.

Many of us here in the U.S., Chicano and otherwise, don't seem directly affected by this bloodbath. We may not live close to the border and avoid visiting Mexico because of the potential for violence. I'm one of those.

We don't have to think about it much and can set it aside and comment "Too bad" or "Pobre Mexico." We might even pride ourselves on not doing drugs and assume that what happens there is no individual fault of our own.

While I don't agree with such thinking, I sometimes wonder what I would do, or would have done when younger, if I lived as a mejicano amidst the horrendous chaos that is life in Mexico, especially the border and other areas.

I liken it to imagining how would I have handled myself as a German citizen in the 30's when the Nazis were rising to power. Would I have been a "good German" or would I have abandoned my country or would I have wound up getting gassed in an oven?

I wonder how closely today's Mexico is to that Nazi Germany. Government complicity, worldwide inaction or appeasement and institutional violence against citizenry play/played roles in both situations. Maybe there are many more parallels. Especially, I wonder, is what goes on today across the border just a modern version of a "final solution."

In any case, news pieces like we reprint below, however tragic, indicate there will always be those who don't go quietly into the night nor go along with the status quo, no matter the risks.

As you read it, put yourself in the shoes of those who experience, even daily, what you read transpires there. We owe much to those involved. Try a little introspection and let me know if you come up with something you want to share.

RudyG

Ciudad Juarez News, 11. 3. 10

For months Ciudad Juarez's Plural Citizens Front and other opponents of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's so-called drug war planned an international forum on violence and militarization in their battle-weary city.

Ironically, on the first day of the October 29-31 event, a bloody incident of the kind activists were protesting marred the meeting site at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences (ICB) of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez. Eyewitnesses told Frontera NorteSur that members of Mexico's Federal Police opened fire on young people who had just participated in the 11th Walk against Death and were arriving to the campus to initiate the left-oriented forum.

The apparent targets were a small group of unarmed, masked youth affiliated with the pro-Zapatista Other Campaign which had trailed the demonstration to spray paint walls with political slogans. As the group was running from police and towards an entrance to the ICB, shots rang out. A bullet struck 19-year-old protestor and university student Jose Dario Alvarez Orrantia in the back, spilling the young man’s guts on the pavement.

"He survived by a miracle, said Dr. Arturo Valenzuela, who performed emergency surgery on Alvarez. "Until now, we are very pleased to have saved Dario."

Outraged by the shooting, students temporarily occupied the ICB administration building. "An injury to one is an injury to all," read one banner hanging from the building.

With Dario Alvarez's blood staining one of the ICB´S entrances, marked off by a crude crime scene blocked off with a circle of rocks and a hand-written sign, the three-day forum proceeded in a tense atmosphere. The steady wail of ambulances passing near the ICB and the thud of gunshots in the distance were an audible reminder of the violence carving the rhythm of life in the border city.

The Federal Police shooting scared away many people who had planned attending the forum, said co-organizer Gabriela Beltran, who charged the Mexican government with staging the attack to undermine the meeting.

”The forum was meant to talk precisely about these types of situations in which the state has us submerged,” Beltran said.

Corroborated by Dr. Valenzuela, local news outlets quickly reported that a handful of Federal Police officers were detained by their superiors for the Alvarez shooting, but Beltran complained that nobody knew the identities of the supposedly arrested policemen and that a serious investigation was not underway.

For Rita del Castillo, the trip to the forum was a painful stop on a long journey that’s followed the drug war from the jungles of South America to the desert mesas of the borderland.

The mother of Juan Gonzalez del Castillo, a Mexico City student killed along with three other Mexican students in an unauthorized Ecuadoran encampment of Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) in March 2008, del Castillo came to the forum accompanied by the mother of another slain student to build support for their relatives’ movement aimed at bringing former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to justice.

A fifth Mexican student who was part of the group, Lucia Morett, survived the US-backed military assault but is now wanted by Interpol on terrorism-related charges filed by the Colombian government. The attack by the Colombian government also resulted in the killing of FARC negotiator Raul Reyes and nearly resulted in a war involving Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Del Castillo insisted that her son and his friends were not terrorists but students on an academic research trip.

In her first visit to Ciudad Juarez, del Castillo arrived at the ICB just in time to hear shots puncturing the early evening and then see Dario Alvarez writhing on the ground.

“As parents this also fills us with indignation, and we extend our solidarity to the young people of the university, the university community and the family members of the young man wounded here yesterday on the university campus,” del Castillo said.

The October 29 shooting took place in the context of escalating violence in Ciudad Juarez and other parts of Mexico, including the slayings of four factory employees of a foreign manufacturing company in the Juarez Valley only days before the forum.

Contrary to rosy assessments of the drug war’s progress, such events demonstrate an overall deterioration of the public safety situation, said Victor Quintana, former Mexican lawmaker and adviser to the Democratic Campesino Front of Chihuahua. Condemning Alvarez's shooting, Quintana said similar incidents cannot be allowed to happen.

Occupying the ICB campus during the weekend which immediately preceded Mexico’s Days of the Dead holidays, Dario Alvarez’s fellow students strategized their response to the police shooting of their friend.

In an exercise of direct democracy rarely seen in Mexico or the US, the students met in popular assemblies to carefully analyze, debate and decide possible courses of action.

A solemn mood characterized the meetings, shaped by the historical knowledge of the impact students have had at other times in Mexican history, such as the 1968 student mobilization that culminated in the October 2 government slaughter of protesters in Mexico City's Tlatelolco.

“We are for the transformation of the world,” one student told his assembled classmates. “Another world is possible, and we are beginning it here in Ciudad Juarez."

Within hours of Alvarez’s shooting, messages of outside support were coming to Ciudad Juarez students. In short order, the event was acquiring national political ramifications. Speeches at the forum urging the cut off of US security assistance to Mexico and a sweeping redirection in the drug war gained resonance.

Locally, much of the political class and media downplayed, ignored and even distorted the October 29 incident. However, a group of prominent Ciudad Juarez academics and citizen activists authored an opinion piece for the October 31 edition of the city´s daily Norte newspaper.

Slamming human rights violations and the killing of young people in different parts of Mexico, the column posed a question:

“How much blood of innocent civilians, of the children and of the young, will have to run until the government comprehends that its public safety strategy and little war against organized crime is a noisy disaster?”

The statement was signed by Alfredo Nateras, Carlos Cruz, Julia Monarrez, Irma Saucedo, Luciana Ramos, and Lucia Melgar.

On Nov. 2 and 3, Ciudad Juarez students and their allies once again took to the streets. According to local media reports, the first march drew at least 1,500 people.

The demonstrators demanded justice for Dario Alvarez and other youthful victims of violence, the demilitarization of Ciudad Juarez and the withdrawal of the Federal Police from the city.

Reportedly greeted by generous honks of support from passing motorists, the mass protest represented “a university movement that hasn’t occurred in Ciudad Juarez since the beginning or middle of the 1980s,” declared the website of the Arrobajuarez.com news service.

Meanwhile, on many fronts, struggling civil society organizations wage a fight for peace and reconstruction in Ciudad Juarez. Once the poster child for the booming global economy of the late 20th century, Ciudad Juarez now hosts a “broken society,” said university student and health promoter Perla Davila. “Everyone” has been affected one way or another by the carnage that’s left about 7,000 people murdered since the beginning of 2008, Davila contended.

A psychology major, Davila works for a new non-profit organization, SABIC, which employs traditional herbal healing, alternative medicine and therapy to assist victims of violence. In its first year of operation, SABIC has attended about 5,000 people in ten community centers scattered across Ciudad Juarez, Davila told Frontera NorteSur.

Juarenses, she said, are sunk in a “tremendous stress” that shows no signs of letting up. The shooting of Jose Dario Alvarez Orrantia, Davila maintained, only adds to the official disdain of her troubled city and its embattled residents.

Said Davila: “We are trying to find an exit…nobody has a manual on how to survive a social war, on how to survive the war of a government that doesn’t want to listen, that doesn’t want to see what it is causing--especially in the young part of society.”

Additional sources: Diario de Juarez Nov. 3, 2010.
Arrobajuarez.com, Nov. 3, 2010. Norte, Oct. 31, 2010.

© 2010 Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, N.M.

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

New story, new SW art & new Mexican revolution?

La Bloga's Dan Olivas has a new story in the online litmag, Pinstripe Fedora, entitled, Things We Do Not Talk About. The issue is in PDF format with a nice design. Check it out here.

Museo de las Americas presents...

From the Earth
October 14, 2010 6:00 p.m.
at the Museo, 861 Santa Fe Dr., Denver
Free admission

The Museo de las Americas presents From the Earth, an exhibit featuring the work of ten artists from the Southwest whose materials, processes and disciplines come directly from the land where they live. Every day of their respective lives, they honor ancient American connectedness to the Earth.

They carry the understanding that all the Earth is a gift, nothing is truly owned and all is to be honored. Artists include, Eppie Archuleta and her daughter, Norma Medina, Lorena Banyacya, Lorraine Herder, Sharlyn Sanchez, Gloria Lopez Cordova, Manuel Chavarria Denet, Juan Quezada, Lawrence Namoki, Vern Nieto, and Walking Thunder. Curators Rogelio Briones and Maruca Salazar.

To keep up with weekly events, join our mailing list here.

The revolution might not be televised, but it might start in . . .

Excerpted from Frontera NorteSur:

An attempted kidnapping Sept. 21 in the northern Mexican state of
Chihuahua touched off a burst of mass outrage that left two suspected young kidnappers dead and a small town in open rebellion. While details are sketchy, the events began with the abduction of a 17-year-old female worker of a seafood restaurant in the town of Ascension by a group of young men. Located south of the New Mexico border, Ascension is a rural area has suffered numerous kidnappings and killings the last two years.

Alerted to the kidnapping, townspeople and soldiers mobilized, freed the victim and detained five alleged kidnappers. Hundreds of angry residents beat two of the detainees and blocked police from rescuing the suspects, who were later pronounced dead.

In a stand-off that lasted throughout the day, residents prevented two federal police helicopters from landing and blockaded roads to prevent military reinforcements from arriving. Armed with picks, shovels and machetes, enraged residents shouted at “corrupt” soldiers and police to leave. Some locals accused government security forces of colluding with delinquent bands.

“La Chona Lights the Fuse,” headlined Ciudad Juarez’s Lapolaka newsite, whose director was just granted political asylum in the United States. The news organization couched the report in historical and contemporary terms:

The new Mexican Revolution
could have begun this Tuesday in Ascencion…

While mass lynchings are not uncommon in certain parts of Mexico, such lynchings have been rare in Chihuahua. Since the July elections, the murders of several relatives of Governor-elect Cesar Duarte and other politicians, frequent public displays of narco-banners warning of new attacks and round-the-clock executions have added constant doses of mass anxiety to an already-tense political and social environment characterized by the ongoing confrontation between heavily armed organized crime groups.

“Thousands of executions, murders of women, robberies, extortions, taxes on businesses for turf rights, deaths of human rights defenders and journalists, hundreds of thousands of displaced people, complaints of human rights violations that are not investigated or sanctioned, and tears and blood that run through the desert in total impunity.”

Nationally, anticipation and angst hangs in the air as Mexico commemorates the 200th anniversary of the War of Independence and 100th anniversary of the 1910 Revolution.

Additionally, September 23 marks the 45th anniversary of the attack on the Madera army barracks not far from Ascension. Led by school teacher Arturo Gamiz and Dr. Pablo Gomez, the guerrilla assault inspired a generation of revolutionaries whose ideological descendants are resurfacing in other parts of the country today.

Last week, as Mexico celebrated its bicentennial, yet another
self-proclaimed rebel band issued a declaration in the southern state of Guerrero. In a communiqué delivered to the Guerrero daily El Sur, the Armed People’s Army called for a popular boycott of the upcoming gubernatorial election, an end to the political parties and unity of all the various revolutionary forces. Containing 11 political points, the message was accompanied by a video that portrayed a guerrilla column in the mountains

"Quoted in the Mexican press, residents of Ascension vowed to arm
themselves and protect their town from its enemies."

September 22, 2010
© Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM

To tead the entire article, go here.

Es todo, hoy
RudyG

What we don't know is more than a surprise

Americans are famous for their ignorance about the world, maybe in part because they rely on local newspapers or Tom Brokaw to know what's going on in the world. In the so-called information age, less and less reliable information is what we're being served up. Where cities had two newspapers, they now barely hold on to one. The number of publication companies has shriveled. And journalism's standards have commensurately fallen.

Journalistic standards too, he says? Remember the Vietnam War years, when daily we saw photos of suffering Vietnamese civilians? When's the last time you saw a photo or video of Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan civilian suffering? News of the first caliber helped influence Americans to pull out of Vietnam. News of the second caliber helps Americans ignore what happens in our present wars.

There are countless more examples: "imbedded" American journalists are no longer free to cover wars; they're constantly escorted by military types, helping to filter what Americans know of the world.

The result will be Surprise! not simply ignorance. In our name, with our tax money, the (presently) most powerful government on the planet goes about its business with little free press coverage to inform us of what may come. Then, Surprise! the Gulf of Mexico is suddenly no longer useable.

Below are some reliable free press sources that aren't "imbedded" and snippets of the types of information they make available daily.

Frontera NorteSur

The editor asks: "El Paso and other places on the US side of the border are actually far less violent than many communities in the interior of the US. Is anyone proposing to send troops to Albuquerque or Oakland?"

From their July 16, 2010 Immigration News release: "A report by Mexico’s National Institute of Geography, Statistics and Informatics provides details on the emptying of the countryside in the Mexican state of Michoacan. Of 537,000 homes in rural Michoacan, nearly one in four, 23%, stand abandoned throughout the entire year or portions of it, the study finds.

According to the federal agency, Michoacan’s population dropped from approximately 4.2 million people in 1995, a year after the beginning of the North American Free Trade Agreement and a time when economic crisis clawed the landscape, to an estimated 3,926,000 inhabitants today.

"Every year for the last 15 years, between 25,000-30,000 residents of Michoacan have moved to the United States, said Zaira Mandujano Fernandez, secretary of migrant affairs for Michoacan. Despite economic downturn and tougher US border security, Mandujano said she expected the current rate of migration to the US to continue for the next 20 years. Michoacan is a main battlefronts in the so-called narco war.

"Victor Castillo, of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, told reporters that 400 Mexican families have moved to McAllen and other nearby towns during the last six months. Further inland, in San Antonio, a representative of RE/MAX said Mexicans now make up 80 percent of the local company’s clients, up from 35% four years ago."

You can subscribe to Frontera NorteSur for free and without submitting more than your Email.

TomDispatch.com

"Tomdispatch.com is for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of our post-9/11 world and a clear sense of how our imperial globe actually works." For 15 years, he was Senior Editor at Pantheon Books where he watched the publishing world getting swallowed by corporations more interested in profits than literature.

Recent dispatches:

Nick Turse writes American War Versus Real War (July 13, 2010) comparing news coverage of today's wars to the Vietnam War: "The horrific shots Army photographer Ron Haeberle took of what became known as the My Lai massacre as it was happening. . . The suffering and destruction our soldiers were bringing to ordinary civilians in a distant, disastrous war was far clearer then. . . Nick Turse points out in his discussion of Sebastian Junger’s new film Restrepo, our Afghan War is now generally being recorded in real time in the fashion made familiar to Americans on screen in the post-Vietnam years--that is, largely without Afghan suffering."

And you can find out Why We’re Losing the War Against Influenza - by John M. Barry.

Want to know where all the U.S. terrorism is coming from? Stephan Salisbury writes Plotting Terrorism - July 6, 2010.
"The Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy, the Newburgh Four -- each has had their fear-filled day in the sun. None of these plots ever came close to happening. How could they? All were bogus from the get-go: money to buy missiles or cell phones or shoes and fancy duds--provided by the authorities; plans for how to use the missiles and bombs and cell phones--provided by authorities; cars for transport and demolition--issued by the authorities; facilities for carrying out the transactions--leased by those same authorities. Played out on landscapes manufactured by federal imagineers, the climax of each drama was foreordained. The failure of the plots would then be touted as the success of the investigations and prosecutions."

You can sign up free for TomDispatch or get it on Facebook, Twitter and Podcast. Again, just providing your Email.

Democracy Now!

This is the "daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 800 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S."

They Have Terrorized Our Community: Anti-Immigrant List Targets Latinos in Utah

"An anonymous group has distributed a list that is spreading terror and outrage among the Latino community in Utah. The list includes names, addresses, workplaces, phone numbers, birth dates and, in some cases, Social Security numbers of some 1,300 people that the group alleges are undocumented. The list was sent to law enforcement officials, state lawmakers and the media, and urges that those on the list be immediately deported. All the names are Latino, and they include over 200 children and the due dates for six pregnant women."

It's mid-July here in Denver and the temperature today might break 100. But that doesn't compare to: Global Warming to Bring Increased Heat Waves to US
"Following last week’s record-breaking East Coast heat wave, a new study by Stanford University climate scientists says as global warming continues, such heat waves will be increasingly common in the future. The study found exceptionally long heat waves and other hot events could become commonplace in the United States in the next thirty years, posing serious risks to agriculture and human health."

OR

Himalayan Glaciers Melting Faster Than Anywhere Else in World; Impact Could Devastate Over 1 Billion People
"We look at the impact of climate change in the Himalayas region in Asia, where scientists are warning glaciers are receding faster than anywhere else in the world, with the potential to devastate over a billion people. The Himalayan glaciers have been described as the water towers of Asia, as they provide a key source of water to ten major Asian river systems."

Goodman's voice is a little raking, but the content is worth listening to on NPR around the country. Or you can go to their website. And the site's even in Spanish. Gonzales couldn't work on Good Morning Vietnam but "he was the first reporter in New York City to consistently expose the health effects arising from the September 11, 2001 attacks and the cover-up of these hazards by government officials." And he started "the Parity Project, an innovative program that creates partnerships between local communities and media organizations to improve coverage of the Latino community and to recruit and retain more Hispanic journalists."

Es todo, hoy
RudyG

Frontera NorteSur, Denver's Festival de Cine Mexicano, y un chiste

La Bloga readers have various reasons for coming here, not the least of which is news we share from the Spanish-speaking world--from Spain's Semana Negra to cultural news from all over the Southwest. Despite being primarily an arts/literary blog, real-world events necessarily affect our art and how we live in each of our niches.

The Internet, the WWW have provided us with floods of information--as countless as the over a billion Tweets or two hundred million blogs in existence (incl. Chinese). But the reliability of news and searches for "the truth" threaten to be buried by the staggering number of pieces out there. At the same time, mainstream sources of reliable journalism are declining. We the public, Chicano and otherwise, don't necessarily know as much as we once did.

For instance, how many know there have been at least ten suicides at Ft. Hood this year, an increase in domestic violence on-base and a rise in local crime? And who in the world of journalism is analyzing that for us and tying it to Obama's adding another 40,000 troops to "our" wars?

Information on Mexico and the shared border is important to us, not only because of our proximity or cultural ties, but the nature of that border is changing. Narco violence has crossed the river and no one can say how far north it will travel or how it might change our lives in Phoenix, San Antonio and even Denver.

None of this relates to you? Heading south of the border for an affordable vacation soon? Do you know which beaches are hygienically dangerous, unfit for swimming?

Are you an academic whose dissertation or published piece suffers because your pocho Spanish won't let you navigate la idioma journalistic waters?

Or are you in education and public service where you daily work with Mexican immigrants, but lack info about what it is that made them leave their mother country?

I speak only for myself when I say that my world revolves around the Southwest. I tend not to realize I need to encompass more to understand how and why things are transforming around me.

Luckily, years ago I found Frontera NorteSur. Their purpose: "FNS provides on-line news coverage of the US-Mexico border." They do this by analyzing and summarizing U.S., Mexican and other news agencies each week, providing sources at the end of each post.

Spend a few minutes on their website and you might come to realize how little the mainstream press tells us, how volatile conditions have become in Mexico, and how abruptly we might learn how intertwined our lives are with those who live on the border and southward.

You don't need to read many of their articles to understand this. Here's a sampling of headlines:

The Summer of Sewage?
Pollution Flows into the Rio Grande
Tomato Pickers Demand Bilingual Education
The Lost Daughters of the Rio Grande
Will Mexico Recuperate from the Tourism Crash?
From Narco War to War of Extermination

I include the letter below because it would be detrimental to an informed public to no longer have access to Frontera NorteSur's service. I leave it to La Bloga readers to decide for themselves how valuable a site this is.

Dear Esteemed Reader,

Although some declare the recession over now, tight budgets continue to be a reality for the foreseeable future. We know you appreciate receiving Frontera NorteSur, and we know you value journalism that provides an informed lens on critical stories, issues and personalities. In the case of the US-Mexico border, the issues are more important than ever. Immigration, the narco war in Ciudad Juarez and other places, economic challenges, and environmental crises are among the burning issues that will define the border region in the year to come and beyond.

Unfortunately, getting the information you need to know is not getting easier. In the El Paso-New Mexico region alone, a major Internet news service has recently suspended its service, while a Spanish-language newspaper has disappeared from the streets in recent months. Major international media like the New York Times continue to hemorrhage journalists, and news reporting in Mexico and many other places in the world remains a risky endeavor.

With our very limited resources, Frontera NorteSur does its modest part in helping fill the information gap. In previous years, reader donations assisted us in overcoming budgetary challenges and actually helping to expand this news service to some degree. In 2009, now more than ever, we are counting on you, the reader, to step up to the plate and help us into the new year. We know times are tough for everyone and really appreciate any donations that you can afford. After all, every little bit helps. Donations of $25, $50, $100 or more are especially appreciated.

Any contributions to Frontera NorteSur are tax-deductible.

We are also exploring a possibility of matching larger donations with a sizeable grant, which would lead to a much bigger expansion of Frontera NorteSur as a news service. If you know of any foundations or individuals willing to assist in this project, please contact Dr. Neil Harvey at nharvey@nmsu.edu

Again, thank you so much for your generous support and interest. We know you cannot afford not to be informed about US-Mexico border and related issues. If you would like to support us, please follow the instructions below for making a contribution.

Sincerely,
Dr. Neil Harvey, Director
Kent Paterson, Editor, Frontera NorteSur
Center for Latin American and Border Studies,
New Mexico State University

If you prefer to donate online, please go to the Foundation’s website.
Click on "Tell us how you want your gift applied" and the amount. Please insert “Frontera Norte Sur” in the box that opens below.

You can donate by sending a check or money order to:
NMSU Advancement
Attn: Nick Franklin, VP for University Advancement, Box 3590, Las Cruces, NM 88003

Checks and money orders should be made payable to: New Mexico State University Foundation Inc.
On the memo line of the check, in the bottom left hand corner, put: Frontera NorteSur
Include a brief cover letter with the check that states you are donating to Frontera Norte Sur, NMSU and includes your name, address, daytime phone and email address. Also please state if you graduated from NMSU (with year of graduation and degree if applicable).

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Festival de Cine Mexicano

The 32nd Starz Denver Film Festival will showcase many of Mexico's most recent and influential films. The festival began Thursday Nov. 12 and runs through Nov. 22, 2009.

From contemporary films such as Rudo y Cursi, Sin Nombre, Y Tu Mamá También, and numerous others, the Mexican film industry is making its cinematic presence known.

Norteado is a beautiful film and the director of La Ultima y Nos Vamos will be in attendance for her entertaining film following the lives of three friends in Mexico City. Below are films and times that will be presented as a part of the program:

Cruzando (Crossing) - When hapless Manuel, a janitor at a Mexican strip club, hears that his father is about to be executed in Texas, he embarks on a picaresque trek for the border with his pal Diego in a quirky road movie that is by turns comedy and tragedy.
Wed. Nov 18 6:45 pm
Thurs. Nov 19 9:15pm

Corazón del Tiempo (Heart of Time) In this political narrative styled as a documentary, a young woman in the volatile Mexican state of Chiapas brings the threat of chaos to her community when she breaks her engagement with a local boy in order to pursue her love for a Zapatista rebel.
Sun. Nov 15 6:45pm

Norteado (Northless) In Oaxacan-born director Rigoberto Perezcano's first feature, Andrés, a young farmer from the south of Mexico, has made several attempts to cross the border into the United States - all dashed by the danger of the desert. On the verge of giving up, he decides to try one last brilliant if surrealistic plan.
Sun. Nov 15 7:15pm
Mon. Nov 16 9:15pm

La Ultima y Nos Vamos (One for the Road) Three well-heeled young men looking for action in Mexico City and find it when they cross the boundaries that divide them from the city's working classes to discover an entirely new world. Director Eva López-Sánchez based her drama on the real-life experiences of her coauthor, Alfredo Mier y Terán.
Sun. Nov 15 9:30pm
Mon. Nov 16 6:45 pm

Rabioso Sol, Rabioso Cielo (Raging Sun, Raging Sky) In the experimental filmmaker Julián Hernández's mystical celebration of sexual desire, two young lovers are torn apart by circumstance and seek divine guidance to help bring them back together. On the brink of reunion, tragedy strikes again, but their passion is so pure that the gods immortalize them in myth.
Sun. Nov 15 12:30pm
Mon. Nov 16 6pm

El Arból (The Tree) Santiago, a Madrileño bartender, is trying to come to terms with the deteriorating circumstances of his life. Thrown out by his wife, barred from seeing his children, and fired from his job, he walks the streets searching for salvation - which he might just find on a high bridge in the middle of the city.
Tues Nov. 17 8:45pm
Wed. Nov. 18 5pm
Wed. Nov. 18 7pm

The Festival de Cine Mexicano program will also include a special presentation of the feature film, Up, in Spanish subtitles, as a part of the Saturday-at-the-Movies program Saturday, Nov. 21 at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

Sponsors of this program: Cinema Latino, Consulate General of Mexico in Denver, Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara, Idea Marketing, Mexican Cultural Center, Mezcal, Museo de las Americas, Que Bueno 1280AM, Tambien, Telefutura, University of Guadalajara and Univision Colorado.

To purchase tickets or for more information visit www.denverfilm.org

Nos vemos en los movies!

-------------------

Lover's advice, translated from the Spanish:

If your lover trembles when you embrace him,
If his body flames with desire at your touch,
And if he chokes up when you tell him you love him,
Get rid of the sucker--he's got H1N1.

RudyChG