Fight SB1070 With Music; Poets; Su Teatro Summer

Ry Cooder Donates Proceeds to MALDEF from Sale of “Quicksand” Created in Response to SB 1070

LOS ANGELES, CA – Ry Cooder created his new single Quicksand in response to anti-immigrant law SB 1070 and the ongoing Arizona immigration battle. SB 1070 requires police to demand "papers' from people they stop who they suspect are "unlawfully present" in the U.S. As described by Cooder, Quicksand is a slow-burning rocker that tells the story of six would-be immigrants making their way from Mexico to the Arizona border. Ry Cooder's Quicksand went on sale exclusively on iTunes, and Cooder has pledged to donate all proceeds from the song to MALDEF.

Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF President and General Counsel, stated that Defeating Arizona's SB 1070 - and the potential copycat laws that have since been announced by unscrupulous legislators around the nation - will require a broad national community effort to reinforce the constitutional principles and values that characterize our nation. Our heartfelt thanks to Ry Cooder for being a leader in that necessary community effort.

Cooder produced the 1996 album Buena Vista Social Club, followed by solo projects with Ibrahim Ferrer and Manuel Galban, of Los Zafiros. Quicksand features Cooder's son Joachim on drums, with backup vocals by Lucina Rodgriguez and Fabiola Trujillo of the Mexican roots band Los Cenzontles. The artwork for the single features the piece Nuthin' To See Here, Keep On Movin'! by frequent collaborator Vincent Valdez.

The Devil’s Highway has been used by migrants traveling on foot for over 100 years, says Cooder of the journey depicted in the song. You should try it sometime. Out there, temperatures can get above 130 degrees. If you fall down, you have religious hallucinations, then you die, cooking from the inside out. If you get lucky, you might make it to Yuma, but then what?

You can find a link to Ry Cooder’s page featuring “Quicksand” here.

To show your support for Ry Cooder and MALDEF, visit the iTunes store to purchase Ry Cooder’s Quicksand here.

Founded in 1968, MALDEF is the nation’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization. Often described as the law firm of the Latino community, MALDEF promotes social change through advocacy, communications, community education, and litigation in the areas of education, employment, immigrant rights, and political access. For more information on MALDEF, please visit: www.maldef.org.

Demetria Martinez and Martín Espada Read at National Hispanic Cultural Center

July 10, Wells Fargo Auditorium, NHCC, Albuquerque, 7:30 PM, free.

Click on the image for a better view of the details.

Su Teatro Celebrates Summer

Su Teatro celebrates summer with several cool events including Guillermo Gómez Peña, La Carpa de los Rasquachis, events in collaboration with the Biennial of the Americas, and a production of the Shadow Theater play The Life and Times of Ol' Alfred. And don't forget the annual Chicano Music Festival. Check out all the happenings at Su Teatro's web page.

Tony Garcia, Su Teatro's Executive Artistic Director, sends along this message about his search for a couple of Chicano blues bands to showcase at the Festival.

Do You Chicanos Sing the Blues?

In the tradition of the great Randy Garibay and Dr. Loco, Su Teatro is looking for Chicano bands that can sing the blues. What is Chicano blues? Well, this is the beginning of our conversation.

Corridos are the blues. Boleros are the blues. Barbacoa Blues is Chicano blues. There are songs and there are fragments. The sax middle of Angel Baby is Chicano blues (not the entire song but that section absolutely is) or Chicanos singing Jr. Walker's What Does it Take?

What is not Chicano blues? Anybody playing Brick House. Anyone playing disco. Funk is not blues; the blues are raw. I am looking for hot, painful vocals and bending guitar notes all from a Chicano perspective. If this is you, let me know. I will be bringing two bands together for the August 6 Chicano Blues night at the Chicano Music Festival. I won't be paying much, but as Gil Scott-Heron says, "there is the I ain't got me no money and I ain't got me no woman blues, which is the double blues." We are offering the maybe "I get me a little money blues." email me your ideas and let me know.

TONY GARCIA
EXECUTIVE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
tony@suteatro.org

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Speaking of musica - I'll see some of you at Part 2 of the Colorado All-Star New Mexico and Tejano Music Festival at the Edelweiss Club, featuring Next In Line of Commerce City, Richard Baca & Sierra Gold from Pueblo, and The Rick Garcia Band. That's tonight - hope you don't miss it; Part 1 was a blast (here's a link.) And then, I may bump into some of you at the driveway party Saturday night. Sounds like a great weekend.

Later.

Author Gigs - Racial Profiling -Test Trailer

Author Events

[text from event websites]

Francisco X. Alarcón

An evening of poetry, music, and dance.
April 23, 8:30 p.m.
Casa Zapata Dining Hall (Stern) - Stanford University

Enjoy the talents of students, staff, faculty and Bay Area performers who are committed to uplifting our community through arte y cultura. Featuring Poetry by Francisco X. Alarcón.
Francisco X. Alarcón is an acclaimed poet and educator, author of ten volumes of poetry. Alarcón is the recipient of 1993 American Book Award, the 1993 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and the 1984 Chicano Literary Prize. In April 2002 he received the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association (BABRA). He was one of the three finalists nominated for the state poet laureate of California. Alarcón was also awarded the 1997 Pura Belpré Honor Award by the American Library Association and the National Parenting Publications Gold Medal. He also received 2002 Pura Belpré Honor Award, Danforth and Fulbright fellowships, 1998 Carlos Pellicer-Robert Frost Poetry Honor Award by the Third Binational Border Poetry Contest, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.

Sherwin Bitsui and Sherman Alexie

April 27 - 7:00 p.m.

A very special night is at hand as two amazing poets, one new to Elliott Bay audiences, and the other, familiar but always, in the vital sense, new, give this reading of their work together. We'll go with reverse alphabetical order here, or let the visiting poet be introduced before our longtime friend and neighbor.

Up from Arizona, Sherwin Bitsui is Diné of the Tódích'ii'nii (Bitter Water Clan), an extraordinary new poetic voice, the author of a fine first collection, Shapeshift, and now a compelling new book, Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press). This is major work. "Sherwin Bitsui sees violent beauty in the American landscape. There are junipers, black ants, axes, and cities dragging their bridges. I can hear Whitman's drums in these poems and I see Ginsberg's supermarkets. But above all else, there is an indigenous eccentricity, a 'cornfield at the bottom of a sandstone canyon,' that you will not find anywhere else." – Sherman Alexie.

With Sherman Alexie, originally from the Spokane Reservation, but coming here now from just over the hill, there is a poetic authenticity and urgency in his poems and all other work approached by relatively few working today. Since his first book of poems and stories, The Business of Fancydancing was published 19 years ago, he has written 22 books of poems and prose, many a 'mix tape,' as he might say, and did say of his most recent book, War Dances (Grove Press). Last year also saw publication of Face (Hanging Loose). "[Sherman Alexie] writes of blood, mirth, anger, patriotism, pretension, sex, the fruitful collision of cultures, and calcified ideas about what it means to be a Native American, a writer, a man, a human being. Skirmishes with insects and animals illuminate our conflicts over nature, and musings about the toll of creativity inspire poems about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Richard Pryor. A bountiful, keen, and inspiriting collection." – Donna Seaman, Booklist. Bountiful, this evening, indeed.

Location:

The Elliott Bay Book Company
1521 Tenth Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98122

Rolando Hinojosa-Smith

Conferencia Magistral:
El estado del español y su literatura en Estados Unidos y por qué lo uso en mi trabajo

Fecha: Miércoles, 28 de abril
Lugar: Life Science E Wing (LSE) 106, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Hora: 4:30‐6:00 p.m.
Información: 480.965‐6281

Rolando Hinojosa-Smith: destacado novelista chicano, es autor de Klail City y sus alrededores, Mi querido Rafa, Los amigos de Becky y We Happy Few, entre otras obras. Hinojosa‐Smith es profesor de Creative Writing y de Literatura Chicana en el Department of English de la Universidad de Texas, Austin.

Patrocinadores: School of International Letters & Cultures (SILC), Hispanic Research Center (HRC), Department of Transborder Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies (DTCLS) y Department of English.

Luis J. Rodriguez

April 29 - 6:30 p.m. Kansas City Public Library, Plaza Branch

One of the leading Chicano writers in the country with 14 published books in memoir, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and poetry, Luis J. Rodriguez will discuss his prolific work.

Rodriguez’s master work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., is a 1993 memoir of gang life. With more than 300,000 copies sold, this book garnered a Carl Sandburg Literary Award, a Chicago Sun-Times Book Award, and was designated a New York Times Notable Book.

It became a stage play by the Cornerstone Theater Company, showing in Los Angeles from 2003-2005 to 6,000 high school students. Written as a cautionary tale for Luis’ then 15-year-old son Ramiro — who had joined a Chicago gang — the memoir is popular among youth and teachers.

The event is co-sponsored by the Latino Writers Collective.

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1016 16th Street NW, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20036 Office: 202-293-2828
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION April 21, 2010	CONTACT: Estuardo Rodriguez: (202) 631-2892 Donald Gatlin: (202) 821-7923
CIVIL RIGHTS AND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS LEADERS REPUDIATE RACIAL PROFILING LAW, AZ SB1070, CALL FOR ITS VETO MALDEF, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Rights Working Group and CASA de Maryland convene before Department of Homeland Security
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, MALDEF and NDLON met with other civil rights organizations in front of the Department of Homeland Security to call on Secretary Janet Napolitano to take immediate steps to prevent implementation of Arizona Senate Bill 1070 should Governor Jan Brewer move to enact it. The groups condemned SB 1070 as one of the most draconian anti-immigrant legislation approved by a state body in the nation. "If implemented, SB 1070 will have dire fiscal, economic, and public safety consequences for Arizona and all its residents," stated Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF President and General Counsel. “In addition, this unconstitutional law could adversely affect federal law enforcement by upsetting developed enforcement priorities and diverting limited resources. It is therefore incumbent on Secretary Janet Napolitano and Department of Homeland Security to state clearly the federal government's opposition to SB 1070 and to commit not to alter federal practices and not to cooperate in the implementation of this draconian law." Margaret Huang, Executive Director, Rights Working Group, stated, “This law is the natural conclusion of a long process that has transferred the enforcement of federal immigration law to the states, and created an environment ripe for racial profiling. The federal government must reassert its exclusive authority to enforce the law. Until that happens, unconstitutional laws like the one in Arizona will continue to be passed and people’s human rights will continue to be violated.” Gustavo Andrade, Organizing Director, CASA de Maryland and NDLON member, stated, “Communities from Arizona to Maryland feel under siege. As a candidate, Barack Obama promised immigration reform in his first year, but instead, President Obama and his administration have unleashed a racial reign of terror upon the Latino community in the United States. This is the moment where the President must use his leadership and moral courage to strike down SB1070 and move forward to pass immigration reform.” If Governor Brewer does not veto SB 1070, Arizona will become the first state to criminalize illegal immigrants and allow local police to enforce federal immigration laws. On Monday, the State Senate endorsed SB 1070 by a vote of 17-11 and the legislation is now sitting on the Governor’s desk.
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I'm sure you are aware of the Arizona issue. Change.org has more info and an email petition, at this link. I don't know if the petition will do any good, but we all should take the time to understand the consequences if a law like SB 1070 is enacted.

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And here is something I put together in my spare time. If you have two minutes, click the flick and turn on your speakers. This is my first try at something like this - it is primitive and basic - but I have to say the process was fun. Any feedback is appreciated.

Later.