aztlan
Gustavo Arellano at ASU: The Glories of the Arizona Latino
POCHO amigo Gustavo Arellano (he's the ¡Ask A Mexican! guy and editor of the O.C. Weekly) delivered this keynote speech at Arizona State University's biannual Hispanic Convocation Wednesday. The photo (below) shows him at his day job.
Gracias, Arizona State, for asking me to be this year’s Hispanic Convocation keynote. I’m sure it’s a mercy offering to UCLA, after your Sun Devils demolished my Bruins this year in football. No hard feelings–hey, at least we both kicked the nalgas of USC this season, right?
When I announced that I was giving a speech here today, congratulations came from across the country. But also invading my inbox were the inevitable insults–not toward me, but toward the state of Arizona. “Don’t forget to take your papers!” was the most obvious dig. “Watch out for Sheriff Arpaio!” was another one–that one I took to heart, because he did have my former bosses at the New Times arrested a couple of years back. But the slams that I found especially egregious were those that insisted I shouldn’t bother coming to this so-called evil estado in the first place.
Mas…Gustavo Arellano at ASU: The Glories of the Arizona Latino
Marina’s Way: A Cyber-Novela [Chapter One]
Marina is exhausted but exhilarated. Her entrails are convulsing violently as she pumps hundreds of rounds into the hordes of CSA Minutemen coming at her from all sides. After two sleepless nights of hard battle, she can barely hold onto the trigger, which is a throttle gyrating wildly in her hands.
She is emptying magazines from eight different machine guns placed strategically on the exoskeleton of her BattleBot or “Bot.” Bots are oversized suits of armor, equipped with lasers, machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, poison gas canisters and other weapons systems.
Bots are operated by specialized Bot Pilots working deep inside the steel behemoths, which weigh thousands of pounds and stand five stories high. BattleBots were secretly developed by the U.S. Army and were now widely used by armies around the world.
“Incoming,” squawks Marina’s radar. “Shit! Some pinche vendido traitor ratted us out,” Marina hisses into her headset as fighter jets roar overhead and the forest explodes all around her.
Chicano concludes ‘Pacific Rim’ is not a movie about his MEChAs
(PNS reporting from EL PASO) Fabian Ramirez expressed deep disappointment Wednesday night as he left the 7PM showing of Pacific Rim at the Premiere Cinema 18 at Bassett Place Mall.
The 42-year-old father of three teenagers told PNS he heard the “movie was about MEChA” and “wanted to expose my kids to a movie about Chicanos.” Ramirez, a former chair of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano(a) de Aztlan (MEChA) at the University of Texas campus here, gathered his children Vladimir, Xochitl and Emiliano for what he hoped would be a big family night out: Seeing “Chicanos fighting against the power structure of AmeriKKKa.”
Instead, Ramirez found the “the movie was about these big robots piloted by military shooting monsters.”
“Pacific Rim,” he sadly concluded, “is not about my MEChAs.”
Mas…Chicano concludes ‘Pacific Rim’ is not a movie about his MEChAs
Lamar High junior drops ‘slave name,’ renames self ‘Jennifer Lopez’
(PNS reporting from HOUSTON) A local teen has decided to discard her slave name “María de la Paz Rodriguez Ramírez” and rename herself “Jennifer Lopez” after her Latina idol.
“I’m tired of being kept down by the man. My slave name ‘María de la Paz’ is clearly a name with Spanish roots and my family is originally from Mexico City, the former capital of the Aztec empire,” the 16-year-old Lamar High School junior said.
“I will no longer be kept down by my conquerers’ attempts to stifle my culture.”
Mas…Lamar High junior drops ‘slave name,’ renames self ‘Jennifer Lopez’
HipHopAlkatraz and Midget Loco: ‘Me-xicano’ (NSFW music video)
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. HipHopAlkatraz and Midget Loco are proud to say Me Xicano. (NSFW language.)
On the Internet, cats + Aztlan = Caztlan of course (illustrations)
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On the Internet, where kittehs are king, how can an activist vato get the same attention as a cute little gato? With an activist cat, of course. See the full-sized images by San Francisco artist Rio Yanez right here:
Mas…On the Internet, cats + Aztlan = Caztlan of course (illustrations)
NPR Cinco de Mayo show taps Gustavo Arellano, La Santa Cecilia
Coming from the East Coast and all, the National Public Radio Alt.Latino peeps needed to come here to get the real California deal on Cinco de Mayo. They called on two local treasures: Gustavo Arellano, editor of OCWeekly.com, and East Los rockers La Santa Cecilia:
This week we bring ourselves to that most bicultural of holidays — Cinco de Mayo. As we discuss in the show, there is a question about whether or not this is just another opportunity for happy hour specials or store-wide sales: “Get your new bed during our Mexican Mattresstravaganza!!!”
We invited writer Gustavo Arellano to help us shed some light on the issue. He has tackled this theme before in his syndicated column Ask A Mexican.
Here on the East Coast, the Cinco de Mayo experience is different from what it is in California. It feels much less connected to themes of cultural pride and more like an excuse to drink margaritas.
Mas…NPR Cinco de Mayo show taps Gustavo Arellano, La Santa Cecilia
MEChA changes name to one members can pronounce
(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON D.C.) The board of the historic student organization MEChA voted Wednesday to change the group’s name to something easier for its members to pronounce.
MEChA was born during the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, and its name — Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán — was an artifact of its 1960s’ genesis. But Xicano activism waned in the ensuing decades; every year since 1968, for example, the number of baby girls named Xochitl has declined.
Members are no longer interested in getting back to their Nahuatl roots and Los Angeles local chapter male co-chair David Hernandez told PNS that there’s no need. “I mean, I already am from Aztlán, Whittier, you know? And we don’t speak Spanish here,” he said.
LaChata’s Music Box: Aztlan Underground’s newest video ‘Our Nature’
With love from LaChata: For 20 years, Aztlan Underground has presented an evolution of consciousness intertwined with pre-Colombian thoughts, feelings and sounds. In a search for the other — the unknown — Aztlan Underground gives birth to a visceral sound that challenges listeners.
Check out their new, visually-stunning music video Our Nature. It starts with indigenous drums, channels the apocalyptic opera of the Doors and celebrates the natural animal spirit that inhabits us all.
From the hidden vaults of the Mayan pyramids, two more videos below:
Mas…LaChata’s Music Box: Aztlan Underground’s newest video ‘Our Nature’
Music Video: El Vuh rap ‘Ciudad Celestial’ in Teotihuacan and L.A.
Califas and Aztlan (from the hood to the pyramid at Teotihuacan) are the settings for the spectacular new music video Ciudad Celestial from homies El Vuh, assisted by Roco from Mexico’s City’s legendary band Maldita Vecindad. It’s all about the unidad.