Cultura

It’s Not News to Us

Today’s the day the music – and Ritchie Valens – died

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newspaperToday marks the sad anniversary of “the day the music died,” the February 3, 1959 airplane crash that took the lives of rock stars Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.

Valens, from the L.A. suburb of Pacoima, was born Richard Steven Valenzuela and some consider him the father of Chicano rock. Pocho Valens didn’t espeak Espanish, so he sang the lyrics to La Bamba from a phonetic cheat sheet.

Click for music videos of Chantilly Lace from the Bopper, Peggy Sue by Holly and the actual Valens La Bamba recording sessions, plus a Don McLean performance of The Day the Music Died.

Mas…Today’s the day the music – and Ritchie Valens – died

La Realidad: The Realities of Anti-Mexicanism

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“Where have you been, my darling young one.”
– A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan

U.S. anti-Mexicanism is a race premised set of historical and contemporary ascriptions, convictions and discriminatory practices inflicted on persons of Mexican descent, longstanding and pervasive in the United States.

This essay conceptualizes, historicizes, and analyzes anti-Mexicanism, past and present, concurrent with some references to sources. Here, the emphasis is conceptual, not historiographical. Anti-Mexicanism is a form of nativism practiced by colonialists and their inheritors. Mexicans, being natives, became targets of aggressive practices inclusive of the violence directed at Indigenous and African peoples. The words “Mexican” and “Mexico” speak to Indigenous heritages. The origins of the thought and meaning of “Mexican and “Mexico” speak to historical native roots. White supremacist ideologues have understood this.

Mas…La Realidad: The Realities of Anti-Mexicanism

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In Paracho, Michoacan, they still make guitars by hand (video)

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In Michoacan, Mexico, the town of Paracho de Verduzcoo has a unique claim to fame. Many in the town of 30,000 — known as the “Guitar Capital of Mexico” — make their living crafting guitars. The streets are lined with shops featuring some of the most beautiful guitars in the world. Director Andre Arevalo met a guitar maker from Paracho and asked him a few questions about the past, present and future of guitar making in his pueblo.

We’ve asked for his name and the name of his shop so we can give him props.

While we’re waiting for that info, and in celebration of the artisans of music, here’s an unsolicited plug for a POCHO amigo just like that who doesn’t know about this:

Mas…In Paracho, Michoacan, they still make guitars by hand (video)

Lalo Alcaraz on WGBH/PRI: ‘U.S. is becoming Mexico’ (audio)

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POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz stopped by WGBH in Boston today to record an interview (audio and video) for Public Radio International’s The World with Carol Hills.

It sounds like he made some new friends in Boston:

Alcaraz is a strong believer in laughing during hard times. And that’s where satire comes in. Coping with humor is something he learned from his Mexican parents. “It’s kind of the Mexican national pastime. I was just telling my Uber driver that the US has become Mexico. That’s why we all have 10 jobs.”

Here’s the audio:

Mas…Lalo Alcaraz on WGBH/PRI: ‘U.S. is becoming Mexico’ (audio)

Doris Day Is Aztec? ‘Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps’ (videos)

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The song started out in 1947 as Quizás, Quizás, Quizás by Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés. In 1964, Doris Day had a hit with an English version Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps. And now we have Doris’ version sung by an Aztec-looking animated head and Monarch butterflies in this new music video The Time Has Come. What a great time to be alive! [Video by Jose Rene Trevino.]

Here’s an alt rock cover by Cake:

Mas…Doris Day Is Aztec? ‘Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps’ (videos)

Donald Trump, John Lewis and MLK Day (video, toon, photo)

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In 1991, Public Enemy‘s epic By the Time I Get to Arizona spotlighted the Hate State of Arizona’s failure to implement the Martin Luther King Day national holiday.

Contrast and compare with PEE-OTUS Donald Trump’s weekend Twitter attack on civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, draw the necessary conclusions, and prepare to take appropriate action:

Mas…Donald Trump, John Lewis and MLK Day (video, toon, photo)

Video: Peep this ‘Thai-Mex Street Food’ – in the Philippines!

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elphantelogoIt’s Thai food! It’s Mexican food! It’s in the Philippines! Step right up for your pad thai nachos at El Phante Thai-Mex Street Food, #12 1st Street, Kapitolyo, Pasig, Philippines. You can’t miss it: It’s the only place that has a logo showing an elephant wearing a sombrero.

But if you do, here’s a map so you don’t get lost:

Mas…Video: Peep this ‘Thai-Mex Street Food’ – in the Philippines!

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