Cultura

It’s Not News to Us

Hey, honky! The origin of the world’s most heinous racial slur

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POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz‘s recent article about the word gringo ignited a shitstorm of debate. White people came out of the woodwork to declare how they’ve been traumatized all these years because of it.

This got me thinking about racial slurs and how we use them in these oh-so-modern times. Rand Paul used the term chili-choking pepper bellies the other day when he was talking about immigration reform. What’s the gringo equivalent of a chili-choking pepper belly? Twinky-gagging sugar gut? Sounds stupid, right?

“You cornbread-gobbling butter stomach!”

Mas…Hey, honky! The origin of the world’s most heinous racial slur

Mi corazón esta con mi gente, my heart is with my people

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My heart is with my people as I await my procedure.

I await my procedure, Mi Gente. I await it this overcast Sunday morning, surrounded by the bells of the Churches, by my Angels, and the people whom I love. Yeah, I ended up in the hospital the other night. Which one….does not matter. I know people here, Mi Gente is here, and I make friends kinda easy, too.

I just got the word about a lady, who comes into the area, every Saturday, to sell her homemade tamalitos. I know where she will be next Saturday, she and her esposo. And I plan to be there, too.

I am going to get my tamalito de rajas, my fave. Maybe I’ll carry the travel coffee deal my sister gave us. Too cool for school. And I’ll bring my “whatta chair” and hang out in the area, under the beautiful trees, and see mis amigos e amigas.

Mas…Mi corazón esta con mi gente, my heart is with my people

Pocha Podcast #2: Sexism, feminism, football and IT (NSFW audio)

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Pochas Elise Roedenbeck and me, Sara Inés Calderón, have a grand old time talking about sexism and feminism. Isn’t it interesting that, even though the U.S. had a “feminist movement,” we have never elected a woman president, and the wage gap between men and women in Latin America is smaller than it is here?

And other sexist stuff: What about football, how sexist is that, ey? And IT? Being a woman in the U.S. may seem like fun and games, given that whole reproductive rights discussion, but there are some downsides.

Mas…Pocha Podcast #2: Sexism, feminism, football and IT (NSFW audio)

Don’t mess w/ Texas! ‘ThumbSnatchers from the Moon Cocoon’ (video)

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Guns don’t kill people, opposable thumbs that pull triggers on guns kill people. And that’s why our Alien Overlords have returned to end our evil ways — by ending our evil thumbs. But the invading Thumb Snatchers from the Moon Cocoon (stupid lunar Daleks with green blood) didn’t reckon on Texas Sheriff Huckiss. The law in Texas doesn’t give much slack to illegal aliens.

Hey, Mr. Anti-Immigration Man, can we see your grandpa’s papers?

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Bend the Arc, a Jewish social justice organization, just introduced an online legal widget that applies immigration laws to your family’s history. Answer some questions and the Entry Denied widget determines if your immigrant ancestors would be allowed into the U.S. today.

And guess what:

Millions of Americans have grown up with a defining family immigration story. But while our families may have endured hardship coming to America, the simple fact is that most of our immigration stories would not be possible at all under today’s immigration laws.

Mas…Hey, Mr. Anti-Immigration Man, can we see your grandpa’s papers?

Pocha Podcast: WTF is up with these catcalls? (NSFW audio)

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POCHO’s Subcommandanta del Ñews Sara Inés Calderón in Los Angeles and New Jack City Burro Jefe Elise Roedenbeck got together in audioland to see if they could figure out WTF is up with guys and their weird catcalls and come-ons. Is it different in New York vs. L.A.? Are Spanish catcalls different from English? What’s a guera to do?

Ooops! This audio file seems to be missing! The authorities have been notified.

Hooray! We found a cached copy on Archive.org. Download the POCHA PODCAST here (5.1MB MP3)

RIP: POCHO remembers our film critic, Cisco Yberra

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As many of you may have read, POCHO’s beloved film critic, Cisco Yberra, passed away last week.  We’ll miss him so much, and so will you when you check out some of the cinematic gems he brought to our attention when he was not dead:

Sandra Ramos O’Briant – ‘Chile Tales: The Green Addiction’

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Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture and so on. I’d stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.

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In Texas, when my parents were still married, we ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes laden with cream gravy, green beans flavored with bits of bacon and buttery light biscuits. Every item on the menu had its own serving dish, and cloth napkins were always used.

“May I have another biscuit, ma’am?” I would say.

“You surely may, Sandra Mae,” my daddy’s mama would reply and everyone would smile. Or we’d have fried pork chops and suck on the salty bones, but only when it was just my mama and me at the dinner table.

In Texas, there were black-eyed peas and ham and all manner of greens and put-up preserves. There was watermelon and homemade ice cream from the hand-crank ice-cream maker. Daddy held a bourbon and water in one hand, and turned the handle with the other, while Mama and my daddy’s mama drank iced tea on the back porch and exchanged polite insults. My grandma didn’t like it that Daddy had married a Mexican.

Mas…Sandra Ramos O’Briant – ‘Chile Tales: The Green Addiction’

Pocho Ocho signs that you are a renter

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Here at POCHO headquarters, not all of us own our own homes. As a matter of fact, some of us are the victims of less-than-concerned landlords. Oh, the joys of renting!

Here are the Pocho ocho signs that you’re renting:

8. Your towel rack is broken for weeks at a time and you have to hang your towel on the front stoop, which “brings down property values” but doesn’t lower your rent.

7. You can hear cats having sex on every side of your apartment complex in the middle of the night.

6. Toilets, showers and sinks occasionally overflow with water that smells funny.

Mas…Pocho Ocho signs that you are a renter

PNS*Hot*Flash: Chicana frets – winged eyebrows or eyeliner?

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(PNS reporting from EAST LOS ANGELES) Veronica Gonzalez has a conundrum: Should she go rockabilly and do winged eyeliner or go chola and do winged eyebrows?

“It’s, like, hard, you know? I’m just trying to keep up with my heritage,” Gonzalez told PNS Wednesday.

Gonzalez said that if she went rockabilly it would not only look cute with her new cats-eye glasses, but she would be able to dress more girly. If she went with the chola eyebrows, then she would have to wear more khaki and that’s just not her color.

Mas…PNS*Hot*Flash: Chicana frets – winged eyebrows or eyeliner?

A Latina’s Guide: How to talk to a racist

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As unfortunate a reality as it may be, one way or another in our country, you’re going to have to deal with someone who is racist, or at least holds a little bit of prejudice.

What’s even more unfortunate is that you’re most likely to come across someone who doesn’t necessarily know that they are prejudiced, and thus, pointing out this behavior or dealing with it may be a bit more difficult for you.

Now, say that you are a Latina and so have to deal with society’s sexist — as well as racist — attitudes and all of a sudden you find yourself in a bit of a bind. How does one fight The Man, preconceived notions of femininity (from both American and Latino cultures), civility standards, sexism and racism all at once?

I have a few tips that I thought might be useful, so here we go:

1. Don’t blow up

Mas…A Latina’s Guide: How to talk to a racist

Flowers that bloom in Bel-Air, tra la, need immigrant gardeners (fotos)

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Installation artist Ramiro Gomez — who makes invisible immigrant laborers visible by installing cardboard cutout painted figures around Los Angeles neighborhoods — emailed Tuesday evening:

My newest piece is in front of a home in Bel-Air. I drove around for a while looking for a place that felt right. At first I placed them in front of the Hotel Bel-Air (see below) but the sun was setting fast and it didn’t feel right, so I continued driving down the street and found this house. As I approached this home on Strada Corta Rd. near the Bel-Air Country Club, I was immediately drawn to the colorful spring flowers, the sun shining at the right spot and my instinct was to place them here.

If you could mention that my UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center show “Luxury, Interrupted” closes April 8th I would really appreciate it.

Mas…Flowers that bloom in Bel-Air, tra la, need immigrant gardeners (fotos)

Kelly Miller’s 35th birthday party in Bondi: To Mexico with love (video)

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Kelly Miller lives in Bondi, Australia, a suburb of Sydney, famous for Bondi Beach and “bondi blue,” a Steve Jobs iMac color.

Kelly has never been to Mexico and has no “Mexican heritage,” but she wants to visit. In February, she used Facebook to organize a “Made In Mexico” 35th birthday bash that somehow involved Bob Esponja. How did she do as a Mexican wannabe? (Don’t be hatin’ on her for the piñata mishap after all those jello shots.)

Mas…Kelly Miller’s 35th birthday party in Bondi: To Mexico with love (video)

AP’s Pocho Ocho dropped names beside ‘illegal immigrant’

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Associated Press (AP), the cooperative news service used by print, broadcast and online media, today dropped the term “illegal immigrant” from its stylebook:

‘Illegal immigrant’ no more
Posted on 04/02/2013 by Paul Colford
The AP Stylebook today is making some changes in how we describe people living in a country illegally.

Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explains the thinking behind the decision:

The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally…. [Continued at AP]

But that’s not all! Here are the Pocho Ocho other designations dropped by AP:

8. Chancla-throwers

7. Elote-eaters

6. Paleta people

Mas…AP’s Pocho Ocho dropped names beside ‘illegal immigrant’

Tia Lencha’s Cocina: The Hipster Taco

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Hola. Is Tia Lencha here. Today I going to help you make my new faborite taco. The other day I saw my mijo making sonething in the kishen. I so proud. He like to cook like his mama.

I say, “Mijo, what you making?”

He say, “A taco.”

I see that he was using corn tortillas, crumble Oaxaca cheese, scramble eggs, salsa chipotle, and potato ships. I was confuse.

“Mijo, are ju putting ships in the tacos?”

“Yes.”

“Why you do that?”

“I ate one like this at the hipster taco trock” he say, looking like a little mouse that ate all of the cheese in the mouse trap and then runned away.

Mas…Tia Lencha’s Cocina: The Hipster Taco

Play ball! Five tips to survive Los Doyers 2013

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Baseball season starts Monday. For me, it means six months of praying and hoping that the Dodgers can turn their billion-dollar payroll into championship glory.

Those Dodger games can be expensive and explosive. There is nothing better than sitting through the United States’ answer to the soccer (including riots if you show up wearing the wrong cap.) So here is a guide to surviving your outing with Los Doyers.

TIP #1: Be prompt: The reason you want to be there is merely for seating. With the right kind of heart, you can treat the experience like an event with general admission. Do not get greedy.

If you have nosebleed ZZZ tickets, don’t try to sneak in to the A+ section behind luminary celebrities like Fred Savage or one of the Real Housewives. Row G is good enough. Most Dodger fans do not show until the fourth inning anyway. Do not get disheartened if you get kicked out by the real owner. Just pretend to be confused and act like my Tia Chicha trying to set up a DVR. Then be brazen and try to slide into Row F.

Mas…Play ball! Five tips to survive Los Doyers 2013

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