Archive for the ‘Latin America’ Category
Three South American Nations Recognize Independent Palestine
8:31 am By Maegan La Mala · Argentina|Brazil|Chile|israel|Palestine|Uruguay · 4 Comments
7 Dec 2010Yesterday, both Argentina and Uruguay announced that they recognized Palestine as an independent state, following Brazil’s lead, who recognized Palestine on Friday. The countries recognize Palestine as it was in 1967 , before the so-called “Six-day War” between Israel and Palestine when Israel took Gaza and the West Bank.
“The Argentine government recognizes Palestine as a free and independent state within the borders defined in 1967,” Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said, adding that this decision was made after a general agreement between the South American and Mercosur trade blocs.
Uruguay went a step forward as its Deputy Foreign Minister Roberto Conde vowed to open a diplomatic representation in Palestinians’ Ramallah region after announcing to recognize it as a state next year.
WikiLeaks and Honduras
10:49 am By Maegan La Mala · honduras|Latin America|Politics|Women · 2 Comments
6 Dec 2010
While the focus of the latest round of WikiLeaks release of secret cables has focused on the impact of U.S. national security, WikiLeaks also clarifies what happened in Honduras last year. In what now has been spun as “not a coup” as President Porfirio Lobo is set to mark his one year anniversary as President, a released cable from the U.S. Embassy shows that when Manual Zelaya was ousted it was indeed considered an illegal act.
From the cable :
..The Embassy perspective is that there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch…
…There is equally no doubt from our perspective that Roberto Micheletti’s assumption of power was illegitimate…
The cable also called the resignation letter that Zelaya presented as a “fabrication”.
Read more…
Newly Revealed Documents Confirm U.S. Role in 1973 Chile Coup
10:48 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|history|Politics · 1 Comment
22 Nov 2010Documents recently declassified and released to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile’s capital, Santiago, confirm that the U.S., specifically then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, were behind the 1973 coup that violently overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and threw Chile into 17 years of dictatorship marked by summary disappearances and deaths.
Peter Kornbluh, director of the Chile Documentation Project of the National Archive, from George Washington University said:
These documents should contribute to advance justice and dignity in Chile. Obviously these documents have a special value in terms of official investigations into open cases. Now there is a base of information that could help those who seek more details.
Translated from : La Prensa Latina
The Chilean Miner Celebs vs. The Realities of Chilean Mining
1:26 pm By Maegan La Mala · Chile · 2 Comments
10 Nov 2010This weekend the mainstream media in the U.S. was enamored with Edison Peña, the 12th miner to be rescued after being trapped in a mine in the Atacama Desert of Chile for 69 days. There were stories on how Peña wasn’t all that impressed with the Statue of Liberty or hot dogs in NYC (I have to agree that Chilean completos are better). TMZ attempted to ask Peña about conditions in the mine in broken Spanish and Peña happily belted out his best Elvis impression on Late Night with David Letterman. Parts of my own family braved the NYC cold on Sunday in the hopes of catching Peña finish the NYC marathon in a little over 5 hours.
Hell, as the parents of two ChileRicans, I don’t want to deny a miner his time in the spotlight but I am concerned with how the celeb spotlight blinds how in Chile conditions for the not Edison Peñas continue to be dangerous and deadly.
Via Reuters :
Two men died after an explosion at a small mine in the Chilean desert, local authorities said on Monday, near the site were 33 miners were pulled from the depths in a months-long rescue that attracted world attention.
The National Emergency Office said the men died after an explosion triggered a cave-in at the mine, located about 40 miles east of the city of Copiapo.
Five other men were able to escape the explosion with one of them later hospitalized for injuries.
Looks like Chilean President Sebastián Piñera wasn’t able to keep his promise of never again.
Miners, Media, and the Privilege of Voyeurism
2:50 pm By Maegan La Mala · Chile|Labor|Media|Politics · 4 Comments
18 Oct 2010
It’s been almost a week since the 33 miners trapped for 70 days in the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Northern Chile, were rescued. While the whole world watched the miraculous rescue, choreographed and controlled by the Chilean government, led by right-wing billionaire President Sebastián Piñera, now the world outside Chile continues their gaze on the miners, with an emphasis on their personal lives, poking for information on what films will be made, what books will be written, are they having nightmares, where did they use the bathroom, if they wanted to eat each other and which miner’s infidelities were exposed.
Also we see the miner’s experience, the result of weak government enforcement of safety standards and the failure of the company that owned the San Jose mine, San Esteban, to invest in worker safety, being commodified. The Phoenix 2, the capsule that brought rescue workers down and the trapped miners up, has already been slapped with a value, just in case it’s sold and every rescued miner has been given an iPod.
What isn’t be respected is the space needed to the miners to heal from this trauma. Their families also need to heal. And all this focus on the personal also lets the company that ran the San Jose Mine off the hook, the Chilean government off the hook, and fails to look critically at the dangers facing all laborers in Chile, Latin America, and globally.
Watching the Chilean Miner Rescue
9:27 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|Labor · 3 Comments
13 Oct 2010If you follow us on twitter (more than 3,000 peeps already do, why not you?), you know that I was up till past 3 am EST along with millions of others, watching, live tweeting, and adding some context and perspective to the milagro that is the the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners who had been been trapped inside the Mina San Jose in Copiapo, Northern Chile for about 70 days.
As a non-Chilena, as a Latina who lived in Chile, studied it’s history and politics, and as a mother to two ChileRicans, my entire family and I were glued to the television watching, one by one as the first 5 miners emerged from the tiny rescue capsule named Fenix 2, like the Phoenix bird that rises from the ashes, this Phoenix rose from what felt like the center of the earth, reuniting husbands, sons, and fathers into the arms of their familia. In fact, walking to Casa Mala, every restaurant, every laundromat, every bar in the Mala’hood was tuned into the rescue. How could you not cry, scream, and cheer after witnessing the first first miner, Florencio Avales emerge to the sobs of his son?
Martes Morning Musica : Seu Jorge Cirandar
28 Sep 2010Today’s musical pick comes to us via the new PBS Arts website . PBS Arts is part of PBS’s multi-platform initiative to reinvigorate public engagement with the arts through an exploration of performance, artistic expression, and the creative process — on-air, online, in the classroom and in every community. In this Quick Hit, Seu Jorge, who is one of my favorite artists from Brazil, performs a song named after a Portuguese dance but about Brazilian fishermen.
P.S. : If you are offended by images of fish being well fished, you may want to close your eyes and just listen to the music.
Watch the full episode. See more Sound Tracks.
Monday Musica : Rebel Diaz -”Libertad”
6:11 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|Linking Latinos|Music · 1 Comment
20 Sep 2010During this Latino Heritage Month, we are marketed to, studied, talked about and analyzed. During this month many of our homelands, ancestral and actual celebrate their independence days but also within these countries we struggle onward seeking true freedom.
The following video comes from us gracias a Rebel Diaz. Filmed on the streets of Santiago de Chile and produced Chilean team, Artefacto Visual, the video features Villa Grimaldi, which was a concentration camp site during the Pinochet dictatorship ushered in by the United States and where two of the Rebel Diaz crew members, RodStarz and G1′s, parents were tortured.
For me, this video is what this month and every other month of the year is about.
Enjoy
Happy (?) Latino Heritage Month
8:17 am By Maegan La Mala · history|Latin America · 5 Comments
16 Sep 2010
Yesterday marked the official start of Latino (of Hispanic) Heritage Month, 30 days or so of corporate cafeterias serving tacos. Ok so I’m being cynical. The marketing is so over the top some time (see picture). The political pandering so offensive, especially at a time like this with the mid-term elections, it feels like all fluff and no substance.
It’s not that I don’t love being a Latina, it’s my primary identity above all others. I think in large part because of my political awaking when I was a teenager, whenever someone asks that tired old question and I am forced to limit myself to one answer, I’ll go with Latina over mujer. It’s just it is who I am, how I live. I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how can I be more Latino and don’t try extra hard to be extra Latina during this month. But that, that not trying so hard to prove myself, is a shift for myself so maybe in that there is value in this month as a kind of “new year” of sorts for our multiple communities.
Read more…
Isabel Allende Receives Chilean Literature Award with Some Controversy
7:17 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|literature|Women · 2 Comments
3 Sep 2010
Earlier today I received a text message letting me know that author Isabel Allende had been given this year’s National Chilean Literature Prize. She is only the fourth woman to be given the award since its creation in 1942.
And yet her recognition isn’t without controversy. Some critics have labeled her writing, ranging from memoirs to short stories to novels and even a cookbook, as being too commercial and not “literary” enough.
Hola!
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