Archive for the ‘Media’ Category
Washington DC Bound
9:30 am By Maegan La Mala · Blogs|Media|Politics|social networking|Washington DC · No Comments
20 May 2012Update to the update: I’m on a plane (yay) but lightning has the plane stuck on the runway (boo). Maybe I wasn’t meant to go?
Monday morning update: I missed my original flight and was unable to get on any flights last night on standby. I’m en route to the airport again, trying my luck again, hoping I can catch a standby spot. If I don’t make this flight, I likely will not be attending the event
Mala will be in Washington DC for the next two days, as I was selected by Latinos in Social Media (#LATISM) to receive a scholarship to participate in their first Top Blogueras Retreat.
The retreat, sponsored graciously by such outstanding corporations including Johnson & Johnson, Univision, McDonald’s, Mary Kay, Southwest Airlines, Procter and Gamble, Comcast, Fleishman Hillard, Disney/Babble, Macys, Porter Novelli, and Consumer Reports, will include opportunities for bloggers like me, to be mentored. The retreat, organized in partnership with Latina Bloggers Connect, will include a visit to the White House and meeting with such influential advocacy organizations as National Council of la Raza (NCLR).
If all of this sounds like it’s the antithesis of what I’ve been about for my blogging career, it kind of is and that’s precisely why I am going. As a political mami media maker (not a mom
blogger, not even just a blogger) I have covered everything from the Latin Grammy Awards, to the presidential debates, to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Our team coverage has included live blogs of Netroots Nation, The Allied Media Conference, and reviews of films, musical acts, congressional votes and always with big uncensored mouths, always unsponsored, unbought. I am attending this blogeura retreat because as I wrote last year on the 6th anniversary of VivirLatino, the Latino blog landscape has changed and continues to change. Many of my media making and rabble rousing friends have stopped because of shift in the accepted definition of “blogger”. Those of us who found ourselves courted in the pre-Obama era, have felt the walls of the non-profit industrial complex and corporate personhood closing in on us. It’s been a struggle for us to continue. So who are considered the top voices and who is not? What are those voices saying and what does that say about the future of truly independent media?
I and by extension, VivirLatino has had a complicated relationship with non-profits, lawmakers, and companies who want parroting instead of critical analysis. I will be the first to admit that I am a bad capitalist and my personal and business finances are essentially one and the same because blogging is more of an extension of who I am than a separate money making venture. This has led to a less than sustainable career but a career/life none the less and for that reason, with many years of experience under my belt, I claim my position on top shamelessly.
Please follow me here on VivirLatino and on twitter accounts : @vivirlatino and @mamitamala as I look at all these issues. And I want to hear what all of you think about the direction of Latin@ blogging and online media.
For more information about the First-Ever Latina Blogger Retreat, visit http://blogueras.latism.org/
Worldwide Debut of Ana Tijoux’s Video Sacar la Voz
9:50 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile|Music|Videos · No Comments
26 Apr 2012VivirLatino is proud to be participating in the debut of Ana Tijoux’s new video featuring Academy Award winner Jorge Drexler of Motorcycle Diaries fame. Sacar la Voz is of of her La Bala album, the follow up to her 2010 GRAMMY nominated breakthrough debut 1977.
The debut of the video comes at the same time of the announcement of Tijoux’s first U.S. tour. It also comes at a time when students in Chile are taking to the streets again to protest the educational policies of right wing President Sebastian Pinera.
I personally wanted to share the video as the mami to two ChileRicans. The cinematography reminded me of the Chile I fell in love with, a Chile whose students were taking over schools and streets before the U.S. decided to call such actions “occupations”. In many ways Chile helped me find my voice through my first tastes of tear gas and a history of resistance my daughters inherited a part of.
See below for dates for her upcoming US tour
Berkeley – April 6 – Mangos With Chili: Behind the Music. A 5 Year Retrospective
10:14 am By Maegan La Mala · California|Events|Media|qtpoc · Comments Off
15 Mar 2012
Mangos With Chili: Behind the Music
A 5 Year Retrospective
Friday, April 6, 2012
8:00pm until 10:00pm
$8-$20, no one turned away for lack of funds
La Pena
3105 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705
Buy advance tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/235689
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/118977968226694/
Like Behind the Music but so much better, this evening offers a first hand glimpse into the making, growth and evolution of Mangos With Chili, North America’s floating cabaret of queer and trans people of color performance artists. Featuring Co-Directors Cherry Galette and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and artists from our first 5 years, this event will be part celebration, part birthday party, and part talk show featuring facilitated Q&A, video diaries from former Mangos artists, and teasers from our upcoming 2012 season, including our upcoming National Queer Arts Festival production, “Reclaiming the Rites,” in June 2012, and our 5 year anniversary “Resurrection” tour. More artist info TBC, but save the date!
And as always, come for the interactive community femmeifest/manifest altar, lovenotes, and cupcakes!
Oh yeah- it’s $8-20, no one turned away for lack of funds! We are also going to show vintage Mangos t shirts, and show our old photos, posters and memorabilia!
Access is love: La Pena is fully wheelchair accessible including bathrooms. In order so that beloved community members with chemical injury can attend, please don’t use fragranced products. (For more info about becoming fragrance free, check out http://yogamaya.wordpress.com/about/classes/fragrance-free/ or http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2012/03/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-realness-draft-15.html for awesome POC specific, affordable fragrance free POC product info.) Fragrance free seating available. ASL interpretation info TBC. This is an all ages event. La Pena is two blocks from Ashby BART.
Have you experienced the Mango at any point in the last five years? Ask us an anonymous question on our Tumblr and we will answer it on stage! mangoswithchili.tumblr.com
for more information or press inquiries:
mangoswithchili.wordpress.com
or email mangos.with.chili@gmail.com
Co-sponsored by the Queer Cultural Center with a grant from the NEA Presenting Program and with the generous cooperation of La Pena Cultural Center.
Mangos With Chili is a fiscally sponsored project of CounterPULSE and is supported by funding from the Horizons Foundation.
Super Tuesday’s Super Fracaso
8:29 am By Maegan La Mala · Casa Blanca Camino 2012|Media|Politics · 4 Comments
7 Mar 2012Super Martes is over with few surprises. Mitt Romney won most of the primaries and caucuses. Rick Santorum managed some small victories that allow him to remain a viable candidate. Newt Gingrich won one state, Georgia and rumors are that the other candidates will push him to drop out. Perpetual outsider Ron Paul didn’t win anything but remained ever optimistic.
Read my op-ed over at El Diario la Prensa NY on why the results hold little weight for the Latino electorate and share your thoughts.
Expressing Mil Gracias for Revolucionario Awards Nomination
11:35 am By Maegan La Mala · Media|VivirLatino · Comments Off
28 Feb 2012
I was very surprised and humbled upon waking up to the news that I was nominated for a Revolucionario Award in the New Americano category.
I honestly don’t know who nominated me and I don’t even know much about the Social Revoluticion who is leading the effort and the award process. Apparently the outcome will be decided at SWSX Interactive on March 12. More information on the awards are below and como dicen por alli, it’s an honor just to be nominate.
So how do you define an award-winning Revolucionario?
They can be an individual, group, organization, or brand with the ganas to inspire change online and off. They seamlessly represent dos mundos and are constantly redefining what it means to be Latino as trendsetters and innovators. They utilize the newest online tools to engage la gente in their networks and mobilize them to take action. Whether they have 10 followers or 10,000 fans, The Revolucionario ignites change and, with that, embodies the cry of the The Social Revolución!
Nominations for the Revolucionario Awards fall under three categories:
The New Americano
These individuals, groups, organizations, or brand are trendsetters, impacting the Hispanic market online and off. By utilizing social media strategies they are recognizing the cultural shifts happening within the Latino community, are redefining what it means to be Latino, and are influencing their online community from their multicultural perspective.
The Innovator
Whether it’s a new app or website, this movement is redefining how we reach Latinos now and in the future. El Innovator can be an individuals, groups, organizations, or brand who has developed a new online tool to connect with the Latino comunidad. They’ve engaged their network with revolutionary ideas and technology that is authentic to the different facets of the Latino market.
The Mobilizer
Through social media tools and platforms, these individuals, groups, organizations, or brand mobilize their international and local causes online and off. Uniquely, they foster communities and spread positive change by connecting and educating an audience who they may have never met. Their social mission is to inspire people to take acción and spread change.
Whitney and More Missing from Tonight’s Grammy Awards
2:34 pm By Maegan La Mala · Entertainment|Media|Music · 3 Comments
12 Feb 2012I covered the Latin Grammy Awards twice for VivirLatino. Once when they were in New York City and I was beside myself for being given official credentials (and honor I am no longer impressed by), and once when they were in Las Vegas where I went to every free event because I made myself broke just getting there. These were the Latin Grammy Awards, the equivalent of Latino History Month, a segregated space completely controlled by the major music labels and the Spanish language media. Media like me were essentially locked into a media room, watching the event on television, interrupted constantly by a parade of winners and hosts we could yell questions at but not video tape (in Vegas at one point a Univision employee actually stepped in front of my camera to block my taping). I’ll admit that at first I was star struck. As an up and coming blogger I liked seeing Shakira, Ricky Martin, and Calle 13 up close and personal. I am particularly struck by the memory of Gustavo Cerati, long before he became ill.
But again those were the Latin Grammy Awards not the main event Grammy Awards being held tonight in Los Angeles and yet there is much talk and protest about the role of artists of color and exclusion.
With the sudden, untimely, and unexpected death of Whitney Houston, there is remembrance but also reflection on how the music industry, fed by the talents of many people of color, but manipulated mostly by white run music moguls, only allowed so many women of color success stories at a time and within a very specific imagined framework. Whitney was every woman, but as soon as pressure and the temptations that come with it unleashed their demons upon her, the industry’s support waned in favor of the next, more wholesome, marketable black woman. Whitney Houston was presented as a caricature, much in the same way that Michael Jackson was. The focus became her weaknesses, her failures and this at a time when media shifted from print and video music channels to the every vigilant internet. While the cause of Whitney Houston’s tragic passing are still unknown, we do know the road that brought us here. As media consumers, so many of us hungrily watched her fall but did we offer her a hand to get back up?
It has not been a good year for Latino images on television. Considering that the year hasn’t even completed two full months, this can’t be a good sign.
First, there was the transphobia and tired Rican stereotyping of the now cancelled ABC sitcom Work It. Then there is the not yet cancelled but should be CBS sitcom ¡Rob! centering around a white man’s (played by Rob Schneider) sudden marriage into a Mexican-American family. That family is filled with every Spanish accented caricature possible, weal attempts to counter those portrayals, and plenty of hot blooded innuendo. Two nights ago I watched Glee and the debut episode of The River, and I was reminded why I generally avoid television unless it’s the news and even that pisses me off.
VivirLatino 2012 : Resolutions, To Dos and To Cover
9:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Media|Politics|VivirLatino · 3 Comments
2 Jan 2012Trying to get back into a regular posting groove here is one of my personal resolutions for 2012. I’m starting with a relatively manageable goal of three posts per week.
I would like to get back into regular book blogging – writing reviews and what I’m reading.
I may drop music blogging and film blogging unless something particularly moves me.
With the new year comes more attention on the upcoming presidential elections and the campaigning to get there. So I would like to have one post a week on that.
For what my third weekly post will be, well that I am still up in the air about. Maybe I should leave it open for my personal editorial/rants/reporting things of interests.
One of the things that has been in the plan for a while, even before we were down to one captain, is a reader poll to get an idea of what you, the readers, would like to see more and less of (and you cannot say you want less of me – sorry haters).
So consider this an informal polling of sorts : What would you like to see more of/less of here at VivirLatino?
2011 – El Año Que se Va/ The Year that is leaving
6:48 am By Maegan La Mala · Media|VivirLatino · 5 Comments
28 Dec 2011Back in October, when VivirLatino had its 5th birthday, I wrote about how much the blogging landscape had changed, especially for independent, political, Latino blogs. In the five years since the site’s birth, we have contracted, not expanded and this has been the tightest year yet. This year, VivirLatino had one of its founding editors move on, leaving one person in charge of the entire operation and as that one person; it was and remains the biggest challenge. The changing nature of ethnic political blogging is one side of the coin. The other side is more personal.
I could go on and talk about how hard it has been financially to keep this space alive. I could go on and talk about how the need to do other various jobs, some within the publishing/writing world, some not, has felt so exhausting that it has left me with more moments of hopelessness than I would like to own. Throw in single mami’hood and having to leave my apartment and you have a drop in motivation.
But it is not all negative. How else to explain why, despite wanting to throw in the towel many times and watching my close circle of fellow bloggers get smaller as they stop producing, move to new spaces, or (let’s be real) are co-opted, I still find value in this space. I have been blessed by opportunities because this space exists – visibility has expanded to local and national media – ethnic and with a broader audience. This space gives me voice and in turn gives the world I am a part of voice, and does so unapologetically, even if that ruffles some feathers or makes people uncomfortable. Scratch that, especially if it ruffles some feathers and makes people uncomfortable. More than anything however, I am truly humbled by the people I have met and continue to meet through the work of having this space. Our communities are filled with amazing, beautiful people with rich lives, not just stories for consumption. What I have been blessed to witness and be a part of because of this space has given me so much love which I am compelled to return in whatever small way I am capable. All the hate mail, attack press releases from orgs, and under the table moves I have experienced pale in comparison to the amount of support I have felt. I am still here because you are still here – whoever that you that has placed your granite de arena is.
So, I close this year at VivirLatino, acknowledging the struggle that 2011 has been professionally and personally. But I also close the year open to possibilities, (real) change, and so much hope. My modest desire for the new year is to make media that reflects my values and voice honestly.
Maegan Ortiz
Always the Mamita Mala
Publisher
Lost in Detention Gives Attention to Immigrant Detention and S-Comm but Lacks Alternatives
1:04 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Justice|Media|Politics|Secure Communities · Comments Off
19 Oct 2011As Bianca posted yesterday, last night PBS’s Frontline featured Lost in Detention with Maria Hinojosa. The hour long investigative show looked at the immigration detention policies that have expanded under the Obama administration, specifically the impact of Secure Communities and the abuses in the ever expanding immigration jail industry.
I watched the special report last night and sadly wasn’t surprised by anything presented. The issue of how the Obama administration has focused on increasing deportations, using programs like Secure Communities, is one we have covered for years. I expect though that this program exposed how the current immigration policy is tearing apart families and leading to physical and sexual abuse inside the big business of detention centers to a new audience.
One of the disappointments I was left with after watching Lost in Detention was the way the show seemed to serve as a mic for the excuses given by the Obama administration for the terror it’s policies create. The answer that seemed to be given by Hinojosa for the question “what can be done to stop the deportations and growth of abuses?” was Comprehensive Immigration Reform. There were snippets of speeches by Obama and an interview with the administration’s vendecomunidad Latina spokesmodel Cecilia Muñoz. Some choice quotes from Muñoz:
“even broken laws have to be enforced.”
“as long as congress gives us $ to deport 400,000. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
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