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Archive for the ‘Peru’ Category

23 tracks off of The Roots of Chicha Volumes 1 & 2, (we reviewed Volume 2 last year), are being released today on a special double vinyl edition. Something about the music and the enthusiasm shown by video below seem perfect for this hot summer day at VL HQ.

PS : if you are in the NYC area, there is a release party this Thursday night at DROM.

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The last year on VivirLatino was really dominated by the immigration debate in the United States. While I will continue to cover the issue of immigration, especially with the likelihood of anti-immigrant / anti-Latino measures being pushed by the Republican led House of Representatives, it would be naive of me to function as if U.S. policy towards Latin America has nothing to do with how Latinos are treated inside the U.S. It would be equally naive to act as if we as Latinos in the United States have no ties to our countries of ancestry and as if policy inside of those countries don’t matter to us, our families, and our communities.

So one of my new year’s resolutions for the site (among many) is to make more of an effort to cover what is happening in Latin America and attempt to make the connections between that and comunities here inside the United States.

There are several elections in Latin America slated to take place this year. The countries with presidential elections this year include Nicaragua, Guatemala, Peru, and Argentina.
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Monday Musica : The Roots of Chicha 2

11:01 am By Maegan La Mala · Music|Peru · Comments Off

13 Sep 2010

Call Mala late to the party. I’ve been hearing/reading about Chicha, the music genre, not the drink, for maybe two years now without actually hearing the music or sitting down to study it in depth. Enter into my mailbox, The Roots of Chicha 2, to be released on Barbès Records on October 12 (Dia de la Hispanidad fyi).

According to the press release, my own reading and listening, Chicha is a label given not just Peruvian cumbia dating from the late 60′s into the early 80′s, but a label given to anything coming out of the “ghettos” of Lima if you will. While the U.S. has hip hop and it’s predecessors, Peru and other countries in South America had cumbia. To this day, cumbia in Latin American countries where it hasn’t been mainstreamed (exceptions would be Colombia and Mexico) is considered music of the lower class.

The Roots of Chicha 2 features 16 tracks from 11 bands. The songs were recorded between 1968 to 1981 and reflect diverse influences that have to to do with chronological time and geography. Read more…

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I just wanted to write a quick note to express my discomfort with how the mainstream media is covering the arrest of Joran van der Sloot in Chile.

Lost in the headlines, is 21 year old Stephany Tatiana Flores Ramirez, the Peruana who was found dead with a broken neck in a hotel room under Van der Sloot’s name.

Don’t get me wrong. I think what happened to Natalee Holloway, which we may never fully know is horrible and my heart goes out to her familia but so much of the U.S. media’s coverage shows how much more valuable the life of an attractive white young woman is compared to a Latin American woman in a Latin American country.

So much of the coverage is how this could be a breakthrough in Natalee’s case. There are new interviews with Natalee’s parents and see whose picture you see more of, Natalee’s or Stephany’s.

I abhor violence against all women, regardless of what language they speak or what country they come from and I would hope that in the media’s effort to find new scoops and angles to this story, they recognize that Stephany and her familia deserve justice, however that is defined, just as much as the Holloway family does, and that the loss of Stephany’s life is much more than just a means to an end.

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The subject of the film Yo Soy Andina, Cynthia Paniagua, leads an Afro-Peruvian dance workshop with live music by an all-star lineup of Peruvian drummers and musicians.
“Peruvian musicians and dance teachers are coming together to
share our culture for Haiti” said Paniagua. “The movements are earthy, groovy,
undulating prepare to work it out!”
The workshop — for all levels, including beginners — will cost $20, and all proceeds will go to to Oxfam for Haiti.
WHEN: Sunday, Jan 24, 3-5 pm
WHERE: 30-01 Northern Blvd, Long Island City
One subway stop from Manhattan!
R/V/G to Queens Plaza (walk 1 block east to 40th St)
Google map directions here

Reserve: cholitaperu25@yahoo.com or 917-378-4965

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Every few months the debate starts up again about racism in Latin America. Is it worse than in the United States or just different because of the very specific way colonialism played itself out and continues to play out in the region? Many Latin Americans and Latinos will swear up and down that there is no racism in their countries of origin and in their families, which often times are multi-racial. But what passes for “non-racism” actually includes thinly veiled language and action that reveals centuries old internalized issues around genetic purity and colorism.

Last week Peru’s government apologized to it’s Afro-Peruvian community for centuries of “abuse, exclusion and discrimination”.

The government said racially-motivated harassment still hindered the social and professional development of many African-Peruvians.

A public ceremony will be held to apologise to African-Peruvians, who make up 5-10% of the population.

And earlier this week, at least 60 prominent African-Americans, including Cornel West, actress Ruby Dee Davis, film director Melvin Van Peebles, former South Florida congresswoman Carrie Meek, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of President Barack Obama’s church in Chicago, and Susan Taylor, former editor in chief of Essence magazine, released a statement condemning racism in Cuba.

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Monday Morning Movie : Voces Soy Andina

6:45 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · dance|Media|Movies|Peru|TV · 4 Comments

26 Oct 2009

The more I think about the series Latino in America, the more comments I read here and on other sites, and the more I seek out real lives of Latinos and Latin Americans. Who needs cable when I found another documentary in the PBS Voces series, Soy Andina.

What really resonated with me about this film was how the young Peruana went to Peru and struggled with being confronted about her identity. Because she was born in the United States, she was viewed as gringa not as the Peruana she felt she was. This was done through exploring the folkloric dances of the “home of her heart”.

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Capitalist Globalization Targeted Children in Peru

6:39 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Peru|Violence · Comments Off

23 Jul 2009

When we wrote about some of the violence happening in Bagua, Peru, we were clear that the neolibleral economic policies that have been choking Latin American countries and their communities were at the heart. It the struggle over control of land and life, anyone who is seen as a threat is targeted, even children.

“I was watching the helicopter….I saw it…I was scared…the bullet hit me here…when it came there was nothing…that’s what it seemed like…there was nothing….it came like this….it hit me here…..there was a lot of blood….some of my blood was on a woman…a bit of my blood was on her….I’m scared that they fired…I don’t want them to shoot at me…because I don’t want to suffer….for my mother…”

Via / Inca Kola News

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With the digital age fostering short term memory and not connecting any dots, it’s easy to focus only on Honduras and forget the recent violence in other parts of Latin America.

Hardly a month since 30 plus Indigenous people from Peru were killed by police for protesting the exploitation and violation of their homes (we’re not talking about some mythical rainforest land, people live there), Peru has approved an oil drilling project in the Amazon for an Anglo-French company.

The project, located on land inhabited by two tribes of uncontacted Indians, is believed to be Peru’s biggest oil discovery in thirty years. The company, Perenco, a major gas supplier to the UK, has in the past denied any uncontacted Indians live there.

Until recently, Perenco had been blocked from entering the area by local indigenous protesters. With help from Peru’s armed forces, the company managed to break through the blockade on at least one occasion.

High-ranking figures in Peru’s government hope that Perenco’s project will transform the Peruvian economy. While protests against the company were taking place, Perenco’s chairman, Francois Perrodo, an Oxford University polo blue and scion of one of the wealthiest families in France, met Peru’s President Garcia in Lima and pledged to invest $2bn in the project.

Perenco intends to build new platforms and wells involving airlifting in, amongst other things, 42,000 sacks of cement. It admits that ‘contamination of soil’, ‘contamination of water’ and the flight of game and birds are possible consequences of its work

Via / Survival

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23 Dead in Bus Accident in Peru

8:24 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Latin America|Peru|society|World · Comments Off

3 Jul 2009

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Some very tragic news out of Peru today: at 23 people have died and 50 have been injured in a head-on collision between two buses near Lake Titicaca. AP reports:

The morning crash occurred in the Santa Lucia district, about an hour’s drive from Lake Titicaca high in the Andes, a Puno state highway police officer told The Associated Press by phone.

The officer requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the crash.

Emergency crews said there could be as many as four more people still trapped in the wreckage, the officer said. Fourteen of the dead were identified, all of them Peruvians.

Unfortunately, as Peruanos know, this kind of thing is quite common. In January of this year, a bus fell 500 feet off a cliff, killing 30 passengers and injuring 20 more. According to the BBC, in 2008, at least 875 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured in this type of accidents in Peru.

Via / Google News

Image via 20 Minutos

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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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