11:42 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Arts| California| Culture| Events| Lo Que Hay| Raices| Violence| Women| dance| history| language · No Comments
7 Nov 2009
Porque we remember our loved ones from our familias and community everyday and porque the mujeres that are involved in the creation of this project are beautiful and kick culo.
Mangos With Chili: the floating cabaret of QTPOC bliss, dreams, sweat, sweets & nightmares
proudly presents the premiere of:BELOVED: A Requiem for Our Dead
because we refuse to forget youFeaturing:
Nalo Hopkinson
Charleston Chu
E. Rose Sims
SoliRose
Nico Dacumos
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Ms. Cherry Galette
and moreWith video by Storm Florez, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Kortney Ryan Ziegler, and more
November 6th and 7th, 8PM
The Lab
2948 16th St
San Francisco, CA 94103
$12-16, no one turned away for lack of fundsNovember 15th, 8PM
Hechos en Califas Festival
La Pena
3105 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
$12-16, no one turned away for lack of fundsIn this highly anticipated premiere of the newest Mangos With Chili production, we invite you to join us at the crossroads for a night of conjuring, memory, mourning and celebration. Through elegies of story, song, dance, drag and more, the Bay Area’s noted and notorious queer and trans people of color performance crew will honor our erased, fallen and slain queer and trans people of color family lost to hate crimes, war, colonization, and genocide. We will celebrate our queer legacies and the ways we’ve found to survive through the beautiful resistance of memory, and whisper stories about grief, loss, healing, sweet darkness, and walking between worlds towards rebirth.
Beloved: A Requiem for Our Dead will feature the brilliance and blaze of renowned Caribbean speculative fiction storycrafter Nalo Hopkinson; multimedia invocation performance art heart wrench by playwright and poet Nico Dacumos; In Memoriam, a new collaborative dance theater work by Charlston Chu and Cherry Galette; ancestral prayer/spoken love letter by writer and theater artist Rose E. Sims; a mixed media jazz dance cabaret extravaganza by Charleston Chu, an autobiographical musical journey traversing the Middle East and African Diaspora by virtuoso trio SoliRose; the powerful truth renderings of queer Sri Lankan writer and performer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha; and the premiere of Moorish Salt a burlesque-dance theater/ritual performance art piece by fusion dance artist and theater-maker Cherry Galette.
Mangos With Chili is a Bay Area based arts organization committed to showcasing high quality performance of life saving importance by queer and trans artists of color to audiences in the Bay Area and beyond. Founded in 2006 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms Cherry Galette, Mangos With Chili has performed to sold out houses across North America, wowing audiences in world class theaters, underground performance spaces, bars, and campus halls, with their high intensity, breathtaking performance, politics, and storytelling craft, reflecting the lives and stories of queer and trans people of color, while making art that speaks out in resistance to the daily struggles around silence, isolation, homophobia, and violence that QTPOC face. Mangos With Chili is a fiscally sponsored project of the San Francisco based arts organization CounterPULSE, which provides space and resources for emerging artists and cultural innovators: www.counterpulse.org. Mangos With Chili is supported by the Horizons Foundation, the Astraea Foundation, and the generous support of our community of donors.Both venues are wheelchair accessible. The show contains material of adult nature. Parental discretion advised. Please refrain from wearing scented products to ensure that audience members and performers with multiple chemical sensitivity can attend.
For more information:
mangos.with.chili@gmail.com
mangoswithchili.wordpress.com
6:11 pm By la Macha · Celebrities| TV| Violence| Women · 9 Comments
5 Nov 2009This just broke my heart. Broke my heart.
From Huffington Post, a preview on the Rihanna interview:
I think that it is really generous and loving of Rihanna to think about girls at a time in her life when she is hurting and confused and devastated and even humiliated. But that section quoted above–that part where she says, “her selfish decision to love”….Oh, how my heart breaks.
It is not Rihanna’s job to stop violence against women. It’s not any woman or girl’s job to stop violence against women and girls. Even if she stayed with Chris Brown forever–it would never be her fault that women are being killed by men. It is manipulative and even violent to say it is. It is not selfish for a woman or girl to love. Dear god, no.
It is selfish to beat a woman. It is selfish to scare and intimidate her. It is selfish to take her love and use it against her, it is selfish to beat a woman who loves you because you know you can.
It is Chris Brown’s job to stop violating women. It is men’s job to stop violating women. It is men’s job to stop twisting and FUCKING with love so freely and generously given. It is the job of men to grow the fuck up and get into some kind of healing/therapy so that they can teach *little boys* how to not beat the holy fuck out of a person who loves them.
And it’s media’s job to stop putting the lives of little girls onto the shoulders of survivors. They have enough shit to worry about. It’s time to start putting responsibility where it belongs. On the fists of men who make the choice to use them whenever they feel like it.
4:11 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Justice| New York| Violence| crime · 1 Comment
5 Nov 2009
While I was writing my reflections on the anniversary of the hate motivated killing of Marcelo Lucero, , one of his attackers plead guilty to a variety of charges. Nicholas Hausch, 18, pleaded guilty to first-degree gang assault, fourth-degree conspiracy, second-degree assault as a hate crime and second-degree attempted assault as a hate crime.
Hausch’s plea is apparently part of a deal in exchange for information on what happened the night Lucero was brutally attacked. Hausch had no problem yelling slurs at Lucero almost a year ago, but had problems speaking up before a judge.
In a barely audible voice, Hausch answered a prosecutor’s questions about the events that led to the slaying, admitting that he and his six co-defendants set out to search for Latinos to attack.
“Keep your voice up, young man,” the judge said to Hausch twice during the teen’s admissions.
Responding to questions from Assistant District Attorney Meghan O’Donnell, Hausch detailed three attacks he was involved in on Nov. 8, including the Lucero killing.
Before coming across Lucero, Hausch said the group pursued another man. “I got out of the car and I chased him. We were yelling at him,” calling him a derogatory name, he said….
Hausch faces 5 to 25 years in prison on the gang assault charge and will not be sentenced until the prosecution of the other six defendants is completed.
Via / Newsday
12:18 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Justice| New York| Violence| crime · 3 Comments
5 Nov 2009
There is much remembering that one year ago the United States elected it’s first person of color president. The U.S. was overwhelmed with bold, bright promises of hope and change. People wept, and I was among them. The start of the Obama era marked the end of the Bush era and hopefully would mean policy changes that would directly impact the everyday lives of all people pero yes, for people of color and immigrants there was a special hope. Hope that immigration reform that would keep all families together and value the lives of people who live and work in the shadows and out in the open.
But then something happened that many thought wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. Weren’t we post-racial? Days after Barack Obama became the president-elect a group of teenagers in Patchogue, Long Island, NY hung out doing what they did about once a week. “Beaner jumping”. That’s what they called it when they went out looking for anyone who looked Latino (they don’t care what kind of “beaner” you are) so they could assault them. That night the young men were out for blood though and they killed Marcelo Lucero.
Read more…
3:32 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Family| GLBT| Immigration| Maine| Politics · 5 Comments
4 Nov 2009
In more bad election news, yesterday voters in Maine said yes to Question 1, overturning the state’s marriage equality law.
Prerna Lal at Dream Activistreminds us how this ties into the immigration issue:
Why should an average non-gay DREAM Act student care about my queer rants? Because like your families, like the Mejia-Perez family, our non-straight families are also scrutinized, separated and pulled apart since the law refuses to recognize them and grant them full and equal rights. Quite like President Obama delivered change for your families and has yet to deliver, he is also largely ignoring LGBT families.
When you do eventually gain the right to vote on other types of families at the polls, just remember what your own family, especially those who lived in mixed-status families, have had to endure. After that, question your ‘faith-based leaders.’ Ask them why they exclude same-sex families when they talk about ‘family unity?’ The Catholic Church, on one hand, stands up strong for the rights of undocumented workers. On the same page, it denounces civil rights for gay couples. Ask your pastors and priests, your clergy and pundits whether ‘God’ would deport a gay immigrant over a straight immigrant. Ask them whether some rights are more important than others. Ask them to support all families.
11:41 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Books| Events| Family| Women| boston · 1 Comment
4 Nov 2009
I met the organizer of this event, TK, at the Allied Media Conference this past summer. Another amazing mami media maker puts together an amazing event. Those in the Amherst area represent and support.
NOVEMBER 13, 2009 * 7PM
Food for Thought BooksPlease join us for a very special evening of women’s voices and responses to benefit To Tell you the Truth. Featuring Who’s Your Mama: Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers (Edt. by Yvonne Byone) Contributors: JLove Calderon (We Got Issues!/ That White Girl), Marcella Runell Hall Hall (Hip Hop Education Guidebook) and Marla Teyolia (Empowered Mama!). On site childcare provided.

9:21 am By la Macha · Funny| children · No Comments
2 Nov 2009From Mexico, we get this warning to wash our hands! Or, !Lavarse las Manos!
And with the latest news about the H1N1 virus not looking so good, washing your hands is such a good idea!
6:27 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · holidays · No Comments
31 Oct 200911:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Justice| New York City| Politics| Violence| Women · 2 Comments
30 Oct 2009
How do we deal with men in our communities who hurt the women in our community? And I’m not just talking about our physical communities like our neighbors or relatives. What of those who claim to represent us in public office.
I wrote about my discomfort surrounding the NYC State Senator Hiram Monserrate case when charges first surfaced against him, accusing him of attacking his girlfriend. It feels complicated for me on multiple levels. Monserratte was my local council person and he is my local state senator. That never has stopped me before. That wasn’t it. I had dealings with Monserrate before he was involved in electoral politics, when he worked with the Latino Police Officers Association here in NYC and he and his organization stood with the Latino families of those killed by police brutality and us organizers. As a Latina who has dealt with domestic violence both personally, politically, and professionally, how did this man whom I identified as a defender of the community suddenly become an attacker?
Read more…
10:35 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Money| New York City| Uncategorized| economy · 1 Comment
29 Oct 2009
Latino NY’ers are have been especially impacted by the current economic crisis according to a study released today by the Community Service Society (full disclosure, I worked for CSS many years ago).
-More than 1 in 4 Latinos lost their jobs. More than 4 in 10 low-income Latinos either had their hours, wages, and/or tips reduced, or lost their jobs—or both—in the past year.
-Low-income Latinos are more likely than Whites or Blacks to frequently worry about having enough money to cover expenses and bills. Latinos are more likely to worry about housing as well.
-Low income Latinos are more likely to have multiple workers in their household, but less likely to report that they have employer-sponsored benefits;
-For moderate to higher income Latino families, one in five fell behind in housing payments, and over a third had their health care costs increase;
- Latina and Black low-income working mothers are most worried about not being able to find or keep a job.
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by 2 Mujeres Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse and influential Latino and Latina community in the U.S.
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