What are you dressing up as today? In Casa Mala we have turtle and a mime.

Image of Skull Made from Kitchen Utensils Via / boingboing

-Irma Galido
-Claudia Barragán
-Daniel Reyes y Nilko Andreas

Come through if you can.

Friend the event on Facebook.

Communiqué from the of the Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command, of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation
Sixth Commission—Intergalactic Commission of the EZLN

Mexico

September 15 and 16 of 2008

To the adherents of the Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign:

To the adherents of the Zezta Interazional:

To the People of Mexico:

To the Peoples of the World:

Compañeras and Compañeros:

Brother and Sisters:

Once again we send you our words.

This is what we see, what we are looking at.

This is what has come to our ears, to our brown heart.

I.

Above they intend to repeat history.

They want to impose on us once again their calendar of death, their geography of destruction.

When they are not trying to strip us of our roots, they are destroying them.

They steal our work, our strength.

They leave our world, our land, our water, and our treasures without people, without life.

The cities pursue and expel us.

The countryside both kills us and dies on us.

Lies become governments and dispossession is the weapon of their armies and police.
We are the illegal, the undocumented, the undesired of the world.

We are pursued.

Women, young people, children, the elderly die in death and die in life.

And there above they preach to us resignation, defeat, surrender, and abandonment.

Here below we are being left with nothing.

Except rage.

And dignity.

There is no ear for our pain, that is not like what we are.

We are no one.

We are alone, alone with our dignity and our rage.

Rage and dignity are our bridges, our languages.

We must listen to each other then, learn to know each other.

So that our courage and rage grows and becomes hope.

So that our dignity takes root again and births another world.

We have seen and heard.

Our voice is small to be the echo of that word, our gaze small for so much dignified rage.

The process of seeing each other, looking at each other, speaking to each other, listening to each other, is still lacking.

We are others, the other.

If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made.

With no tool other than our rage, no material other than our dignity.

We still must encounter each other more, know each other better.

What is missing is yet to come…

Originally Hispanics only got a week pero since we're always late anyway, they decided to extend it to a month so that as soon Hispanics realized that they were being celebrated (seriously why else would the company cafeteria suddenly offer quesadillas) the party would be halfway done.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 to October 15. The celebration began as National Hispanic Heritage Week, which was authorized and requested by Congress in 1968 (Public Law 90-498). It was officially proclaimed as such by President Ford in 1974, calling “upon the people of the United States, especially the education community and those organizations concerned with the protection of human rights, to observe that week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” In 1988 a joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives authorized the change to National Hispanic Heritage Month (Public Law 100-402). President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the change official that same year.

Yours truly, Maegan la Mala, is a featured poet at one of the events and will attend as many events as I can (Before I was Blogger, activist, and Mami, I was a poet).

Hope to see some of you there.

The city of La Habana is commemorating Joseíto's life all this week with roundtables, singing contests and other events, even a serenade of the song at the late artist's residence, joined by his now elderly children.

Aside from the international appeal the song has enjoyed, perhaps the most fascinating thing about the Guantanamera phenomenon is its mutation, which continues today. Venezuela's El Universal reports that the song was written in its original form by Joseíto, but through its constant performance has benefitted from improvisation in the lyrics, with artists adapting the words to suit a certain situation, ranging from political strife to personal problems. The most popular version, the one we hear the most today, includes the words of Cuban hero José Martí, intregated into the music -- ironically -- by American folk singer Pete Seeger.

Guantanamera the song was composed when Joseíto was just 20, and itself turns 80 years old this year.

Via / El Universal

Via / Remolacha

Dear Urban Jibaro,

I work in the toy department of a major retailer in a pretty diverse part of Pennsylvania. I see a lot of Latino families and I am curious about something. Whenever a kid throw a tantrum in my department, I hear their mothers threaten them with "John Kletter" and they immediately start behaving in most cases.

I have 3 kids myself and I would love to know how John Kletter can help me when they act up.

My question is "Who is John Kletter, and why are Latino children so afraid of him?

"Gracias" (thats all the Spanish I know)

Misty (Lancaster PA)

***************************************************

Ok...so being that fact that I am completely new at this, I honestly did not know what the hell Misty was talking about. I googled "John Kletter" and did not find much...and was about to move on to our next submission...that is until I mentioned the question to one of my friends (she made me swear not to reveal her name) who has a thick accent and she said "que eso de jon kleta?"and then it hit me me like a ton of bricks...we had a phonetic translation issue here....John Kletter doesn't exist...at least not in the Latino universe what Misty actually witnessed was the power of the almighty "CHANCLETA".

This whole ASK A LATINO thing is gonna be fun...

So now that we got that squared away...Click below to read my official response to the first "ASK A LATINO" question.

When a 25-year-old Manhattan graduate student who was assaulted Tuesday night got dressed that morning, she probably didn’t anticipate that her T-shirt would provoke four teens into shoving her, pulling out her earphones and spitting in her face.

Then again, with a shirt sporting the slogan, “Obama is my slave,” it may have been wise to consider the possibility.
Now she’s suing the $69 shirt’s designer, Apollo Braun, for “all he’s got,” the designer claims.
But the Israeli-born Braun — born Doron Braunshtein — says what allegedly happened to his now-disgruntled customer isn’t his fault — and that his outrageous design reflects not his views but those of “ordinary WASPs.”

The painting "The Watermelon Eater" sold today for a final price of 3.6 million dollars, with commission included, during a Latin American art auction in Sotheby's New York headquarters.

Via / El Universal

As it is the Latin American tradition, El Museo Gala’s fifteenth birthday will be celebrated in the style of a quinceañero; this is a coming-of-age party for a daughter turning fifteen. For this gala, guests are invited to wear white or black (with long gloves and tiaras optional).
El Museo will honor Dr. Mario Vargas Llosa, Ambassador Paul L. Cejas and Mrs. Trudy Cejas, and Mr. Angel Collado-Schwarz of Fundación Voz del Centro. Special guests will include Miss Universe, Riyo Mori; Miss Teen USA, Hilary Cruz; and the newly crowned Miss USA, and they will be wearing their tiaras.

From the website of the National Museum of the American Latino:

Latinos were present on the American continent for more than two centuries prior to the Declaration of Independence. The first permanent European settlement in 1565 was St. Augustine, Florida, 41 years before the establishment of Jamestown. Spaniards mapped an explored a large portion of the continent, from California to the Southwest; up the Mississippi and the east coast. They named many of the areas and those names still are part of this country: Florida, Colorado, California, Nevada, Montaña, San Francisco, Los Angeles, El Paso and Santa Fe.

But this year seems to be especially special because my inbox has been flooded with Cinco de Mayo marketing tie-ins way beyond your normal Mexican hat dance drinking games.