Latino arts, history and culture
On Thursday, June 13, 2019, life-time political activist, scholar, photo-journalist and educator Dr. Raul Ruíz passed away. I first met Raul in 1968, at one of the early meetings of the … [Read more...]
The National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies national conference is meeting this week, April 3-6, 2019, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The theme of the conference is "Indigenous Knowledge for … [Read more...]
Debunking the Myths of the Alamo About 6 or 7 years ago the Texas State Historical Association was having its annual event at the Menger Hotel next door to the Alamo in downtown San Antonio. I … [Read more...]
NOTES ON THE IRISH/MEXICAN FRONTIER by Ernest Hogan A lot of people have a hard enough time dealing with the complicated reality of Mexican Americans – when you add Irish to the mix, their … [Read more...]
It is a commentary on much of 21st century life that one of the strongest role models for social roles and behavior come from movies and television,rather than from community and family. Regarding … [Read more...]
During our various road trips--Librotraficantes, Interviews of Rudolfo Anaya, Paul Hutton and Rudy Anaya again--Jesus Treviño and I discussed the music of Hamilton, the joys of writing, the glories of … [Read more...]
Trump’s Obsession and Criminalization of the Salvadoran Community Provides a Unique Opportunity for Young Salvadoran Americans to Speak Out Once again, President Trump is tweeting and using MS 13 … [Read more...]
Announcing the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best Work of First Fiction ($1,000). Sergio Troncoso is author of The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays, and the novels The … [Read more...]
FAILURE WITH PUERTO RICO By Thelma Reyna With Poem from New Book by Pasadena CA Indie Publisher In the wake of historic consecutive hurricanes slamming our nation’s Gulf Coast and the … [Read more...]
The writer, photographer and veteran union organizer David Bacon frequently refers to “people who travel with the crops.” He means the agricultural workers who move from place to place to cultivate … [Read more...]
"On the Chicana/o Moratorium of 1970: A Legal Historical Inquiry into the Events of the Day and the Death of Ruben Salazar, a Journalist Killed" by Dr. Juan Gómez-Quiñones. Some while ago, the … [Read more...]
I was eight years old when I was became aware that the universe I inhabited in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles included people who were Latino but not Mexican like me. When I asked … [Read more...]
Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a social earthquake in which dozens of people were killed and over a thousand buildings burned. Even before it erupted, the … [Read more...]
NOTES ON THE IRISH/MEXICAN FRONTIER by Ernest Hogan A lot of people have a hard enough time dealing with the complicated reality of Mexican Americans – when you add Irish to the mix, their … [Read more...]
Any comparison between the history-making 1978 production of Zoot Suit with its 2017 retelling would be unfair to the latter. It’s not the same Zoot Suit We are older but the audience is younger. The … [Read more...]
In the current revival of Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum, the iconic El Pachuco character (played by Demian Bichir) admonishes the rebellious character of Henry Reyna, played … [Read more...]
Ay Cuba Los derechos se toman, no se piden; se arrancan, no se mendigan. José Martí a Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz Le llegó la muerte al viejo … [Read more...]
Diane and I attended a very special White House ceremony last week. Diane, my wife, is a member of the National Council on the Arts for the National Endowment for the Arts, we were honored to … [Read more...]
Following the surprising concession by Donald Trump that President Barack Obama was indeed born in the United States of America (a fact embraced by most Americans during his two-term presidency) Trump … [Read more...]
Intersectionality & Orlando: 4 Things To Consider The horror of the Orlando shooting was made all the worse by the fact that the targets of the shooter’s rage were already part of marginalized … [Read more...]
TO BE YOUNG, GAY, LATINO & INVISIBLE It’s hard to process with any gravitas the Orlando tragedy. The first reports made little mention of the names of the dead and the wounded. Instead, the … [Read more...]
