Hola gente,
Below is an article in the Los Angeles Times of the now widely referred to and popular column titled "Ask a Mexican" in the Orange County Weekly.
Enjoy.
Inquiring Gringos Want to Know
In 'Ask a Mexican,' a politically incorrect OC Weekly columnist fields readers' frank questions. He's a wiseguy with a cultural objective.
By Daniel Hernandez, Times Staff Writer
February 23 2006
Dear Mexican, Why do Mexicans call white people gringos?
It was the type of impolite question few people would dare ask in everyday Southern California, much less in print.
"Dear Gabacho," began Gustavo Arellano's answer in the OC Weekly alternative newspaper. "Mexicans do not call gringos gringos. Only gringos call gringos gringos. Mexicans call gringos gabachos."
Arellano went on to explain that gabacho is a sometimes pejorative slang term for white Americans, with "its etymological roots in the Castilian slur for a French national."
"Ask a Mexican," the newspaper headlined it.
The column, published in 2004, was meant as a one-time spoof, but questions began pouring in.
Why are there so many elaborate wrought-iron fences in the Mexican parts of town? What part of the word "illegal" do Mexicans not understand? Why do Mexicans pronounce "shower" as "chower" but "chicken" as "shicken"?
Arellano has responded each week, leading an unusually frank discussion on the intersections where broader society meets the largest and most visible national subgroup in the country: Mexicans.
Nothing is taboo. When asked to explain the inclination of Mexicans to sell oranges at freeway offramps, he fired back:
"What do you want them to sell — Steinways? According to Dolores, who sells oranges off the 91 Freeway/Euclid onramp, in Anaheim, she can earn almost $100 per week hawking the fruit. That averages out to more than $5,000 a year — and since it's the underground economy, she doesn't pay taxes!"
The questions came from both assimilated Mexican Americans and whites, or as Arellano might say, pochos and gabachos. The newspaper kept publishing "Ask a Mexican," and it quickly became one of its most popular features.
Dear Mexican,
What's with the Mexican need to display the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere? I've seen her in the oddest places, from a sweatshirt to a windshield sticker. As a Mexican, I find it a little offensive and tacky to display this religious symbol everywhere.
Dear Pocha,
… I've seen her painted on murals, woven into fabulous silk shirts worn by Stetson-sporting hombres and — one holy night — in my bowl of guacamole. But while I share your disdain for the hypocrites who cross themselves in Her presence before they sin…. I don't find public displays of the Empress of the Americas offensive at all.
Mexican Catholicism is sublime precisely because it doesn't draw a distinction between the sacred and the profane. We can display our saints as comfortably in a cathedral as we do on hubcaps.
Arellano, a 27-year-old reporter and fourth-generation Orange County resident, has taken his "Ask a Mexican" personality to radio and other print outlets. He has found receptive audiences in unlikely places, even conservative talk radio.
"Ask a Mexican" is historically and culturally accurate, in some cases painfully so, while pushing the edges of modern political correctness. Its logo depicts a stereotypical Mexican peon, complete with bushy mustache, large sombrero and a single shiny gold tooth.
"There isn't any politically correct bridge that you have to walk over; you're just right there," Sasha Anawalt, director of arts journalism fellowship programs at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, said about Arellano's column. "His writing kind of tackles you."
At times, it can also sound like the work of a graduate student — which Arellano once was. His response to the "shicken" question included references to native Indian languages and linguapalatal fricatives.
But under it all, "Ask a Mexican" is imbued with affection for Mexican immigrants, which may explain its appeal among Mexican Americans who might otherwise take offense.
Dear Mexican, [some female readers asked]
Why do Mexican women dress up to go to the swap meet? …. Why do Mexicans put on their Sunday best to shop at Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, etc.?
Dear Pochas,
… You gotta love our moms and aunts, ¿qué no? Despite living in abject conditions, never having enough money to purchase vaccines for the kids — let alone save up for a Prada this or Manolo that — Mexican women always primp themselves for something as simple as buying tortillas."
Arellano, who is also the OC Weekly food editor, never fancied himself a newspaper columnist. The small-framed, quick-witted and admitted self-promoter had a vision of being a Harvard history professor by the time he was 26. "And I would've done it, too."
He was a film student at Chapman University in Orange when he began reading the OC Weekly. He wrote to its editor, Will Swaim, suggesting story ideas. Swaim was impressed and asked Arellano to write the stories himself.
Arellano resisted at first, but Swaim pressed him. Arellano began writing about the Orange County he knew, including school board politics and his family history in Anaheim, his hometown. Meanwhile, he entered graduate school at UCLA, where he earned a master's in Latin American studies.
As a reporter, Arellano, who calls himself a "good Catholic boy," aggressively covered the sexual abuse scandal in the Diocese of Orange and allegations of corruption against Orange County Latino activist Nativo V. Lopez. He also wrote one of the earliest profiles of Jim Gilchrist, the Aliso Viejo activist who began the border-watching Minuteman Project.
Arellano is driven by a strong sense of loyalty to Orange County. He describes it as the "Ellis Island of the 21st century," a place where a large immigrant population belies the myth of the county as a bastion of white conservatives and big-spending decadence.
"We didn't have to go outside of our little enclave to experience Mexican culture," Arellano said, recalling weekends of Mass attendance, girls' quinceañeras and relatives' baby showers.
Dear Mexican,
I've noticed that areas with lots of recent Mexican immigrants have stores that sell nothing but water. I find this very odd. Do people recently arrived from Mexico not know that tap water here is potable?
Dear Gabacha,
Mexicans can never get far from the bottle, whether it's H2O or Herradura. In a 2002 survey, the Public Policy Institute of California found that 55% of Latinos in the state drink bottled water, compared with 30% of gabachos. It's definitely a custom smuggled over from Mexico, where tap water remains fraught with nasty viruses and bugs.
The column was born when Swaim approached Arellano with an off-the-wall idea: Explain the humor behind a Spanish-language radio advertisement Swaim saw on the side of a bus. At first, Arellano saw the concept as an easy way to make readers chuckle. But in time he realized there was more to "Ask a Mexican" than that.
"The people who write in — they have this preconceived notion of what a Mexican is," Arellano said. "I answer their question, but in a way that's either going to flip the stereotype or going to explode it."
Similar to comedians who satirize their own cultures, including Dave Chappelle and Jeff Foxworthy, Arellano critiques the biases and prejudices of Mexicans and non-Mexicans equally. He freely draws attention to some of the nastier elements of Mexican culture, such as strains of sexism, homophobia and prejudices against other ethnic groups.
"I'm being exotic so that we can remember we're not exotic," Arellano said. "In any minority group, you're always going to have this stigma that you perpetuate on yourself. 'Oh, we're a minority, we're a minority.' My response is 'We're not a minority. Let's get over that and just say, All right, these are the problems we have.' "
Dear Mexican,
As an Asian person, would I be considered a gabacho? Or do I fall into the yellow bucket labeled chinito, even though I'm not Chinese?
Dear Chino,
Like Americans assume all Latinos are Mexican, Mexicans think all Asians are chinos — Chinese. When I used to go out with a Vietnamese woman, my aunts would speak highly of mi chinita bonita — my cute little Chinese ruca…. Chinese were the Mexicans of the world before there even was a Mexico, migrating to Latin America a couple of decades after the fall of Tenochtitlán.
Like other readers, Sali Heraldez, owner of a gallery in Santa Ana, said her first instinct was to be offended by "Ask a Mexican." But she couldn't deny the column's allure.
"In every culture there are things that people do that are just funny," Heraldez said. "He doesn't just throw out a racist comment; he actually puts history behind it. Some of them are just plain funny, like why do Mexicans honk instead of going up to knock when they're picking up friends?"
Some readers remain unconvinced that "Ask a Mexican" is a good thing to publish. Swaim said he occasionally received calls or e-mails demanding that Arellano be fired.
"Not only am I a fellow Mexican American, but I'm also an American veteran of Desert Storm," one offended reader wrote in a letter the newspaper published. "I know I didn't fight for a country that portrays Mexicans the way your magazine does. You even allow them to ask racist questions that you have no problems answering."
Yet the column has appeal across the ideological spectrum. Since April, Arellano has been taking listeners' questions live on the air on the conservative talk radio program "The Al Rantel Show" on KABC-AM (790).
"I'm a frothing-at-the-mouth right-winger," said "Al Rantel Show" producer John Phillips, who contacted Arellano about doing "Ask a Mexican" on the radio. "The thing that Gustavo and Al and I have in common is, he's absolutely as politically incorrect as they come. He has no problem saying things on his mind that he believes may or may not offend others."
After the first time "Ask a Mexican" hit the airwaves, Phillips asked Arellano back. During a recent in-studio visit to the program, Arellano took a question from a caller named Cheryl, who started off by saying, "My question is, why do Hispanic people — "
"Mexicans," Arellano interrupted.
"OK, Mexicans. Thank you," Cheryl said. "Why do they graffiti everywhere?"
"Those guys are honors students and they're just practicing," Arellano said, adding later, "Graffiti is really the last resort of people who don't have anything else to do."
Alexandro Gradilla, an assistant professor of Chicano and Chicana studies at Cal State Fullerton, said that even 10 years ago, an uproar would have followed publication of Arellano's constant jokes about Guatemalans. Arellano satirizes what he insists is Mexicans' disdain for immigrants from that small nation to their south: "Guatemalans are the Mexicans of Mexico. And who doesn't hate Mexicans?"
Dear Mexican,
I am a Mexicana who is dating a gabacho. My gabacho always asks me why you see Mexicans lying in the grass under a tree…. ¿Por qué?
Dear Pocha,
… Mexicans, unlike gabachos, are good public citizens who know that parkland is best used for whittling the afternoon away underneath an oak, a salsa-stained paper plate and an empty six-pack of Tecate tossed to the side.
What makes such talk acceptable — or at least tolerable — today?
"I think our generation of artists, intellectuals — we're not concerned with the same issues, nor do we try to hide our contradictions" as earlier generations did, Gradilla said. He added, "Nor does he gloss over the deep divisions that exist in this community — that is, between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. More people identify with that than with this politically convenient, united front perspective."
Arellano is also "one of these home-bred intellectuals who can talk about Orange County in a way that is not being captured in the popular media," Gradilla said. "He talks about the O.C. that is ignored."
The columnist sees his work as filling a vacuum.
"A lot of my activist friends say, why do you go on a conservative talk show? Nobody else is doing it," Arellano said at a restaurant in Santa Ana that specializes in food from the Mexican state of Puebla. Nearby, a group of day laborers wailed the day's sweat away with a few songs over a guitar.
"People who don't like Mexicans — nobody is actively engaging them unless it's a protest and they're separated by police," he added.
Arellano pondered this for a moment, then launched into another biting joke: "There's a lot of liberals who hate Mexicans too. I hate a lot of Mexicans, for that matter.
"People from Jalisco are evil. I'm from Zacatecas, and they're right next to us. There's always drama."
viernes, febrero 24, 2006
viernes, febrero 17, 2006
Carro Clasico
East LA would not be East LA without a couple old cars parked around the neighborhood. Cars like this one are a common scene on East LA streets, where owners meticulously and diligently refurbish older models to bring them back to their original glory. And on a day like this, cars like this never looked better.
Of course, there's another ice cream truck coming down the street.
Ice Cream Trucks in East LA
Almost every other street you go to in East LA, you are surely to find an ice cream truck driving around the barrio. These ice cream trucks provide an awesome array of goodies for all the latch-key kids in East LA, from snowcones to raspados and from the brand name to the obscure cultural commodity. And the street dog lazily crossing the street on a hot California winter day is just another familiar character of the East LA landscape.
Evergreen con Sol
City Terrace meets Boyle Heights in this picture of Evergreen Cemetery. Evergreen Cemetery is the largest open green space in East LA. The irony is that you have to be dead or attending a funeral to enjoy this green "park." So for hundreds of Latino children, the local park growing up was a "dead man's land" where life took a back seat to its cousin, la muerte.
Boyle Heights and the rest of East LA are generally flat, and when the streets head north to more hilly terrain, you will likely be in City Terrace. Here, the California sun is shining down on Evergreen Cemetery quite nicely.
El Centro y Su Nube
Sometimes when I have the time, I enjoy driving in the hills of East LA, and on clear days like this one in late January, you can see the Downtown LA skyline. Here, "el centro," as many spanish-speaking people refer to Downtown, is guarded by a lonely cloud in the Southern California sky. This picture was taken from City Terrace, a hillside community in north East LA.
Pan Dulce y Virgen de Guadalupe
Many murals in East LA have religious overtones. The Virgen de Guadalupe is a powerful symbol for many Catholic Mexicans, seeing her as the patron saint of the Mexica nation. The male figure in this mural is supposed to represent the famous Juan Diego, an indigenous figure that saw the Virgin of Guadalupe appear before him, and subsequently asked him to build her a shrine in a particular site in Mexico City.
Today, that site in Mexico City is one of the most important religious shrines in Latin America, visited by millions of people every year, and especially on December 12, the internationally observed anniversary of her appearance.
This corner store doubles as a bakery, as the reference to pan dulce denotes that it also sells Mexican sweet bread.
Detalle Familiar
Este fin de semana mi madre cumple 50 anyos y todos estamos muy contentos. Aqui les incluyo un detalle de un mural en el Este de Los Angeles. Durante una epoca, las imagenes de personajes indigenas fueron muy populares en el muralismo Chicano de Los Angeles.
Entre Metros y Maiz
Este es un mural en el Este de Los Angeles. Yo tome esta foto cuando estaba buscando un departamento, y brevemente considere vivir en East LA, pero el reto de siempre buscar estacionamiento fue demasiado complicado. De todos modos, tengo gran fe que la Avenida Cesar Chavez y la Primera seran domicilios deseables en Los Angeles, especialmente cuando se termine el metro que actualmente esta bajo construccion.
domingo, febrero 12, 2006
Ode to the Heights of Boyle
I found this article in my Sunday morning edition of the LA Times. Although I normally prefer to read the NY Times, I have decided that I will slowly start shifting to the LA Times out of geographic loyalty to the West.
Boyle Heights
By Ruben Guevara, Special to The Times
Boyle Heights
'Ta-maaa-lehhs! Ta-maaa-lehhs!" The strolling sidewalk vendor wakes me with sweet memories of my youth as the neighborhood rooster joins in, welcoming the day. "Dos de pollo!" I yell out, thanking my ancestors for inventing the tamale, beautifully symbolizing the body and heart of humanity.
That is my breakfast in Boyle Heights. Afterward, I walk to the corner of Mott and Cesar Chavez to pick up the morning paper, and I hear the pachuco boogie of Lalo Guerrero from the '40s, the Eastside Sound of Thee Midniters and Cannibal and the Headhunters from the '60s, and the punk of Brat and Thee Undertakers from the '80s—all of them linked by mariachis serenading at quincea–eras and endless wedding dances. The Paramount Ballroom (now Casa Grande), home to these legendary performers, was, and still is, the epicenter of Eastside memories.
Heading west on Cesar Chavez, I stop at the Bahia, a restaurant where the cooking recalls my dear grandmother's love. I hear rockin' sounds coming from the Ollin Music Conservatory as I pass a 24-hour pawnshop, a wedding chapel, a punk boutique, a tattoo parlor, a health food store and a Chinese restaurant.
At the corner of Soto and Cesar Chavez, the heart of "East Los," presides the mural "El Corrido de Boyle Heights" by the East Los Streetscapers. Months ago the mural was tagged beyond recognition. What disrespectful idiocy! But, on this day, a miracle: Painter-muralist Paul Botello is faithfully restoring it.
I used to live on Boyle Avenue, named for Andrew Boyle. In 1858, he bought a parcel of the land that had been the 1781 Mexican settlement called El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and built a home on what became this avenue. After his death in 1871, his son-in-law, William H. Workman, subdivided the area and named it Boyle Heights.
My Boyle Avenue apartment was down the street from Mariachi Plaza, where I hired mariachis for my son's first birthday party. (Easy to do, but not cheap. They don't play for beer like garage rock bands.) Also on Boyle is the International Institute, founded in 1914 to help Russians, Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese and Jews get established. Its mission reflects the neighborhood's distinction as Los Angeles' most multiethnic community from the '20s through the '50s.
Now I live on Pennsylvania near Mott, surrounded by elegant Victorians and humble homes, some with frontyards of cactus, chickens and corn. Gentle, strong people, inspiring murals and music mix with a turbulent social history that includes the forced "repatriation" of Mexican Americans in the '30s and the unconstitutional incarceration of Japanese Americans in the '40s. Hail Marys, Buddhist chants, Jewish prayers, gospel hallelujahs, oldies, hip-hop, corridos and rancheras—they all lift and carry broken spirits, memories and dreams.
My barrio speaks truth as it sings of love and betrayal. And, if you listen closely to its tenacious, fragile legacy, its scarred heart touches you, and heals.
Boyle Heights
By Ruben Guevara, Special to The Times
Boyle Heights
'Ta-maaa-lehhs! Ta-maaa-lehhs!" The strolling sidewalk vendor wakes me with sweet memories of my youth as the neighborhood rooster joins in, welcoming the day. "Dos de pollo!" I yell out, thanking my ancestors for inventing the tamale, beautifully symbolizing the body and heart of humanity.
That is my breakfast in Boyle Heights. Afterward, I walk to the corner of Mott and Cesar Chavez to pick up the morning paper, and I hear the pachuco boogie of Lalo Guerrero from the '40s, the Eastside Sound of Thee Midniters and Cannibal and the Headhunters from the '60s, and the punk of Brat and Thee Undertakers from the '80s—all of them linked by mariachis serenading at quincea–eras and endless wedding dances. The Paramount Ballroom (now Casa Grande), home to these legendary performers, was, and still is, the epicenter of Eastside memories.
Heading west on Cesar Chavez, I stop at the Bahia, a restaurant where the cooking recalls my dear grandmother's love. I hear rockin' sounds coming from the Ollin Music Conservatory as I pass a 24-hour pawnshop, a wedding chapel, a punk boutique, a tattoo parlor, a health food store and a Chinese restaurant.
At the corner of Soto and Cesar Chavez, the heart of "East Los," presides the mural "El Corrido de Boyle Heights" by the East Los Streetscapers. Months ago the mural was tagged beyond recognition. What disrespectful idiocy! But, on this day, a miracle: Painter-muralist Paul Botello is faithfully restoring it.
I used to live on Boyle Avenue, named for Andrew Boyle. In 1858, he bought a parcel of the land that had been the 1781 Mexican settlement called El Pueblo de Los Angeles, and built a home on what became this avenue. After his death in 1871, his son-in-law, William H. Workman, subdivided the area and named it Boyle Heights.
My Boyle Avenue apartment was down the street from Mariachi Plaza, where I hired mariachis for my son's first birthday party. (Easy to do, but not cheap. They don't play for beer like garage rock bands.) Also on Boyle is the International Institute, founded in 1914 to help Russians, Italians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese and Jews get established. Its mission reflects the neighborhood's distinction as Los Angeles' most multiethnic community from the '20s through the '50s.
Now I live on Pennsylvania near Mott, surrounded by elegant Victorians and humble homes, some with frontyards of cactus, chickens and corn. Gentle, strong people, inspiring murals and music mix with a turbulent social history that includes the forced "repatriation" of Mexican Americans in the '30s and the unconstitutional incarceration of Japanese Americans in the '40s. Hail Marys, Buddhist chants, Jewish prayers, gospel hallelujahs, oldies, hip-hop, corridos and rancheras—they all lift and carry broken spirits, memories and dreams.
My barrio speaks truth as it sings of love and betrayal. And, if you listen closely to its tenacious, fragile legacy, its scarred heart touches you, and heals.
lunes, febrero 06, 2006
Chi Town y Soy Rebelde
Greetings from Chi Town...so far my Chicago experience has been quite pleasant. When I stepped out of O'Hare International Airport, I was expecting it to be super frigid and my winter clothes from California to be no match for the Windy City.
In fact, the weather is chilly but manageable. And my drive into Downtown showed me what Chicagoans have bragged about for years to me...that their city's core is nice, full of shops and great establishments. Although I cannot confirm the statement to the fullest at this point, I hope to find sufficient evidence in the next couple of days to prove them right.
By the way, I am including a tragic incident that just happened in South America involving the pop group RBD, which is a huge teeny-bopper group in Mexico that has been leading the charts with such hits as "Y Soy Rebelde", literally "I Am A Rebel".
Anyhow, the article below proves just how far people can go in their fanaticism of pop groups, and the terrible consequences of inferior crowd management.
Of course, I was alerted to this email from the President of the Scotland RBD club herself, Ms. Devlin! Fortunately for residents of Glasgow, Ms. Devlin is currently conducting emergency crowd control seminars for all her RBD agents.
3 killed in crush to get autographs
Sunday, February 5, 2006 Posted: 1823 GMT (0223 HKT)
Fans wait near a Sao Paulo parking lot where three people died in a crush to get band autographs.
RELATED
• Game show stampede kills 73
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Sao Paulo (Brazil)
Mexico
Music
or Create Your Own
Manage Alerts | What Is This? SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Police were investigating whether organizers of an autograph session with the Mexican pop band RBD were authorized to stage the event, which left three people dead and 38 injured, authorities said Sunday.
A woman and two teenage girls were crushed to death Saturday morning when thousands of fans tried to get closer to the group, which stars in the popular soap opera "Rebelde."
Authorities said event organizers have until Monday to prove they had authorization from Sao Paulo city officials, police and firefighters to stage the autograph session at the parking lot, said Adriano Moneta, a spokesman with Sao Paulo state's public safety secretariat.
Organizers -- which include Brazilian supermarket chain Extra and the record company EMI Group PLC -- said in a statement Saturday night that there was no wrongdoing on their part and that they had been properly authorized. They said security measures had prevented a greater tragedy.
Jose Augusto da Silva Ramos, a city official in charge of the district where the incident happened, told the Diario de S. Paulo newspaper that the organizers had not yet come up with documents showing they had the authorization for the event.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 fans gathered for the autograph session, Sao Paulo state's public safety secretariat said.
A security fence keeping fans from getting too close to the group collapsed after the crowed apparently surged forward as the band began preparing for a brief performance following the autograph session.
Broadcasts of "Rebelde," which also is aired in the United States and other countries, have helped make RBD one of the most popular groups in Latin America and among Spanish-speaking communities in the United States.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
In fact, the weather is chilly but manageable. And my drive into Downtown showed me what Chicagoans have bragged about for years to me...that their city's core is nice, full of shops and great establishments. Although I cannot confirm the statement to the fullest at this point, I hope to find sufficient evidence in the next couple of days to prove them right.
By the way, I am including a tragic incident that just happened in South America involving the pop group RBD, which is a huge teeny-bopper group in Mexico that has been leading the charts with such hits as "Y Soy Rebelde", literally "I Am A Rebel".
Anyhow, the article below proves just how far people can go in their fanaticism of pop groups, and the terrible consequences of inferior crowd management.
Of course, I was alerted to this email from the President of the Scotland RBD club herself, Ms. Devlin! Fortunately for residents of Glasgow, Ms. Devlin is currently conducting emergency crowd control seminars for all her RBD agents.
3 killed in crush to get autographs
Sunday, February 5, 2006 Posted: 1823 GMT (0223 HKT)
Fans wait near a Sao Paulo parking lot where three people died in a crush to get band autographs.
RELATED
• Game show stampede kills 73
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Sao Paulo (Brazil)
Mexico
Music
or Create Your Own
Manage Alerts | What Is This? SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Police were investigating whether organizers of an autograph session with the Mexican pop band RBD were authorized to stage the event, which left three people dead and 38 injured, authorities said Sunday.
A woman and two teenage girls were crushed to death Saturday morning when thousands of fans tried to get closer to the group, which stars in the popular soap opera "Rebelde."
Authorities said event organizers have until Monday to prove they had authorization from Sao Paulo city officials, police and firefighters to stage the autograph session at the parking lot, said Adriano Moneta, a spokesman with Sao Paulo state's public safety secretariat.
Organizers -- which include Brazilian supermarket chain Extra and the record company EMI Group PLC -- said in a statement Saturday night that there was no wrongdoing on their part and that they had been properly authorized. They said security measures had prevented a greater tragedy.
Jose Augusto da Silva Ramos, a city official in charge of the district where the incident happened, told the Diario de S. Paulo newspaper that the organizers had not yet come up with documents showing they had the authorization for the event.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 fans gathered for the autograph session, Sao Paulo state's public safety secretariat said.
A security fence keeping fans from getting too close to the group collapsed after the crowed apparently surged forward as the band began preparing for a brief performance following the autograph session.
Broadcasts of "Rebelde," which also is aired in the United States and other countries, have helped make RBD one of the most popular groups in Latin America and among Spanish-speaking communities in the United States.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
miércoles, febrero 01, 2006
The Ivy League v. The Inca
It's amazing how after centuries of pillaging and tomb-raiding, Western institutions continue to have a colonial attitude towards developing countries seeking to retake their national treasures.
Below is an article that sheds light on the issue of cultural heritage and how the issues of ownership and title continue to shake the foundations of the world's leading museums and academic institutions.
The New York Times
February 1, 2006
Inca Show Pits Yale Against Peru
By HUGH EAKIN
NEW HAVEN, Jan. 26 — By any conventional measure, Yale's exhibition about Machu Picchu would seem a windfall for Peru. As one of the most ambitious shows about the Inca ever presented in the United States, drawing over a million visitors while traveling to half a dozen cities and back again, it has riveted eyes on Peru's leading tourist attraction.
Yet instead of cementing an international partnership, the exhibition, which returned to the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in September, has brought a low ebb in the university's relations with Peru. At issue are a large group of artifacts that form the core of the show, excavated at Machu Picchu in a historic dig by a Yale explorer in 1912. The government of Peru wants all of those objects back.
Peru contends that it essentially lent the Machu Picchu objects to the university nearly a century ago and that the university has failed to return them. Yale has staunchly rebuffed Peru's claim, stating that it returned all borrowed objects in the 1920's and has retained only those to which it has full title.
The dispute is inflamed by the swashbuckling exploits of Hiram Bingham III, a Yale professor, aviator and later senator, and the special dispensations he brokered with the Peruvian government to take Inca bones and ritual tomb objects out of Peru. Add a Peruvian president who has made the country's indigenous heritage a central theme of his administration and an Ivy League archaeology department with a towering reputation in the Inca field, and the dispute has all the ingredients of an Indiana Jones movie.
"The irony is that for years the collection was just left in cardboard boxes," said Hugh Thomson, a British explorer who has written about the early-20th-century Yale expeditions to Machu Picchu. "It's only when they rather conscientiously dusted it off and launched this rather impressive exhibition that the whole issue has surfaced again."
For much of the three years since the show first opened at Yale, Peru's claim on the objects has been played out in behind-the-scenes talks in Lima, Washington and New Haven between Yale and the government of President Alejandro Toledo. But in recent months the Peruvian government has taken its campaign public, threatening legal action if the university does not comply with its demands.
The Peruvian claim has gained additional momentum from a recent wave of disputes about national property issues and the collecting ethics of large American museums. Over the last few months, Italy has pursued an aggressive campaign to recover prized classical antiquities from several American museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Both Yale and the Peruvians say they hope for an amicable resolution, and talks continue. In December, Yale even offered to return numerous objects to Peru and help install and maintain them in a Peruvian museum. Up to now Peruvian officials have not responded to this proposal, saying that recognition of Peru's title to the entire collection must be the basis of any agreement.
"Yale is assuming that it owns the collection, and can negotiate with us which objects it wants to return and which it wants to keep," Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, director of Peru's National Institute of Culture in Lima, said in a telephone interview. "But that's not what we're talking about."
Unlike the cases involving the Getty and the Met — which center on ancient treasures that Italian officials say were dug up by looters in recent decades — the Machu Picchu objects have a far older and more complex history. They were removed during an authorized archaeological dig nearly a century ago; they were inspected by the Peruvian government before they left the country; and even Peruvian officials acknowledge that the objects themselves — which consist largely of bones, ceramic pots and common Inca tools — do not have great aesthetic or museum value.
On the other hand, Peru did have laws in force at the time governing archaeological finds, and its government in theory had ownership of any artifacts unearthed from Peruvian soil. As a result, the dispute has become something of a test case for the limits of cultural property claims against American institutions.
At the heart of the controversy is the complicated legacy of Bingham, who stumbled upon Machu Picchu in 1911. Before his arrival, the Inca complex, which occupies a spectacular remote site in the Peruvian Andes, had been unknown to all but a few local farmers around nearby Cuzco.
Bingham's discovery stirred enormous interest in the site. With the backing of the National Geographic Society, he returned to do excavations in the Machu Picchu area in 1912 and in 1914-15— the two expeditions that are at the center of the dispute.
Initially, he enjoyed considerable support from the Peruvian government. His early expeditions benefited from a letter of introduction from Lima and a Peruvian military escort; in 1912, he entered negotiations to give Yale an exclusive 10-year concession that would allow it to bring to the United States whatever it found.
But the negotiations fell through after a formal protest from Harvard that Yale was trying to shut its archaeologists out of Peru. Still, in October 1912, Bingham managed to secure a decree allowing him to take the contents of some 170 tombs he excavated at Machu Picchu. As a condition, the decree stated that Peru "reserves the right" to ask for the return of the objects, but did not state a specific time period for such a request to be made.
By the time of the second National Geographic expedition, however, Peru had become increasingly hostile to Bingham's activities, and the explorer was accused of spiriting Inca gold out of the country. After that, he did no further work at Machu Picchu, and the material he excavated elsewhere in Peru was subject to a far more stringent 1916 loan agreement of 18 months.
"It became very political," Lucy C. Salazar, one of the curators of the Yale exhibition, saied of that era. "A new indigenous movement was beginning to use the country's Andean roots to legitimize themselves."
Yale officials maintain that the university has complied with both the 1912 and 1916 agreements, and that after a series of loan extensions, all of the 1914-15 materials were returned to Peru in the 1920's. The university maintains that it is under no such obligation to return the earlier material from 1912.
"Bingham understood that he had the right to keep the objects from 1912 in New Haven for research, and that he had fulfilled his obligations," Yale said in a statement to The New York Times. Records made available by the National Geographic Society show that about half of the 1914-15 materials were returned to Peru in 1921. But there is no document recording the return of the remaining objects in that expedition, a society spokeswoman said.
Mr. Lumbreras, the Peruvian culture official, says that Yale returned only "a few bones" in the 1920's, but that there was never any question that the other objects should ultimately go back to Peru.
He said that Yale had no need for the objects. "After 90 years, Yale has had time to do all the research it wants," he said.
Yet Yale's recent research on the Bingham collection has been pivotal to cracking the mystery of Machu Picchu, a site whose purpose had eluded scholars for decades. Bingham argued variously that the site was a fabled early capital of the Incas or one of the empire's most important religious complexes where "virgins of the sun" were regularly sacrificed. Others have speculated about its possible astrological significance. But research led by Dr. Salazar and her husband, Richard L. Burger, a professor of anthropology at Yale and also a curator of the show, suggests that the site was simply one of many royal estates used as a country retreat away from Cuzco, the Inca capital.
Other researchers, citing the Yale team's extensive scientific work on the burials and the scholarly exhibition it assembled, suggest that Peru's campaign to get back the collection is politically motivated. As the first indigenous Peruvian to hold the office, Alejandro Toledo has saluted the country's Inca heritage, even choosing to have part of his inauguration ceremony held at Machu Picchu in 2001.
"There has certainly been some beating of the Inca drum," said Mr. Thomson, the explorer.
But others argue that Peru has made great progress in protecting its once-neglected cultural heritage and the collection should go back.
"Machu Picchu has tremendous symbolic value to Peru," said Johan Reinhard, an Inca specialist who is explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society. "By refusing to acknowledge Peruvian ownership, it may be losing the cultural battle."
Below is an article that sheds light on the issue of cultural heritage and how the issues of ownership and title continue to shake the foundations of the world's leading museums and academic institutions.
The New York Times
February 1, 2006
Inca Show Pits Yale Against Peru
By HUGH EAKIN
NEW HAVEN, Jan. 26 — By any conventional measure, Yale's exhibition about Machu Picchu would seem a windfall for Peru. As one of the most ambitious shows about the Inca ever presented in the United States, drawing over a million visitors while traveling to half a dozen cities and back again, it has riveted eyes on Peru's leading tourist attraction.
Yet instead of cementing an international partnership, the exhibition, which returned to the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale in September, has brought a low ebb in the university's relations with Peru. At issue are a large group of artifacts that form the core of the show, excavated at Machu Picchu in a historic dig by a Yale explorer in 1912. The government of Peru wants all of those objects back.
Peru contends that it essentially lent the Machu Picchu objects to the university nearly a century ago and that the university has failed to return them. Yale has staunchly rebuffed Peru's claim, stating that it returned all borrowed objects in the 1920's and has retained only those to which it has full title.
The dispute is inflamed by the swashbuckling exploits of Hiram Bingham III, a Yale professor, aviator and later senator, and the special dispensations he brokered with the Peruvian government to take Inca bones and ritual tomb objects out of Peru. Add a Peruvian president who has made the country's indigenous heritage a central theme of his administration and an Ivy League archaeology department with a towering reputation in the Inca field, and the dispute has all the ingredients of an Indiana Jones movie.
"The irony is that for years the collection was just left in cardboard boxes," said Hugh Thomson, a British explorer who has written about the early-20th-century Yale expeditions to Machu Picchu. "It's only when they rather conscientiously dusted it off and launched this rather impressive exhibition that the whole issue has surfaced again."
For much of the three years since the show first opened at Yale, Peru's claim on the objects has been played out in behind-the-scenes talks in Lima, Washington and New Haven between Yale and the government of President Alejandro Toledo. But in recent months the Peruvian government has taken its campaign public, threatening legal action if the university does not comply with its demands.
The Peruvian claim has gained additional momentum from a recent wave of disputes about national property issues and the collecting ethics of large American museums. Over the last few months, Italy has pursued an aggressive campaign to recover prized classical antiquities from several American museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Both Yale and the Peruvians say they hope for an amicable resolution, and talks continue. In December, Yale even offered to return numerous objects to Peru and help install and maintain them in a Peruvian museum. Up to now Peruvian officials have not responded to this proposal, saying that recognition of Peru's title to the entire collection must be the basis of any agreement.
"Yale is assuming that it owns the collection, and can negotiate with us which objects it wants to return and which it wants to keep," Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, director of Peru's National Institute of Culture in Lima, said in a telephone interview. "But that's not what we're talking about."
Unlike the cases involving the Getty and the Met — which center on ancient treasures that Italian officials say were dug up by looters in recent decades — the Machu Picchu objects have a far older and more complex history. They were removed during an authorized archaeological dig nearly a century ago; they were inspected by the Peruvian government before they left the country; and even Peruvian officials acknowledge that the objects themselves — which consist largely of bones, ceramic pots and common Inca tools — do not have great aesthetic or museum value.
On the other hand, Peru did have laws in force at the time governing archaeological finds, and its government in theory had ownership of any artifacts unearthed from Peruvian soil. As a result, the dispute has become something of a test case for the limits of cultural property claims against American institutions.
At the heart of the controversy is the complicated legacy of Bingham, who stumbled upon Machu Picchu in 1911. Before his arrival, the Inca complex, which occupies a spectacular remote site in the Peruvian Andes, had been unknown to all but a few local farmers around nearby Cuzco.
Bingham's discovery stirred enormous interest in the site. With the backing of the National Geographic Society, he returned to do excavations in the Machu Picchu area in 1912 and in 1914-15— the two expeditions that are at the center of the dispute.
Initially, he enjoyed considerable support from the Peruvian government. His early expeditions benefited from a letter of introduction from Lima and a Peruvian military escort; in 1912, he entered negotiations to give Yale an exclusive 10-year concession that would allow it to bring to the United States whatever it found.
But the negotiations fell through after a formal protest from Harvard that Yale was trying to shut its archaeologists out of Peru. Still, in October 1912, Bingham managed to secure a decree allowing him to take the contents of some 170 tombs he excavated at Machu Picchu. As a condition, the decree stated that Peru "reserves the right" to ask for the return of the objects, but did not state a specific time period for such a request to be made.
By the time of the second National Geographic expedition, however, Peru had become increasingly hostile to Bingham's activities, and the explorer was accused of spiriting Inca gold out of the country. After that, he did no further work at Machu Picchu, and the material he excavated elsewhere in Peru was subject to a far more stringent 1916 loan agreement of 18 months.
"It became very political," Lucy C. Salazar, one of the curators of the Yale exhibition, saied of that era. "A new indigenous movement was beginning to use the country's Andean roots to legitimize themselves."
Yale officials maintain that the university has complied with both the 1912 and 1916 agreements, and that after a series of loan extensions, all of the 1914-15 materials were returned to Peru in the 1920's. The university maintains that it is under no such obligation to return the earlier material from 1912.
"Bingham understood that he had the right to keep the objects from 1912 in New Haven for research, and that he had fulfilled his obligations," Yale said in a statement to The New York Times. Records made available by the National Geographic Society show that about half of the 1914-15 materials were returned to Peru in 1921. But there is no document recording the return of the remaining objects in that expedition, a society spokeswoman said.
Mr. Lumbreras, the Peruvian culture official, says that Yale returned only "a few bones" in the 1920's, but that there was never any question that the other objects should ultimately go back to Peru.
He said that Yale had no need for the objects. "After 90 years, Yale has had time to do all the research it wants," he said.
Yet Yale's recent research on the Bingham collection has been pivotal to cracking the mystery of Machu Picchu, a site whose purpose had eluded scholars for decades. Bingham argued variously that the site was a fabled early capital of the Incas or one of the empire's most important religious complexes where "virgins of the sun" were regularly sacrificed. Others have speculated about its possible astrological significance. But research led by Dr. Salazar and her husband, Richard L. Burger, a professor of anthropology at Yale and also a curator of the show, suggests that the site was simply one of many royal estates used as a country retreat away from Cuzco, the Inca capital.
Other researchers, citing the Yale team's extensive scientific work on the burials and the scholarly exhibition it assembled, suggest that Peru's campaign to get back the collection is politically motivated. As the first indigenous Peruvian to hold the office, Alejandro Toledo has saluted the country's Inca heritage, even choosing to have part of his inauguration ceremony held at Machu Picchu in 2001.
"There has certainly been some beating of the Inca drum," said Mr. Thomson, the explorer.
But others argue that Peru has made great progress in protecting its once-neglected cultural heritage and the collection should go back.
"Machu Picchu has tremendous symbolic value to Peru," said Johan Reinhard, an Inca specialist who is explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society. "By refusing to acknowledge Peruvian ownership, it may be losing the cultural battle."
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