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westernartgirlBang Data Rocks an Immigrant Groove Mixed With Latino Standards — and Hip-Hop
Juan Manuel Caipo, one-half of the driving force behind Bay Area-based alternative hip-hop band Bang Data, says he was born in the United States, but grew up in Peru. Deuce Eclipse, the other half, is of Nicaraguan extraction. So it’s fair to say that their music has a certain . . . something . . … Read more
A Long Line of Scholars, and an Even Longer One of Immigrants
California Senator Carol Liu, who is Chinese-American, acknowledges her father and grandfather did not have to endure the ordeal of thousands of Asians and Pacific Islanders who entered the United States through Angel Island in the first half of the twentieth century. But as one in a long line of scholars, she shares those immigrants’ … Read more
As American as July 4th — on May 5th
It’s true that Cinco de Mayo is more popular and more celebrated in California than in Mexico, where the Battle of Puebla that it commemorates actually took place. But contrary to popular belief, that is not because of U.S. Latinos’ flimsy grasp of history, says David Hayes-Bautista. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Hayes-Bautista, an … Read more
Going East: Remembering a Different Kind of Immigrant Experience
They were just children, and to them, Angel Island was a place of uncertainty, boredom, sadness and separation. For myriad reasons, they had signed on to cross the Pacific Ocean by boat and emigrate to the place they had been told was Gim San, the “Golden Mountain”– the name Chinese on the mainland used to … Read more
Dia de los Muertos the Way They Do It Back Home
This year’s ¡Vivan los Muertos! celebration at the Autry, on Saturday, will carry what you could call a Oaxacan seal of approval. Rogelio Santibañez Arellanes, cultural promotion director for the state government of Oaxaca, Mexico, was on hand all this week as a consultant to help guide the celebration. “I come to make the offerings … Read more
A Latina Writer With Something to Say About Immigration — and Motherhood
Recently I asked the writer Melinda Palacio whether Latino writers still have something to say in 2011. The question is somewhat rhetorical, but she knew what I was referring to: through the 1980s and 1990s, it seemed like every new literary star was a Latino, and readers clamored for any novel with a slightly exotic … Read more
Reyna Grande — Mexican Past, American Present
Updated May 11 — Author Reyna Grande looks off into the middle distance while she thinks about an interviewer’s question. She is mentally traveling in familiar but painful territory, and she seems to want to make sure she picks the correct words. She is in no hurry to answer. Grande, who was at the Autry … Read more
No Passport Necessary: How Filmmakers Negotiate the U.S.-Mexico Border
Updated Feb. 28 – Hollywood’s preeminence in film often makes it seem as if a sophisticated movie culture can only flourish in Los Angeles. But from their beginning in the early 20th Century, movies proved a creative outlet for storytellers both around the world and next-door, in Mexico. Mexican and American filmmakers in particular always … Read more
