Film

REVIEW: This Doc on Mexico’s Private Ambulances is a Frightening Look at a Broken Healthcare System


A still from Midnight Family by Luke Lorentzen, 

an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition

 at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. 

Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Luke Lorentzen

By Manuel Betancourt

“In Mexico City, the government operates fewer than 45 emergency ambulances for a population of 9 million. This has spawned an underground industry of for profit ambulances, which are often run by people with little or no training or certification.” That is the context we’re offered by Luke Lorentzen’s documentary Midnight Family. It’s a mind-blowing statistic and one which colors everything that follows. Opting for a cinema verité style, Lorentzen’s follows the Ochoa family as they work sleepless nights in the cramped private ambulance they operate. Offering little to no contextual info, we see them scouring emergency calls to find potential patients/clients. A static camera in front of the ambulance gives us as objective a view of the proceedings as possible, while Lorentzen, usually in the back of the ambulance with his camera, is often running around capturing the boys in action while they clean blood off their equipment, carry patients onto the back of the ambulance, and later deal with hospital bureaucracy and family members to secure whatever meager earnings they can muster.

“Is this expensive?” That’s the first question a young woman utters when the Ochoa family’s ambulance crew arrives to help her. She’s bleeding, crying, and a tad disoriented. Those treating her ignore her question, urging her instead to tell them how she got her head wound (an angry boyfriend who’s fled the scene), whether she has insurance (she doesn’t) and if she agrees to have them contact her family (they end up calling her mother). “Is this expensive?” she pleads again. The question hangs in the air and everyone’s decision to not answer her point-blank feels like an answer in itself. That silence over the cost of the ambulances’ services gets at the tricky and oft-unsavory ethical issues at stake in running a private ambulance service — especially one which, as we slowly learn, gets a cut from a specific (private) hospital when they deliver patients there.

A still from Midnight Family by Luke Lorentzen, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Luke Lorentzen

Juan, the young, entrepreneurial sixteen year-old who seems intent on making this family business a legit one, tells the camera over and over again that he doesn’t understand why people (including the police in several instances) wouldn’t just agree to be helped and pay them in turn. Government ambulances aren’t showing up and they’re just trying to make a living. Why would people be concerned with their legality or their expenses at times when their lives are literally on the line? He doesn’t get it. It’s obvious that Lorentzen does. Moreover, the Connecticut-born director nudges us to consider both the system that’s allowed these kinds of services to pop up in such a populous city, as well as the one that’s left Juan and his family with few other opportunities to thrive.

Juan may want his little brother to go to school (the latter refuses since he doesn’t have a pencil let alone a backpack) but he more often than not indulges him, bringing him on late-night runs where he tucks himself in the back of the ambulance. It’s arguably a choice that does as much to show how close the family is, as show just how ill-equipped the operation is when a 9 year-old is a stowaway in the backseat.

Lorentzen’s filmmaking is unfussy and near-surgical in its precision. At times it’s as thrilling as any action movie, at others as quiet as an intimate family drama. He balances reckless car chase scenes on nighttime streets where dueling ambulances try to be the “first” on the scene with gentler moments at the furniture-less home. That he doesn’t crowd the movie with talking heads or factoids about Mexican health care, speaks to his desire to merely document and observe. He offers up the Ochoas and their behavior and invites us to make our own judgments. Hard to watch, with an unspoken message that’s even harder to swallow, Midnight Family is an unflinching look at a broken system and the unseemly choices people make to merely survive.

Midnight Family screened as part of the Sundance Film Festival.

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Film

REVIEW: In ‘Sea of Shadows’ Documentary, a Journalist Uncovers a Fishing Cartel Who’s Killing the Endangered Vaquita


A still from Sea of Shadows by Richard Ladkani, official 

selection at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy 

of Sundance Institute.

By Monica Castillo 

There’s always a staple documentary with an environmental message in the mix of 100 plus movies playing at the Sundance Film Festival. A few years ago, the festival premiered the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, and a decade earlier, it screened the controversial documentary The Cove, which showed the plight of dolphins hunted off the coast of Japan. They are movies with a purpose, agitprop for nature made to move its audiences with a heartbreaking story and perhaps inspire some action on its subject’s behalf.

Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, Sea of Shadows is a documentary with a sense of urgency, a complicated story that spans several countries and features a cute animal whose precarious fate hangs in the balance. The movie is about the last remaining vaquitas in the wild, a rare and delightfully sweet looking sea creature that also happens to be the world’s smallest species of whale. There has never been a successful attempt to keep a vaquita in captivity, so as the numbers dwindle from less than 50 to barely more than a baker’s dozen, the pressure’s on to save the animal from extinction.

However, the vaquita’s story is not so simple. Off the coast of Mexico in the Sea of Cortez where the vaquita calls home, the precious few left in the wild are caught in illegal nets set up by Mexican cartels for another rare fish, the totoaba, whose bladder are so prized by the Chinese mafia, the fish has become known as the “cocaine of the sea.” The movie dives into these murky waters with advocates and journalists for an extensive look at how conservationists, local fishermen, and the Mexican government are working to save the vaquita while trying not to disrupt the delicate ecosystem above and below the Sea of Cortez.


The Sea of Cortez is under attack. Join the journalists, fishermen, environmental activists, and military members fighting to save it. https://t.co/rhQ67HS0gg #CuttheNet #SeaofShadowsFilm #VaquitaUndercover pic.twitter.com/BvvitOdcRz

— Sea of Shadows (@seaofshadowsSOS) January 30, 2019



Director and cinematographer Richard Ladkani, whose previous documentary The Ivory Game and Sea of Shadows were both executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, fashions the story into something more thrilling than your typical nature doc. There are blurred out faces, voice scramblers and secret meetings in this quest to save the vaquita. The editing moves at a rapid-fire pace, switching between the different sides of the narrative swiftly, highlighting the short amount of time left to save the vaquita from certain doom.


One of the most striking features of Sea of Shadows is the film’s sleek cinematography. If it weren’t for the film’s ominous music, its sweeping drone shots of the nearby cactus-filled desert and aqua green sea water would look like a travel ad for the town of San Felipe. Unfortunately, the documentary quickly informs the audience that not everything is as it seems in this sleepy fishing village now that the cartels have taken an interest. Ladkani seems to use the latest digital cameras and drones to create images that are beautifully sharp, and he takes great care to capture the area’s natural warm light bouncing off the blue sea and the bright floodlights hitting to the darkened ocean at night. Even hazy night sequences of missions to stop illegal fishing look crisp and are edited to enhance the suspense.


Gulf of California patrol vessel trying to protect critically endangered vaquita is attacked by poachers illegally fishing for totoaba. Vaquita become entangled in totoaba gill nets and drown. #fisheries #EndangeredSpecies pic.twitter.com/aKbx0dbkD2

— Bill Manci (@FTAFishNews) February 4, 2019


There are a number of nail-biting scenes in the movie, but perhaps none of them hit as hard as the Mexican government-sanctioned attempt to set up a vaquita rescue center in the middle of the ocean. A passionate veterinarian from the States is among the crew trying to successfully capture a vaquita to save in captivity. This bittersweet moment gives the audience perhaps its very first look at the rare species, but things don’t go according to plan. The music stops, and all that’s heard is the teams’ frantic pleading with a vaquita to hold on while they attempt CPR.

That’s just one thrilling moment of many in Sea of Shadows, which snagged enough votes to win this year’s audience award in the world cinema documentary competition at Sundance. Not long after its award announcement, National Geographic bought the documentary so that many more viewers will hear of the vaquita’s cautionary story. While the movie’s message may come too late to save the vaquita, Sea of Shadows may still raise awareness about the plight of other sea creatures still under threat from illegal nets sweeping the bottom of the ocean, killing everything unfortunate enough to swim in its wake.

---30---

WALTER MERCADO
PUERTO RICO'S LGBTQ ACTIVIST ASTROLGER REMEMBERED 

THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE PR GOVERNMENT 
Film

Sundance Film Festival to Premiere Documentaries on Walter Mercado & Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Dad


Courtesy of HistoryMiami Museum

By Vanessa Erazo |


The Sundance Film Festival is set to premiere some high-profile documentaries in 2020. The audiences in Park City, Utah, will be the first to screen projects about two legendary Puerto Ricans: Walter Mercado and Luis Miranda.

Directed by Cristina Costantini and Kareem Tabsch, Mucho Mucho Amor focuses its lens on the world-famous astrologer. The festival’s synopsis describes the trajectory of the movie as: “Raised in the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, Walter grew up to become a gender-nonconforming, cape-wearing psychic whose televised horoscopes reached 120 million viewers a day for decades before he mysteriously disappeared.” It will likely be a bittersweet screening since Mercado did not live to see his documentary premiere.

Siempre, Luis from director John James follows Luis Miranda (the father of Broadway scribe Lin-Manuel Miranda) in his “improbable journey from Puerto Rico to the halls of power.” The documentary will chart his life and career as a political activist and strategist including bringing the cast of Hamilton to Puerto Rico for a performance of the award-winning musical after Hurricane Maria hit the island. Lin-Manuel, naturally, is set to appear in the film.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is also involved with another documentary screening at the festival. We Are Freestyle Love Supreme chronicles the 15-year journey of the founding members of an improv hip-hop group. Lin-Manuel acts as a producer and is a subject of the project alongside Thomas Kail, Anthony Veneziale, Christopher Jackson, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Chris Sullivan.

It’s going to be a very Puerto Rican Sundance.


BREAK OUT YOUR WINTER CAPE CUZ OUR DOCUMENTARY ABOUT WALTER MERCADO IS GOING TO SUNDANCE!!!! https://t.co/Rfvqrwt69P pic.twitter.com/znOerou0F4

— Cristina Costantini (@xtinatini) December 4, 2019


Culture

“A Rainbow Amid the Gray”: Why We Welcomed Walter Mercado Into Our Lives for Decades


Art by Stephany Torres for Remezcla
Written by Raquel Reichard | 2 months ago

When news broke that Walter Mercado passed away on Saturday, November 2, Latines across generations were in mourning. For decades, the Puerto Rican astrologer spiritually advised our community with his lively yet warmhearted horoscopes. But beyond sending his messages from the stars, Mercado also influenced us by complicating masculinity with his flamboyant sense of style, teaching even our most religious elders lessons about acceptance as well as gender fluidity and expression and offering early representation to young queers of a joyous, loving unapologetic life outside dichotomous gender norms. At 87, Mercado was an icon, a man with an impact so wide and deep that it will undoubtedly outlive his physical time on earth.

We reached out to artists, astrologers, healers, writers, activists and everyday Latines to learn how the late Mercado influenced their own lives, professions and outlooks as well as Latine culture and experiences overall. From self-love and cosmological teachings to childhood Spanish lessons and memories tied to loved ones who have passed on, these are the many ways the community will remember and carry Mercado’s light.

"A welcome respite from the images of masculinity I was told to emulate."

It’s hard to summarize the impact Walter Mercado had on me and so many other young, queer Puerto Ricans. I was bad at sports (particularly baseball) early on, which felt like such a disappointment to my parents. I was a really expressive child drawn to performance and the arts, which usually prompted my dad to tell me to act more like a “macho” in public. But Walter was a welcome respite from the images of masculinity I was told to emulate. Here was this astrologer with giant capes, glittering broaches and broad hand gestures — a man who embraced the campiness, magic and mystery that existed all around us. He never identified as a queer person, but he seemed to reject the machismo that I felt constrained my own magic. And my family loved him! He was a staple in our home every week. No one could speak while Walter was on — there was a reverence for his craft, for his performance, in my home that I felt gave me permission to be a little more me. Perhaps by accident, this dancer-turned-telenovela-star-turned-astrologer became my patron saint — and a source of joy for so many other young Latinx weirdos who looked at him and saw infinite possibilities outside what we’d been told was the norm.

– Gabe Gonzalez, Journalist


"He was all colors."
As a young pisces, I spent hours looking for inner and spiritual guidance. Walter Mercado was definitely one of my go-to people who I felt really knew and understood me. I remember being 14 years old and reading his horoscopes and predictions for the new year, which led me to develop an interest in astrology. Later in my life, astrology found me and I had the opportunity to study it professionally in Colombia. That is when I understood Walter’s legacy. He had to create a character in order to bring light to astrology in a world that understood little about it. He knew the science behind astrology. He was genius in knowing what to do to really make a stand in order to break all standards in Puerto Rico, Latin America and the U.S. He was all colors, non-binary, gave legit astrological predictions, was respectful, inserted love into all of his work and truly cared for people. Thanks to Walter, a lot of us never felt alone.

I had the opportunity to get to know Walter while collaborating on a project a couple of years ago. He was so loving and validating. We shared our views on astrology and talked about our spiritual gurus, including Carl Jung, one of my favorite psychology theorists. And while talking about the unconscious and how astrology had so much to say about connections, we found out that we both shared the same birthday, which is March 9. Thanks to Walter, now young astrologers like myself have the opportunity to practice astrology as a profession. There is still a long way to go to further his legacy and continue to educate the masses about the value of astrology as a human science.

– Dr. Veroshk Williams, Puerto Rican astrologer and psychologist


"Accepted us before many of us knew how to accept ourselves."

Walter Mercado gave me a look into a spiritual world that helps me understand myself and those around me with compassion more than any organized religion ever offered me. Walter Mercado broke many barriers, but, for me, a Mexican-Salvadoran, his most important one was being Puerto Rican at the top of his game in a U.S. Latinx media industry that heavily favored and catered to the Mexican community. Astrology has been gaining popularity among millennials, especially those who belong to the queer community, but for many queer Latinxs, our relationship with these two intersected worlds began with him. The beauty of Walter Mercado for queer Latinxs like me is that I experienced his queer, non-binary astrological magic alongside problematic Catholic matriarchs whom we were too afraid to come out to. This pisces Puerto Rican angel accepted us before many of us knew how to accept ourselves. QDEP, Walter Mercado, y con mucho mucho mucho amor.

– Delma Catalina Limones, Communications Professional and Writer 

"A loving contribution and source of light."

Walter Mercado was not just a household name, or an icon, his horoscopes were considered gospel. My Dad, a Capricorn who wasn’t the biggest on astrology, even respected the moment of silence taken when Walter came on the TV. I spent a lot of time going to Miami in high school to visit my abuelita, especially while she was undergoing treatment for cancer. These times were hard but also so special to me. We would watch Laura, novelas and more for hours at a time. When Walter Mercado came on, though, it was almost its own ritual: We would listen to the horoscopes, and then she would provide me with further insight about mine. We both admired Walter’s wardrobe, and I personally lived for the fact that Walter always had a face that was beat by the cosmos themselves.

I felt seen for a number of reasons by Walter: a practitioner who had created their own lane, a Bori at that; one who embodied the giving kind heart of Boricua culture (con mucho mucho mucho amor!); one who didn’t conform to what was deemed “masculine” or “feminine” but created their own spectrum of existence in regards to that. As someone who has always operated on a spectrum when it comes to sexuality and gender expression, seeing someone who was spiritual do the damn thing unapologetically inspired me in ways I will never be able to thank Walter enough for. Those moments with my abuelita will always be cherished, and anytime I heard Walter Mercado, I was taken right back there.

Walter Mercado truly was a loving contribution and source of light in the lives of all reached. Whether with his on-point horoscopes or the memories we created around them, we’ve gained an ancestor who is a shining light. The transition of death will not change that — no matter how broken our hearts are by the loss at this time. Thank you for everything, Walter Mercado.

-Emilia Ortiz, Bruja, Healer and Mental Health Advocate


"A rainbow amid the gray."

We remember how confused yet intrigued we were when, as kids, Walter Mercado would come on Channel 47 to translate what the stars communicated to him. As Dominicans, his colorful capes and feminine demeanor were attributes we were not accustomed to seeing on someone perceived to be a man. Regardless of the socialized confusion, our hearts grew fonder of this charismatic person who seemed to have a way with words. Walter Mercado was like a rainbow amid the gray of the 6 o’clock news. His segments, though short, always left us with a sense that “everything is gonna be all right.” Walter Mercado proved to us that being yourself, being a bruja, was magical. So in learning of his passing, the brujas were a bit shocked but mostly at peace. We know that a supernova star now sits among the constellations in the sky. Gracias, Walter Mercado. Con mucho mucho amor y que brille para el la luz eterna.

– Griselda and Miguelina, Brujas of Brooklyn

"It was OK to live authentically and with flare."

As a young kid, I would see Walter Mercado on TV wearing glittery jackets or colorful gowns, big rings and a soft beat. Before I could name my queerness and embody a trans femme identity, Walter Mercado showed me that it was OK to live authentically and with flare. He inspired us to look to the stars for answers, introducing astrology to so many of us baby queers. For a whole generation of Latinxs, despite all the things we may have been going through, his message of living in abundant love allowed us to access peace in that moment.

– Aldo Gallardo, Trans Activist 

"He was also an icon."

“Shhh, mi horoscopo,” is what my mother would say when Walter Mercado would finally show up on the TV screen once Primer Impacto was over. I knew not to utter a word and risk my mom missing her horoscope. Growing up, Walter Mercado’s spiritual advice and predictions were king and queen in our home. He didn’t just represent the mystical truth straight from the stars; he was also an icon. His very presence pushed social norms and gender nonconformity as he rocked sequins-filled capes, shiny makeup and oozed of flamboyant confidence. I’m grateful for his presence in our home, not just for reinforcing the messages from the stars but also giving me hope there would be space for me to step out of the box and be my own colorful self in even the most non-traditional ways. Tu presencia me ha dado mucho esperanza para el futuro, Walter Mercado, que descanses con las estrellas.

Cindy Y Rodriguez, Journalist, Bruja and Founder of Reclama

"The patron saint of Boricua brujxs."

Walter Mercado was a formative part of my childhood. Afternoons spent on my abuela’s plastic-covered sofa somewhere in East Harlem, sitting through hours of semi-decipherable news and novelas where the words washed over me, Walter was a sharp departure, a magical daily interruption of silk and sparkle with messages from the divine. The moment of focus required when he would finally announce “SA-GI-TARIO!” felt like all of a sudden the world stopped and this magical being was speaking directly to me and I could suddenly understand Spanish. Then I’d look up and realize all the women in my house, who were fluent, were just as affixed. May Walter Mercado join the pantheon of our egun as the patron saint of Boricua brujxs with full pomp and regalia, a spectacular new cape and the never-ending knowledge that because of his spirit and offerings, the world was left better, more open to magic, flamboyant clairvoyance, unabashed fluidity of human expression, reverence for honest direct messages and, above else, of course, mucho mucho amor.

– Chiquita Brujita, Bruja, Performance Artist and Candle Maker


"The people’s astrologer."

The people’s astrologer. One of my clearest memories as a child is growing up during the war in El Salvador with the news on at all times. It was exhausting, but for a few minutes, among the constant chaos, Walter Mercado came on our TVs talking to us about the stars, our signs and our outlook. He always ended it basically saying that regardless of anything to do everything with love. My love for astrology started as a little girl watching him in his non-conforming glory. His unapologetic disregard of expectations taught me more than I realized growing up. Rest in peace, sweet pisces.

– Johanna Toruño, Artist, Unapologetic Street Series

"One of my first metaphysics and cosmology teachers."

“As a baby queer and baby empath, I remember how much comfort I felt during Walter’s segments at home. It was something we didn’t talk about too much but that we watched as part of our evening routine. I remember being drawn to Walter’s passion, tone and body language. Although as a young queer person I didn’t have the language for it, I appreciate how he brought gender nonconformity into our home unapologetically. I looked forward to his outfits, the colors, the backgrounds of the segments and the jewelry he adorned himself with. Walter was one of my first metaphysics and cosmology teachers. He inspired me to look at the stars, to wonder, to know that the world was so vast and that it extended beyond the physical realm. He taught me that everything was connected and that everything was impacted by everything else, a teaching that has expanded so much in my life and that I deeply thank him for.”

– Berenice Dimas, Herbal Educator and Creator of Bruja Tip


"He will never be forgotten."

My earliest memory of Walter Mercado is my mother watching Spanish television and this superhero-looking person appearing on the TV. My mom would quickly hush me to be quiet because her horoscope was about to be read by Walter Mercado. This was a consistent accordance in our home. Mami would make sure to listen to not only her horoscope but that of her four kids and friends.

Walter was more than an astrologer. He was a low-key brujo who had all of our abuelas, mothers, tías, sisters and maybe even your dads and tíos acting like they’re not into astrology but inconspicuously listening to their readings. Because of his iconic status in our community, I dropped a sweater with the words blazing “Walter Mercado is my Spiritual Advisor” as a homage to the mystical figure five years ago.

At a time when astrology seems to be a trend, with apps like Co – Star, The Pattern and the occasional astrology chatter on Twitter, we can’t forget the godfather. For a man to die at the age of 87 and still be culturally relevant speaks to his impact. He will never be forgotten.

– M. Tony Peralta, Contemporary Artist and Designer
walter mercado. Monday, November 4, 2019 at 5:52 PM EST

The Tributes Pour in After News of Walter Mercado's Death


Film

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5 Walter Mercado Books to Read When You're in Need of Spiritual Guidance


21 Walter Mercado Illustrations That Shine as Bright as the Spiritual Adviser


Culture

9 Walter Mercado Outfits That Were Truly Out of This World

Art by Stephany Torres for Remezcla
By Ecleen Luzmila Caraballo | 2 months ago

Whoever said a jack of all trades is a master of none wasn’t Latino, and they certainly did not know of Walter Mercado Salinas. Aside from being an esteemed astrologer, Mercado was a dancer, writer, actor and – a qué no lo sabías – a recording artist. According to reports from the early ‘90s, music was amongst the Puerto Rican legend’s bright and varied armory of responses to this thing called life. Albeit a brief dance with the art form, his contribution is yet another gift to us all.

He always kept the main thing the main thing, though. In fact, the underlying higher purpose in even pursuing music in the first place was to further refine his craft. “The songs will help my astrology,” the iconic gender non-conforming household name told the Orlando Sentinel in 1992. “I am not leaving one for the other.”

A quick search makes it seem like the album itself (rightfully titled Walter Mercado, the album) never existed. Throughout the decade in which the album came to life, Mercado rolled out a series of guides and horoscopes as collections via Sony Music. His soothing voice served as one of reason and peace with insight on everything from signs of love to how to attract more money and more.

His album, it seems, was a way to share parts of himself beyond what we knew from his televised readings. It includes a salsa number dedicated to the island that raised him. “Sueño Con Volver” is a testament to his love for his homeland of Puerto Rico.


“Nunca te olvido isla mía, tu eres parte de mi ser,” he sings. “Sueño con volver… a la tierra del amor (a Puerto Rico)/donde siempre brilla el sol (a Puerto Rico)/donde todo es paz y amor (a Puerto Rico).”


Unsurprisingly, Mercado shone on this medium as much as he did any other.

“It has been a new experience,” he said, “like giving birth to a child, like giving birth to something beautiful.”

And with that, Walter Mercado leaves behind more than one message we won’t soon forget.

Como soñamos que volvieras, Walter. Que en paz descanse.

Culture

From Dance & Song to Film & Art: How Chilean Protesters Uplift Their Struggles


Women sing and perform during the demonstration and performance 
of 'Un Violador en Tu Camino' organized by feminist group Lastesis on 
November 29, 2019 in Santiago, Chile.
 Photo by Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images


Written by Mónica Ramón Ríos | 3 weeks ago click headline to go to
original article with videos and instagram pics 
The voices on the streets of Chile speak loud and clear: there is no turning back. What started as a high school student-led protest against a rise to the subway fare on October 17 has now become a popular process that pushes for the structural transformation of Chilean society to end neoliberalism. The process has been sparked by the calls to strike, on an almost daily basis, from different civil groups, including worker unions, high school student federations, university student associations, feminist organizations and by a span of guilds of cultural workers. Among the masses gathering on the streets to take down colonial and patriarchal monuments and people congregating in asambleas and cabildos all over the country and in communities abroad are artists who are using culture to push their vision of justice forward.

What used to be an art system organized around state institutions, conservative media, private galleries and markets has now found a new site of legitimacy: the streets. Many new forms of art have appeared, and many artists that were in the underground have surfaced as the creators of new metaphors in line with the temperature of the Chilean spring: enraged, hopeful, playful, celebratory and revolutionary.

As international groups conclude that the Chilean government is guilty of committing human rights violations and President Sebastián Piñera attempts to right wrongs with a series of measures, artists are uplifting the people’s struggle and illuminating the diversity that was breeding in the undergrounds of the shallow Chilean oasis.

Feminist Performances

During the first days of the protest, performance artist Cheril Linett, along with her collective Yeguada Latinoamericana, took the streets with a series of three performances under the title Estado de Rebeldía. In her usual style, Linett situates highly aestheticized bodies in abject situations. On this occasion, a group of young women stride the streets with skirts rolled around their waists shoving mares’ tails in front of armed police, military groups, barricades and government buildings.

Not far away, visual artist Rocío Hormazábal worked against social stereotypes of beauty to cast a light over the systems of oppression. With her collaborator Zaida González, she defied curfew and, under the banner of “Piñera me empelota,” Hormazábal got naked between a barricade and a group of armed police. On November 25, she posed in a bikini in the Plaza de la Dignidad declaring “Por un verano sin Piñera.”

This was not the only feminist performance that has gone viral. Now more famously, the collective Las Tesis, started by Daffne Valdés, Sibila Sotomayor, Paula Cometa and Lea Cáceres, created a massive choreographed declaration about the subjugation of women in patriarchal society called Un Violador en Tu Camino. Since then, the song and dance have been performed by feminist groups protesting violence against women across the world, including Puerto Rico, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Spain, France, Germany and more. Ironically, the original choir of women who sang and danced the song in Chile were dispersed by the police.

Film Collectives
La Escuela Popular de Cine, created in 2010 by filmmakers Carolina Adriazola and José Luis Sepúlveda and currently led by the collective Feciso, teaches, produces and shows films in a peripheral circuit that does not include any established cinema chain or art house theater. While previously documenting the tomas in Lo Hermida and the student protests of 2011, today their YouTube channel has been uploading material that documents the social movement as experienced in working-class neighborhoods or that creatively denounces human rights abuses. Captured and quickly put into circulation, the camera conveys a sense of urgency as people confront the police or as communities gather to remember their compañeros assassinated by law enforcement.

Similarly, the Mapa Fílmico de un País, more popularly known as the MAFI collective, has been creating static single-shot snippets that are shared on their webpage and social media. Originating as topographic filmmaking to create another cartography of the national territory, their current films are shorter than two minutes and have a delicate, contemplative quality, whether they frame protesters in Plaza de la Dignidad, rural Chile or Paris.


Public Art


The streets have become a great canvas. Not only are the walls of downtown Santiago, the South American country’s capital, swarming in graffiti but mural art is also being reinvented. The large-scale paintings of the rebirthed Brigadas Ramona Parra, the iconic art collective of the communist youth that embellished the capital city during the 1960s and early ‘70s, have created other messages in their distinct, colorful style.

Similarly, artist Miguel Ángel Castro has given a new interpretation to the emblematic Pablo Picasso painting Guernika. Hanging in several parts of the city, Castro intervenes Picasso’s original with imagery of the subway and names the people who have been killed these past weeks.

Additionally, to protest the precarization of life, on October 22, various groups of architecture students co-created a striking intervention titled Por un Habitar Seguro. By drawing the plans of social housing on the concrete streets, they showed the precarious living conditions forced on the population by neoliberalism and unregulated construction businesses.

But paint and chalk have not been the only medium. Since the first week of the protests, the masses that gathered in Plaza de la Dignidad saw messages projected onto one of the iconic buildings of neoliberalism in Santiago, Edificio Telefónica, with potent laser beams. The design and large-scale light art studio Delight Lab colored the protests with messages taken from the streets, such as “Dignidad,” “Constitucion 2020” and “No Estamos en Guerra.” On November 12, they projected an image of Camilo Catrillanca, a Mapuche community leader who was killed by officers last year, onto the National Congress. The messages were so effectively conveyed that the action was replicated around the world, with Chilean communities abroad projecting messages onto buildings in Shanghai, Madrid, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin, Paris, San Juan, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Quito, Ciudad de México and New York under the collective title of “Mensajes Para Chile.” 



Digital Art

Visual artists and illustrators have been capturing the various emotions in the streets and quickly responding to events through social media hashtags. That is the case of visual artist Nicolás Grum, who started by uploading a previous work titled La balada del Paco Arrepentido. Other works, in the form of short messages, have followed, highlighting the strategies of the government, as in the drawing Aritmética Social, and the repression suffered during the protests, like designing a mask with a patch over its eye.

Artist and filmmaker Joaquín Cociña, who suffered minor wounds due to a rubber pellet during a pacific protest, took a special interest in the blinding of young people, a strategy that has become a metaphor to counteract the slogan “Chile despertó.” By making a short and effective black-and-white animation, Cociña thinks about what it means to lose an eye as a visual artist. In the end, the face that is blinded acquires an enraged expression, readying to fight.

Cociña´s collaborator Critóbal León, who is also an artist and a filmmaker, uploaded a video collage where we see the head of Jaime Guzmán, the right-wing ideologue of the Constitution of 1980 and former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s personal counselor. In his usual third-world gothic style, León allows Guzmán’s head to speak while laying on a laboratory that keeps him unnaturally alive. The video humorously expresses today’s events as continuity with the dictatorship.


Dance & Song


Classical dancer Catalina Duarte performed a piece during a protest. Dressed in red and holding a Chilean flag, a photograph by María Paz Morales catches her in front of the guanacos, or water guns, just before the repression.

But not all the artistic expressions that have emerged during the protests have an author. Many impromptu performances quickly become the property of all. That is what happened to the cueca encapuchada — performances of the cueca, Chile’s national dance, while hooded. During the Pinochet dictatorship, women performed La Cueca Sola to protest the disappearance of their loved ones. Today, couples are dancing to Chile’s official dance wearing capuchas, or hoods, to cover their faces in an effort to disguise their identities and protect themselves from tear gas after they were banned by the government.

Certain songs have become emblematic of the movement, as is the case of Víctor Jara’s El Derecho de Vivir en Paz, originally written in solidarity with the people of Vietnam, and El Baile de los Que Sobran, originally written to express the rage of young people who had been left out of the economic prosperity. Today, both songs are chanted throughout the protests and sung by everyone who feels that they can protest the precarity imposed by neoliberalism. 

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Culture

This Book Teaches Young Readers How to Honor Their Menstrual Cycle the Andean Way

(FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF THE FEMINIST WITCHCRAFT BOOK 
MOON, MOON WHICH INCLUDED A MENSTRUAL RITE)


Art by Stephany Torres for Remezcla

By Sol Mirandx | 3 weeks ago

Parents looking for playful ways to talk to their child about menstruation can find a gentle but wise compass in the new picture book Tribu de Mujeres. With warm-hearted illustrations, Ecuadorian academic and menstrual educator-turned-author Paulina Vásquez Quirola takes readers on a fantastical trip between awakened states and lucid dreams in a girl’s reconciliation with her changing body. Hopping from classroom scenes, where periods are shamed, to vibrant celebrations in mystical women’s circles, the book offers a tender critique and a colorful alternative to the cultural stigma that still predominates family circles and schools when it comes to periods.

“This book empowers girls.”

The loosely autobiographical picture book, wondrously illustrated by José Rafael Delgado, sees a hopeful future for the ancestral wisdom of the Andes transmitted by elderly women like its protagonist, Abuela Killa. When passed on from one generation to the next, young people learn that menstruation reveals the creative urge and cyclic nature of all living beings and life itself.

At a time when sex education in the U.S. and across Latin America still filters through the conservative principle of abstinence, despite high rates of teen pregnancies and sexual violence against minors, the book is refreshing and much needed.

Quirola, who is also the founder of Vientres Libres, a community that shares literature to help women and girls learn about their bodies shame-free, talks to Remezcla about the process behind her new book and everything we still need to learn and unlearn about menstruation and our cyclic being.

We have edited and condensed this interview for clarity.


Why did you want to write this book?


Illustrated by José Rafael Delgado. Courtesy of Paulina Vásquez Quirola.

My personal experience was partly the inspiration to write the book itself. I rediscovered my body about six to seven years ago through an illness that I had. It was like, Wow, what’s going on with my uterus? What’s going on with my cycle? Women are so disconnected because they don’t teach us from an early age to befriend our cycles. That, I think, is what we need to do. We know we have a uterus and we know that menstruation happens, but we live it as something tiresome, as something exhausting. So it’s like, shit, it came! It’s time again! When is it over? Many of us have that negative view of our cycle.

I wanted to make a connection to my cycle, and I discovered the importance of understanding ourselves cyclically, of understanding ourselves as part of nature, as part of a whole. I think that is one of the big issues. Modernity and the system in which we live makes us disconnect from ourselves, from others in the sense of community and nature, the universe, from something much bigger. We believe we are islands, including this separation we have from our own bodies. As Abuela Killa tells the girl Tamia, she is part of nature, of a dance of nature.

I found the contrast between the school and the dream state fascinating. At school, the girl Tamia learns to be ashamed of her menstrual cycle. In the state of sleep, Tamia experiences a rite of passage in a beautiful red dress and flowers in her hair, celebrated, honored and welcomed by other women for having her first period. Can you tell us why you included this contrast?


There are cultures where menstruation is lived differently, so the body is undoubtedly perceived differently across societies and time periods. It is not the same to perceive the cycles and the body from an Andean culture than from a more westernized and urban culture, or from the Afro or Arab traditions. Each society constructs bodies socially.


“Women are so disconnected because they don’t teach us from an early age to befriend our cycles.”

In that sense, I mixed two temporalities to make a contrast visible. I had an interview with an Indigenous leader of the Amazon who said that some 20 to 30 years ago, rituals were still performed with girls who had their first menstruation. Rituals were done because they are rites that help people move from one stage to another, as the term implies. They are important on social and psychological levels because they prepare a person to accept a change in a more organic way and accompanied by community.

In the second temporality, we see Tamia in her school. It refers to our western, urban, mestizo context. Here, you see these processes are invisibilized. There is a discourse on sanitation of the bodies in general, where she learns odors and overflows must be suppressed. Basically, her cycles have to be silenced, made invisible, tamed and sanitized.
In the end, Tamia finds answers to her concerns in the ancestral wisdom through the messages that Abuella Killa sends her. I think these processes of loving and understanding our bodies, as well as accepting ourselves, are important.

Why are these ideas about menstruation, shameful vs. sacred, so different?



Illustrated by José Rafael Delgado. Courtesy of Paulina Vásquez Quirola.

I believe, and in fact there is research that indicates, this is in part rooted in Judeo-Christianity. If you refer to religious texts, women are considered impure and even more when she is on her period, with messages that she has to get away from the community and is sometimes even forbidden to enter sacred temples.

But many Indigenous communities saw and see menstruation differently. Just look at our Valdivian culture, which settled on the Santa Elena peninsula for many years. Here, Venus de Valdivia figurines were created as a tribute to the importance of people’s reproductive capacity.

As Abuela Killa says in the book, menstruation “is the only blood that flows in the world without the need to hurt anyone.” It is a blood that expresses a flow of life and it is a sign that a person is fit to enter this circle of giving life. That, to me, is quite sacred. How does the book contribute to these times of global feminist awakening and uprising?


“Society being ignorant to menstruation has caused women harm.”

The awakening has been taking shape for some time now. Since the ‘60s, it has been making visible this premise that the personal is political. I believe that tradition is very important and that these struggles allowed women to do what we do now, including being able to write and have a voice in public. Similarly, this book empowers girls. If she can have a positive connection with her body now, then I think she is less likely to later experience bad self-esteem.

I think that there is a lot of work to be done with young girls. That is why I believe in the importance of women’s circles — mothers, grandmothers and aunts — their own tribe of women who can give them guidance, especially when they experience their first menstruation.

Why is it important that people who don’t menstruate also educate themselves in this?

I think it is important for both men and women that we educate ourselves in these issues because, well, we inhabit this world together. Society being ignorant to menstruation has caused women harm. Not long ago, women were treated for “hysteria” because of how misunderstood we were. The ignorance of the other, or the negative construction of the other, means that at some point they can be subjugated.

In Tribu de Mujeres, Abuela Killa shares the phrase, “you cannot love what you do not know.” I think it’s one of the most important teachings and orientations of the book. 

ecuador, latin american literature, Paulina Vásquez Quirola. 

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Film
TRAILER: This Brazilian Film Is an Ecological Thriller About Indigenous Rights, Women’s Rights & Deforestation


Courtesy of Strand Releasing
By Manuel Betancourt | 3 weeks ago

Watching the first few minutes of the latest trailer for the Brazil-set film Sequestrada, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a documentary. “Before my father,” an indigenous woman says as we see an Amazon landscape that looks untouched, “there were only 56 Arara.” Flashing before us are images of the day-to-day life of the Arara today: kids playing with a small boar, two young girls hacking away at a coconut, a couple rowing away on a canoe. But that life is about to change: they’re all slowly being displaced. The reason for such resettlement soon becomes clear: a dam is about to built in the area, which means that families who have lived in the Amazon basin for generations are now being treated as interlopers.

Directed by climate-change expert and producer Sabrina McCormick, and codirected by Korean filmmaker Soopum Sohn, Sequestrada focuses on three separate but interconnected stories. One follows a young Arara girl called Kamodjara (Kamodjara Xipaia) intent on protesting the dam who gets kidnapped by traffickers. Another follows Roberto (Marcelo Olinto), an indigenous agency bureaucrat overseeing a report that could change everything, and who finds himself under pressure to support the dam’s construction. The last follows Thomas (Tim Blake Nelson), an American investor in the dam who makes his way to Brazil to sway Roberto’s opinion.

Shot on location in Brazil, based on the real-life events behind the construction of the Belo Monte Dam, and featuring a number of nonprofessional actors, Sequestrada is an ecological thriller that wants to do more than tell a story. It wants to energize its viewers to realize the way fights for climate change, for indigenous rights, and for women’s rights aren’t mutually exclusive fights but deeply intertwined issues that ripple from the Amazon out onto the entire world. Check out the full trailer.

KAMODJARA and her father, CRISTIANO, leave their Amazonian reservation to protest a dam displacing her people. She gets separated and kidnapped by traffickers. ROBERTO, a high-level bureaucrat in the indigenous agency goes to the Amazon to help the tribes. THOMAS, a major American investor in the dam, goes to make sure the dam is approved. Roberto arrives in the Amazon and requests a prostitute. He is given Kamodjara. She is desperate to find her family again, and Roberto offers to help her. As Thomas gets embroiled in trouble with the indigenous people, Kamodjara begins to realize that Roberto doesn’t actually intend to return her to her family and she must escape.

CAST

Tim Blake Nelson
Kamodjara Xipaia
Marcelo Olinto
Gretchen Mol

SEQUESTRADA

"Gorgeously shot and thought-provoking, it’s a fast paced atmospheric drama, a brilliant collaborative work." - Roger Costa, Brazilian Press 

“Tim Blake Nelson and Gretchen Mol figure into this thriller, which concerns the impact of development of the Brazilian Amazon on the environment and on the life of an indigenous tribe.” - New York Times

Activists Fear Species Exclusive to Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands at Risk After 600-Gallon Oil Spill


A bird stands on lava rock in front of the town of 

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal island

 on January 15, 2019 in Galapagos Islands, 

Ecuador. Photo by Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images for Lumix

By Raquel Reichard | 1 week ago

About 600 gallons of oil spilled in the waters off the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador after a cargo vessel tipped over early Sunday.

Emergency teams are currently working to contain the spill on San Cristobal Island, an eastern island of the Galápagos.

According to the Ecuadorian Coast Guard, the spill occurred after a crane loading a large container onto a ship’s deck lost control, with the vessel falling onto the boat. In a video that captured the event, oil is seen gushing into the water while the crew jumps in after the ship begins to capsize. CNN reports that none of the sailors were injured.

The Galapagos is a UNESCO World Heritage site that boasts a varied and scientifically important ecosystem that’s home to species that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. On San Cristobal Island, for instance, there are sea lions, giant tortoises and finches.

While the impact on these species is still uncertain, the spill has caused outrage and worry among environmental justice groups, which have long fought to protect the volcanic Pacific Ocean archipelago. SOS Galápagos, an advocacy group, shared photos of the spill and called the activity that led to the incident “illegal and dangerous.”

During the 19th century, Charles Darwin did research on the Galápagos Islands that was critical to his theory of evolution.

Film

REVIEW: This Doc Is an Intimate Look at the Woman Who Created a Safe Haven for Trans Sex Workers in Rio

'Queen of Lapa' still courtesy of NewFest

By Manuel Betancourt | 

There’s a sense of welcome intrusion when you watch Queen of Lapa. Directed by married couple Carolina Monnerat and Theodore Collatos, this cinema verité documentary is a portrait of a community in the Lapa neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, led by actress, cabaret performer, activist and proud sex worker Luana Muniz. But rather than guide our journey into the tight-knit chosen family Luana has built within the trans sex worker community, Monnerat and Collatos ask us just to inhabit it. Their cameras feel like visitors that have been allowed into a safe haven that would otherwise have excluded them. Around us at any given moment are young trans women who, banished from their home and in need of financial security amid a world that so easily discards them, have turned to sex work to survive (and thrive, even). Luana, who’s been a proud sex professional since she was eleven years old, has carved a space for them in Lapa in a building she runs like a cross between a hostel and a commune.

Nearing 60 years old at the time of the shoot, Luana is arguably one of the most recognizable trans figures in Brazilian history. She handles herself with a regal demeanor that befits the title of Monnerat and Collatos’ film. She truly is the Queen of Lapa and is treated as such by the group of girls she mentors (just don’t call her a pimp, as she notes in the doc, she prefers the title of “agent”). Rather than show us Luana in all her glory — in photo shoots and stage performances, which the doc does eventually provide — Queen of Lapa is most interested in letting us live in her world for a while. Much of the documentary thus takes place not out in the dimly lit streets of Lapa, but in the hostel’s makeshift homey living room. It’s there where, in moments of candor between Luana and her girls, we get to hear about their day-to-day lives and get to witness the at-times petty, at-times sisterly bond these women share.

‘Queen of Lapa’ still courtesy of Factory 25.

It’s in that living room, flanked by picture frames that chronicle Luana’s larger-than-life career that she tells the camera, as if it were an old friend she’s having over for some late afternoon gossip, how she once was arrested on that very spot for shooting a thief who’d broken in. Unguarded in both her demeanor and her appearance (no makeup, a headscarf, comfy clothes that nevertheless show off the many breast implants she’s had over the years), she candidly talks about how she was taken into custody and manhandled by the police. As she was being interrogated and to fight the disrespect she faced from a police officer, she remembers calmly, she cut herself with an ashtray and yelled she had AIDS, cancer, syphilis, hepatitis — anything, really, so that everyone would step away from the blood she was now dripping all over. As with all the other anecdotes she shares throughout the doc, Luana is able to capture the angered frustration she felt at the time and the cunning she’s long had to resort to in order to survive. As shocking as the scene may read, for her it’s but one of many instances where her own dignity was left at the mercy of men who have long underestimated her and stripped her, in their eyes, of her own humanity.

Similar stories make their way into Queen of Lapa which roams the hostel rooms and finds Luana’s girls sharing anecdotes that paint a picture of the transphobia many of them have experienced. Their stories — about clients approaching them and asking them point-blank “Are you afraid of getting raped?,” about men stripping them and luring them into the woods, about near-death experiences and too-close-for-comfort assault attempts — are delivered with the same mundanity as Luana’s. For these girls — some of whom are saving up for breast implants, others for gender-reassignment surgery, some of whom openly enjoy the sex they have with their clients, some of whom disagree (“Real whores never feel pleasure with their clients”) — these anecdotes are everyday occurrences and Queen of Lapa doesn’t attempt to sensationalize their stories.

Instead they are moments that punctuate but don’t define their lives: after all, we see them enjoying themselves out on the streets (on Facebook Live feeds we get to see on screen) and we see Luana lighting up the stage during a performance of “Private Dancer.” This is no lurid doc where these trans sex workers are required to exploit their survival narratives in order to earn our sympathy. Instead, Monnerat and Collatos encourage us just to watch, to listen, to witness. And, as Luana hopes, to imagine a future that will be make her legacy live on even after she’s gone.

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FILM
REVIEW: ‘Nuestras Madres’ Is a Somber Drama on the Lasting Emotional Impact of Guatemala’s Civil War

Nuestras madres still courtesy of Perspective Films

By Kiko Martinez

How does someone move on with their life when so much of their past is left unresolved? It’s a question raised and, unfortunately, unanswered in Nuestras madres (Our Mothers), a lightweight film on a serious subject that deserved a more absorbing and expansive portrayal.

Coproduced by the countries of Belgium and Guatemala (Our Mothers is Belgium’s official submission for the 92nd Academy Awards in the International Film category), the drama explores the Guatemalan genocide that took place in the early 1980s during the country’s 36-year civil war. According to the Genocide Memorial Project, the Guatemalan government committed genocide against the Mayan population of Guatemala, destroying over 600 villages, killing 200,000 people and displacing 1.5 million more.

At the center of Our Mothers is Ernesto Gonzalez (Armando Espitia), a young forensic anthropologist whose job it is to exhume the remains of his fellow countrymen, women and children who were executed by their own government during the brutal conflict. Set in present-day Guatemala, the country has turned its attention to the trial of the military officers who started the civil war. While this trial serves as a backdrop, first-time feature writer-director Cesar Diaz, who lived in Belgium as teen but is of Guatemalan descent, pays little attention to the film’s historical perspective and, instead, revisits the atrocities from inside an emotionless vacuum.

Our Mothers begins with Ernesto puzzling together a human skeleton, piece by piece, on a firm slab. This is only one of many that he has dug out of a municipal cemetery. Although Ernesto’s supervisor makes it clear that his current project should be his top priority, he becomes sidetracked when an old woman, Nicolasa Caal de Sic (Aurelia Caal), asks for his help. She points him in the direction of a mass grave on private property where her husband was buried after he was tortured and then murdered by the Guatemalan military.

Because of his workload, Ernesto brushes her off at first, but is immediately intrigued when she shows him a photo of her husband, who happens to be standing next to a man Ernesto believes to be his guerrilla father, who disappeared during the war. Hoping to find out what happened to his father, Ernesto decides to follow Nicolasa’s tip and visit the mass grave without telling his mother Cristina (Emma Dib). When he visits Nicolasa in her village, Ernesto realizes he is no longer there just to unbury bones. He’s also there to dig up memories from other women in the village who have horror stories to share with him and to find closure for himself.

It’s during this section in Our Mothers where Diaz misses an opportunity to broaden the storytelling and identify some compelling recollections from these women whose lives were torn apart decades ago. Diaz doesn’t formally introduce any of them, but with the work of cinematographer Virginie Surdej, each of them is beautifully framed across wooden boards and their portraits are captured — elegant, indigenous faces weathered by years of emotional pain. All of them wear traditional and colorful huipils and cortes.

Although the women have come to “bear witness” to their experiences, we don’t hear from them. It’s evident Diaz wants each of their faces to tell their story, but without their voice — even if it was simply narrated — the chance to establish an authentic and firsthand connection to past events is lost. Regrettably, it’s not their specific stories Diaz is focused on. Our Mothers is really about Ernesto and the stake he claims to find out the truth behind the disappearance of his father. Later, it’s also about Cristina, the relationship she has with her son and the grim facts she has never been able to confess to him his entire life.

The ominous themes presented in the film are supported extremely well by Surdej, who creates interior scenes where shadows are cast on the characters. Whether it’s when Ernesto is in Nicolasa’s humble home sharing a cup of coffee or when he and his mother are staring out onto the shore contemplating their fears, the manner in which Surdej uses light and darkness speaks volumes to the details Ernesto still does not know.

Our Mothers, which won Diaz the Caméra d’Or Award (Best First Feature) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, leaves a lot to be desired from a historical and narrative aspect. As the lead character, Ernesto’s frustration is palpable throughout the film and the love he has for his mother is unmistakable, especially in the third act. Still, without historical context or a more profound approach at exorcising all the demons Diaz awakens, Our Mothers resembles the skeletal remains Ernesto pulls from the earth — brittle and incomplete.


Nuestras madres is Belgium’s submission for Best International Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. 

Best International Film Oscar, Cesar Diaz, movie review, nuestras madres.

Poet Laureate Luis Rodriguez's New Essay Collection Looks at the Growing Violence Against Latinos

Art by Stephany Torres for Remezcla
By Claire Jimenez | 5 days ago

Luis Rodriguez’s collection of essays From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings From a Native Xicanx Writer does not begin with his own words but rather those of a reader he overheard speaking about his 2003 short story collection The Republic of East LA: “You teach Mexicans a little English and now they think they can write books.” His latest book, slated to release on January 28, 2020, is a response to that comment.

The collection itself feels like a type of ars poetica. It is one writer’s reckoning with xenophobia and racism in the United States, but it is also a reflection of his relationship with language and how it has been shaped by activism, faith, pop culture and identity throughout the last four decades. By doing so, he explores the writer’s role in a world increasingly marked by racial violence and natural disaster.

Rodriguez is most known for his 1993 memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca, a reflection on his life growing up in the ‘70s surrounded by gang culture in East Los Angeles. These essays feel like a natural extension of that memoir. He writes about teaching in prisons, his work as a poet laureate and the violent racism he continues to experience despite his accolades.

He also writes about the examples of violent racism he experienced, for example, while in elementary school. In one brilliant passage, he shows how that brutality first taught him the power of language: “On my first day, I went from classroom to classroom because I couldn’t speak English and teachers didn’t want me among their students. A teacher finally let me stay, but she had me in a corner playing with building blocks most of the year. I’d pee in my pants since I didn’t know how to say I had to go to the restroom. Whenever a Spanish word left my mouth, I was punished, including being swatted by the school’s principal. I made the mistake one day of stepping into the kindergarten class my sister was in so I could pick her up. The teacher slapped me across the face in front of everyone.”

Throughout the collection, Rodriguez returns to one question: How, as writers, can we harness the power of language in order to heal? In Remezcla’s interview with the esteemed author and poet, he explains, “every time there’s a racist person, it challenges all of us to find the language to speak out and insist that we all belong.”


Here, Rodriguez talks about poetry as a radical healing act, the rasquache — a Nahuatl word meaning “creativity out of disorder” — writing style and reconnecting with earth, among much more.

In these essays, you often circle back to the argument that part of the reason why humanity is in crisis is because of our severed relationship with the earth. As a writer, how do you seek to address the anthropocene?

I think what’s important to point out is that we need to get back to some very strong alignments that we’ve lost as a “civilization,” and that is the language with nature. I mention it in my book. We’re disconnected. We’re taking too much from the earth. We’re poisoning the earth, water and land. We also have to have a connection with our own natures, the gift and beauty that people can bring into the world.

You mentioned that as poet laureate, you want to make poetry a radical and healing act. What do you think makes this artistic form apt for healing or inspiring change?



From Our Land to Our Land by Luis Rodriguez

What I like about poetry is that the shape of the poem is totally based on its content. I call it the language with the deepest capacity for soul talk, where you really get into something deeper within everyone. You’re not just talking from the head, even though there’s poetry that does that. You know, with poetry you can speak from any place you want, but it gets you to a [further] depth than other forms of language or expression do.

You speak of poetry’s unique way of escaping the trappings of capitalism because it is not easily monetized. There’s an interesting anecdote that you share where you describe you and famed Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros turning down money from Nike for an ad. What advice do you have for writers trying to balance the demands of living and trying to pay rent while also writing poetry?

Wow, that’s a great question. I think it’s one of the tensions we all have as writers and poets. How far do you go? I make a living doing this, so I have to constantly look at who’s giving me the money to get there. I mean, there’s one expression that says, “all money is tainted.” The idea then is if all money is bad, then you might as well take it. But I do think there’s some direct funding that I wouldn’t want to get. I wouldn’t want to get money from the oil and fossil fuel industries and I wouldn’t want to get money from big corporations that only want to use my image or my name to sell their products. However, let’s say it’s a product I really love, and I do that. OK then, I have to accept that responsibility. Right now, I can’t imagine doing that for any product. I know that my poetry has to speak for itself, whether there’s money coming out of it or not.

As poets, most of us don’t make any money. I happen to be a little bit more successful, but I also try to do it on my terms. I don’t want to compromise my basic principles just to make a little money. I hope I’m being clear, because obviously we all need money, but people have to have integrity. I think that’s what you teach the next generation that follows: Poetry has to have some type of integrity.


In one essay, you write, “To understand the Xicanx soul, which still claims facets of the Mexican soul, you have to understand rasquache.” You write that the term “originally from the Nahuatl language, literally means ‘by the seat of your pants,’ creativity out of disorder, doing the most with little.” You talk about how that shapes the Xicanx soul. How do you see that affecting your poetry and literature?

Rasquache is a concept that says every mistake is a new style. You risk making mistakes in art, and that’s an important thing that we’ve lost. We go to schools and we are taught by the best artists, and we’re losing that very authentic, real “I’m just putting stuff out there.” Maybe it doesn’t work, but that is part of the development of the art: make mistakes, fall into a pitfall, get up and figure out what you’re doing. I wrote lots of bad poetry. I did go to school and learned some things, but I didn’t really learn in school. I learned by writing. I learned by reading, by hanging out with poets and by picking up poetry books here and there. I began to see what’s out there. There were forms I was interested in, but I had to say, “This is rasquache. I’m just doing this.” I’m not saying that working isn’t a good quality for poetry — you have to be rigorous in what you’re doing — but I don’t think it means I have to write like other people or write in any particular way. I have to be true to my heart, my voice and my soul.

There are always Latino writers that are going under the radar and getting missed. Are there folk that you are reading that you would recommend for readers of Remezcla?

I mentioned Javier Zamora, a Salvadoran writer. There’s Erika Sánchez. Right now, I’m a judge for the Kingsley and Kate Tufts poetry prize, which is a large prize for poets in the country. I have like 40 books, so I’m reading all of this amazing poetry. They’re from all over the country and their voices are so diverse. Some of them are new voices and some of them are people who have been writing for years. It’s amazing to be swimming in this sea of poetry. I just love it. I can’t tell you who they are, because they’re being judged, but I will say they are some powerful, wonderful, fantastic writers coming out, young people and older writers, too. I’m very excited about where poetry is going.