ikeepmoving: Steven Lopez

steven lopez is another reason to love LA:

On Sade:

Lovers Redux from Steven Lopez on Vimeo.

With Erykah Badu:

Erykah Badu and Artist Steven Lopez collaborate for social change from Steven Lopez on Vimeo.

Ruben Salazar commemorated on a U.S Stamp

Way to go for the US Postal Service, now if only the rest of the nation recognized the work of Latinos and Latinas in the US.

During his career as a journalist, Salazar covered issues closest to him, his Mexican American community and the ongoing Chicano movement. He is recognized as one of the first journalists at the Los Angeles Times to cover issues pertinent to the Latino community in a comprehensive/unbiased manner.

He was killed on August 29, 1970 while covering the National Chicano Moratorium March. While seeking refuge from tear gas that was used by the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department to break up the protest, Salazar was shot in the head in short-range by a tear gas cannon.

Click here to read an LA Times Opinion about the stamp's unveiling.

Click here to read an award-winning essay by a high school student about Salazar's legacy.

Zoot Suit Boogie

Over the last six months I worked on a project for César Chávez celebrations on campus. My contribution was writing and editing a discovery guide for the theatrical production of Zoot Suit. The purpose of the guide was to introduce high school audiences to the context of the production—including everything from Immigration waves, Los Angeles history, to cultural language and customs of the time. *

Hailed as the first Chicano production to hit Broadway, Zoot Suit conflates events of the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial and the Zoot Suit Riots, which terrorized the Mexican American community in Los Angeles during the 1940s, in order to create a production that both uplifts and ignites social consciousness.

While the project gave me many headaches, as I dug deep to find everything from accurate information to photographs, plus figuring out how to make everything accessible for young minds, the one thing that pushed the project forward was this:


Little is written on the role of pachucas, women who donned the Zoot Suit attire, slang, and behavior of the 1940s. Yes, there are a few scholars who have written several scholarly pieces, who I can count on one hand: Catherine Ramírez, Elizabeth Escobedo, and Rosa-Linda Fregoso, but little attention is given to them in other forms of media. Zoot Suit, itself, was criticized for the masculinist portrayal of zoot suit culture.

The reality is that young women also dressed in full zoot suits, spoke in Caló (a dialogue referred to as pachuco slang--though it wasn’t slang at all, but an entire new language that Mexican American youth created out of their multi-cultural/lingual backgrounds), and hung out on street corners alongside their male counterparts. For the 1940s, this was seen as an extreme violation of social norms. Pachucas, seemed to care little about keeping a socially-accepted “feminine” appearance. Instead, they broke cultural and gender norms, forging an identity of their own.

Most def a source of inspiration.


[*In case you didn’t know, Chávez was a zoot suiter in his young life. This play is performed in honor to his life during an era of turmoil in the United States. Moreover, many of the people who contributed to the production of Zoot Suit, including the playwright, Luís Valdez, composer, Daniel Valdez, and the theatre trope, El Teatro Campesino, grew out of the Farm Workers Movement. Theatre, comedic satire, music, and dance were important tools used to organize people in support of the farm workers movement.]

If you do one thing this saturday....

do something that makes a difference. March!

This Saturday, March 8th, is International Women's Day. Activist groups in Los Angeles will be be participating in the first march in LA since 1994 to mark this day. This year's call is: "Against the War!"

But it's more than the war in Iraq, where women and children make up the majority of casualities, it is about the war women face on multiple levels and fronts everywhere in this world. It's about choice, poverty, health care, labor exploitation, immigration raids, violence, silence, femicide, impunity...

March for women's lives.

March for the women in your life.

Click here to find an event near you.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Tomorrow is Transgender Day of Remembrance. If you're in LA, join us at the Metropolitan Community Church. If you're elsewhere, get online and find out what's going on in your city!

Megacities and such

"Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash." - Morrow Mayo

"The ultimate world-historical signifiance -- and oddity -- of Los Angeles is that is has come to play the double role of utopia and dystopia for advanced capitalism." - Mike Davis

Southern Californ-i-a/ain't no place like this/half the stuff ya'll doin'/we created the shit" - People Under the Stairs

This New York cold has been feigning for some sun-dipped L.A. afternoons. I wouldn't call it homesickness so much as controlled nostalgia. I've been having some conversations with folks who grew up in the midwest and on the east coast and have never really been to LA. They ask me what I like so much about LA, and it's hard to put into words. I usually end up answering some weird combination of friends, sunshine, and open spaces, all of which is true, but it doesn't hit he mark. Los Angeles, with its carefully constructed neighborhoods, endless suburbs and gridlock traffic, is undeniably one of the biggest geographic commodities in the United States. And for that, people hate. It's like the latest HBO drama that's marketed to the cable-watching masses: some people become addicted, while others (the pop culture dissidents) try with all their might to resist. But since I don't know anyone who's indigenous to this land, what part of this country isn't a commodity?

Take New York, for instance. If L.A. is the pop culture enthusiasts love child, then New York has got to be its indy superstar counterpart. Both of these megacities show capitalism in its finest, yet because of admittedly better transporation planning, New York's contradictions are more in-your-face. Subway trains become, as critic Robin Kelley wrote about Birmingham buses in the 40's, traveling theatres that bare brazen witness to the cultural idocyncrasies of hypercapitalism and "-isms" it supports. Downtown train passengers are considerably whiter, dressed in buisness suits. The train's conductor calls out all the stops between Grand Aveneue and 125th Street, while the next half hour into the Bronx is a silent spectacle of mostly Black and Latino folks under 40. Meanwhile, the train ride itself is often met with someone who's homeless, or an underemployed youth, walking the isles begging for change while every other passenger pretends not to see or hear them. New York gets its G points for being gritty, but that grittiness often translates into a desensitized mass of people all flowing with the currents of the stock exchange and subway schedule.

But it's certainly not an "either/or" scenerio, I just get a little disturbed by the Cali-hating New York-centric's.

On the National Day of Panhandling for Reparations

It's the day before THE day and my partner-in-justice and I just finalized our panhandling location. The surge of excitement surrounding tomorrow drove me to blogspot, and here I am.

We'll be panhandling at the corner of Hyperion and Monon in Silverlake (in Los Angeles, CA). Right there, in front of the Trader Joe's. I'm excited because it affords me the justice I didn't know I needed.

See, I shop at this Trader Joe's every few weeks--it's where I get my Kashi Heart to Heart at $2.87 a box. Breakfast of champions. Seriously... those little hearts and Os are the perfect balance of wholesome, crunchy, and sweet...but I digress.

Every time I venture out from Koreatown to Silverlake--as liquor stores turn to coffee shops--my breath becomes labored from the thick smog of gentrification and hipster musk. Until now, I haven't had a way to interrogate this space--I've found myself shoved around like a pinball, bouncing from $200 matted hair-do to $200 matted hair-do inside this store, trying to get my hands on just ONE box of cereal and get the hell out!

Today I fully realized the opportunity to force the present into conversation with the past that panhandling for reparations provides. Tomorrow we will be looking history squarely in the eye, acknowledging its truth, and asking others to do the same. This is my opportunity to peacefully push back, to ask my hipster co-shoppers to take a second and locate themselves...or, at the very least, to make a reparations payment.

Day Laborers, prostitution, and "reform"

As immigration reform sits idly on the desks of American politicians, the pressure has only increased for many undocumented workers who are finding it even harder to get work in construction or agriculture. Many still gather early in the morning with hopes of landing work for the day, but instead of being offered traditional jobs, they're being offered cash in exchange for sex.

La Opinion initially broke the story, which was translated into english over at New American Media:

Their faces reflect how uncomfortable it is for them to talk about. On street corners where day laborers congregate, it’s no longer as easy to find work – but there are plenty of offers of sex for money. There is also a high incidence of workers being drugged and raped, something suffered by many, and hidden by all out of shame.

"The situation is happening more frequently. It happens more on the unorganized corners than in day labor centers, but the problem itself is widespread. It’s like a well-known secret that everyone knows and has experienced, but no one talks about,” explained Pablo Alvarado, national coordinator of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

As if the brutal seperation of families, downright racist exploitation and NAFTA weren't reason enough to hasten some sort of meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform in congress, now surfaces the dirty underbelly of just how> some of the nation's most vulnerable workers are being exploited.

La Opinon reporters took an all-up-in-that-face approach when investigating the story:

Of the group that continued negotiating, only the youngest got in the truck.

“What’s your motive for hiring day laborers?” La Opinión asked the two older white men as the worker settled into the backseat of the truck.

“Who are you? What’s this for?” the driver asked defensively.

Inside the vehicle, the worker looked scared.

“We are doing an investigation about people who hire workers for sex acts. What do you think about that?” La Opinión asked.

“I don’t know anything,” the driver answered and accelerated, clearing a path through a group of curious onlookers who were approaching the car.

Tongue to Tongue: Register NOW!!

http://www.tonguetotongue.org/

http://www.myspace.com/tongue2tonguela

If you're in the LA area, if you're a queer woman of color, if you're interested in issues of race, class, orientation, location, spirituality, immigration, education, gender, and many others, if you want to hear talks by Laura Harris, and Alice Y. Hom, see amazing visual art, watch stellar performances, and partake in poignant workshops, you MUST check this out.

STAND UP!!! LGBT and immigrant friends and allies, UNITE!

The vigil for Victoria was just postponed. It will take place ONE WEEK from today. Today's demonstration will focus on the recent deportation of Elvira Arellano which occurred yesterday at La Placita Church.

Elvira had been on a speaking tour of churches to raise awareness for the New Sanctuary Movement. She was leaving the church with her young son when ICE agents surrounded her and her car. She asked for a moment with her son, who remains in the US, and then she went with the federal agents to the Federal Building where she was subsequently deported the same night to Tijuana.

Tonight's vigil will be another in the long struggle for human rights and dignity against oppressive immigration laws. Elvira Arellano, as well asVictoria, highlight a system that has no regard for human life, nor demonstrates dignity and respect each human being. Radio pundits, federal spokespersons and wedge driving politicians will proclaim that laws were broken and the law must be upheld.

People who cherish freedom, civil and human rights and still believe in a system of justice understand that laws should be based on reality and compassion. Laws are man-made and can be re-made to reflect justice, humanity and fairness. We say laws that allow mothers to be separated from their children and laws that allow the denial of life-giving medication are unjust, inhumane and should be changed. We demand that change.

Brasilintime - LA Premiere

Tuesday, July 17, 2007, 7:30 pm
The Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Boulevard; Los Angeles, CA 90028
General: $10.00. Senior & Students: $8.00

From Wax Poetics:

Follow a group of North American percussionists (Paul Humphrey, Derf Reklaw, and James Gadson) and DJs (Cut Chemist, Babu, J.Rocc, Madlib, DJ Nuts) as they scan the sebos in Sao Paulo, in search of golden nuggets of Brazilian music. Sebos is Brazilian for "used record stores," and the protagonists in Brasilintime undergo a revealing journey through piles of aged vinyl, rediscovering classics such as Jorge Ben and Trio Mocoto, Tim Maia, Tony Tornado, and Azymuth, among others. This visually stunning documentary also features interviews with and performances by legendary percussionist Wilson das Neves, Joao Parahyba aka Comanche, and Ivan "Mamao" Conti. Directed by B+ and Eric Coleman.

The schedule:
July 17 :: Movie Premiere @ The Egyptian Theatre
July 18 :: Photo Exhibition Opening by B+ & Coleman @ Turntable Lab LA
July 19 :: The Concert! @ The Mayan :: Featuring: Paul Humphrey, James Gadson, Derf Reklaw, Babu, J.Rocc, Cut Chemist, Madlib and direct from Brasil João "Comanche" Parahyba, Ivan "Mamão" Conti & DJ Nuts.

Buy tickets here.

Support Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural

Growing up in the northeast San Fernando Valley, I always encountered a few problems that interfered with school work. But who hasn't, right? From finding a safe place to go after school to finding an available library with enough resources to please the growing mind.

However, on one particular weekend in my high school days, I realized how difficult it was to get my homework done within the parameters of the predominately low-income community that I called home. For a compulsive-obsessive competitive student like myself, this was truly a devastating moment.

"How hard could it be to find a bookstore?" I thought to myself. "Com'mon dad, let's go!" I shouted as I grabbed my assignment and stuffed it into my backpack. My goal on this day was to purchase a dictionary/thesaurus--a compact one to fit nicely into my book bag. And yes, this was part of my homework—worth a total of twenty points on my homework sheet.

Together my dad and I hit Laurel Canyon Blvd., the spine of the San Fernando Valley. "Think, think, think," I told myself as I rode in the car. My dad would only drive within a 10-mile radius of our home and I had to think quickly of all the possible places to find my dictionary. After hitting a few general stores, in the hopes that we could find a book section, this assignment turned into a quest. No joke. All I wanted was a bookstore, someplace where I could buy books, BOOKS!

That day, I gave up. My heart broken still aching for a spot with countless rows and rows of bookshelves filled with books from every subject. I settled. Yeah, you heard me. In the back of an office supply store, I put up my white flag as I grabbed a tattered and dusty generic dictionary from the back of the self. The last one in stock.

Tia Chucha's opened a few years after this experience. In 2001, when it opened its doors, it became the first bookstore in the predominately Latino northeast San Fernando Valley. But in order to keep its doors open it needs your help and support.

Tia Chucha's Celebration of Community and Culture
The Ford Amphitheatre, Los Angeles
Sunday, July 29 at 6:00pm
(tickets: $30, students and children $12)
buy tickets here.

Angelino artists unite in support of Tia Chucha:
Hosted by Comedian Ernie G.
Performances by:
Comedian group Culture Clash
Latin R&B group Tierra
John Desmore from The Doors
Chicano writer and poet Luis Rodriquez
Jarocho/Rock group Ollin
Ska/Funk by Upground
Hip Hop beats by Xela and El Vuh

Do it because sometimes it's nice to have a bookstore in your community regardless of how poor you may be.

Thank you,
My heart.

Eastside...!

Of L.A., that is.

By way of Daniel Hernandez, peep this breakdown of Eastside LA's gentrification and the battle over it in print media. A trendy new magazine calling View From a Loft is being introduced as high-art-meets-eastside, but really it's more like a guidebook on how to pimp a neigborhood, hipster style.

More from EL CHAVO!:

"I'm tired of this "debate" since it mostly consists of Eastsiders fighting to preserve a semblance of place, informing newcomers from the far off West or beyond that we, on the other side of the river, do exist, and that (at least to ourselves) we do matter. Before I raise my army for the coming culture wars, and before the divide between the two LA's gets even wider, I figured I'd do some preliminary bridge building: I'm going to embark on an occasional series of posts to highlight aspects of the Eastside that I know. Mostly it'll be about places you can visit but sometimes there'll be posts that are based on the map of memory. Maybe it'll help some out there to take us seriously. (Ha, ha!) But even if it has no effect, and people still insist on erasing our identity, it'll be a record of the Eastside that actually means something to me, the place I call home."

This is what I love about Los Angeles: aggressive, in-your-face commentary. Passion. Those things have been sorely lacking in the Bay recently, at least from where I stand.