Intersections

The tortilla revolt?

In the surest sign that the entire universe is hopelessly out of whack, the tortilla in Mexico, the staple of the indigenous Mexican diet for untold centuries, is in crisis. Read the depressing details, courtesy of unchecked globalization, in this front-page Washington Post story. As maize farmers in Mexico give up by the village-load and head north for low-wage jobs in the U.S., Mexico is being forced to import corn. Yes, corn. A mega-march decrying this sad state of affairs is planned for today in the Mexican capital, with the once unbeatable Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the self-proclaimed "legitimate president of Mexico," relegated to the sidelines. AMLO still has his late-night TV show, I guess. Meanwhile, President Felipe Calderon is facing pressure to actually do something about this mess, which in his case would mean standing up to the business interests that handed him his office. The rising demand for ethanol is a factor, of course, as ethanol, an alternative to oil, is made from corn. So naturally, corn prices are now soaring. But something about all this strikes me as a bad omen. Isn't corn, in some versions of seeing the world, sacred? The littlest things tend to spark major upheavals, and since Mexico trends toward revolt every 100 years or so -- 1810, 1910, anyone? -- this neighbor of the United States appears to be due for a major shake-up any year now. The tortilla -- the straw that breaks the burro's back?

* Then again, it could just be another big D.F. marcha, which urban-weary chilangos have come to regard as a common commuter nuisance after AMLO's autumn plantones. But go ahead and read the minute-by-minute updates on today's march at El Universal. (AP photo above of men lining up for fresh tortillas somewhere in the urban ocean of the capital.)

From the front-lines of the L.A. gang war

NPR's Mandalit del Barco had an extended look today at the L.A. fight against gangs, with stops at an early-morning arrest at the home of a Piru banger in Pacoima, and direct words from a cholo from San Fer at a park in Sylmar. He tells her: "There's never gonna be peace between gang members and no one's ever gonna stop gang banging ... I mean it might slow down, but it's never gonna stop. There's too many gangs." Listen here.

* The piece also visits the memorial for Lilly Rodriguez, a true champion, and a soldier against bloodshed on the streets. The Daily News reminds us Rodriguez was "more than just a fighter."

Watching: Art imitate life in 'SherryBaby'

In SherryBaby, a film by Laurie Collyer, Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Sherry Swanson, a trashy parolee who returns home after serving three years in prison. Sherry tries to stay clean, find love, get a job, and win back the trust and love of her daughter. After watching Gyllenhaal completely become this character, I was left wondering why she didn't get every award or nomination out there. Other actors in this film are just as captivating. The highly prolific Danny Trejo plays Dean Walker, a fellow former addict and Sherry's love interest. Chances are you've seen this man on screen before. He frequently plays Himself. But check out Trejo's bio from IMDB. A Cali OG indeed. No wonder he is always so convincing. Trejo is from Echo Park:

A child drug addict and criminal, Danny Trejo was in and out of jail for 11 years. While serving time in San Quentin, he won the lightweight and welterweight boxing titles. Imprisoned for armed robbery and drug offenses, he successfully completed a 12-step rehabilitation program that changed his life. While speaking at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985, Trejo met a young man who later called him for support. Trejo went to meet him at what turned out to be the set of Runaway Train (1985). Trejo was immediately offered a role as a convict extra, probably because of his tough tattooed appearance. Also on the set was a screenwriter who did time with Trejo in San Quentin. Remembering Trejo's boxing skills, the screenwriter offered him $350 per day to train the actors for a boxing match.

Made-for-MTV Arabs romp across America

The New York Times reports on a reality TV show being broadcast in the Middle East, "On the Road in America," which follows a group of young, attractive Arabs as they travel across the United States and learn about us. Looks like fun. The NYT story has an amazing clip of a young Palestinian production assistant talking about Israel with an Israeli cameraman. Here is the show's official teaser clip. Let's hope the program gets an American distributor because if there's one thing U.S. kids need -- okay, two things -- it is a) one more reality TV show, and b) one that shows us how young people from other parts of the world are not too different than ourselves.

Chinatown blues

We were sitting at a bench at the plaza in Chinatown enjoying taro slush with boba from Cafe Via, in a contemplative mood, wondering who among us would be taking off next to another place. When an old Chinese guy walks up, looking like the sort of character fashion-damaged hipster kids can only dream of emulating. Crooked, glass-bottle eyeglasses, with frames circa 1978. A ratty old 90s neon windbreaker. And the kind of flat-top haircut that makes you look like you're being permanently electrocuted. He just wandered past. I said hello and he said hello back and I asked how he was doing and he said fine.

"It's crazy out here," he said to himself and to me at the same time. Why, I asked. "Too crazy. Might have to go to San Francisco."  Is that where you're from? "No, no, I'm from Minnesota. But it's too cold out there. Midwest. Too cold." I nodded and I asked why it was crazy out here. He said, "Because everyone is fighting. The Latino fighting the black. Everyone is fighting."

I asked, Here in Chinatown? He said yes. I looked around and said, "People here aren't fighting. They're playing," and I gestured to the old Chinese men huddled over some kind of ancient game on the tables in front of Wonder Bakery. Thoughts of their coffee and sponge bread temporarily distracted me. Who was in there right now picking a wedding cake? When my new friend said, "No, not now. Fighting only on Saturdays and Sundays."

Oh, I said. He stood around and and we stood up and said good-bye. Another old man walked past and the man with the flat-top greeted him. We didn't know what to do next, so we went up to check out the magazines at Ooga Booga, then we wandered through the smokey alleys of Chinatown just as a few sprinkles fell from the sky. * Photo by chrissydlt.

The border back-and-forth

Fresh from a weekend home at the border, where I usually hang out with my younger sister and her binational friends and coworkers, I'm awash in news and notes that remind of how porous that line remains. The L.A. Times checks in on the persistent problem of unplugged transnational narco tunnels. NPR on new Guatemalan fears of deportation. And high-level cartel operatives are charged in federal court in downtown San Diego. Along the way, I stumbled again on this photography exhibit by Dulce Pinzon on New York City's "real superheroes" -- working Mexican immigrants. The show consists of portraits of costumed people like the Chapulin seen above, and like Ernesto Mendez, a Mexico City native who works as a Times Square prostitute in order to send home $200 a week in remittance money.

Long live Juan Ga!

Juan Gabriel, who turned 57 this year, felt a bit faint during a concert in Puebla and had to cut it short, he announced breathlessly on his website. Phew! That was close. Thankfully, he didn't bite the dust like he did once in Houston. If you're brave enough to relive the horror ...

Ay, no, Juan Ga!!! No!!! We need you fresh and foot-loose for many years to come, so that you may sing for us the most infinite, the most heart-wrenching, the most soaring ballad of mourning, loss, love, and life ever imagined, "Amor Eterno." This song, unlike any other, can make even the hardiest Mexican experience uncontrollable chills and tears of nostalgia. Every time. Sigh. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you now the international treasure, the living legend, the reigning Quee-- ah, King of Mexican Pop, Juan Gabriel. Hoy y siempre ...

The return of the Brown Berets

In my "A Considerable Town" this week I mention the presence of Brown Berets during a black-brown press event in Harbor Gateway. The Brown Berets? Didn't they disappear with the nationalist era of the Chicano Movement? Turns out the Brown Berets, modeled on the Black Panthers, are back. You might call it a renaissance, as it sounds as though the group is evolving with the times. There are new chapters springing up in the L.A. area, but the strongest of the new Brown Berets are in the Northern Cali agricultural town of Watsonville, where they've taken up causes on education, immigration, and peace and war. They even have a MySpace page.  And their spirit is spreading. There's now a Brown Berets chapter in Salt Lake City.

Justin, the funky comedian who can dance

Is Justin Timberlake the real deal? Kate Sullivan asks in her "Rock & Roll Love Letter" this week, where she writes about a recent Justin concert at Staples Center and notes that the entertainer is better when he's on Saturday Night Live, when he's being funny, than in on-stage fan-worship mode. She's right. Timberlake is natural and hilarious in the "Dick in a Box" skit, which is still infinitely watchable.

But we shouldn't completely discount Justin's talents as a pop heir to Prince and Michael Jackson. Kinda? Sorta? Okay, okay. Not quite, not yet. Just please observe as closely as possible in the following video seconds 0:57 through 1:01 and 2:23 through 2:39, particularly the double pump action. He kills it. Justin Timberlake: Funny, funky white kid from the South with undeniable sex appeal and excellent moves. When does the fragrance come out?

On prisons, time isn't running out, it's done

It isn't news to anyone that California's overcrowded prisons are a disaster. Last year, with barely a blip on the popular radar, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans to ease prison overcrowding by literally exporting the problem: flying inmates to out-of-state facilities. Today, the L.A. Times reports on a report by the Little Hoover Commission that all but admits the prisons are in a total meltdown:

The state's 33 prisons are packed to twice their intended capacity, with more than 16,000 inmates bunking in hallways, classrooms and other areas not designed as housing. Prison leaders say they will be out of room for new inmates by summer, and concern about riots is extremely high.

In Los Angeles, the gang issue is closely tied to the crisis in our county jails, which as the paper notes, have these crazy revolving doors, cycling criminals in and out and letting racial violence ooze into the streets and schools. In a cruel twist of irony, the AP now says incarcerated life can be good for your health. With the way our health system is going, prison has never sounded so good!

Officially cool, Tijuana art arrives

"Strange New World," the ambitious exhibit on the Tijuana art scene, has landed in Los Angeles. Here is my LA Weekly review of the show, as seen as the Santa Monica Museum of Art. My family on both sides is from Tijuana going back several generations. Growing up, the border was more of a toll-booth in our daily lives than any kind of national boundary. So I naturally approached the show with my somewhat Proustian, Hickey-influenced art-viewing antennae especially alert. A key graf:

The show's hefty bilingual catalog is crammed with verbose essays on how interesting and postmodern Tijuana is. Which is fine, but if Tijuana’s cultural cheerleaders were really confident in its tag as “cultural hot spot,” you wonder why they feel the need to repeat it as much as they do. And they repeat it a lot. The problem is that the compulsion to constantly defend Tijuana’s cultural pedigree is clearly meant to counterweigh the overwhelming worldwide impression that the city is a crass and “culture”-less urban disaster zone with no face and no history. That’s almost like staging an exhibition about Los Angeles and saying, “L.A. is more than Hollywood.” Tijuana is similar to most thriving world cities of today; it supports both high culture and abject poverty, and is beginning to feel a lot like every other major urban center.

Interesting sidebar: Last week my brother Surge was in Echo Park. I showed him the "Strange New World" catalog and he saw that they printed a huge two-page photo of a tag of his that says "Tijuana." It is reproduced without any credit. That's street art for you.

But the snub says something broader, I think, about the weirdness of the Tijuana art hype: Much of the excitement focuses on the concept of the city's "emergency aesthetic." The thing is, I get the sense few of the officially sanctioned Tijuana artists actually operate within this aesthetic, at least not in the same way the city's street and guerilla artists -- like the guy behind the "casa mona" -- have. (See Acamonchi.) There was a time, though, when it sounds like everyone was mashing together "art" from whatever they could find, as captured by Josh Kun in this 2004 L.A. Times magazine cover story. Whatever my opinion, or anyone else's, art-lovers in L.A. are encouraged to go check out a slice of current TJ cultural productivity in action.

* Here is a sample of pieces Surge did in Tijuana during a period when he was pretty much all-city on both sides of the border. Above, my new favorite borderlands artist Daniel Ruanova. Below, some TJ schoolkids in front of pieces by Surge and Lenox:

A few engaging Tijuana alt-blogs are found here, here, here, and here.

Oaxaca in our hearts and minds

From my current LA Weekly capsule review about the Antonio Turok photo exhibit "Oaxaca in our Hearts," at SPARC in Venice. Definitely check it out:

The images in “Oaxaca in Our Hearts,” sent directly from Oaxaca to SPARC’s Internet portal and shown here for the first time, comprise the best “news story” on the Oaxaca situation you’re likely to see anywhere. Turok’s black-and-white photographs are formally composed — a march, a brigade of riot police, a funeral, a bus engulfed in flames — heightening the sense of epic civil warfare. The closing image is of Brad Will, dead at the morgue, the serene expression on his face contrasting violently with the exposure of another corpse that Turok has layered over Will’s sewn-up chest cavity. It is an image you won’t likely forget, and it bears haunting witness to the Oaxaca struggle.

The black-brown treaty that never was

From my contribution to this week's "A Considerable Town" in the LA Weekly, on the scene at last week's "peace treaty" in Harbor Gateway:

None of this is new, of course, but the renewed focus on Harbor Gateway has resulted in a creeping sense that the old divisions in the neighborhood are always close to re-erupting. Up the block in front of the run-down Del Amo Market, LAPD cruisers are parked facing south, with officers in dark sunglasses leaning over their open doors. People who appeared to be recent immigrants hover across the street, and a few tough-looking guys, both black and brown, stop by to watch for a bit before moving on.

Does Thomas ever come to this store?

“Not at all,” he says flatly. “Came down here when I was a young boy, and they told me not to come back, and from then I ain’t never come back.”

Read more here.

Footage released of failed suicide bombing in London

London is a truly multicultural metropolis, a capital of the world. Which is why it pains us so much when religious extremists try to blow themselves up on the Tube. Watch how this un-Islamic man failed to do so in July 2005, and how bad-ass regular Londoners can be when faced with colossal life-and-death situations:

See "We all look alike anyway ..." for articles on progressive Muslim thinkers.

No oranges for you this year, America

A full Tuesday of fresh dissonance and schizophrenia on immigration. Starting before dawn, immigration raids in California netted hundreds from all over the world. At the same time, crops go unpicked because of the cold snap. But it wouldn't be the first time our vital agriculture industries face losses. Usually, it's for lack of enough workers. Japan is having the same problem: their solution is to bring in Brazilians. Immigrants, of course, are eager to spend their hard-earned dollars. So rarely a week goes by without a new "Hispanic" product hitting the market. This week, it's Potenica, an energy drink with the flavors Latinos "grew up loving." Delicious. To finish off the day, President Bush strengthened his credentials as a Reagan Republican by focusing on worker-friendly immigration reform during the State of the Union address. Are we back to the future already???

Visiting Tijuana still easier than getting into an uptight bar

Do you need a passport to make it back into the U.S. after a day-trip to Tijuana to stock up on pills? No, ladies and gentlemen, not yet. But, as the San Diego Union-Tribune reports, new rules for U.S. entry at airports are causing mass confusion in Baja as people freak out over whether they'll have to stay in Mexico and sell chiclets at la linea if they lack proper documents to return home. Tourism is taking a hit. NPR concurs. Meanwhile, the government has not taken it upon itself to clarify the situation: there are no statements on the confusion at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection page. I wonder if this is part of the plan. On New Year's night (see "The Pop Pop Pop of New Year's Eve, Part 2"), I crossed the border back home at about 2 a.m. to catch a party in San Ysidro. The agent at the customs gate, a brawny lady with eyeglasses, curtly told me and my friend Pedro, after examining our California IDs and letting us through: "Passports this year." Wrong. Once again, the passport rule at land and sea ports does not go into effect until at least January 2008, if not June 2009. Till then, we can complain about the fact that in previous years, a customs agent would sometimes just give you a look over before nodding you through. Soon, if you don't have a passport, you'll have to shell out $97 to get one and exercise your divine right to roam across the great lands of the imaginary Californias. (* Photo by mokolabs of human cannonball David Smith flying over the border fence at Playas de Tijuana during InSITE05.)

Black-brown relations and extra salsa, please

NPR asked me to do a commentary on "black-brown tensions" in L.A. and I riffed off a scene I observed at a Mexican deli in South-Central on my way back downtown after a visit to Harbor Gateway. A few key lines:

"Person to person, we say, people get along just fine. But having to say so is itself a sign of trouble. Recent racial gang violence is making matters worse, but the subtext is nothing new. As Latinos move to the center of power in L.A., our secret fear is that we’re getting dangerously close to replacing whites as the new faceless black oppressor.
[...]
Meanwhile, people working to make things better in civil rights causes, universities, and media have not adapted to the new realities. For many, there are only "black issues" and "Latino issues," and apparently these exist in vacuums. We're too afraid to address our shared struggles, our shared blackness and brownness. We're too afraid to combat racial prejudice among immigrants."

Thanks for the reaction and feedback from all over. Still, I'm afraid to listen to it. Take a deep breath, L.A., we can make this work ... Here's the link.

The Mexican Mafia connection

La Opinion played big on its front page Saturday a story that says the shadowy Mexican Mafia is behind recent racial gang attacks on African Americans. This angle was screaming to get explored somewhere. The story cites a report by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which relies heavily on the research of Tony Rafael. Meanwhile, less than two days after a supposed "peace treaty" was signed between blacks and Latinos in Harbor Gateway and after FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III himself showed up on South Harvard Boulevard to announce a crackdown on the 204th Street gang, another apparently race-related shooting happened in the area at 2 a.m. on Saturday. Here are some excerpts from La Opinion's story that I've translated:

A resident of 205th Street, where on Dec. 5 Arturo Mercado, 34, was killed, said, on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, that the night of the murder a group of African Americans approached a group of Latinos, and after screaming, "Fucking Mexicans!", fired their guns.

In response, he added, Latino gang members from the area fired at a group of African Americans on Harvard, between 206th and 207th.

[...]

Charlene Lovett, mother of Cheryl Green, said she had no resentment or hate toward Latinos, despite the murder of her daughter. Instead, she said: "Latinos and African Americans have to unite because we have a lot in common, and once we realize that we can start enjoying each other's cultures."

The story has no local law enforcement sources, though. The paper has started a new War on Gangs section online. Is it just me, or is this shit getting scary? (* Art by La Opinion.)

Score one for the mariachis

The mariachis of Boyle Heights have reason to thank and sing praises to their beloved Santa Cecilia: the Boyle Hotel on First Street, the unofficial Ellis Island for mariachis all over the U.S., will be saved and restored, the L.A. Times reports. In November 2004 I wrote, "In Protest, Mariachis Sing for Their Survival," describing the clash of cultures between the mariachis -- who get picked up for gigs across the street at Mariachi Plaza -- and the new owners of the 1889 building. They spoke of harrassment and awful conditions as the landlords sought to remodel the Boyle Hotel, presumably for the purposes of the neighborhood's slow-moving gentrification. East L.A. Community Corporation has bought the hotel and plans a fund-drive to help keep it affordable for the gentlemanly balladeers who are indispensible to countless weddings, birthdays, proposals, showers, funerals, and political rallies across L.A. Here's hoping the integrity of their spot of Earth can survive the Gold Line.

The African-izing of Spain, runway-style

Because so much of the U.S. is preoccupied with immigrant- and Mexican-bashing, we tend to forget here that we're not the only prosperous nation with an illegal immigration problem. The U.K. and Spain in particular face hard-core social and political challenges brought by the influx of undocumented workers from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Eastern Europe. But rarely does immigration politics collide with the fashion industry as is happening right now in Spain, where designer Antonio Miro used Senegalese illegal immigrants in a runway show featuring a replica of a cayuco, the battered boats Africans use in their desperate attempts to make it to Spanish shores. The BBC says 6,000 Africans died or went missing in 2006 while trying to reach Spain's islands, a horrifying figure compared to the number of people who die crossing the U.S.-Mexico border each year. A Spanish pro-immigrant group, SOS Racismo, expressed support for Mr. Miro, who paid the eight African models a small fee for rendering their services. But Abdulaye Konate, chairman of Spain's Senegalese Immigrants Association, strongly disapproved. Which leaves me wondering, how did Miro find his models? What kind of work do they do when they're not being gawked at on a runway? The imagination boggles. And when you consider the inevitable rise of Spanish-African biracial children, something tells me immigrant neighborhoods in Spain right now are a-maze-ing. (* Photo by AFP via BBC News.)

It's your homegirl up in here ...

Remember, back in the day, the party crews? Kids with the walls in their rooms plastered floor-to-ceiling with party fliers? I thought that stuff stayed in the 90s. Now check out Christine Pelisek's LA Weekly cover story on the "Vicious Ladies," an all-girl party crew out of East L.A. Reading this made me want to get reacquainted with the meta-pop version of the classic East L.A. homegirl, Little Loca, a.k.a Stevie Ryan, on YouTube. Loca is Ryan's alter-ego, a straight-A student chola from East L.A. who throws up two fingers like a gang sign to make a "V" -- for virgin. Ryan is an aspiring actress from the high desert. She told me in an interview back before she started blowing up that she grew up with girls like Loca. Pretty brilliant. Little Loca looks and talks almost exactly like a cousin of mine in San Jose. Swear. Here's Loca at "Silent Girl's tio's barber shop." Enjoy, ey ... n'stuff:

* Update July 3, 2017 — Rest in peace, Little Loca.

In Chinatown at sundown, thinking gangs

The Chinatown branch of the L.A. public library (like lots) has free wi-fi. I'm here working on stuff. The lobby has a cool little display of artifacts found during construction of the branch from as far back as the late 19th Century: bottles, buckles, marbles, teaspoons, ink wells. Lots of old folks and little schoolkids from the neighborhood hanging out and reading. I was in Harbor Gateway earlier today to gauge the scene and mood in the ongoing racial gang violence drama happening there, and it was rammed with reporters as Najee Ali led the signing of a "peace treaty" for blacks and Latinos, topped with the images of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez. Members of the 204th Street gang were noticeably absent. The mayor, Chief Bratton, Sheriff Baca, and people from the FBI and ATF showed up later to announce a crackdown on the gang. Much more, coming soon. Meantime, this was sent out today from the mayor's office, background on 204th Street:

The 204th Street gang is a predominately Latino criminal street gang.  The roots of this gang are deeply entrenched in the Harbor-Gateway area with some member’s families having resided there for several generations.

Currently, 204th Street claims 120 documented members.  Its turf consists of the area bordered by Del Amo Boulevard to the north, Torrance Boulevard to the south, Denker Avenue to the east and Western Avenue to the west. This area is less than two square miles.

204th Street has a long and violent history. This is especially true regarding crimes committed against African Americans.

Historically, the area has had racial tensions dating back to the mid- to late 1990s when African Americans were moved out of a local housing development, which was demolished for a new redevelopment project. Many of these displaced residents moved to the Harbor-Gateway Area, which was comprised predominantly of Latino residents.

The violence escalated and in 1997, a male, African American youth was killed in the area.  Since this tragic incident, there have been three additional racially motivated homicides in the area, including the Cheryl Green homicide.

Get your future wedding party dance moves *

This is an ingenious music video by made for instant legends TV on the Radio and their intergalactic "sympathy card" song "I Was a Lover," the epic opener to their most recent LP. (I had the pleasure of seeing them play up close at The Echo in 2004, and last year at the Hollywood Bowl and at Glass House in Pomona.) This video really brightens my day and sort of makes me wish I could have been present at this merry extravaganza in that magical place called 1991.

Tia Chucha's Lament

Here is my "A Considerable Town" piece this week on independent bookstore and cultural center Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural in Sylmar: "Tia Chucha's Lament." The cafe said late yesterday that a planned community meeting had been canceled.

Here is Robert Lopez in the L.A. Times on the story. (R.I.P. 33-1/3 and que viva the Echo Park Film Center.)

There are other ways ...

After a welcome season of respite, the central L.A. narrative is turning back to gangs. The New York Times ran on its front page this story by Randal Archibald about gang violence in L.A. with a focus on the Harbor Gateway drama, providing an overview of the problem in L.A. for an international audience.

Sam Quinones in the L.A. Times reports that the 204th Street gang called a truce with its black neighbors on Tuesday. The county is joining the fight, with a focus on the Valley. But last night, In the Hat posed some crucial questions about the Harbor Gateway truce.

In L.A., racial hate always makes a sexy story. Sometimes, as seen in Highland Park, the line is legit, sometimes, as I wrote once, it is not. I asked Luis J. Rodriguez, a man who knows quite a bit about gangs and communities, about this subject when we spoke on Sunday, and here's some of what he had to say, addressing the conclusions of an L.A. Times op-ed by Tanya Hernandez that I found to be dangerously generalizing and selectively stereotyping (She basically says Mexicans are naturally racist, which is extremely offensive to L.A.'s actual culture, character, and intelligence). Rodriguez said:

"Yeah, Mexicans are prejudice, so are blacks, so are whites. You do a survey of anybody, you’re going to find prejudice. That’s not where the problem lies. The problem is when you have poor people, and resources are minimal, people start dividing up in all kinds of ways. And one of them is racial. [...] I find the divisions to be very superficial, but they're very powerful.

"It's not an issue of more suppression, more police, they need more resources. It has to be seen as a health issue, not just their physical health, but their spiritual, intellectual, emotional health. I think we need to have meaningful jobs for people. Gangs exist when there’s a vaccum of those things. You don’t start by arresting gangs and going to war with them. It's like gang warfare against gangs. It doesn’t make any sense. You do it by bringing real resources, life-awakening centers, real leadership, consciousness and education. I know it can be done because I've seen it done."

* Photo by Monica Almeida of The New York Times. Previously, "United by hoods, issues, and bullets."

Cold, stone-faced Mondays

For the first few frantic seasons of my professional life in the early mid-2000s, immediately following a naked plunge into the extreme urbanism down south, I was really, really into The Faint. Here's a reminder why (as never seen on MTV):

But you don't look Mexican ...

This week, Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican!" tackles the backhanded compliment Mexicans and Mexican Americans are getting used to hearing: "Why do non-Mexicans consider it a compliment when they tell Mexicans they don’t look Mexican?" So good. I've been told over and over I look Persian, Greek, Arab, Spanish, Italian -- anything but Mexican. In my immediate extended family, true to the racially mixed Mexican north, I have cousins and nephews that carry visual traces of Afro, Anglo, and Asian blood. Of course, we all look a little Andalusian, Sephardic or indigenous. You might say, as Gregory Rodriguez argues, that Mexico and the nations of Central America are just ahead of the mixture curve: the future looks ever more mestizo.

* Photo from the amazing exhibit "El Negro Mas Chulo: African by Legacy, Mexican by Birth," by Anaya Vellissia Jackson and Marco Villalobos. "Ask a Mexican!" always at OC Weekly and LA Weekly.

United by hoods, issues, and bullets

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed up at the latest unity rally in Harbor Gateway on Saturday. TV showed him wearing a black sweater, and the paper says he invoked the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A month ago on Monday, two 204th Street gangbangers are suspected of shooting and killing 14-year-old Cheryl Green just because she was black. Two kids, 18-year-old Jonathan Fajardo and 20-year-old Ernesto Alcarez, are facing hate crime charges for her death. Activists and community leaders who've been invested in "black-brown tensions" have been staging the usual rallies and roundtables. They did the same in Highland Park recently, where brown cholos "wanted all the blacks out" with a fatal resolve. But check these lines out in the new story from Harbor Gateway:

Since then, black residents have held several marches in the neighborhood, saying they are being besieged by a gang with a policy of ridding the area of African Americans.

This upset Latino residents, who said they had suffered abuses at the hands of blacks.

They noted that Arturo Ponce, 34, was gunned down outside his apartment on 205th Street the night of Dec. 5. Ponce, a cook, was known as hard-working and with no gang affiliation.

Grim and depressing, all of this. And angering, considering blacks and Latinos have lived side by side in this city since it was founded, share many of the same social and economic ills, and the cultures are so similar and complementary. There's now yet another Big Plan to stop gang violence in L.A. Where are our artists? Our writers? Check the newest post on race and gang violence from the hard-core good L.A. blog on gangs and crime, In The Hat. "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." (MLK)

Call me Daniel San Clinton Gore Ricky Martin Hernandez

* One night after a Very Be Careful show in Westlake I met one of those hip indie SoCal kids you see all over, a guy from Long Beach who said he was named Neil. He said he was named after Neil Diamond. He said it was because he was Salvadoran, and Central Americans love giving their kids famous or out-of-the-ordinary names. I was with a friend who is Guatemalan, who is named Daffodil, and we all agreed this was true and had a great big laugh. Then someone points me to this: Venezuelan Parents Love a Famous Name. Enjoy.

Los Angeles: The future, today?

* First I've heard of Hubculture and their Zeitgeist List but I won't question their methods: They've named Los Angeles the Center of the Universe in 2007. What a sexy list. Of the few cities they hype that I've visited, and what I've read or seen from the others, it seems to be pretty right on. New York is always going to be awesome, but London is the New New York. We all know Beijing will be our global capital in about 20 years. Along with all those hot cities in India and the Middle East. And down the stretch, who doesn't want to check out Moscow or Mexico City? But L.A. is where it's at, exporting its culture around the world and proving that the Pacific Rim and Latin America will be leading the charge into the uncharted 21st.
* Photo above: An L.A. woman at the 2006 May Day immigrant rights' march from MacArthur Park down Wilshire Boulevard.