Intersections

Eating San Diego, Part 1

The Vietnamese community in San Diego, where I spent the last week, is firmly established in City Heights, on the city's east side. Some folks might be wary of the S.D. neighborhoods east of the 805 freeway, but for those us who grew up or still live in the area, the dividends of this immigrant community's presence are clear: Lots of great Vietnamese food.

Above, a beef sandwich from Saigon Sandwiches & Deli, a small shop next to a laundromat (which I remember well from childhood) at a run-down strip mall on University and Malborough avenues. It's basically a roll, fresh cooked strips of beef, spicy pepper, cilantro, and carrot and jicama, I believe. If I remember right, it costs about $3. The Vietnamese coconut soft drink that accompanies it is about a buck.

It's a delicious and fast lunch under $5. But if the mood calls for a bit more of immersion in Vietnamese cuisine, I head up a few blocks to Saigon Restaurant, across from Hoover High School. The place consists of a single dining room with a high, airy ceiling and cool mural paintings of the Vietnamese countryside. Great ambience, and great pho, noodle dishes, spring rolls, and Vietnamese coffee and lemon ice drink.

* More soon.

In Oaxaca, tejate and tensions with the state *

Above, a bowl of fresh tejate outside the door of the Santo Tomas Xochimilco church in Oaxaca, where an old woman was handing out glasses of the maize-cacao drink for free for parishioners as we left a wedding ceremony inside. A drink for "Zapotec kings," according to MEXonline, tejate is "made of precisely toasted corn, cacao, cinnamon, and the seeds and flowers of a fruit called mamey." The flor de cacao becomes a foam and rises to the top as the ingredients are mixed together by hand, adding a wonderful texture to tejate as it travels down the throat.

It is served cold, sometimes with ice and sweetened with sugar-water. And it is delicious. Over the three days I spent in Oaxaca last weekend for this wedding of friends of friends, and for the Guelaguetza festival, I had a glass of tejate nearly every time I saw it being sold on the street.

Referring to Oaxaca as a nation unto itself is as accurate as you can get in describing the southern Mexican state. Much like Mexico City functions in relation to the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding central highlands, Oaxaca City (now Oaxaca de Juarez) feels sharply cosmopolitan for its region. All of Oaxaca's distinct regions and ethnic groups converge there, an ethnic, linguistic, and gastronomic diversity that is palpable and evident on every corner. In its food, in its civil and civic customs, in its sense of self and its relationship to the rest of Mexico and the rest of the world, Oaxaca is a fully realized society.

And all societies, of course, have their share of problems.

Pulque in Oaxaca

This is only to report that we recently found pulque in Oaxaca de Juarez, the capital of the Oaxaca, a nation unto its own, which happens to exist within the republic of Mexico (1810-2010).

On the Sunday of pre-Guelaguetza festivities we came upon a stand deep in the Central de Abastos where working men came for a shot of mezcal or a glass of pulque or tepache. It was -- I am happy to report for a land known more for its mezcal than any other libation -- refreshing, crisp, and intoxicating. Plain white it was, sin curado, as pure as can be. Two glasses, please.

I made the error of not purchasing a to-go bottle.

* Much more later.

Daniel Lezama: A darker vision of 2010 *

Right now no one in Mexico is painting like Daniel Lezama is. His world in representational strokes is a fully resolved, fully horrifying vision of a Mexico beheaded. A brutal and naked Mexico, a carnival of cell phones and homicidal clowns, a nation in ritual rebirth. Lezama paints madness by the skin of the maguey.

That his work doesn't cause more of a stir in the public sphere is perhaps a welcome sign in this dark bicentennial year. Mexico might be drowning in its own blood, but at least the artists are still allowed to take the stains and spread them around on canvas, still wet.

Above, a detail from a Lezama (in full view: "La gran noche mexicana," 2005) at a show just inaugurated at the MUNAL. The exhibit is a blandly nationalist thing they titled "Imagenes de la Patria." Yes, the man with the microphone above is Juan Ga. One piece by another artist, in the Age of Arizona, proposes a cholo guadalupano refashioning of the United States flag. See here. It is by Adolfo Patiño, 1998, and called "Proyecto para la bandera de una colonia mexicana."

How prescient.

* Previously, "Control your magic."

** It's vacation time. Intersections now takes another breather, and will check in shortly from Puebla, Oaxaca, Tijuana/San Diego, and Los Angeles.

The work: A sicario narrates an assassination, and more

In the latest installment in a periodic series, I hustle my posting at the L.A. Times La Plaza blog. Below, recent news and notes from across Latin America, with an inevitable leaning on Mexico, per our location, and a focus on the work of LAT correspondents, per the paycheck.

I've also had two stories recently in The Times. Nice to have a byline in there again. Those links hang down after the posts noted below (and I'm only going back to early June with the posts; this is making my head heart):

Shooting of Mexican boy by U.S. border agent ratchets up tensions

DNA testing pits media family against Argentina government

Ghosts of the Pinochet regime haunt Chile's conservative president

June is shaping up as one of the grisliest months in ...

Students in Puerto Rico end long strike

High-level Mexican officials not to blame in day-care center ...

Santos wins: A vote for continuity in Colombia

'The Other Battles' -- photos from Ciudad Juarez

Argentina dispatches Mexico in World Cup -- again

'Dudus' in drag: How accused Jamaican drug lord evaded arrest

Assassination of candidate Rodolfo Torre in Mexico rattles ...

Pressure mounts on Mauricio Funes in El Salvador

Earthquake felt across southern Mexico; 1 person dead

Mexico Supreme Court orders release of 12 activists jailed ...

Mexican authorities nab suspected cartel hit man, a former ...

Mexico City, Beijing top list for worst 'commuter pain'

Hurricane Alex: 'Monterrey is beyond recognition'

Giant whale fossil found in desert in Peru

Dissident on hunger strike in danger of dying, Cuba says

Drug-smuggling sub seized by Ecuador reportedly able to ...

In Mexico, Times report on network's use of blackface ...

Jorge Videla, former dictator, faces new trial in Argentina

Cuban dissident calls off hunger strike afer 134 days

Colombia journalist denied visa for Harvard fellowship

Drug gang hit man narrates assassination of prosecutor in Mexico

As always, more here. My recent stories in the actual paper are "Mexican labor secretary defends copper mine crackdown" and "For Mexico, 'Zoot Suit' still relevant after 30 years," with an interview with Luis Valdez.

If you've made this far down the post, might as well ask, What do you think of La Plaza? What would you like to see more of, less of? How about the state of Intersections?

And speaking this blog, I'll be updating my right-bar pages soon, I promise.

* Image above, Cristian "El Cris" Rosado Mendoza, accused Juarez hit man.

Gmail disabled, the mysteries and chains *

I just spent 24 hours (almost exactly: see here and here) without access to my Google email account for unknown reasons. Everytime I tried to log-in, a page appeared informing me that my Gmail account had been "temporarily disabled." That meant no access to various important messages regarding my freelance work and finances, correspondence with my family, research notes to myself, and archives of messages that have high emotional value.

I let my contacts know on Facebook and Twitter, purely out of frustration, and heard back from someone who said the same thing happened to her, and that Gmail never allowed her to return to her Inbox. I'm surprised I didn't panic more. Being away from a constant stream of new information, click by click, was slightly refreshing. But ... what if? What if Gmail's all-seeing-eyes found some offending phrases in my messaging and pegged me as some kind of threat to be scrambled? What if my "second life," my email account, was snatched away from me permanently?

Was it that Tom Cruise "creepy" tweet?

I'll never know. In order to regain access to my account, Google told me I had basically one option: Give them a cell phone number where they could send a text message with a verification code to re-activate my account. I tried taking this step with my Mexico cell phone, but Gmail told me "my country" wasn't among those where they do this. I tried a cell phone number in the U.S., and Google also told me "my country" wasn't SMS-retrievable. Huh? I sent I think five different reports/help requests, but I felt like they disappeared in a bin of unwanted bits as soon as I clicked send. I couldn't find any kind of customer service line for Gmail users, no avenue for breathing human interaction within Google's fortresses.

I don't expect ever getting any sort of response, no report for the user on why an account is temporarily disabled, no acknowledgment of my existence. Finally -- again, almost exactly 24 hours later -- my sister's cell phone number in San Diego worked out. But what if I didn't have a cell phone available to pester in the States? What about Gmail users without cell phones? What about ... jeez ... the scores of Gmail users in Mexico?

As far as I see it, for showing up at the right place at the right time, Gmail is now the standard email service among the "younger and richer," essentially, people with higher education who are around 40 or below. But this glitch I just experienced makes me wonder. When will it be appropriate to seriously consider a migration elsewhere? When Google shoves its new Facebook down our throats? When the Wave strikes?

* Previously, "Report: Google, watching everything, is hostile to privacy." For more, see Googlewatch.org.

** Image via The Truth Board.

Estamos aprendiedo como hacer un blog

Aqui estamos en el centro cultural con los amigos del Project Luz. Luego les explicamos mas. Estamos experimentando con hacer blogs. Acabamos de encontrar uno que se llama La Porra Ruda de Neza.

* Foto: Del archivo de Jasmin Lopez del Project Luz del 2008.

Snapshots in Neza

I'm happy to be volunteering this week with the Project Luz photojournalism workshop in Ciudad Nezahaulcoytl, the third held since 2008. Project Luz brings donated digital cameras and experienced photogs to Neza, to get youth from the area to explore their interest in photojournalism.

I'll be helping out with the formation of a blog where the kids will publish their work. Above, a Project Luz participant looking for a choice angle on an old-school cocodrilo taxi we came upon while exploring the hood, on Wednesday, July 7.

* More later.

PAN is PRI is PRD: No 'cause for optimism' in Mexico elections

* Frenemies: PRD and PAN chiefs Jesus Ortega and Cesar Nava (center).

Here are my posts at La Plaza documenting the results and implications of the July 4 gubernatorial elections in Mexico. Check 'em.

I'm not sure it's possible to find any kind of silver lining in how the voting played out. Unlike, merely for comparison, the characteristically rosy portrait the New York Times tends to paint of this process -- with the help, as usual, of the conservative nationalist elites.

The day started with the discovery of four bodies hung from a bridge in Chihuahua and ended with word that the PRI bolstered its return to power by taking nine governor's palaces. As in regional elections held last year, candidates with alleged ties to narco cartels were declared victors. But the "sudden good news" was that the PRI lost three big states it had previously held. How? By an "unholy" alliance between left and right.

The only way, it seems, to beat back the PRI is to throw principles and platforms out the window and team up against the looming monster. Sort of like 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,' but only more twisted. When Enrique Krauze says the results from Sunday are "cause for great optimism," he sounds just plain delusional.

Talking with a table of friends last night, the uniform mood was one of hopelessness for the democratic process in Mexico. "There are just no options," one said. The willingness of the PRD to team up with the PAN is particularly disheartening. No memory of the bitter battle between Felipe Calderon and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2006?

Last year, facing no worthy options for their vote, scores of fed up Mexicans cast a ballot for no one, anulling their ballots and sending a defiant message to the political parties. Results showed it was a rumbling movement that could have potentially shifted the discourse among the elites who essentially just swap power among themselves.

The voto nulo people were not just rejecting the parties but demanding specific democratic reforms: the right to referendum, independent candidacies, and drastic reductions in the bloated public funds for campaigns. Regrettably, and as often happens in Mexico, the grassroots movement was swallowed up and broken apart by the parties at a national anulacionista convention last year in Guadalajara, which I covered.

Next year, the state of Mexico elects a governor in a vote that will be a referendum on the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto, front-runner for the presidency in 2012. If the PRI holds on to the estado, stopping them from taking the presidency would be all but impossible. If the PAN and PRD orchestrate an upset, then we'll have a nasty conundrum leading into the Mayan millennial year. The left and right will end up battling it out once more to the bitter end for the right to take on the looming monster.

Somewhere along the way, you can bet, the rest of us will be conventiently forgotten. * More at Gancho, The Mex Files, and David Agren.

** Image above via La Jornada.

Yes he can: Jay Electronica takes New York

* Jay Electronica at the Highline Ballroom in NYC, by Willie Davis for the NYT.

I turn on MTV Jams sometimes, in 2010, and I wonder, Is this for real? Nah, it can't be. Can it? Yeah, hip-hop can be disappointing these days. But the genre that changed the world is not without true artistry. Look at Jay Electronica, tagged in Intersections in 2008 as the "most evocative and compelling contemporary" voice in hip-hop. He's only gotten better.

From the ruins of New Orleans, an enigmatic poet-sage who tackles the demons over a beat, Jay Electronica attempted two years ago to take on the tough hip-hop purists of New York City, and ... it didn't go well. Last week, he returned. He saw, and he conquered.

From Jon Caramanica in the NYT, on that failed last attempt:

He might also have never landed on "Exhibit C" the galvanizing single he released late last year that elevated him from a curiosity to a force. On it, over creeping, languorous soul, he details the steps that led him from occasional homeless drifter to idiosyncratic savior of New York rap classicism, opening with a devastating portrait of his early years:

When I was sleeping on the train / Sleeping on Meserole Ave. out in the rain / Without even a single slice of pizza to my name / Too proud to beg for change / Mastering the pain

With its hazy yet still crisp beat by Just Blaze, and its anti-commercial, chorus-free structure, "Exhibit C" quickly became a touchstone for preservationists of an outmoded style. His hometown notwithstanding, Jay Electronica is a rapper in the New York mold, and often an impressive one, which is why it must have been bewildering to him to be filleted so mercilessly by that New York crowd two years ago. And why, on Tuesday, he appeared so gratified by the response of the sold-out audience. Jay Electronica has become a folk hero, an anachronism, a living ghost.

Incredibly, Jay Electronica is as of yet unsigned to a major record label. The rapper is visible on Twitter, however. In some ways, it is the perfect hiding place.

(Yeah, please no more MTV.)