True Socialism

 Milos Forman pretty accurately sums up my feelings whenever I hear politicians and people call President Obama a socialist or a communist: They have no clue what socialism or communism looks like.

Now, years later, I hear the word “socialist” being tossed around by the likes of Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others. President Obama, they warn, is a socialist. The critics cry, “Obamacare is socialism!” They falsely equate Western European-style socialism, and its government provision of social insurance and health care, with Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism. It offends me, and cheapens the experience of millions who lived, and continue to live, under brutal forms of socialism.

Marx believed that we could wipe out social inequities and Lenin tested those ideas on the Soviet Union. It was his dream to create a classless society. But reality set in, as it always does. And the results were devastating. Blood flowed through Russia’s streets. The Soviet elite usurped all privileges; sycophants were allowed some and the plebes none. The entire Eastern bloc, including Czechoslovakia, followed miserably.

[Via the New York Times]


As a second-generation immigrant, and one who studied her world history, I'm well-aware that the wealthy kids wearing shirts of Che Guevara's face had little idea of the destruction he later came to be a part of. A friend's mother had to coerce her way out of the Stasi (Romanian underground police) and could only claim asylum once on U.S. soil. The current tax code has nothing on the Stasi or the regime changes of Latin America.

The entire article is available here.

A Follow-up to Driving While Hispanic

There's an absolutely fascinating book called, How the Irish Became White. Some people thank the civil rights movement, and the need for white supremacist groups to try and unite anyone who was not African-American. The roots of it go back much further, and contend with how the Irish began to systematically get work within the city structures - unions, police, firemen, etc... Once you can get into the system, you can begin to change it for your benefit.

In Slate's The Myth of Majority-Minority America, the author points out that many racial census categories have changed drastically since the inception of the census. His own grandfather is a pioneer of Hispanic Literature, but outside of census categories, he's essentially white.

If the government insists on rigidly applying the current scheme, complete with its odd one-drop-of-blood conception of Latino identity, then America will, indeed, become majority minority. But long-term stability has never been a hallmark of official government thinking on this subject. Everyone knows that a large share of the black population is in fact partially white, while a smaller—but not entirely trivial—share of the white population is partially black. The future of American whiteness will likely evolve to include a larger share of ancestry from Asia and Latin America, just as in the past it’s expanded to include people from eastern and southern Europe. The idea that every single person with a single non-white ancestor counts as non-white will look as ridiculous as Elizabeth Warren’s past claim of Cherokee identity.

 [Via Slate]

This reminds me of an episode of PBS' Finding Your Roots, where Branford Marsalis confessed that as a teenager, he and his brothers used to track down white Marsalis families, claim to be distantly related, and watch them freak out. My only sadness is that they never captured this on film.

As someone who was white until she got to college, and with a full sister who considers herself white, its understandable that while Dad grew up on another hemisphere, its all a social construct. Heritage is important to me, as is knowing when my ancestors left Spain and Switzerland and what that means to my story. But what it taught me, to grow up in between categories, was to be cautious of how much I bought into the societal norms of happiness, success, beauty, etc... After that, you write your own story.

When the zombies attacked Cuba

After the advent of Shaun of the Dead, with all of its zombies and laughter, I really doubted that another film could come along that would make me rethink that the whole zombie-film-vehicle was overdone:

Juan of the Dead generally follows the plot-points of 2004's Shaun of the Dead, but plot itself seems beside the point. The story's just the vehicle for the acid-like burn of dark Cuban humor, which lifts the movie above the fold of genre films. The action is quick, the actors have chemistry, and the jokes about Cuba's atheism, machismo, government, tight-knit communities, and nonchalant city operators are frequent and oh-so-un-PC. The sun-washed feeling of downtown Havana jumps off the screen, and the gore is campy enough not to make stomachs turn. Suddenly, it feels like every other zombie film should have been set in Cuba—that Cuba is the only place where anyone could be counted on to survive a supernatural phenomenon and even laugh.

[Via The Atlantic]

I am curious as to why nobody saw the potential for this before. Zombies? Cuba? Of course it makes sense! What's an apocalypse, if you've already survived several?

The theme of escape from Cuba seems to be a continuous one across many films. Una Noche, Juan of the Dead and others all deal with the escape of Cuba, to the point where several actors from Una Noche claimed asylum while promoting their film in the U.S. Yet, defecting is only seen as the option for the young. Juan, from Juan of the Dead decides otherwise.

As the film progresses, though, there are just too many zombies to kill, and that's when Juan, Lázaro, Vladi, and Camila decide to take to the seas. Made from one of the old jalopies for which Cuba is known, their "boat" is cherry-red and confidence-inspiring. But when it's time for Juan to jump in, he demurs, staying waist-deep in the blue water. Camila and Vladi are young and should start new lives in Miami, but he'll stay. It's not so bad in Havana. He'll sort it out.

[Via The Atlantic]


In film class, we watched a rare Cuban film called La Ultima Cena (The Last Supper) (1976), that dealt with slavery in the sugar mills and one landowner's decision to invite 12 slaves to dinner, to teach them Christian virtues. The film ended with hope, that one could escape from the slavery and terrible conditions. The defection was seen as a choice of life and death, but the only option was to keep running for freedom.

One of the things I've learned through my immersion in Latin American culture, is that underneath the upheaval and bloodshed, there is an underlying passion and resilience. Yes, you laugh at the terrible things. Because if you stop laughing, you start crying. I've been told I have a dark sense of humor, but it seems that I've got nothing on the makers of Juan of the Dead.

Driving while hispanic:or how I found out I was a minority

When visiting Los Angeles en route to Mexico, my friend Manuel joked that I was another "undercover Mexican."
Which is true - I've never been extra-specially screened at airport security or stopped on the highway for being Latina. My fair skin and Midwestern accent often belie my surname, to the confusion of cashiers and DMV's alike. I only truly experienced being a minority, when I arrived at college, and was expected at meetings of minorities, on a Dutch-American campus.

But many of the recent GOP candidates seem to believe that to be a party member, requires you to be Caucasian, male, and nothing else. This limited perception of who is accepted into what is supposed to make up one half of the political system in the U.S. seems to be acting like a fringe group.

The media's reaction is always that Latinos' number one issue is immigration. And it's not immigration. It's the tone in which people talk about immigration. All of the sudden, you can be a third or fourth-generation Mexican American from Colorado and not really realize you're Mexican until someone pulls you over and asks you for your papers. That's a catalyst for political awakening. I use that as an example because in the 2010 election [in Nevada], Sharron Angle, who was running against Senator Reid, basically said that her path to victory was to vilify Latinos. A hundred percent of the media she posted was racially tinged. And that mobilized nine out of ten Latinos to vote against her. But they still voted for a Republican candidate for governor. Yes, they paid attention because of [Angle's] tone, but when it came to other candidates they voted on the issues.  

[Via The Atlantic]

Due to the oppressive nature and political turmoil of many Central and South American countries, Latinos do seem primed to agree with more Conservative political leanings. My own father grew up in a tumultuous time in Chile, witnessing book burnings of 'dangerous texts' that were found in people's personal libraries. So, it's understandable that protection of civil liberties, and less influence by a corruptible government would be higher priorities on his political wishlist.

They still have that immigrant experience where they came from countries or their parents came from countries that were so horrible that they still see the vast amount of opportunity and America's potential here. If I'm a candidate, how did I package that message of, 'These are my policies on education so that your child can achieve and overcome the hardships you're facing today'?

[Via The Atlantic]

If the GOP could get past their fear of the 'other', remember that their ancestors were once immigrants themselves (Irish and Italians took a long time to be considered 'white'), and actually address the issues at hand (education, unemployment, poverty, etc...), they might stand a decent chance in the upcoming elections. As it is, all of the barely concealed racial and sexist overtones to their policies serve to ostracize the people who would otherwise support them, and polarize the party.