Latino USA Episode 10

[Opening music]

This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, the practice of Santería and the First Amendment.

I myself have felt a very anger that santerians could be persecuted when you have so many criminals on the streets. It doesn't make any sense.

Also, human rights and the environment from an Indigenous perspective.

They take toxic chemicals and inject it into Mother Earth. It's like when you put heroin in your veins, and you're contaminating your whole blood system.

And comedian Marga Gomez.

My name is Gomez, and I look Latina and I feel that. I mean, I can eat spicy food, but I can't dance salsa or speak Spanish.

Coming up on Latino USA. But first, las noticias.

This is news from Latino USA, I am Vidal Guzman.

Throughout her life, she has repeatedly stood for the individual, the person less well off, the outsider in society, and has given those people greater hope by telling them that they have a place in our legal system.

There was much favorable reaction to President Clinton's nomination of Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the US Supreme Court, but there was also disappointment on the part of others.

The president was asked specifically, he was told the very many reasons why it was in the best interest, not only of the Hispanic community, but also of the entire nation, that the next Supreme Court Justice be a Hispanic American.

New Jersey attorney Carlos Ortiz of the National Hispanic Bar Association had recently met with President Clinton. Along with about two dozen other Latino leaders, he had lobbied for the naming of a Latino to the high court.

It was given many reasons, including the unique perspective and sensitivity that the Hispanic American would bring that no other person could bring to the court, given the fact that the Hispanic community is a multiracial, multicultural community and can serve to develop the law and minister justice and that it could serve to build bridges among the and between the different sectors in American society, unlike anyone has ever done before.

Attorney Antonio Hernandez, president of MALDEF, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, called President Clinton's failure to name a Hispanic to the US Supreme Court a major disappointment. "Though Judge Ginsburg has a strong record on women's issues," said Hernandez, "her record on cases relating to the Latino community is not self-evident." Hernandez added that President Clinton's decision to nominate Ginsburg means, in her words, "a Supreme Court that is neither knowledgeable nor sensitive to the constitutional rights of the Latino community."

An international labor union has begun a series of meetings nationwide to involve its Latino retirees in national healthcare reform. From Miami, Emilio San Pedro reports.

About 40% of the retired members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the ILGWU, are Latinas. That's why the union decided to create a series of nationwide meetings on Latino healthcare called Acceso or Access. At the first such meeting held in Hialeah, a primarily Hispanic industrial city northwest of Miami, about 100 retired Latinas expressed their healthcare concerns to a panel made up of national and local union representatives as well as representatives from the local congressional offices of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz Ballard.

The kickoff will be for our retirees, our Hispanic retirees across the country, to highlight the fact that for them the key issue, for our Spanish-speaking retirees, it's the access issue because they have the additional difficulty at times of not having linguistic access to this care, and particularly for women.

The retirees say they're concerned with how a new healthcare system would impact their ability to seek medical care from Hispanic doctors. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro in Miami.

You're listening to Latino USA. Section 936 of the US Tax Code, which gives a break to US companies operating in Puerto Rico, has become a victim of budget cuts.

President Clinton says 936 is an unnecessary tax shelter, which slaps the US Treasury of billions of dollars in revenue. Government officials in Puerto Rico disagree. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe reports.

Puerto Rico's Governor Pedro Rosselló has formed a task force to lobby the Senate, where talks on Section 936 are currently underway. Heading up the task force is Clifford Myatt, director of Fomento, Puerto Rico's economic development agency. Myatt says he's found tremendous confusion on Capitol Hill concerning the issue.

We need 936, so I don't know where that logic comes from. There are others on the other hand who say that any kind of a change in 936 will destroy the island, destroy the economy of Puerto Rico. I don't believe that. To destroy the economy of Puerto Rico just by making a change in 936 is, I think far-fetched.

Puerto Rican Congress members, Jose Serrano and Nydia Velasquez of New York and Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois, together represent almost 2 million Puerto Ricans, a greater number than those living in Puerto Rico's capital. They recently met with President Clinton. Congressman Jose Serrano.

Considering the political status of Puerto Rico, where Puerto Rico is not equipped to have members of Congress discuss their situation, that it falls on us both emotionally and in every other way to discuss this issue. And we brought to the president, again, the concern that we have.

President Clinton told the Congress members he would reexamine his position. According to the White House, they've received more mail on this issue than any other since Clinton became president. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

From Austin, Texas, this is Latino USA.

This is Maria Hinojosa. It's estimated that in the United States alone, there may be as many as a million practitioners of the religious tradition known as Santería. The Afro-Cuban religion, whose followers turn for guidance to deities called Orishas, recently came into the spotlight when the US Supreme Court ruled that Santería's practice of sacrificing animals, such as roosters, is protected by the freedom of religion clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. With us from Miami to speak about that ruling and what it means to practitioners of Santería is anthropologist Mercedes Sandoval, author of several books on Santería and an expert on Afro-Cuban religions. Welcome to Latino USA, Mercedes.

Thank you very much.

Now the ritual sacrifice of animals for the Orishas or the saints was banned in the Florida city of Hialeah in 1987. What was the impact of that ban, and how do you think things are going to change with this Supreme Court ruling?

Since the very moment that the Supreme Court, for instance, has lifted that ban, it means that santerians are not going to be persecuted for sacrificing animals, and it takes that stigma out, and I hope that the authority will be more interested in persecuting real criminals than people that are practicing a religion that doesn't have to have any connotation of antisocial behavior.

Were people in fact persecuted because of practicing animal sacrifice?

Not really, but they could have. Sometimes they were arrested not only because of that ban, but because of complaints that the authorities received from different association for the defense of animals, and so, or for neighbors that were nervous. You have to have in mind that there is a lot of other repercussions outside of the actual sacrificing of animals.

Now in Spanish, the word Santería means the way of the saints, and in fact, the religion has a very holistic spiritual interpretation of human beings and their environment, their surroundings. But in fact, many misconceptions exist about Santería, that it's like a black magic or it's voodoo. How much do you think those misconceptions played into the original banning of animal sacrifice in Hialeah, and how much do those misconceptions still exist?

Well, first of all, Santería, does have a reputation. It is an African religion. A lot of the rituals are carried out in a way that is practically secret. Then, there is some reliance in magical practice, much more so than other more European type of religious systems, and therefore a lot of people go to this religious system looking for protection. And in some instances magical practices are, try to be used to protect yourself and even to attack an enemy. This is actually true. However, I believe that because it is an unknown religion, because it has an African origin, they have been misunderstood and suffered a lot of discrimination.

Do you think that the Supreme Court ruling, which basically is now protecting the sacrifice of animals under the First Amendment, the freedom of religion clause, do you think that this is going to have an impact on how people see Santería and how people see the issue of animal sacrifice in this country?

Yes, I believe that. I believe that first of all, it has a practical impact. It gets the authorities off the back of the santeros. All right? That's very important. I think it legitimizes their practices. That's what it's doing. If the supreme law of the land takes off the ban, it's legitimizing these religious practices, and then Santería will not be in any way associated with satanism. That has nothing to do with Santería.

Thank you very much, Mercedes Sandoval, who is an anthropologist and an author of several books on Santería and is an expert on Afro-Cuban religions.

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Recently, San Francisco-based comedian and performance artist, Marga Gomez received rave reviews for her one-woman off-Broadway show called Memory Tricks. Now, Gomez is working on a television adaptation of Memory Tricks, which looks back at her New York childhood with a showbiz family. From New York, Mandalit Del Barco reports.

Marga Gomez is the funniest simulated lesbian comic and performance artist who describes herself as somewhat of a misfit Latina.

My name is Gomez, and I look Latina and I feel that. I mean, I can eat spicy food, but I can't dance salsa or speak Spanish.

Marga is the daughter of a Puerto Rican exotic dancer and a Cuban impresario. Her solo show Memory Tricks is set in her precocious New York City childhood, when her flamboyant mom and dad were considered the Lucy and Ricky of New York's Latin vaudeville scene. [highlight music]

[background music] I thought of them as big, big stars. You know, you couldn't get to be bigger stars than my parents. Actually, they were stars in their community, and their community was a very poor community, so they were like poor stars, but I thought we were just like royalty. [highlight music]

In the 1960s, Marga's dad, Willy Chevalier, was a comic actor who produced theater reviews known as Spanish Spectaculars, [background music] featuring salsa stars like Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, female contortionists, magicians and other acts. He put together sketches called La Familia Comica, which sometimes showcased her mom's Afro-Cuban dancing, they're pet chihuahua, and little Marga Gomez.

[background music] I had delusions of grandeur from a young age, because my father would just tell me all these fantastic things, I was going to be the next Shirley Temple and all that. You know? I couldn't sing, couldn't dance, but somehow I was going to be the non-singing, non-dancing, Puerto Rican-Cuban Shirley Temple.

[background music] Marga says when they got divorced, she had to choose between her dad and her mother, Margarita Estremera, also known as Margo the Exotic. Memory Tricks is Marga's tribute to a bleach blonde, fem fatal mom who used to try to teach Marga to be a perfumed lady, how to hold her pocketbook and glide, glide, glide on high heels. In a scene from a recent off-Broadway show, she remembers going on a picnic with her glamorous mom.

Let me tell you about the picnic. Remember the picnic, the one I sold my father out for? My mother promised that we would go that Sunday, right after church. I was so excited. I prayed extra hard in church. "Father, God, please, don’t let her see any stores on the way." When the priest said, "The mass is over. Go in peace," [snapping] I was gone. I ran all the way home, ran upstairs to my room, changed into my play clothes. That's what I wear all the time now, my play clothes. Then, I ran to my mother's room to see if she was awake. See, my mother couldn't go to church with me on Sundays. She was a good Catholic, but after a hard night of belly dancing, you need your rest.

In Memory Tricks, Marga talks about not wanting to grow up to be like her mom, who always wanted a Caucasian nose like Michael Jackson's. But she's found you can't escape your roots, even if they are dyed.

She'd sing all the time in the house, but she'd sing like this. [Singing] What a difference, la la la besame, besame la la She'd sing--She knew so many songs and none of the words. So that's sort of, the way I sing, too, so don't sit next to me at a rock concert. [Singing] I can’t get no la la la la la la.

Marga now lives in San Francisco where she began her adult career in show business with the feminist theater company, Lilith. She honed her comedy talents with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and is one of the original stand-up comics with Culture Clash. [Piano playing “I feel Pretty”] Not long ago, for the biennial celebration of New York's Whitney Museum, she performed her second show, "Marga Gomez is Pretty, and Witty and Gay", which deals with her sexuality.

[Piano playing] It has to do, some of it with my relationship and jealousy. My parents were very jealous of each other, and just because I'm not in a traditional relationship doesn't mean that I can't be dysfunctional. So, I talk about being a jealous girlfriend. I also have this little interlude where I'm reading from the Diary of Anaïs Nin, and I read from her Lost Diaries where she goes to Disneyland and has a tryst with Minnie Mouse.

Marga continues to do stand-up comedy and is reading for movie parts.

[background piano music] I've heard about a Frida Kalo project, and I'd like to do that because I got the eyebrows and everything, little mustache too. I'll just stop bleaching that sucker.

This summer, marga Gomez is writing the screenplay of Memory Tricks for the PBS series "American Playhouse". For Latino USA, I'm Madalit Del Barco in New York.

[Piano music]

My own feeling, my own personal feeling is that if we work at it, that we'll be able to get a treaty that's good for the country and good for Mexico.

That's Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, commenting on the present status of the North American Free Trade Agreement. At this point, congressional approval of NAFTA is still in question. Mexico and Mexico's president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, have a lot at stake in NAFTA's becoming a reality, as do many Hispanic entrepreneurs in this country. In Dallas, Latino business and civic leaders recently met with the Mexican president trying to counter the arguments from a certain Texas politician that NAFTA will mean major job losses. Brian Shields prepared this report.

Dallas billionaire, Ross Perot is spending millions of dollars to go on national television to stir up opposition to NAFTA, but members of the Dallas Hispanic Chamber believe the treaty will be beneficial for their businesses. During a recent visit to Dallas, Mexican president, Carlos Salinas, asserted there's no time to waste.

I have been asked, "Why NAFTA?" Because this is the only way how we will be able to compete in the world in which we live. "Why now?" Because we are late, late when other regions in the world are getting together to increase the efficiency and competitive capacity.

To my business, it would probably help it tremendously. I've been in business now for 12 years, doing business back and forth through Mexico, and we have had quite a bit of product going back and forth. The prices generally will then be lowered on some of the items that we now are paying some duties in.

Opposition to NAFTA in the United States centers on concerns that higher paying jobs north of the border will disappear to be replaced by very low wage employment in Mexico. Such arguments are coming not only from supporters of Ross Perot, but also from grassroots Hispanic groups such as San Antonio's Fuerza Unida, if you're a loss of American manufacturing jobs that now employ Latinos here. However, President Salinas insists the treaty will have the opposite effect.

NAFTA is also a wage increase agreement, because with increases in productivity, we will be able to increase wages in Mexico more than they have been growing in the past four years.

Between Ross Perot and opponents of free trade in and out of the Congress, right now, the agreement appears to be in trouble, but Jorge Haynes with Laredo's International Bank of Commerce insists the opportunity is too important to allow it to slip away.

If we should decide not to adopt NAFTA, which is something I don't want to think about, I think we will be going backwards in our relationship with Mexico rather than forwards.

For Latino USA, I'm Brian Shields.

NAFTA has provided fertile ground for the work of performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña. In the following skit, Gómez-Peña becomes a character he calls "the Aztec salesman". The Aztec salesman is a lobbyist for free trade who at first tries to sway others to enter into the free trade fever, but later has an identity crisis.

[“Tequila” background music] Bienvenidos damas y caballeros, lovers, consumers of pura vicultura, a new transcontinental breeze, ricochets from Monterrey to Manhattan, from DF to LA, we perceive the pungent smells of chile con ketchup and low-cal mole. Never before have Gringolandia—[clears throat] digo--America succumbed to the sabor of the amigo country with such eagerness and gusto. Let Frida Kahlo's monkeys run wild in your dreams. Get lost in the labyrinth of solitude of a Mexican painting. Dance yourself to sleep with the picante sounds of Guapango rap. Don't forget to wear your conceptual sombrero, güerita. Enjoy the tender, tender, magenta nipples of a ranchero diva. Don't get left behind. Don't arrive late to the Grand Tri National Fiesta. Support NAFTArt, free trade art for the klepto Mexican connoisseur.

Como debe diciendo, man, join a new vibrant Castro erotic—digo—econo-cultural ma-ma-maquiladora y de paso contribute to. Sorry. What I meant to say is you will receive a glossy 200-page catalog, certified by Televisa and the Metropolitan. You can place your mail orders debolada by simply dialing your resident-alien number. Remember, no one can like Mexi-can. No mejor dicho en Spanglish, lo echo en Mexico esta bien [clears throat] digo—[beep]. Me-me-me-Comprehend this machine. Approach your funders de ya porque Free raid, digo, free trade artist, tax-deductible, hombre.

No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm having an identity crisis on the radio studio. I don't know what I'm saying. I mean, la neta es que…I need a job, man. I mean, I can cook, translate, guide tours en Nahuatl and Arawak, do gardening, security, community outreach, got my resident-alien card, barata. My social security number is ... [“Tequila” plays]

Latino USA commentator, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, is based in California.

Latino USA commentator, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, is based in California. In Brownsville, Texas, a group of Chicanos and elders from Indigenous populations in the US and Mexico gathered recently for what they called the 17th Encuentro of the National Chicano Human Rights Council. The group is part of a movement which began in the 60s to help Mexican Americans reconnect with their Indigenous roots. Today, the movement is taking a new turn involving Chicanos in a spiritual reawakening foretold in ancient Indian myths, which caused them to action on human rights and the environment. From Brownsville, Lillie Rodulfo and Lucy Edwards prepared this report.

[natural sound] This weekend, council members have brought their families to camp on the grounds of the Casa de Colores. The multicultural center sits on 360 acres of prime farmland along the U.S.-Mexican border order.

[conch chell sounds] With the sound of a conch shell, a Mexican shaman, Andre Segura, calls a group to worship in a sacred dance of the Indigenous that the Aztecs have practiced for thousands of years. They also are called to reunite with the Indians of Mexico in their common struggle for equal rights. Elders like Segura say when Chicanos answer the call of the Danza, they are joining in a revival of the Indigenous spirit that is happening throughout the Americas. [Ceremony natural sounds] "This reawakening of the spiritual traditions," the elders say, "was foretold by Indian leaders centuries ago. Danzas and other Indigenous ceremonies carry a strong message of preserving the earth and all its people."

Andre Segura's Danza Conchera contains the essence of Aztec or Toltec thought in the entire worldview.

Chicano author Carlos Flores explains what happens when a Chicano worships in the sacred tradicion of the Danza.

When the Mexican-American decides to call himself a Chicano, basically what he's doing is declaring publicly that he's an Indian. In effect, what we're seeing here then is Mexican-Americans through their connection with an Indian shaman, I guess you could say, practicing the sacred.

Susana Renteria of the Austin-based PODER, People Organized in Defense of Earth and its Resources, offered passionate testimony at the conference. Her group has worked hard to focus attention on environmental racism in the Mexican-American communities in Austin.

They take toxic chemicals and inject it into Mother Earth. They inject it. It's like when you put heroin in your veins, and you're contaminating your whole blood system. That's what they're doing to Mother Earth. The water is the blood in her veins, and they're injecting these chemicals into, and they wonder why we have so much illnesses, why we have so much despair.

[meeting natural sounds] The council heard hours of testimony like this on a wide range of issues, bringing into focus everyday realities for Chicanos, such as the disproportionate number of Mexican American prisoners sentenced to die and the alarmingly high incidents of babies born in the Rio Grande Valley with incomplete or missing brains. Opata Elder Gustavo Gutierrez of Arizona, one of the founders of the council, offers this prophetic warning.

The moment that we start losing our relationship between Mother Earth and ourselves, then is when we get into all this trouble, and I think that what has happened to the people that are in power, they have the multinational corporation. They have lost their feeling about what is their relationship between the Earth, and the only thing they can think about is how to make money, and once that is the main focus, how to make money, then I feel that we're really in a lot of trouble.

[Danza natural sounds] The shaman, Andre Segura, says, "The Indigenous ceremonies that are part of every council meeting provide a spiritual foundation to unite Chicanos, as they speak out for the rights and the rights of all Indigenous."

Buscar dientro de su corazon, dientro de su-

Search your heart and soul as to how you feel about the Indigenous. The Chicano roots come from Mexico, and accepting this will unite the Chicano people.

[Singing, natual sounds] The Chicano Human Rights Council was formed in the 1980s to address the human rights violations in the southwest. The council teaches Chicanos how to document abuses that affect their community. The testimony they hear in Brownsville will be presented at international forums, such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. (Singing) For Latino USA, with Lucy Edwards, I'm Lily Rodulfo. (Singing)

And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. This week's edition of Latino USA was produced by Angelica Luevano and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. We had help from Vidal Guzman, Elena Quesada, and Caryl Wheeler. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. Our engineer this week was Cliff Hargrove. We want to hear from you, so call us with your comments on our TOLL-FREE number 1-800-535-5533. That's 1-800-535-5533. Major funding for Latino USA comes from the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the University of Texas at Austin. The program is distributed by the Longhorn Radio Network. Y hasta la proxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.

Even now, before NAFTA's implementation, business people in Texas are actively trading with their colleagues south of the border, and if the trade agreement is going to work, it will be up to individual entrepreneurs to lead the way. It's a trail already being blazed by many Hispanic-owned businesses, such as John Montoya's. He's the president of World Dallas International, a trading services company, and for him, the rewards of the agreement are quite clear.