Latino USA Episode 01
00:01
[Opening Music]
00:01
[Opening Music]
00:11
This is Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. I'm MarÃa Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA: Latinos in South Central Los Angeles.
00:11
This is Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. I'm María Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA: Latinos in South Central Los Angeles.
00:23
The realities are, we have a lot of Rodney Kings. We have a lot of Latinos who are being beat up. We have a lot of discrimination going on in the city.
00:23
The realities are, we have a lot of Rodney Kings. We have a lot of Latinos who are being beat up. We have a lot of discrimination going on in the city.
00:31
A report card for President Clinton.
00:31
A report card for President Clinton.
00:33
It's unfair in a way to say that the Clinton administration hasn't appointed too many Latinos, hasn't appointed too many of anything.
00:33
It's unfair in a way to say that the Clinton administration hasn't appointed too many Latinos, hasn't appointed too many of anything.
00:40
Also, una celebración del Cinco de Mayo y Sesame Street goes Latino.
00:40
Also, una celebración del Cinco de Mayo y Sesame Street goes Latino.
00:46
¿Abierto?
00:46
¿Abierto?
00:47
Yes, certainly! Abierto is the Spanish word for open! Abierto.
00:47
Yes, certainly! Abierto is the Spanish word for open! Abierto.
00:53
All this here on Latino USA, but first: las noticias.
00:53
All this here on Latino USA, but first: las noticias.
04:19
[Transitional Music]
04:19
[Transitional Music]
04:22
Mariachi music punctuated a final farewell for the man who defied state in church by proclaiming his Lady Queen of Angels Parish as a safe sanctuary for the undocumented and the homeless. César Chávez who inspired the rebel priest to come to the defense of the poor said during the service that Father Olivares was simply committed to the poor and the weak. Olivares' defiance of authority sometimes even tested sympathetic views as county supervisor, Gloria Molina, recalls.
04:22
Mariachi music punctuated a final farewell for the man who defied state in church by proclaiming his Lady Queen of Angels Parish as a safe sanctuary for the undocumented and the homeless. César Chávez who inspired the rebel priest to come to the defense of the poor said during the service that Father Olivares was simply committed to the poor and the weak. Olivares' defiance of authority sometimes even tested sympathetic views as county supervisor, Gloria Molina, recalls.
04:49
Even though I couldn't fulfill what he wanted me to fulfill for him, for the most part, and with a lot of the immigrants, a lot of the undocumented in my community, I admired him so much. But he was very insistent in maintaining it all together because it wasn't complete for him to give in on one thing. He wanted the entire package, and rightly so.
04:49
Even though I couldn't fulfill what he wanted me to fulfill for him, for the most part, and with a lot of the immigrants, a lot of the undocumented in my community, I admired him so much. But he was very insistent in maintaining it all together because it wasn't complete for him to give in on one thing. He wanted the entire package, and rightly so.
09:57
[Transitional Music]
09:57
[Transitional Music]
10:44
[Faint voice in the background]
10:44
[Faint voice in the background]
10:46
Very little has changed in Pico-Union, west of downtown Los Angeles in the last year, since hundreds of small and large businesses were looted. Here at the swap meet, the radio may be playing happy rhythms, but to the residents of the mostly Latino neighborhood, the road to recovery has been anything but happy.
10:46
Very little has changed in Pico-Union, west of downtown Los Angeles in the last year, since hundreds of small and large businesses were looted. Here at the swap meet, the radio may be playing happy rhythms, but to the residents of the mostly Latino neighborhood, the road to recovery has been anything but happy.
11:04
Nosotros perdimos todos los negocios que tenÃamos. TenÃamos tres negocios en la Union y todo fue perdidoâ¦[transition to English dub] We lost all our business. We have three little shops here and everything was lost, and we haven't really been able to recover anything.
11:04
Nosotros perdimos todos los negocios que teníamos. Teníamos tres negocios en la Union y todo fue perdido…[transition to English dub] We lost all our business. We have three little shops here and everything was lost, and we haven't really been able to recover anything.
11:31
Lo que a nosotros nos ayudaron de parte del gobierno de la ciudad solamente fueron tres meses de renta. Lo que nos quedó a nosotros de eso solo fueron como⦠[transition to English dub] What the city government helped out with was three monthsâ rent, and after that, all we had left of our investment of five years was something like 14 or 10 dollars. I don't even remember now. We suffered so much because you know, being without work in this country is hard, and we were left without work and without anything⦠[transition to original audio] trabajo, porque nos habÃamos quedado sin trabajo y sin nada.
11:31
Lo que a nosotros nos ayudaron de parte del gobierno de la ciudad solamente fueron tres meses de renta. Lo que nos quedó a nosotros de eso solo fueron como… [transition to English dub] What the city government helped out with was three months’ rent, and after that, all we had left of our investment of five years was something like 14 or 10 dollars. I don't even remember now. We suffered so much because you know, being without work in this country is hard, and we were left without work and without anything… [transition to original audio] trabajo, porque nos habíamos quedado sin trabajo y sin nada.
12:22
Pico and Alvarado, for example⦠itâs one corner where we had the four corners demolished by fire. And so, in terms of intensity, it was the hardest hit area in the city.
12:22
Pico and Alvarado, for example… it’s one corner where we had the four corners demolished by fire. And so, in terms of intensity, it was the hardest hit area in the city.
12:33
What has happened since then? And a lot of people are now saying that perhaps the City does not have the leadership to bring the city of Los Angeles to where most people want it to go?
12:33
What has happened since then? And a lot of people are now saying that perhaps the City does not have the leadership to bring the city of Los Angeles to where most people want it to go?
12:45
I think if you talk about community leaders, if you talk about the organization leadership, they very much want to bring the city together and start improving. If you talk about the political leadership, I think the political leadership hasn't displayed that well. They're out of touch with what's really going on in the city. See, the city of Los Angeles is not just the buildings. A lot of the buildings destroyed were empty. What the city of Los Angeles is, it's people from all over the world, and what we got away from is building people.
12:45
I think if you talk about community leaders, if you talk about the organization leadership, they very much want to bring the city together and start improving. If you talk about the political leadership, I think the political leadership hasn't displayed that well. They're out of touch with what's really going on in the city. See, the city of Los Angeles is not just the buildings. A lot of the buildings destroyed were empty. What the city of Los Angeles is, it's people from all over the world, and what we got away from is building people.
13:12
The building involves encouraging people to become citizens. Hernandez estimates this process can take as long as 10 to 15 years. He also says the City has to improve the educational level of city residents.
13:12
The building involves encouraging people to become citizens. Hernandez estimates this process can take as long as 10 to 15 years. He also says the City has to improve the educational level of city residents.
13:26
Over the age of 25, we have 2.1 million people. 900,000 cannot claim a high school diploma, and of the 900,000; 600,000 cannot claim a ninth-grade education. So that's 150% of the entire student body of the LA Unified School District. So, we have a tremendous amount of building of people to do.
13:26
Over the age of 25, we have 2.1 million people. 900,000 cannot claim a high school diploma, and of the 900,000; 600,000 cannot claim a ninth-grade education. So that's 150% of the entire student body of the LA Unified School District. So, we have a tremendous amount of building of people to do.
13:42
[Transitional sounds]
13:42
[Transitional sounds]
13:46
Those who work with the residents of Pico-Union agree with Hernandez about the work that remains undone.
13:46
Those who work with the residents of Pico-Union agree with Hernandez about the work that remains undone.
13:57
Sandra Cuevas works with battered Central American women in South Central Los Angeles. She has seen a decrease in the social services available to people in the area's hardest hit by the destruction. Despite all the publicized good intentions, little action and little resources are being allocated to the solution of the root causes of poverty and unemployment.
13:57
Sandra Cuevas works with battered Central American women in South Central Los Angeles. She has seen a decrease in the social services available to people in the area's hardest hit by the destruction. Despite all the publicized good intentions, little action and little resources are being allocated to the solution of the root causes of poverty and unemployment.
15:03
Very frankly, I don't want to be critical. I think they're doing their own thing, but I think that the mayor missed the boat in the beginning. I think he could have called many of us together to sort things out because it isn't just in South Central, it's throughout the community. And it isn't just a corporate effort and isn't about giving. It's about putting together a lot of institutions that have been unjust to minority segments of our community. And it isn't going to happen by a corporation coming together and putting together programs. It's about making the system much more responsive to the needs of people in this community.
15:03
Very frankly, I don't want to be critical. I think they're doing their own thing, but I think that the mayor missed the boat in the beginning. I think he could have called many of us together to sort things out because it isn't just in South Central, it's throughout the community. And it isn't just a corporate effort and isn't about giving. It's about putting together a lot of institutions that have been unjust to minority segments of our community. And it isn't going to happen by a corporation coming together and putting together programs. It's about making the system much more responsive to the needs of people in this community.
16:06
[Transitional sounds]
16:06
[Transitional sounds]
16:12
Police helicopters assist uniformed officers on the ground in the search for gang members in the Pico-Union district. Longtime resident, Raúl González has been in this blue-collar neighborhood for 20 years.
16:12
Police helicopters assist uniformed officers on the ground in the search for gang members in the Pico-Union district. Longtime resident, Raúl González has been in this blue-collar neighborhood for 20 years.
16:23
It's kind of scary going out lately. Plus what you hear on the news and people⦠after the rioters start getting guns and bigger guns and you know what's going to happen in the street. Now you have to carry your own gun for protection⦠and you have to be careful latelyâ¦you know. And it's terrible, it is terrible because we are not supposed to be like this.
16:23
It's kind of scary going out lately. Plus what you hear on the news and people… after the rioters start getting guns and bigger guns and you know what's going to happen in the street. Now you have to carry your own gun for protection… and you have to be careful lately…you know. And it's terrible, it is terrible because we are not supposed to be like this.
16:50
Umâ¦but if everybody's armed and everybody's afraidâ¦umâ¦. what are you going to do?
16:50
Um…but if everybody's armed and everybody's afraid…um…. what are you going to do?
16:58
Well, you knowâ¦to tell you the truth, if you're carrying a weapon, you have to know how to use it and when to take it out.
16:58
Well, you know…to tell you the truth, if you're carrying a weapon, you have to know how to use it and when to take it out.
17:08
In Los Angeles, I'm Alberto Aguilar, reporting for Latino USA.
17:08
In Los Angeles, I'm Alberto Aguilar, reporting for Latino USA.
17:13
[Transitional Music]
17:13
[Transitional Music]
17:39
[Clapping sounds]
17:39
[Clapping sounds]
19:00
[Slow Transitional Music]
19:00
[Slow Transitional Music]
19:43
[Cheerful Sesame Street Music]
19:43
[Cheerful Sesame Street Music]
19:53
As Sesame Street becomes more bilingual, even the theme song incorporates Latino rhythms. With this season's emphasis on Latino cultures, viewers can watch Big Bird leading a Mariachi band, and Oscar the Grouch dancing the Mambo with Tito Puente. Sesame Street is visited by Chicano rock band Los Lobos and New York's Puerto Rican folk music group, Los Pleneros de la 21. The show goes on location to barrios in Los Angeles where kids paint a Mexican mural, and in New York where they make Puerto Rican masks and visit a community center known as a Casita. This year, the spotlight will also be on the new fluffy blue bilingual muppet, Rosita.
19:53
As Sesame Street becomes more bilingual, even the theme song incorporates Latino rhythms. With this season's emphasis on Latino cultures, viewers can watch Big Bird leading a Mariachi band, and Oscar the Grouch dancing the Mambo with Tito Puente. Sesame Street is visited by Chicano rock band Los Lobos and New York's Puerto Rican folk music group, Los Pleneros de la 21. The show goes on location to barrios in Los Angeles where kids paint a Mexican mural, and in New York where they make Puerto Rican masks and visit a community center known as a Casita. This year, the spotlight will also be on the new fluffy blue bilingual muppet, Rosita.
21:35
In studies of preschoolers, researchers for Sesame Street found Puerto Rican children have poorer self-images than white or African-American children. The Latino kids had negative feelings about their hair and skin color, and the majority of white and African-American children in this study said their mothers would be angry or sad if they were friends with a Puerto Rican child. Actress Sonia Manzano, who plays the character MarÃa on the show says that's why the Sesame Street producers decided to devote the season to addressing issues of self-esteem and pride among Latinos.
21:35
In studies of preschoolers, researchers for Sesame Street found Puerto Rican children have poorer self-images than white or African-American children. The Latino kids had negative feelings about their hair and skin color, and the majority of white and African-American children in this study said their mothers would be angry or sad if they were friends with a Puerto Rican child. Actress Sonia Manzano, who plays the character María on the show says that's why the Sesame Street producers decided to devote the season to addressing issues of self-esteem and pride among Latinos.
23:23
[Kid singing about his cultural roots]
23:23
[Kid singing about his cultural roots]
23:34
Sesame Street is now in its 24th season. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.
23:34
Sesame Street is now in its 24th season. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.
23:48
[Transitional Music]
23:48
[Transitional Music]
24:46
You bet. There's a battle of somewhere⦠I forget now.
24:46
You bet. There's a battle of somewhere… I forget now.
24:58
[Transitional Drum Music]
24:58
[Transitional Drum Music]
25:02
Cinco de Mayo has to do with the French forces attempting to occupy Mexico. Essentially what it deals with is the defeat of the French forces by the liberal forces of Benito Juarez in the city of Puebla, in the state of Puebla.
25:02
Cinco de Mayo has to do with the French forces attempting to occupy Mexico. Essentially what it deals with is the defeat of the French forces by the liberal forces of Benito Juarez in the city of Puebla, in the state of Puebla.
25:19
Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
25:19
Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
25:21
All I know is it's a Mexican holiday. I don't really know what the reason is.
25:21
All I know is it's a Mexican holiday. I don't really know what the reason is.
25:26
I don't know, is it somebody's birthday?
25:26
I don't know, is it somebody's birthday?
25:28
Ahâ¦for me, Cinco de Mayo is a pretty good⦠good day.
25:28
Ah…for me, Cinco de Mayo is a pretty good… good day.
25:31
A big event?
25:31
A big event?
25:32
A big Fiesta.
25:32
A big Fiesta.
25:33
That's when the Mexicans took over. They kicked the French out of Mexico!
25:33
That's when the Mexicans took over. They kicked the French out of Mexico!
25:37
Y ganamos los mexicanos.
25:37
Y ganamos los mexicanos.
25:39
The independence of Mexico.
25:39
The independence of Mexico.
25:41
From?
25:41
From?
25:42
Spain.
25:42
Spain.
25:43
And one last thing. Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
25:43
And one last thing. Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?
25:52
[Transitional Music in Spanish]
25:52
[Transitional Music in Spanish]
26:00
Cinco de Mayo did not lead to the ouster of the French. It would represent a significant victory for the Mexicans because it taught them that they could create a real sense of nationalism for them, that they could defeat invading forces and the like. It was significant on the basis of⦠you know, sort of a moral strength that gave the Mexicanos.
26:00
Cinco de Mayo did not lead to the ouster of the French. It would represent a significant victory for the Mexicans because it taught them that they could create a real sense of nationalism for them, that they could defeat invading forces and the like. It was significant on the basis of… you know, sort of a moral strength that gave the Mexicanos.
26:17
[Transitional Mariachi Music]
26:17
[Transitional Mariachi Music]
26:24
We just know it as a celebration, as a fiesta. Aside from it being a festival event, it's an educational event because it is the time of the year that, for some reason, many of our people put our political agendas, our turf agendas aside, and realize that we are all one of a large majority of people in this hemisphere.
26:24
We just know it as a celebration, as a fiesta. Aside from it being a festival event, it's an educational event because it is the time of the year that, for some reason, many of our people put our political agendas, our turf agendas aside, and realize that we are all one of a large majority of people in this hemisphere.
27:06
[Corrido Music]
27:06
[Corrido Music]
27:17
During these festivals, we also realize that there are no borders.
27:17
During these festivals, we also realize that there are no borders.
27:22
[Corrido Music]
27:22
[Corrido Music]
28:02
[Closing Theme]
28:02
[Closing Theme]
28:05
And for this week y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by MarÃa Emilia Martin. We had help from an Angelica Luévano, Vidal Guzmán, Radio Cali in Los Angeles, Teresa Acosta, and MEChA at UT Austin, and Manolita Wetherill. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So, llámenos on our toll-free number 1800-535-5533. Major funding for Latinos 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 próxima! Until next time. I'm MarÃa Hinojosa for Latino USA.
28:05
And for this week y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by María Emilia Martin. We had help from an Angelica Luévano, Vidal Guzmán, Radio Cali in Los Angeles, Teresa Acosta, and MEChA at UT Austin, and Manolita Wetherill. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So, llámenos on our toll-free number 1800-535-5533. Major funding for Latinos 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 próxima! Until next time. I'm María Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 02
00:36
[Opening music]
00:46
This is Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. I'm María Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA: two years after the Mount Pleasant riots in the nation's capital.
00:59
Overnight, Latinos were an issue in Washington DC.
01:04
Where US Latinos stand on the Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.
01:08
The jobs that are expected to be lost are the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that so many Latinos in this country hold.
01:15
Also, Afro-Cuban jazz pioneer, Mario Bauzá, and some thoughts on what's really important.
01:22
Here on top of the earth, we have everything a man can need. What more can one ask for?
01:28
All this here on Latino USA, but first: las noticias.
01:33
This is news from Latino USA. I'm María Martin. He truly was a legend in his own time, the man who organized farm workers in California and throughout the Southwest beginning in the '60s, whose tireless efforts on their behalf inspired a whole generation to political activism and who, more than 25 years ago, gave then oppressed Mexican Americans a hero and a cause.
02:00
[Corrido music]
02:12
César Estrada Chávez was born in 1927 on a ranch outside Yuma, Arizona. At age 10, he was working in the fields. 20 some years later, he was organizing Mexican and Filipino farm laborers in California in the first ever successful effort to unionize US agricultural workers.
02:31
[Corrido music]
02:40
César Chávez died at his home in Arizona, not far from where he was born, but the journey he traveled in those 66 years as a symbol of the Chicano movement, as a unique labor leader, was one of struggle and faith. Not long ago, Father Virgil Elizondo of San Antonio, Texas mused on how far Chávez had come, often fighting a David and Goliath battle against powerful economic interests, but driven by a strong belief in the justice of his cause on behalf of migrant workers.
04:32
[Transitional corrido music]
06:26
[Transitional Music]
10:07
[Slow transitional music]
11:01
[Transitional music]
11:06
A music vendor sets up shop at the corner of Mount Pleasant and Lamont Street, the heart of Washington's Latino community. He's one of at least a dozen Latino merchants doing business near Parque de las Palomas, a small triangular park at the end of a city bus line.
11:21
[Transitional music]
11:27
[Helicopter sounds]
11:30
Just two years ago, the worst riots the nation's capital had seen in over 20 years started right here. On May 4th, 1991, Daniel Gómez, a Salvadoran immigrant, was stopped by an African American police officer for drinking in public. There are differing accounts about what happened next. Police say Gómez launched at the rookie officer who shot him in self-defense, but many Latinos heard a different version, one that said Gómez was shot after being harassed and handcuffed by the officer. Gómez was seriously wounded and as news of the incident spread, outrage poured from the community.
12:16
During the riots, these men looted a 7-Eleven store because they were angry at police for mistreating Latinos. The looting and burning in Mount Pleasant lasted three days. To calm people down, DC Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly arrived on the scene and promised to address Latino concerns as soon as the violence ended. It was a victory of sorts. Latino leaders had long complained that city officials ignored charges of discrimination and police brutality. The riots changed that.
18:00
[Transitional music]
18:04
Change, however slow some may consider it, seems to be happening at Parque de las Palomas, where the disturbances erupted two years ago. There are now more Latino officers walking the beat. Merchant José Valdezar says, even those stopped for drinking in public are now treated with respect by police.
18:21
First, they say hello to you, and I start to speak and they explain to you what's going on. Sometime, the person who own any store around here say, you know, they don't like drunk people around here. You know, that's why they say no. Just keep walking and everything will be okay.
18:37
[Transitional music]
18:39
Daniel Gómez, whose shooting sparked the disturbances in Mount Pleasant two years ago, recovered from his wounds and was later acquitted of assaulting the police officer who shot him. For Latino USA. I'm William Troop reporting from Washington DC.
18:54
[Transitional music]
19:09
[Change in transitional music]
19:35
The roots of Latin jazz go back at least five decades to such artists as Machito, Chano Pozo, and Dizzy Gillespie. Latin jazz has lost many of its originators in recent years, but one of them, 81-year-old Mario Bauzá keeps going strong. From Miami, Emilio San Pedro prepared this profile of the legendary co-founder of the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans.
20:25
[Afro-Cuban jazz music]
20:31
Bauzá remembers his days at the Apollo Theater in Harlem where he helped to launch the career of Ella Fitzgerald. He recalls his days with the Cab Calloway Orchestra and the time that he and his friends, Dizzy Gillespie and Cozy Cole, played around with Afro-Cuban rhythm and jazz arrangements and created something new: Afro-Cuban Jazz.
20:51
[Afro-Cuban jazz music]
20:58
In the early 1940s, Bauzá formed the legendary band Machito and his Afro-Cubans, along with his brother-in-law, Frank Grillo, who was called Machito. Bauzá was the musical director of the band and he composed some of the group's most memorable songs.
21:13
[Afro-Cuban jazz music]
21:25
The sensation caused by Machito and his Afro-Cubans and by other Latin musicians in the '40s made New York the focal point of a vibrant Latin music scene.
21:35
[Afro-Cuban jazz music]
21:42
It's the scene of The Mambo Kings, you know, and that's why a lot of people will say Mambo is not Cuban music or is not Mexican music. Mambo is New York music.
21:49
Enrique Fernández writes about Latin music for the Village Voice. He's also the editor of the New York-based Más Magazine.
21:57
It was here that this kind of music became very hot…that it really galvanized a lot of people…that really attracted a lot of musicians from different genres that wanted to jam with it, and that created those great, you know, those great encounters between Latin music practitioners and the jazz practitioners, particularly Black American jazz practitioners. For that, you need to recognize that New York has been, since then, probably before then, but certainly since then, one of the great centers of Latin music.
22:39
Merengue, merengue from Santo Domingo. Cumbia is cumbia from Colombia. Afro-Cuban is Cuban. That's why I got to keep [unintelligible] Afro-Cuban rhythms, and Afro-Cuban rhythm…Danzón es cubano…la Danza es cubano…Bolero es cubano…el Cha-cha-cha es cubano…el Mambo es cubano…el Guaguancó es cubano y la Columbia es cubana. So, I got to call it Afro-Cuban Jazz.
23:04
[Afro-Cuban jazz music]
23:08
After seven decades in the music business, Mario Bauzá has come out of the shadows of the group Machito and his Afro-Cubans and is being recognized for his accomplishments as one of the creators of Afro-Cuban Jazz. This year, Bauzá plans to tour with his Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra featuring Graciela on vocals. The group also plans to release another album of Afro-Cuban jazz: Explosión 93. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro.
23:27
[Afro-Cuban jazz music]
23:43
[Change in music]
23:51
Yo crecí en Chicago. I grew up in Chicago, but every summer, my family would pack up an overloaded station wagon and drive across the border to visit my homeland, México. I have many wonderful memories of those trips to less urban settings. That was where I came into contact with nature, driving across the mountains and deserts of México. I often think that, like me, many Latinos who return to the land of their birth or where their parents or grandparents came from do so for the joy of going back to where the simple things of life are still valued. A few years ago, Texas artist Luis Guerra moved to a village in the state of San Luis Potosí in northern México. He says he was recently reminded of why he made the move as he took a long hike in the mountains in La Sierra.
24:45
La subida es dura. It's a steep climb, but after a few hours, the walking gets easier. The valleys and peaks of this beautiful, rocky Sierra spread out before you like a solid ocean suspended in time. This is a dry land, almost a desert, yet sometimes I'll find a tiny spring in a niche of a canyon wall. Or I'll happen upon a small shrine in a lonely valley. Almost every day, I'll come across a shepherd tending his flock or I'll hear the sounds of children and discover they are gathering wild herbs like oregano or rosa de castillo. Often, early in the morning, I'll see a woman or a man driving two or three burros loaded with mountain produce heading for a nearby town or city. I make it a point not to camp close to someone's home just out of respect and so as not to use up firewood that doesn't belong to me. Firewood is scarce around here. This day as I crested a hill, I spotted a ranchito, just a little two-room house, adobe walls with a flat roof.
25:57
Smoke was rising from the chimney. I was barely 300 yards from the ranchito and it would be dark soon. It was too late to move on. It was going to be a cold night and the only firewood I could find was already cut…tú sabes, for the rancho's wood stove. Ni modo. I used the firewood. I felt guilty, but warm that night. Anyway, I would make it up to them in the morning. After breakfast, as I was packing my things, the campesino from the ranchito showed up, a barrel-chested man with strong hands, a weathered face, and a scraggly beard. "Buenos días." I walked up to him and offered to pay for the wood. He brushed my words aside. "Mira, everything you see all around you is mine. Estás en tu casa. This is your home." To him, I was already his guest and my offer to pay was almost impolite. He reached into his bag and handed me a small bundle. "My wife packed this for you," he said. It was bread, goat cheese, and jamoncillo, a homemade candy made from fresh milk. We talked for a while.
27:54
Commentator Luis Guillermo Guerra is an Austin artist who now resides in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. And for this week y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by María Emilia Martin; associate producer, Angelica Luévano. We had help from Karyl Wheeler in New York. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So, llámenos on our toll-free number, 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 próxima. Until next time, I'm María Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 03
00:00
[Opening music]
00:10
This is Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. I'm María Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, what it's like to be Latino and gay.
00:23
It's very, very difficult just to be lesbian or gay and be Latino, but I guess that at the same time, it's very beautiful.
00:30
A conversation with a music man named Dr. Loco.
00:35
We decided to take a cultural position in saying, “we're pochos and proud of it.” You know, somos bilingües. So what?
00:43
And a commentary from the streets.
00:45
I can't join a crew. I just renounced one, but I've got to protect myself. So the only thing left for me is to get a gun, or is it?
00:54
All this, here on Latino USA, but first: las noticias.
01:02
Sigue la música. Sigue los éxitos. Twenty-four hours a day!
01:06
[Radio station recording]
01:08
WAQI Miami. Aquí, Radio Mambí.
01:46
Los virus no identifican persona por pasaporte ni por tarjetita. En ese sentido, hay que de quitarle el temor a buscar salud…
01:54
Novello stated that it should include coverage for undocumented workers for public health reasons and added that viruses and bacteria did not ask for green cards. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, head of the Health Care Task Force, says that the healthcare plan would not provide courage for the undocumented. That topic and other healthcare issues of interest to the Hispanic community were on the table when Mrs. Clinton recently met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe reports.
02:24
Mrs. Clinton came to Capitol Hill promising greater minority-group participation in changing the healthcare system. An issue of particular worry to Congressman José Serrano, Democrat of New York and chairman of the caucus, is the lack of sufficient medical data on Hispanics.
04:29
Latino community could have turned out up to 70,000 voters very easily had candidates invested intelligently into the Latino community, but they chose not to.
04:53
The Latino community could not see itself in their issues. It's like looking in the mirror and seeing somebody different. So, I think the Latino community sent a message to the elected officials. "We are not for sale just because it's you. You have to show us that you care and you know us, or else, we're not going to give you our votes."
06:00
[Transitional music]
06:05
[Crowd chanting]
06:18
Many Latinos from across the country were among the hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians who recently converged on Washington, D.C. They gathered in the nation's capital to celebrate their identities and demand lesbian and gay rights. In the wake of that event, Mandalit del Barco in New York spoke with several gay and lesbian Latino activists, and she prepared this report.
10:02
[Transitional cumbia music]
10:14
By now, Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band has a reputation up and down the California coast. Their fun-loving style is broad in its range, from cumbias like this…to Dixieland, the blues, or a mix of gospel and soca, with a little bit of Afro-Cuban percussion for spice. The members of this nine-piece band like to think of their work as Chicano world music. The band leader is Dr. Loco, also known as Professor José Cuéllar, PhD and chairman of La Raza studies department at San Francisco State University. Dr. Loco says his music is an example of what Chicano culture is all about, mixing and blending unlikely elements to create something entirely new.
10:56
We see Afro-Cuban rhythms that have been a part of our culture since the '20s. We see Germanic elements that have been part of our music since the late 1800s. We see indigenous rhythms and indigenous instruments and the reintegration and the influence of nueva canción of the '60s, the cha-chas and mambos of the '40s and '50s, the doo-wop of the '50s, and the rhythm and blues, and, more recently, the rap influence as well as influences from rhythms around the world: songo, soca, and et cetera. So we decided to call it Chicano world because we think it's Chicano music and it also represents the influences of the world on our music.
13:21
Absolutely, absolutely…those…I feel "Chingon" is our Jalapeño version of James Brown's "I Feel Good," and "Chile Pie" is the classic…a remake of the classic. It's always reverberated in the Chicano community…resonated. It's the "Cherry Pie."
13:43
[Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band music]
14:12
Black music is a very important part of the Chicano experience from the West Coast.
14:16
It's been an integral experience throughout. I mean, whether we're Chicanos in Tejas, we had the influence of the Louis Armstrongs and the Dixielands way back. I mean, Ernie Cáceres, Emilio Cáceres, the jazz musicians, were tremendous in the '30s, were influenced by Afro-Americans a lot from New Orleans, and then throughout the '40s and '50s, the blues had been strong. Some of our greatest blues singers, Chicano blues singers, have been tremendously influenced by the blues. Freddy Fender, you know, wrote "Wasted Days," the first Chicano blues.
14:47
Well, one of the themes that runs through most of your music is the idea of Chicano pride, and it's really especially apparent on your most recent CD called "Movimiento Music," but at some point, Dr. Loco, don't you feel like, for example, let's take "El Picket Sign." I mean, it sounded kind of predictable, kind of a throwback to the '70s or '80s, real staid, predictable, even like rhetorical kind of political music. I mean, at what point do you continue to talk, let's say, in music that is considered panfletária, really propagandistic, and, on the other hand, really wanting to do something that is communicating something else on a cultural level?
15:28
Well, you know, the reason we included that song…in fact, that song was the reason …the rest of the album grew out of that song, conceptually, for me, and that song was a song that we performed because the farm workers are still boycotting grapes and because we're so close to really having more and more people understand the dilemma of pesticides, you know, on our food and our jobs and how many people in Earlimart and in other communities are really suffering from these pesticides, and there's other…there has to be other ways of dealing with our food so that we have safe food and safe jobs.
16:11
Well, what do you say to people who believe that political music like this is really passé, that it's something of the past and that it's really from an old school, an old trend that's already gone?
16:20
Well, you know, I say to them, you know, the lyrics of "The Picket Sign," you know?
16:25
El picket sign. El picket sign. Boycott the Jolly Green Giant. El picket sign. El picket sign. Let's stop, run away in the street. El picket sign. El picket sign. Support the displaced workers. El picket sign. El picket sign. [unintelligible]. From San Antonio to San Francisco.
16:47
We were encouraged to produce the music because of the movement, not because of the other way around. We were encouraged by what seems to be conditions all around us.
17:05
Nosotros venceremos. We shall overcome. Nosotros venceremos. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome someday. ¡Soca, Loco!
17:58
We believe that this is the essential song for the movement of social justice. I mean, it has been…it's the one that's sung all over the world, from Tiananmen Square to Berlin to South Africa to the fields of California. So we decided to do a remake, our own remake blending something that would kind of reflect both its historical essence…and its rooted in the South and southern spirituals and the African American experience, but that has gone around the world and back, and with different and interesting influences. So, that's why we decided to do it in a blending of spiritual soca with Chicano Jalapeño flavor.
18:48
[Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band music]
19:02
[Change in transitional music]
23:04
[Transitional music]
23:09
The word mentor is derived from the ancient Greek from the name of the man who spent 10 years teaching the son of the poet Homer. In ancient Greece, young people often studied in apprenticeship programs. Today, some Latino students are learning a variety of skills, from chess to chemistry, in a mentorship program taking place in New Mexico. Debra Beagle prepared this report.
23:50
Thirteen-year-old Miguel Atencio of Chama, New Mexico, beats his father in chess almost every game. He began playing when he was nine. Two years later, he joined the high-school chess team. That's when someone from Celebrate Youth, a six-year-old mentorship program in New Mexico, spotted the talented youngster and invited him to work more seriously on his game. This year, Miguel won the state middle-school chess championship.
25:16
The adult mentor meets with the student once a week for six months. Each student develops a project, perhaps a dance, a piece of sculpture, a science or math project, an essay or poem, or a piece of music.
25:28
[Person playing the piano]
25:39
[Person playing the piano]
25:41
Ninth grader Alyssa Montoya works with Mary Agnes Anderson of Española as her mentor. Anderson has mentored three students so far.
27:22
These days, Miguel is sharpening his chess skills to prepare for the annual Celebrate Youth Festival in June. Nearly 400 students, including 30 chess players like Miguel, will gather for three days at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which co-sponsors the program. There, they'll perform their dances, hang their paintings, and display their research projects that demonstrate the skills they've worked so hard to develop.
27:47
[Person playing the piano]
28:03
And for this week y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin; associate producer is an Angelica Luévano. We had help from Vidal Guzmán and David Gorin. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you, so llámenos on our toll-free number, 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 próxima, until next time, I'm María Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 04
00:01
[Opening music]
00:11
This is Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. I'm María Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA: in memory of César Chávez, a special report from Delano, California.
00:25
We shall miss César's powerful voice. His life and its example call each of us to a higher purpose. ¡Viva la raza! ¡Viva la causa! ¡Viva César Chávez!
00:38
And César's own words from his last major speech.
00:42
It is a boycott…public action…that saved this union. It is the only way we've ever made any progress, is through the boycott.
00:50
Also, health in the Latino community and the Clinton Health Plan. All this on Latino USA. But first: las noticias.
03:13
[Crowd cheering]
06:02
[Transitional music]
09:47
[Transitional music]
09:59
They came by the thousands to the 40-acre ranch near Delano to pay their respects to the man who had fought an entire lifetime to give dignity and more opportunity to those who picked the food on America's tables. César Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, the first successful attempt to organize agricultural workers in this country, died April 23 at age 66. In Delano, the mass procession behind Chávez's simple pine coffin was at times over two miles long, as everyone, from farmworkers to the famous, came to pay their respects.
11:23
[Crowd cheering]
11:42
[Crowd cheering]
12:38
In his loving…in his loving memory, please, boycott grapes. Make sure that our children do not have to suffer the pesticides anymore. What has happened to César will happen to all of us, and may we all be as lucky as César and be able to lay our heads down, close our eyes while reading a magazine on the Aztec nation and go to sleep and end our lives in that manner. We should all be that lucky.
13:12
¡Nosotros venceremos! ¡Nosotros venceremos ahora!
13:36
The life of César Chávez, his commitment to a cause, inspired many across the country, and as thousands gathered at the memorial service in Delano, California, Diana Martínez collected these thoughts from friends and supporters of César Chávez.
13:53
Nosotros venceremos.
14:55
No one could tell César Chávez to slow down. The man was working 20-hour days, traveling constantly. I can't count the number of times that I'd meet him at his yard…you know, at 3 o’ clock in the morning, because…at La Paz near Bakersfield, because we had to be in Sacramento or San Francisco at 11:00, and we'd spend a full day of appearances and rallies and news conferences and protests or negotiations and be back dropping him off at 3 o’ clock the next morning.
15:35
I remember, one time, we were driving from…Thermal, California in 1973 and the two dogs were in the back, Boycott and Huelga, and we stopped at a gas station…and we had just come from a rally. We had collected all this money, and I said, "Well, brother, we need to pay the gas bill." He says, "You're not going to touch that money until it's accounted for, back at La Paz." I said, "But we have no money to pay for the gas." "Then you go out there and you find the money from somebody else, but you're not going to touch that money because that has to be accounted for. It's the workers' money."
16:15
I remember in the 1980 campaign when he came to Arizona, which he didn't have to do, during a primary, when Senator Kennedy was already in bad shape in the election, but he produced hundreds of lowriders who came with him because they were devoted to him to get out the vote for us on primary election day. He went into the field, sent organizers, had them register actually in the field, and we won the state of Arizona just because of César.
17:28
Because of our common faith, and especially with what I see here tonight, with the face of the people, I see that that it's really true when they say "Viva César Chávez." He really does live.
17:40
Chávez was a seed sower. He planted seeds of dignity, and those seeds will keep sprouting in the heart of people. As long as farmworkers fight for a decent wage, Chávez lives. As long as they fight against the horrors of the insecticides, Chávez lives. As long as they fight for the right to vote, Chávez lives. As long as they fight to build coalition, Chávez lives.
18:05
For Latino USA, I'm Diana Martínez.
18:10
[Transitional music]
19:19
[Transitional corrido music]
19:27
This retired farmworker brought his accordion to Delano to remember César Chávez. Old-timers like him have been through a lot in the last 30 years, ever since César Chávez began organizing in the fields. The corridos tell the story of the struggle to improve the lot of the most impoverished of American workers. With the passing of their leader, unionized farmworkers now turn their heads to the future. While some may say these are unsettled times for the UFW, others see it as a rebirth. Organizer Humberto Gómez said Chávez's crusade won battles on the strength of our conviction of justice in the fields and that justice is still worth fighting for.
20:04
See, what happened is, like César used to say, the UFW is not only a union; it's a social movement. We belong to the community, and the community belongs to us. So we are part of the community, and that way, we will never die. You know, it is like me…you know, I start when I was 15 years old. I got my family here marching with me, and then more farmworker kids are going to be coming, and they're going to be getting involved in this. So we will never be shrinking, we will never die because this is a good movement. This is the best movement.
20:44
When I went and seen his coffin, you could see his face. I mean, he died peacefully, but you could tell that the work that he wants us to do is there. And he knows that, and we know, that the commitment is even stronger now. And I think this summer, you'll see the fruit of his labor really producing because it has inspired us to say that the union is alive, the leadership that it has. I mean, we come from that school. We've been at it for 20…25 years, and we're young, we're moving ahead and moving the movement forward to where he wants us.
21:39
I think César came to conclusion, and I think the correct one, that this movement has to win on the strength of average people and not be dependent on politicians.
21:53
Was that evident to you, and how?
21:55
He hasn't had any serious communication with any politicians in a long time. They haven't done anything. I mean, he tried everything. He supported them. He did it with money, he did it with people. He's done it every way you're supposed to play. He played the game the way everyone says you're supposed to play the game. He played the game. He got the law passed. He continued to support them all. And when push came to shove, all that he could do was no match for the money of the agricultural interests in the state. And uhh…I think he came to the conclusion when he started the grape boycott the second time several years ago that they're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way.
22:50
It's a healing process for all of us. And now we realize that we still have a lot of work to do, and I think his death gives us all a rebirth of where we have to recommit ourselves even stronger now to erase some of these injustices which continue in one of the richest states in the world.
23:36
[Transitional guitar music]
24:03
[Clapping]
25:51
[Clapping]
25:58
[Corrido music about César Chávez]
27:45
And for this week y para este semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by María Emilia Martin. Associate producer is Angelica Luévano. We had help this week from Franc Contreras, Mandalit del Barco, Patricia Guadalupe, Manolita Wetherill, Karen Blackman, Radio Bilingüe in Fresno, California, Margo Gutiérrez, Linda Wedenoga, and the Chicago Cultural Center. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you, so llámenos on our toll-free number, 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. This program is distributed by the Longhorn Radio Network. Y hasta la próxima…I'm María Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 05
00:00
[Opening Music]
00:10
This is Latino USA, a Radio Journal of News and Culture. I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, a break in the investigation of the murder of New York journalist Manuel DeDios.
00:25
He was killed because he had the courage to speak out because he exercised his first amendment rights as a journalist.
00:33
Also, the salsa star with political ambitions, Ruben Blades.
00:38
I don't feel that politics is in any way a step up. I look at politics as a step down.
00:44
And on Latino USA, Tejano music is sweeping the country.
00:48
I see the rise of Tejana music as being parallel to the rise of Hispanics in this country.
00:54
This and more on Latino USA. But first, Las Noticias.
05:45
[Transitional Music]
11:22
Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba. Porque a mi me encanta cocinar... [transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story.
12:27
Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversacion, no crees? Creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio. Empecemos por ahí si quieres... In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate", the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold. Ya no hablemos del pasado, Pedro se caso conmigo y punto. Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mí... But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it, and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.
13:12
Yo tengo una teoría que atraves de la comida se... I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one.
14:42
Para nosotros, el elaborar la cena, es el carácter de una ceremonia... For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with a commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.
15:30
[Transitional Music]
18:52
[Transitional Music]
19:44
It was that time of year in San Antonio, again. Time for fans of the TexMex accordion to make the pilgrimage to Rosedale Park for the 12th-Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival.
19:57
[Transitional Music]
21:29
It's past midnight at Dance Across Texas, a popular dance club in Austin where nearly 2000 bodies are pressed up against the stage in anticipation of tonight's show.
22:19
And now, another 40 minutes of continuum, on San Antonio's Numero Uno, Number One Tejano 107FM.
22:28
Another sign of Tejano music's popularity is that, in the last two years, radio stations across the Southwest, California and in Mexico are changing to a Tejano music format, dropping their contemporary pop or salsa formats and switching to a Tejano style.
23:34
With its sounds of the accordion, the bass and the guitar, Tejano music came out of the Norteno style, developed along the Texas-Mexico border. This style, also called Conjunto, was born when Mexican and Mexican-American musicians borrowed the accordion from their German and Czech neighbors in Texas. Tejano roots can also be traced to the early orchestra sounds of Little Jo and La Familia and others like Sonny Ozuna from the late fifties and sixties. Tejano music of the nineties consists of rancheras, polkas, ballads, and cumbias. With influences of pop, rap country and rock.
24:15
[Transitional Music]
24:23
21-year-old Selena Quintanilla from Corpus Christi, Texas has been number one on the regional Mexican charts of Billboard Magazine for the past seven months. Selena and other young artists have added their own touches to the music.
24:57
$33.39—put the guarantee on here. We have a 30-day guarantee on our cassettes.
25:22
[Transitional Music]
26:41
Major corporations are also recognizing this music's potential. Coca-Cola, Miller Light and GMC Trucks are just a few of the many investors in this musical style. For Latino USA en Austin, I'm Elena Quesada.
27:13
[Transitional Music]
27:13
[Closing Theme]
28:05
And for this week, y para esta semana, this has been Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is edited and produced by Maria Emilia Martin. Associate producer is Angeli Galvenano. We had help this week from Videl Guzman, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas, and Manolito Guevero. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT, in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you, so call us on our toll-free number. It'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 próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 06
00:00
[Opening Music]
15:29
This audio essay with music by The Latin Alliance was produced by Beto Argos in Boulder, Colorado, along with Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Yareli Arizmendi, and Sergio Arau.
6:00:00
[background music] I'm Maria Hinojosa. The word "alien" writes New York Times columnist, AM Rosenthal, "Should be saved for creatures that jump out of bellies at movies." In a recent column, Rosenthal recalls how he came to this country without immigration papers as a child, along with this Russian-born father. He remembers how much he detested to hear himself referred to as an alien. Like Rosenthal, many Latinos find the use of the label "illegal alien" offensive, as offensive as the word "wetback" was to an earlier generation.
6:00:20
[Saxophone and guitar music transition]
9:23:00
[Recorded Sound] Come in Border Patrol. Border Patrol. I'm in Chopper One. [Sounds of breathing] I need help. I need assistance. I need assistance. [inaudible 000919]. [Hip-hop music] Come in, come in Border Patrol, please. Come in. We need assistance.
9:37:00
[Hip-Hop Music] The helicopter flies like an eagle. Made it to the other side now. We're illegal.
9:53:00
[Hip hop music transition]
10:41:00
[Salsa music highlight]
10:46:00
A few months ago, while out with an American coworker, I had a great experience while listening to Latin music at a small club here in Cambridge. As I am a Latin woman, it was obvious to me that we were listening to the music in different ways. After watching her tap to the wrong beat for some time, it occurred to me that I could point out an aspect of the music that would enhance her listening, get her tapping on the right beat, and thus make the night more enjoyable for her. [Latin jazz music]
11:14:00
[Latin jazz music] I asked her what she liked so much about Latin music, salsa and Latin jazz in specific. She told me, "The feeling that you get when listening to it. The pulse," she went on to say, "That feels like everyone's heartbeat is one, coming from the earth and reaching to the sky." I smiled, not only because I liked the metaphor, but also because I felt great pride in my music and my culture. I decided it was time to let her in on what that heartbeat is, the clave, or "key" as it is appropriately named, two sticks of wood that are banged together.
11:53:00
[Latin jazz music] In fact, the heartbeat of Cuban rumba and salsa music. That feeling she was referring to is known as the "clave feeling", and comes out of the five-stroke two-measure pattern that identifies it. [Clave sound] This pattern is perceived as a thymic clock that keeps the musicians on the same wavelength. However, when the actual claves are not present in a song, that feeling continues by virtue of melodic phrasing and percussion patterns. Although there are different claves, the two most popular are the Cuban clave, or rumba clave. [Clave sound] And the sone clave. [Clave sound]
12:43:00
As you can hear, the Cuban clave is a half beat later on the third stroke. Listen, Cuban. [Clave sound] And sone [Clave sound]. Although they sound almost the same, they aren't. That's why a musician's ability to not only play in clave, but distinguish the two, is not only attended, key to their success. Let's listen to a little Cuban rumba. This is “Orquestra Original de Manzanillo”, with Comenzó La Fiesta, the Party Has Begun. (“Comenzo La Fiesta Music highlight). In Cuba, the claves are considered to be one male, which is eight inches, and the other female, which is four inches long. Holding the female in a cupped hand, the male bangs against her middle repeatedly.
14:00:00
This gender designation comes from the African influence on the Cuban culture. It is interesting to note also that although the claves themselves are wholly Cuban, never having been found in Africa or Europe, the clave rhythm had permeated African music for centuries. The clave pattern is found in many different styles of music besides rumba and salsa. It is found in meringue, guaracha, danzon, cha-cha-cha, and even boleros. Here's Juan Luis Guerra's bolero,”Señales de Humo”, “Smoke Signals”. (Highlight “Señales de Humo”).
16:00:00
Here's Seis del Solar, Una Sola Casa, One House. From Boston, I'm Marta Valentín. [Highlight “Una Sola Casa”).
16:52:00
[Tejano music background] The exhibit known as the CARA show, the acronym for Chicano Art Resistance and Affirmation, is the first-ever to focus specifically on Chicano art as opposed to Hispanic or Latin American art. Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, an art specialist with the Rockefeller Foundation and a member of the show's planning committee, calls the CARA show a landmark art exhibit which will put Chicano art on the map.
18:00:00
[Natural sound, clapping] Playwright Luis Valdez, a member of CARA's National Honorary Committee, talked about the connection that Chicano art has with his pre-Hispanic roots.
19:17:00
[Ranchera music transition]
19:25:00
[Ranchera music transition] The Chicana writer, Ana Castillo, had an abuelita, a grandmother who signed her name with an X. Castillo's father dropped out of high school. Her mother only finished primary school. But all three had an indelible impact on Castillo as a writer. They told her stories, or cuentos, and in her latest novel, So Far From God, Ana Castillo brings these cuentos to life.
45:00
Highlight--music--Violin
Latino USA Episode 07
00:00
This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. I'm Maria Hinojosa.
18:32
(singing)
Latino USA Episode 08
06:03
[Transition—Music—Singing]
06:44
[Background--Sounds--Crowd chanting] Supporters of Reverend Luis Barrios have been rallying with protest songs and prayers in front of the city's episcopal cathedrals, St. John The Divine. On May 19th, the popular priest was suspended from his parish at St. Anne's Church without explanation by Episcopal Bishop Richard Green. Parishioners of the mostly working-class Puerto Rican parish are furious over Barrios's suspension from a church that's been politically active since the 1960s.
11:12
undefined
11:26
For over 30 years, pianist Eddie Palmieri has been pushing the creative limits of Latin music. His unorthodox experimental style has defied musical categories. [Background--Music--Piano] Reporter Alfredo Cruz of station WBGO in Newark recently spoke with Eddie Palmieri, the Musical Renegade, and he prepared this report.
11:55
[Background--Music--Piano] Like his music, Eddie Palmieri is intensely energetic. His piano solos have been known to go from delicate esoteric explorations to fist pounding accents, all within the same phrase. He has developed his own musical identity. When Eddie plays the sound of a note or a chord is immediately recognizable as unmistakably Palmieri. He admits however, he didn't always want to be a pianist.
12:49
[Highlight--Music--Salsa]
13:56
Highlight--Music--salsa
14:14
The big new trombone sound he had developed revolutionized Afro-Cuban music in the 1960s. Eddie Palmieri had found the perfect combination and called his new band La Perfecta. [Background--Music--Piano] They were sensation at dance halls like the now legendary Palladium, where battle of the bands were common and Palmieri reigned supreme. His influence, however, wasn't limited just to the East Coast. A classic collaboration with California vibraphonist Cal Tjader came about when word got out that no one could go toe to toe with Palmieri's band, La Perfecta.
15:34
[Highlight--Music--Piano]
16:03
Highlight--Music--Salsa
16:31
[Highlight--Music--Salsa]
17:11
[Background--Music--Afro-Caribbean Jazz] And we're going into a whole other direction. We're going into the Afro-Caribbean Jazz per se. My first attempt by writing specifically in that form. See, I have recorded in that vein as far as composition that chocolate ice cream or 17.1 or VP Blues that I have done, and I've always looking in that direction, in that country. But this time I'm really writing specifically in that vein.
18:13
But I will not be here that long, but in the time that I'm here, I'm going to utilize it to the maximum and then achieve and have a wonderful time doing that and incorporating that into our music because it's something that certainly intrigue me and I must achieve that. It will. [Background--Music--Afro-Caribbean Jazz]
18:50
[Background--Music--Afro-Caribbean Jazz] Eddie Palmieri's new recording is scheduled for a fall release. From Newark, New Jersey for Latino USA, I'm Alfredo Cruz.
19:01
[Transition--Music--Yemaya y Ochun]
20:39
[Background--Sounds--Nature] I'm Emilio San Pedro in Wynwood, a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood just north of downtown Miami, Florida. Here, reaction to President Clinton's performance was mixed.
22:47
[Transition--Music--Don’t stop]
Latino USA Episode 09
00:59
[chanting] This is news from Latinos USA. I'm Maria Martin. A hunger strike by Chicano students at the University of California at Los Angeles has ended happily. The students who had fasted on water only for nearly two weeks reached an accord with UCLA Chancellor Charles Young, over their demand for the establishment of a Chicano studies department.
01:26
I want to let you know what we won today. First of all, we won the Cesar Chavez Center for Chicana and Chicano studies. Second of all, we got the administration to realize that the 99 students that protested in the faculty center are not criminals, but they're political activists and we have the charges dropped. Third, we got the administration to recognize the validity of ethnic and gender studies on this campus and guaranteed two years of no budget cuts for any of those programs. [sounds from community gathering]
02:13
We're going to have one of these in every UC campus in the state of California. [gatherting sounds]
02:17
We're showing here, in the spirit of Cesar Chavez, that we can make social change, that we can right the wrongs that people have done against us with gun violence, by unity and by sacrifice. And by working together, we can make them listen to us. [gatherting sounds][nat sound, music]
02:56
In New York City, a group of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Panamanians is forming the first ever Latino chapter of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. From New York, Mandalit Del Barco has more. [nat sound, music]
19:03
[music]
20:23
[highlight hip hop music]
23:10
[hip hop music highlight] [nat sound]
23:24
Grier also calls Rosie the harbinger of hip hop, youth culture that includes street dancing, graffiti and rap music. HBO, in fact, is now airing a series on hip hop that she executive-produced. The show Rosie Perez Presents Society's Ride features cutting edge rappers before a live audience at a New York nightclub. While Leaders of the New School, Brand Nubian, and Heavy D and others rock the crowd. Rosie gives the flavor backstage and on the dance floor. [background hip-hop music]
25:07
[Transition hip hop music]
25:17
Friday night I was hanging with my boys. We were chilling at this guy, Chino's house, drinking forties while he took care of his kid. I hadn't hung out in a while, so I didn't mind babysitting. But the rest of the guys seemed restless. When I finally asked what was up, they told me that they were expecting a delivery of skis, also known as cocaine. [hip hop music background]
25:37
John Guardo, who came to New York City when he was 12 years old, was a member of a crew for most of his teenage life. Crews are what gangs are called in New York City. Now Guardo is trying to leave that life behind. [hip hop music background]
25:54
It's hard for me to admit how much drugs have become a part of my life, but they have, and in a big way. The lyrics and the music I hear speak of drugs as a way to become popular or even rich. That idea is reinforced by how drugs are glamorized in the movies. Bad guys living large, selling cocaine, with women around them and money to burn. As a little kid, I fantasized about someday living like them. Walking home from school, I saw that crime did pay. Just like in the movies, the neighborhood dealers had cars, girls, money, and respect. Things I wanted. [hip hop music background]
28:12
And for this week y por esta semana. This has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman and Mike Moon. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you, so why don't you call us 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. [closing music]
Latino USA Episode 10
00:00
[Opening music]
10:00
[Music]
14:01
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.
14:36
[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.
15:06
[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.
15:26
[Piano music]
21:37
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]
22:23
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.
23:18
[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.
23:32
[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."
24:26
Andre Segura's Danza Conchera contains the essence of Aztec or Toltec thought in the entire worldview.
24:36
Chicano author Carlos Flores explains what happens when a Chicano worships in the sacred tradicion of the Danza.
24:43
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.
25:01
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.
25:19
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.
25:46
[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.
26:13
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.
26:47
[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."
26:59
Buscar dientro de su corazon, dientro de su-
27:03
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.
27:17
[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)
Latino USA Episode 11
00:00
[opening music]
07:09
[guitar strumming music]
20:45
[Transition music, percussion freestyle]
27:23
[Closing music] And for this week, y por este semana, this has been "Latino USA," the Radio Journal of News and Culture. This week's special edition of "Latino USA" was produced by members of the Radio Ondas Training Project of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Latino USA Episode 12
00:00
[Opening music]
00:00
[Opening music]
12:05
[Natural sounds of neighborhood] I'm Emilio San Pedro, en la Calle Ocho, Southwest 8th Street in Miami. Here, some people support the recent US bombing of Iraq while others question the necessity for such an action.
12:05
[Natural sounds of neighborhood] I'm Emilio San Pedro, en la Calle Ocho, Southwest 8th Street in Miami. Here, some people support the recent US bombing of Iraq while others question the necessity for such an action.
14:41
As Sesame Street becomes more bilingual, even the theme song incorporates Latino rhythms. [Latino Sesame Street Music Highlight] With this season's emphasis on Latino cultures, viewers can watch Big Bird leading a mariachi band and Oscar the Grouch dancing the Mambo with Tito Puente. Sesame Street is visited by Chicano rock band Los Lobos and New York's Puerto Rican folk music group, Los Pleneros de la 21. The show goes on location to barrios in Los Angeles where kids paint a Mexican mural, and in New York where they make Puerto Rican masks, and visit a community center known as La Casita. This year, the spotlight will also be on the new fluffy blue bilingual Muppet, Rosita.
14:41
As Sesame Street becomes more bilingual, even the theme song incorporates Latino rhythms. [Latino Sesame Street Music Highlight] With this season's emphasis on Latino cultures, viewers can watch Big Bird leading a mariachi band and Oscar the Grouch dancing the Mambo with Tito Puente. Sesame Street is visited by Chicano rock band Los Lobos and New York's Puerto Rican folk music group, Los Pleneros de la 21. The show goes on location to barrios in Los Angeles where kids paint a Mexican mural, and in New York where they make Puerto Rican masks, and visit a community center known as La Casita. This year, the spotlight will also be on the new fluffy blue bilingual Muppet, Rosita.
16:18
[Background music] Puerto Rico.
16:18
[Background music] Puerto Rico.
16:19
[Background music] Puerto Rico, it is, but look.
16:19
[Background music] Puerto Rico, it is, but look.
16:24
[Background sounds of Sesame Street]In studies of preschoolers, researchers for Sesame Street found Puerto Rican children have poorer self images than white or African-American children. The Latino kids had negative feelings about their hair and skin color, and the majority of white and African-American children in this study said their mothers would be angry or sad if they were friends with a Puerto Rican child. Actress Sonia Manzano, who plays the character Maria on the show says that's why the Sesame Street producers decided to devote the season to addressing issues of self-esteem and pride among Latinos.
16:24
[Background sounds of Sesame Street]In studies of preschoolers, researchers for Sesame Street found Puerto Rican children have poorer self images than white or African-American children. The Latino kids had negative feelings about their hair and skin color, and the majority of white and African-American children in this study said their mothers would be angry or sad if they were friends with a Puerto Rican child. Actress Sonia Manzano, who plays the character Maria on the show says that's why the Sesame Street producers decided to devote the season to addressing issues of self-esteem and pride among Latinos.
17:59
20 years ago, when we first started doing this, I don't remember any Latinos on a regular basis on television. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any right now either. [Background sounds of Sesame Street music]
17:59
20 years ago, when we first started doing this, I don't remember any Latinos on a regular basis on television. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any right now either. [Background sounds of Sesame Street music]
23:57
Bullets, guns, violence, and gangs are a fact of life for an ever-growing number of young people in this country; white, African-American, Asian, and Latino. Many Latino kids know this reality only too well and too early in their lives. John Guardo, who came to New York City when he was only 12 years old, was a member of a crew for most of his teenage life. Crews are what gangs are called in New York City. Now, John Guardo is trying to leave that life behind, but as he tells us in this commentary, leaving his crew may be easier than escaping the violence of the streets.
23:57
Bullets, guns, violence, and gangs are a fact of life for an ever-growing number of young people in this country; white, African-American, Asian, and Latino. Many Latino kids know this reality only too well and too early in their lives. John Guardo, who came to New York City when he was only 12 years old, was a member of a crew for most of his teenage life. Crews are what gangs are called in New York City. Now, John Guardo is trying to leave that life behind, but as he tells us in this commentary, leaving his crew may be easier than escaping the violence of the streets.
24:46
[Hip hop music]
24:46
[Hip hop music]
25:50
Having outgrown that lifestyle though, I'm trying to live a regular life working and going to school. Unfortunately, that also means my family's been taken off the untouchables list. We have all become prey to these urban predators. Now, under this new set of rules, what am I to do with this trouble? Call the cops? Huh, no one I know, including myself, would do that in case of an emergency. In my eyes, cops are more interested in filling their quota than in serving their community. Dialing 911 has simply become taboo. At this point, I'm sandwiched between two problems. Number one, I don't trust the police. The only times they've been there for me was to ram flashlights into my skull while cursing me out. If not that, they've stopped me in front of my building to frisk me as my neighbors watch. Number two, if I remain vulnerable for too long, something bad may happen to my loved ones.
25:50
Having outgrown that lifestyle though, I'm trying to live a regular life working and going to school. Unfortunately, that also means my family's been taken off the untouchables list. We have all become prey to these urban predators. Now, under this new set of rules, what am I to do with this trouble? Call the cops? Huh, no one I know, including myself, would do that in case of an emergency. In my eyes, cops are more interested in filling their quota than in serving their community. Dialing 911 has simply become taboo. At this point, I'm sandwiched between two problems. Number one, I don't trust the police. The only times they've been there for me was to ram flashlights into my skull while cursing me out. If not that, they've stopped me in front of my building to frisk me as my neighbors watch. Number two, if I remain vulnerable for too long, something bad may happen to my loved ones.
25:54
[Hip hop music] Last night, I was speaking to my girl on the phone, telling her how bad things were getting around my block and that I decided to buy a gun. She got mad, raising her voice and asking me, "How could you be that ignorant? You know what would happen if you got caught with one?" I said to her, "Yo, I ain't going to be carrying it around and showing it off. I'm going to keep it at home in case someone tries to break in or mess with my family." She got quiet then. I was searching for a better answer. I realized what a vicious cycle I was willingly getting into. You see, around my neighborhood, things ain't no joke. I'm a former gang member, so I know what dangers roam the streets. Drug dealers, stick-up kids, crackheads, the whole nine, a glance is reason enough to get jumped.
25:54
[Hip hop music] Last night, I was speaking to my girl on the phone, telling her how bad things were getting around my block and that I decided to buy a gun. She got mad, raising her voice and asking me, "How could you be that ignorant? You know what would happen if you got caught with one?" I said to her, "Yo, I ain't going to be carrying it around and showing it off. I'm going to keep it at home in case someone tries to break in or mess with my family." She got quiet then. I was searching for a better answer. I realized what a vicious cycle I was willingly getting into. You see, around my neighborhood, things ain't no joke. I'm a former gang member, so I know what dangers roam the streets. Drug dealers, stick-up kids, crackheads, the whole nine, a glance is reason enough to get jumped.
26:53
What can I do? I can't join a crew. I just renounced one, but I got to protect myself. So the only thing left for me is to get a gun. Or is it? You see, I really believe, if the cops got their act together, there wouldn't be so much static in the streets. What I mean is, not that we like police presence, but that it doesn't matter if there's cops on every corner when they're going to be there to magnify the distrust we already have for them. Policemen should figure out who the real criminals are. I know. And go after them instead of treating all of us like such. They're the ones who have to change since the problems of the street are always going to be there. There's always going to be crime and we need protection.
26:53
What can I do? I can't join a crew. I just renounced one, but I got to protect myself. So the only thing left for me is to get a gun. Or is it? You see, I really believe, if the cops got their act together, there wouldn't be so much static in the streets. What I mean is, not that we like police presence, but that it doesn't matter if there's cops on every corner when they're going to be there to magnify the distrust we already have for them. Policemen should figure out who the real criminals are. I know. And go after them instead of treating all of us like such. They're the ones who have to change since the problems of the street are always going to be there. There's always going to be crime and we need protection.
27:41
These issues may be the bigger picture, but I'm still unable to answer my girl. Every day I have to deal with these problems. And although I may forget about them, what worries me is that it might be one of my friends who falls into the cycle and goes out to buy the nine. In street slang, that's a nine-millimeter handgun. I'm John Guardo, speaking for the street.
27:41
These issues may be the bigger picture, but I'm still unable to answer my girl. Every day I have to deal with these problems. And although I may forget about them, what worries me is that it might be one of my friends who falls into the cycle and goes out to buy the nine. In street slang, that's a nine-millimeter handgun. I'm John Guardo, speaking for the street.
Latino USA Episode 13
00:00
[Opening music]
01:05
[Natural sounds of ceremony] Bienvenidos cuidadanos Americanos nuevos.
01:21
[Unidentifiable] [Ceremony natural sounds] Tu sacrficio….
10:19
[Folk music, transition]
11:16
[Natural sounds of Washington D.C.] Some young guys from Mexicali were standing in a crowd between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument. They wore baggy pants, some had dark glasses, and others' headbands pulled way down low. To some people, they looked like gangsters, but they're not. They're cholos with a distinctive style of dress that comes straight from the border. Suddenly, they started speaking Spanish out loud.
11:49
[Natural sounds of Folklife Festival] Then from behind a food stamp where some beans were cooking, A guy came out wearing all white with a pointed hood clan style. [Highlight, natural sounds of Folklife Festival] It was the border patrol chasing down one of the Cholos people watching realized it was a play by a theater group from Mexicali, a border town south of California. The actors were hitting one of the main issues on the border, immigration. Their translator is Quique Aviles.
16:42
[Conjunto music, transition]
17:42
[Natural sounds, theater] Grupo Animo
18:08
[Natural sounds, theater] All the young women in the piece, over here.
18:13
Identity. [Natural sounds, theater]
21:20
[Transition, “Caminos Verdes”, Ruben Blades & Seis del Solar]
22:05
[Natural sounds of Hector Lavoe performing]
22:19
[Highlight, Hector Lavoe performing]
23:52
[Highlight, Hector Lavoe Salsa]
24:05
Hector Lavoe was born Hector Juan Perez into a musical family of singers in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1946. When he was barely six years old, he would sit by the radio, shouting out jibaro songs with singers like Daniel Santos, and Chuito El De Bayamon. [Background Music, Hector Lavoe] Eventually, he left for New York and was soon discovered by Johnny Pacheco of Fania Records who teamed him up with Willie Colon. Pianist Joe Torres worked with Hector Lavoe for 25 years. First in Willie Colon's band, then Lavoe's own orchestra.
26:08
Lavoe never quite recovered from his 1988 suicide attempt and his drug addiction. He spent his last years in hospitals with an amputated leg and living with AIDS. Lavoe was in the hospital listening to a radio tribute to his life and music when he suffered the first of two heart attacks that finally killed him. [Lavoe Music, background] After hearing of his old friend's death, Willie Colon said, "All of Latin America cried for the hero of poor people." He called him Salsa's Martyr, a monster we helped create. "Forgive us, Hector," he wrote in a statement from Spain.
26:38
[Highlight--Hector Lavoe music]
27:42
Hector Lavoe, Music Transition
Latino USA Episode 14
00:07
[Opening Theme]
00:17
Today on "Latino USA," Puerto Rico's political future discussed in the U.S. Congress.
00:23
We're trying to put once again on the congressional agenda the fact that the United States is a colonial power, that there is a unique and sad relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.
00:34
And baseball goes bilingual.
00:37
[Sports Broadcast Recording] Y le muestra la señal, la manda, viene- strike!
00:41
Also, a farewell to Afro-Cuban jazz great Mario Bauzá.
00:46
Afro-Cuban is Cuban. That's why. I've got to keep a bunch of these Afro-Cuban rhythms.
06:04
That's the deep right. It sends Gwynn to the wall. He leaps and can't get it. It's backed up by Bobby Kelly --
06:24
Setenta mediocampistas en baseball profesional son de la Republica Dominicana.
06:33
Called "La Tierra de los Mediocampistas," the Land of the Center Fielders, the ad for Nike featured images of Dominican kids playing baseball in makeshift diamonds in the Dominican Republic.
06:45
More than 70 Big League shortstops, including Tony Fernández and Manny Lee, have come from the Dominican Republic.
06:52
Ken Griffey Jr. en tercera base…
06:55
The broadcasting of baseball and other professional sports in Spanish is becoming more common in this country in places like California, Texas, and New York. But now even teams in less traditional Latino cities are discovering the profit of pitching their games to Hispanic listeners.
07:24
[Sports Broadcast Recording] Larry se espera, le da cuarda, lanza, viene, contacto! Se va hacia el centro y Ken…se va escapar, se va escapar, se les escapa!
07:32
Perched in the cramped broadcast booth, Publio Castro handles the play by play.
07:37
[Sports Broadcast Recording] Muestra señal, la manda, viene, strike! [Spanish baseball report].
07:41
Castro has worked to establish a style that's his own. He always knew he wanted to work in broadcasting, even when he was a child doing farm work in California. Through their hard work, his parents made it possible for him to go to college.
07:55
I studied TV production, and I just wanted to know how they made movies, how they make cartoons, how they made commercials, how the cartoons moved, and those sound effects, and stuff like that.
08:05
Castro and his brother started a talk radio show in a small town in Oregon. And when a producer came looking for talent to host Portland Trailblazer basketball, he didn't have to look very far.
08:15
Finley presenta lanza bien, toquecito! Ken Griffey! ¡Sacrificio cuenta! ¡Es más, salvo! Blowers a pesar de que está cogiendo, le gana a Finley.
08:29
When Cliff Zahner heard Castro's show, he knew he had a place for him. Zahner makes a business of persuading teams to air games in Spanish. He then identifies stations that broadcast in Spanish and whose formats could benefit from the games. Then he provides them the games for free.
08:46
And then they get half of the airtime that they can sell to make their own money and we have half of the time that we can sell to pay for our expenses and the announcers. So it's added programming for them, and they'll generally do it if they feel it's a sport that's interesting to their audience. And baseball is particularly interesting because of the Hispanics that play the game.
09:06
The Mariners' team alone has Omar Vizquel, Edgar Martínez, and coach Lou Piniella. By giving Spanish-language interviews, these players are now able to reach another audience. And Randy Adamack, Vice President of Communications for the Seattle Mariners, says advertisers are slowly taking interest.
09:24
Even without it being a profit center, which it is not right now, it's obviously got value to us anyway, in speaking to a large group of important people.
09:35
If advertisers stick with the games and if the present trend continues, there will be few professional teams in the Northwest that aren't broadcasting in Spanish. It's tentative, but as football training camp begins, there are plans to make fall 1993 the first season for Seattle Seahawks games in Spanish.
09:54
[Sports Broadcast Recording] Se acaba esta entrada, donde el score dice, ahora los Angelitos de California con cuatro, Marineros con dos. Regresamos, esta es la cadena de los Marineros de Seattle.
10:05
For "Latino USA," I'm Ingrid Lobet in Seattle.
10:09
From acclaimed director, Alfonso Arau, a sensuous portrait of love and enchantment, change and revolution.
10:23
This year, the Mexican cinema is enjoying a revival with such films as el Danzón and "Como Agua para Chocolate," "Like Water for Chocolate."
11:05
It's the essence of love, femininity, and the affirmation of human nature that Laura Esquivel conveys through a novel which evolved when the author was cooking in her home in Mexico.
11:15
Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba por que a mi me encanta cocinar…[transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural, human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story…[transition to original audio] escribe como hacer una receta poder narrar una historia de amor...
12:20
"Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversación, no crees? Si. Y creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio, empecemos por ahí si quieres."
12:29
In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate," the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold.
12:37
"Ya no hablemos del pasado. [unintelligible) Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mi."
12:44
But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands, every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.
13:23
What I drew my interest more in terms of this use of recipes and cooking and all of this, this presence of it, is really the issue that's been dealt with quite a bit by the feminists, which is female space.
13:53
Departing from the female space of a kitchen rather than departing from, say, the great Western adventure stories that were typically kind of the male stories of the traditional novel, and I think that female space is what really drew my attention in my first reading of the novel and my first viewing of the film.
15:23
[Transition--Chilean folk music]
16:32
We're trying to put once again on the congressional agenda the fact that the United States is a colonial power, that there is a unique and sad relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States and that that relationship in a new world climate where the U.S. has been successful in pushing democracy throughout the world, that that democratic principle be extended to the island of Puerto Rico, that the people must have that right.
18:05
Discussions on the status of Puerto Rico have sometimes created tension between representatives of the island and the Puerto Rican counterparts on the mainland, particularly when it is centered on whether Puerto Ricans who don't live on the island can participate in the November island plebiscite.
19:48
Puerto Rico is not in the agenda of the White House or the U.S. government, and they can care less about colonialism in Puerto Rico. They only move when the United Nations expresses about the Puerto Rican case and tell the Puerto Rican people, those representatives of the foreign countries, that Puerto Rican people exercise its right to self-determination many years ago. Well, it's politics of not confronting the issue, not facing the problem, and I don't see change in that position.
20:42
[Transition--Afro-Cuban jazz]
20:54
Latin jazz great Mario Bauzá died July 11 of cancer in his Manhattan home, just blocks from where I live. Mario Bauzá, an integral part of New York's Latin jazz scene, was 82 years old.
21:09
I remember this great musician sitting on a milk crate outside a bodega, surrounded by friends, drinking coffee, and enjoying the simple things of life. You would've never known it by seeing him that this small, tender, smiley man had totally revolutionized American music.
21:25
In the 1940s, he influenced popular music by innovating a new musical style which mixed popular Afro-Cuban rhythms with American jazz.
21:35
Emilio San Pedro prepared this remembrance of Latin jazz legend Mario Bauzá.
21:40
[Afro-Cuban jazz]
21:43
Mario Bauzá was first exposed to American jazz in 1926, when he visited New York. In 1930, anxious to become a part of that scene, Bauzá left his native Havana for New York, frustrated that in Cuba, Afro-Cuban music was considered merely the music of the streets, not the music of the sophisticated nightclubs, country clubs, and hotels of pre-revolutionary Havana.
22:06
Had to happen outside of Cuba before the Cuban people convinced themself what they had, themself over there. They didn't pay no attention to that. When I got big in United States, Cuba begin to move into that line of music.
22:23
[Afro-Cuban jazz]
22:30
In the 1930s, Bauzá performed with some of New York's best-known jazz musicians, like Chick Webb and Cab Calloway. In fact, in those days, Bauzá was responsible for introducing singer Ella Fitzgerald to Chick Webb, thus helping to launch her career. It was also Bauzá who gave Dizzy Gillespie his first break, with the Cab Calloway Orchestra.
22:50
During their time touring and working with Cab Calloway, Mario Bauzá and Dizzy Gillespie, along with the Afro-Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo, played around with Afro-Cuban rhythm and jazz arrangements and created something entirely new: Afro-Cuban jazz.
23:06
[Machito--Sopa de pichon]
23:19
In the early 1940s, Mario Bauzá formed the legendary band Machito and his Afro-Cubans, along with his brother-in-law, Francisco Perez, who was called Machito. Bauzá was the musical director of the band, and he composed and arranged some of the group's most memorable songs.
23:36
[Machito--Sopa de pichon]
23:43
The sensation caused by Machito and his Afro-Cubans and by other Latin musicians in the 1940s made New York the focal point of a vibrant Latin music scene.
23:53
It's the scene of the Mambo kings you know, and that's why a lot of people will say Mambo is not Cuban music or it's not Mexican music. Mambo is New York music.
24:04
Enrique Fernandez writes about Latin music for the Village Voice.
24:08
It was here that this kind of music became very hot, that it really galvanized a lot of people, that had really attracted a lot of musicians from different genres that wanted to jam with it, and that created those great encounters between Latin music practitioners and jazz practitioners, particularly Black American jazz practitioners, that brought all this stuff together that later on, generated salsa and it generated Latin jazz and a lot of other things.
24:38
[Machito--Si si no no]
24:47
Groups like Machito and his Afro-Cubans were responsible for sparking a Latin dance craze in the United States, from New York to Hollywood. Mario Bauzá's sister-in-law, Graciela Pérez, began singing with Bauzá's orchestra in 1943.
27:08
[Mario Bauza--Carnegie Hall 100]
27:19
Mario Bauzá worked steadily until his death. He recently released a compact disc on the German record label Messidor called My Time is Now.
27:30
For "Latino USA," I'm Emilio San Pedro.
27:33
[Mario Bauza--Carnegie Hall 100]
28:05
[Closing Theme]
28:10
And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The Associate Producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman, Elena Quesada, and Karyl Wheeler. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The Technical Producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So why don't you call us on our toll-free number. It's 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.Y hasta la proxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 15
00:06
[Opening theme]
00:16
I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, the border prepares for free trade.
00:23
And the question is how do you manage this process in a way that really leads to people's lives being better off?
00:29
Also, tackling border health problems and the perennial question, what do we call ourselves?
00:37
I'm Chicano.
00:38
I'm Puerto Rican,
00:39
I'm Cuban Argentine,
00:41
and now we have this new thing, non-white Hispanics. I mean, it's crazy.
00:47
[Transition Music]
00:56
That's all coming up on Latino USA. But first, las noticias.
06:08
That's Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest community-based Hispanic organization. At its recent national conference in Detroit, NCLR celebrated its 25th anniversary, and as Latino USA's Vidal Guzman reports, "While many of its members believe great strides have been made for Latinos over the past 25 years, they also see challenges and struggles ahead."
06:37
The 25th annual conference of the National Council of La Raza opened with a retrospective hosted by actor Edward James Olmos.
07:07
As I look back, and I saw the photos of the marches we were doing, we were fighting discrimination.
07:20
I look back, there's a lot of stories of success that people have empowered themselves and there has been movement forward, but the irony of the whole thing is that we have a long way to go.
08:10
Well, I think overall what we've seen was Hispanics in the Midwest resemble the national scene as far as educational attainment. Both areas suffer from high dropout rates. Poverty is high, the income is basically similar, but a couple things that stand out to me is definitely the labor force participation among Hispanic females, that when you look nationally, Hispanic females rank third among blacks, whites and Hispanics. Whereas in the Midwest, they're leaders.
09:05
We will win because our issues are America's issues, because ending poverty and discrimination is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do.
09:27
[La Semilla--Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeno Band]
09:52
I consider myself a Hispanic. I don't like the term Latino.
09:57
When you say Latino, you get, I think, a warmer sense of who our people are; just a greater sense, a more comprehensive sense of culture.
10:04
What I call myself, I'm Chicano, seventh generation in this country.
10:09
I'm Puerto Rican. That's it, period.
10:11
I'm Cuban-Argentine, I'm Caribbean, and I'm South American.
10:15
And now we have this new thing, non-white Hispanics, non -- I mean, it's crazy.
10:20
I speak Spanish, but I'm not Spanish. I speak English. I'm not English, I'm Latina, I'm Hispanic, I'm Puerto Rican. I'm all of those things, just don't call me Spic.
10:30
I hate the categorizations. I really don't like them because I think that they pigeonhole us into a certain niche and we can't escape it.
14:07
[Chicano--Rumel Fuentes and Los Pinguinos del Norte]
14:17
When I was younger, we had to be Chicana/Chicano movement.
14:21
Hispanic is such a new term that it started off as nobody knew what it meant and now they know what it means and they like it.
14:27
Well, I really don't know why they call it Hispanic because we weren't Hispanics until recently.
14:32
Mexican American is fine. Chicana is fine.
14:36
The word Hispanic, I don't like. I'd rather use the word Indo-Hispanic.
14:40
I believe Hispanic is for the people from Spain.
14:43
Something for sure. We'd rather be called Hispanics than Chicana.
14:47
And the older generation thought that this was a derogatory term.
14:52
Actually Chicana, it's a slang word. It used to be a slang word for Mexicana.
14:59
I don't know why the Mexican American keeps changing names.
15:04
[Chicano--Rumel Fuentes and Los Pinguinos del Norte]
15:14
I am not Hispano. I'm not Latin American. I am not American or Spanish surname. I am not Mexican American. I am not any of those terms, those vulgar terms that come from Washington and the bureaucrats and the functionaries, and when they try to make sense of us and they make no sense of us. I do not label myself. I'm a Chicano.
15:33
Chicano has a lot of negative definitions. Chicano, I've been told it came from Mexico when they put the Chinese in Mexico in one certain area in Durango. So they called them Chinganos. They tell me Chicano means peon, the lowest class Mexican that there is. They tell me Chicano is a militant activist from the 60s that was a true radical on the extremist side. Also, I don't like people keeping themselves at one level when anybody can advance and should not be put into a class and kept there.
16:07
So when you have to fill out a form, what do you call yourself?
16:10
I call myself Caucasian. [Laughter]
16:15
You see, I'm not into that sort of thing really because I decided that I'm no longer a Latino. No, I'm a Hispanic, I'm a Hispanic dammit, and there is a difference. You see, when I was a Latino, my name was Ricardo Salinas, but now that I'm Hispanic, it's Brigardu Salinas.
16:39
I don't see that we have an identity crisis anymore. I think that we've overcome and passed that a long time ago. We know who we are and we're proud of it.
17:05
[unintelligible] Don’t you panic, it’s the decade of the Hispanic! [unintelligible] Don’t you panic, it’s the decade of the Hispanic!
19:47
[Mesa Music Consort--Lovers Trail]
20:50
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and his Mexican counterpart, Mexico Secretary of Social Development Luis Colosio, touted as a strong possibility to succeed President Salinas, convened the gathering of government officials and some 400 business executives. Represented were some of the largest corporations in the US and Mexico. They came to make deals and to discuss ways to bring badly-needed infrastructure to the border area. A region which, in the last 10 years has seen a dramatic increase in population along with rising environmental pollution and deteriorating roads, bridges and sewer and water systems.
21:25
It's a development problem is what it really is. We are dealing with a border that is unique in the world, that is a linkage between the most developed country in the world and relatively poor country of which gap you'll find nowhere else. In Europe, the largest gaps are about a four to one difference. In US/Mexico it's a 10 to 1 difference.
21:46
UCLA economist, Raul Hinojosa, says the current discussion regarding financing for border infrastructure in anticipation of NAFTA presents a major challenge, since neither the government of Mexico nor this country will be able to afford the steep price tag of cleaning up and building up the border.
22:04
The real issue is how do we get the economies of North America such that there's rising living standards and environmental standards on both sides of the border? That is a concrete problem that is not going to be solved by simply reducing tariffs. That's going to have to mobilize both government and the capitalists of the private sector to get involved jointly in solving the environmental problems and solving the infrastructure and social infrastructure, physical infrastructure, housing, all of these very serious problems
22:35
As a way of dealing with those problems, the coalition of Latino organizations calling itself the Latino Consensus on NAFTA has come up with a proposal to establish a North American development bank. According to its proponents, including the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the so-called NAD Bank would be able to fund 20 billion dollars of infrastructure with 1 billion of startup investment. Antonio Gonzalez of the Southwest Voter Research Institute in Los Angeles was at the finance conference advocating for the development bank proposal.
23:11
This was the only viable proposal put on the table. People heard it. People saw it. The media grabbed onto it, and I think very soon the administration may indeed embrace the development bank as the kind of third pillar of his NAFTA package. First pillar being NAFTA. Second pillar being the supplementary negotiations on labor and environmental. Third pillar being the development bank or financing mechanism, and the still missing element would be the new package of current US laws to retrain and support displaced workers.
23:45
Legislation to establish a North American Development Bank has been introduced in Congress by California representative Esteban Torres. But others say the development bank may not be the best way to finance border infrastructure, that perhaps existing institutions such as the Inter-American Bank could do the job. Still another idea is to establish a border transaction fee. Economist Hinojosa, a proponent of the development bank believes this solution is not viable considering the present economic reality along the border.
24:17
These are already poor communities right now, and you're going to be taxing the trade that you're going to try to enhance, in fact, for the benefits on both sides of the border.
24:28
The next few weeks will be key for the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement. As negotiations on the treaty and supplementary agreements on labor standards and the environment continue, and as proponents and opponents of the treaty gear up for the final vote in Congress. Meanwhile, polls show many Americans haven't even heard of NAFTA and in the Latino community there's been a steady erosion in support for the treaty as concern has grown about the possibility of job losses to Mexico. Latino organizations lobbying for NAFTA have their work cut out for them. Andy Hernandez of San Antonio Southwest Voter Research Institute spent the day following the finance conference in San Antonio, planning a strategy to advocate for the Latino consensus position on NAFTA.
25:13
So, I think the way we answer is this; you don't solve the job flight problem by taking down NAFTA. You can build a NAFTA with the side agreements to protect workers' rights on both sides of the border. And frankly, what the opponents of NAFTA have not been able to answer to us and where Chicano labor is not [unintelligible]. How do things get better if NAFTA's defeated? Are we going to have fewer jobs leaving or are we going to have more political will to clean up the environment? Are we going to have any focus at all upon our populations along the border?
26:03
[Los Lobos--La Guacamaya]
27:58
[Closing Theme]
28:07
And for this week,y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA. The Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The associate producer is Angelina Luevano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman, Elena Quesada and Neil Roush. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So why don't you call us on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 16
00:06
[Opening Theme]
00:17
I'm Maria Martin. Today on Latino USA, the administration's plans to crack down on illegal immigration.
00:24
The simple fact is that we must not and we will not surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.
00:32
Also, a possible change in US Cuba relations and a religious group's challenge to the Cuban embargo.
00:39
We're taking such dangerous things as powdered milk, pharmaceuticals.
00:44
And updating the Latin American folk music called La Nueva Canción.
00:49
There's always somebody out there trying to produce new stuff, and that's what Nueva Canción is all about.
00:55
That's all coming up on Latino USA, but first, Las Noticias.
06:04
[Transition Music]
06:15
The simple fact is that we must not and we will not surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.
07:04
We will treat organizing a crime syndicate to smuggle aliens as a serious crime and we will increase the number of border patrol equipping and training them to be first class law enforcement officer.
14:13
The musical style known as La Nueva Canción, the new song movement, was beginning in the mid sixties and for 20 years, the signature sound of Latin American music. Founded by singers Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara of Chile and Atahualpa Yupanqui in Argentina. La Nueva Canción sought to create an awareness of Latin America's Indigenous musical heritage while addressing the region's political situation. Today, as younger generations identify more with the Rock in español, or Rock in Spanish movement, La Nueva Canción has lost some of its popularity. But a group of Latin American musicians living in Madison Wisconsin, believes strongly that La Nueva Canción is still alive and well. Even as they strive for a new sound fusing musical styles. Betto Arcos prepared this profile of the musical group called Sotavento.
15:24
[Transition Music]
15:29
Founded in 1981 by a group of Latin Americans living in Madison, Wisconsin. Sotavento's early recordings focused on the legacy of the Nueva canción movement. Traditional music primarily from South American regions played on over 30 instruments, but as the group grew musically and new members replaced the old ones, their approach to music making also changed.
15:51
[Un Siete--Sotavento]
16:02
For percussionist. Orlando Cabrera, a native of Puerto Rico, the band search for a new sound helps each member bring his or her own musical background.
16:51
[Flute music] The hybrid group always searching for its own sound is how founding member Anne Fraioli defines the music of Sotavento and in their last recording, mostly original compositions. Sotavento takes Latin American music one step ahead by blending instruments and styles to form a new one.
17:11
[Amacord--Sotavento]
17:28
Sotavento's approach to composing and playing music is the group's artistic response to a top 40 music industry that overlooks creativity and experimentation. For Francisco López, a native of Mexico, this commercial environment and the group's principles of Nueva Canción have a lot to do with Sotavento's search for a new sound.
17:49
Nueva Canción has always been alive and always been alive because there's always somebody out there that is trying to produce new stuff, and that's what Nueva Canción is all about. Somebody that is uncomfortable with situations. Say for example, the commercialization of music.
18:08
According to lead vocalist, Laura Fuentes. The fact that the group's music may be heard on a light jazz or new age radio station proves that Sotavento's music is what is happening right now and that it is not completely folkloric or passe.
18:11
[Esto Es Sencillo--Sotavento]
18:35
However, Laura Fuentes believes that Sotavento's music is not specifically designed to sell. Sharing what they feel as artists is hard.
19:03
[El Destajo--Sotavento]
19:10
For Fuentes, a native of Chile, Sotavento is also a way of establishing a connection between an artistic musical expression and its historical background.
19:19
[El Destajo--Sotavento]
19:27
An example of this connection is a Afro Peruvian style, known as Festejo, a musical style created by a small black community in Peru as a result of the living conditions they experienced during slavery.
19:40
[El Destajo--Sotavento]
19:54
In keeping with the tradition of the new song movement, Sotavento arranged music for a poem by Cuba's Poet Laureate, Nicolás Guillén. The poem called, Guitarra is for Sotavento's and Farioli a symbol of the voice of the people.
20:08
[Guitarra--Sotavento]
20:15
Wherever people are, there's going to be a voice, and I think my guitarra represents that voice, that's music, and I think it's also saying that people have to hold on to their roots. They have to hold on to their musical traditions, because it's those traditions that are really going to allow them to express who they really are, where they really come from.
20:35
[Guitarra--Sotavento]
20:49
This summer Sotavento will perform in Milwaukee and Madison, and in the fall there will begin a tour of Spain. The recording called El Siete was released on Redwood records. For Latino USA, this is Betto Arcos, Colorado.
21:07
[A Los Rumberos de Belen--Grupo Sierra Madre]
21:37
More than 30 years ago after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the failed US backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the United States government imposed an economic embargo of that island. Trade and travel to Cuba were prohibited under most circumstances. Under the Trading With the Enemies Act, that policy has softened and then heartened over the years. Most recently, it was tightened under legislation sponsored by Representative Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, the Cuban Democracy Act. Now that policy is being challenged by a group led by several religious leaders. It's an effort known as Pastors for Peace.
22:18
I'm Sandra Levinson. I'm from New York, but I started on the Duluth route.
22:22
Joe Callahan from Minneapolis.
22:25
I’m Henry Garcia from Chicago.
22:28
Latino USA caught up with a group Pastors for Peace in Austin a few days before they defied US government policy by taking medicines, food, and other aid to the economically strapped island of Cuba.
22:41
We're taking such dangerous things as tons of powdered milk. We are taking pharmaceuticals because they are actually distilling their own pharmaceuticals out of the herbs and plants in the fields. I've seen that with my own eyes just in April. They don't even have sutures to close surgical wounds.
23:05
Like the Reverend George Hill, pastor of First Baptist Church in downtown Los Angeles. Every one of the approximately 300 people involved in the motley caravan of school buses, vans, and trucks that make up the Pastors for Peace eight caravan opposes the US economic embargo of Cuba. So much so that they refuse to obtain the license the Custom Bureau requires in order to ship anything to that island.
23:33
We refuse to ask for a license. We refuse to accept the license if the government extends one to us. Our license is really our command from God to feed the hungry, to give clothes to those who are naked, to visit those in prison, to give a cup of cold water. We must do this to the least and even to those with whom we may have differences.
23:54
The Reverend Lucius Walker of the Salvation Baptist Church in Brooklyn is the founder of Pastors for Peace. His stand on Cuba has not made him very popular among those opposed to the government of Fidel Castro. And he says he's received a number of threats.
24:10
Telephone calls to my office, threatening to come over with a pistol and take care of me.
24:15
Still. Walker insists he is not engaging in politics, only in the highest tradition of religious principles and civil disobedience.
24:25
Of Jesus Christ, of Martin Luther King, of Gandhi, and all of those who are the good examples of what it takes to make social progress in a world that if left to its own devices could be a very ugly place to live.
24:40
[Music] About 30 members of the Pastors for Peace Group sit around a television three days before they're set to rendezvous with more caravan members to cross the border at Laredo. They're watching a video about how the animosity between the governments of Cuba and this country have separated families for as long as 30 years.
25:09
I grew up myself with my family always saying, you know, that the only way to get out is to go to US to have a better life, to live like normal people, to wear jeans, to eat gum, chew gum. It's like very idiotic things to think of when I live here now, and you know, I have to learn the language.
25:31
Elisa Ruiz Zamora was born in Cuba. She came to this country with her family when she was 18. She's now a young mother and student making her life here in the States. But when she heard about the caravan of aid to Cuba, she brought her family down to meet with a group. Her mother, brother, and grandfather are still on the island and she hopes some of the caravan's aid gets to them. It's amazing, she says, to see Americans get together to help another nation, one their government has told them is a dangerous enemy.
26:00
Tell the opposite to their government. The government's like to me, it's like they want to be the judges of the world. Say, what should happen here? What shouldn't happen, how Cubans should live their lives. And we have a mind of our own and we always have. There's...
27:48
[Closing Theme]
27:54
And for this week, por esta semana, this has been Latino USA. The Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman, Elena Quesada, WNYC FM and National Public Radio. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So call us at (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. Maria Hinojosa will be back next week, y hasta la próxima, I'm Maria Martin for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 17
00:05
[Opening Theme]
00:16
I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, remembering a 20-year-old case of police misconduct.
00:23
Santos is a symbol of what was happening to the Mexican-American community and the African-American community back in 1973. It can never happen again. It's like those bumper stickers: Remember Santos, nunca mas. Because there were a lot of other Santos' all throughout the United States. There's a lot of other Rodney Kings.
00:37
And the musical legacy of Cachao, the creator of the Mambo.
00:41
Cachao has been, in a sense, overlooked for his contributions musically to the world of music. Musicians know of him and anyone would say, "Oh, he's the master," but in terms of the general public, he's been really ignored.
00:53
That's all coming up on Latino USA. But first, las noticias.
06:07
[Pararararan--Sotavento]
06:17
The incident that happened 20 years ago with Santos Rodriguez certainly cast a shadow or a cloud over the city of Dallas.
07:13
[Background--Hymns]
07:20
A memorial service for Santos Rodriguez was held at the Santuario de Guadalupe in downtown Dallas, just south of the neighborhood called Little Mexico. Now mostly an African-American neighborhood, back in 1973 it was the heart of the Mexican barrio.
10:35
[Pararararan--Sotavento]
17:16
Welcome to Our Lady of the Lake University and the United States Olympic Festival, '93 Judo appearance.
17:25
In a mat-lined University stadium, 43 men and women dressed in loose white jackets and pants stand at attention. Some are Olympic athletes, others want to be. Judo referees make their calls as the athletes try to score with wrestling-like holds and throws. One of the smallest contestants in the women's competition is Helena Gonzalez.
17:48
5'2", 99 pounds.
17:50
You're very strong, I take it.
17:52
I work out hard. [Laughter]
17:54
She's had to work hard. 14 years ago, Helena was a Junior National Judo Champion. Then she stopped competing to marry and raise two sons. Now at 33 years old, she's competing again in the 45 kilo, or 99 pound, weight class. Last year at the US Open in Colorado, she won a bronze medal. Here, Helena has her eyes on the gold.
18:18
Maggie Kahn wearing the red sash. Helen Gonzalez wearing the white.
18:24
Looking at the other judo athletes in the gym, many are in their teens or twenties. 30 is retirement age. Even one of Helena's coaches, Eddie Elizade, recommends quitting at that age. He had to himself.
18:37
You start training in Judo when they're about eight years old and when you get about 30, your mind wants it, but your reflex is not there no more. Your body now doesn't respond as quickly as it used to.
18:51
Come on. Helena. Get underneath her. Go, go, go, go.
19:00
To sharpen her reflexes and build stamina for this competition, Helena trained four days a week; running, lifting weights, and practicing judo in spite of problems with both knees. Coach Eddie Elizale.
19:13
One thing that keeps her going is her determination. If you got the determination she's going to make it. There's no doubt about it. She trains hard and she's going to make it. She don't want to retire yet.
19:25
Besides determination, Helena has inspiration: Her family. Watching her two sons, Blue and Golden, compete in judo, fed her own desires to make a comeback. She shared her dream with her husband, Ruben, a San Antonio policeman and Helena's at-home coach.
19:56
Helena, come on Helen.
20:04
By the third match here at the US Olympic Festival, it looks as though Helena is on a winning streak. In-between matches, she watches her competitors move with a laser-straight focus. Experience gives her an edge. She's been competing since she was 10 years old. She's learned the value of developing physical and mental strength. Helena's passed her love of the sport onto her children. Also, it's a way for Helena and her husband to reach out to disadvantaged children living in San Antonio's housing projects. Her husband runs a judo club for these kids and Helena helps coach them.
21:01
Our silver medalist. Is Helena Gonzalez from San Antonio, Texas. [Cheers]
21:12
With the Olympic Festival over Helena will rest for a few weeks. Her home life will seem normal for a while. Then she will start training again for the US Open in November, and if she keeps winning, she'll seriously start thinking about the 1996 Olympics. For Latino USA, I'm Rosalind Soliz in San Antonio.
21:33
[No Hay Mal Que Por Bien No Venga--Gloria Estefan]
22:05
[Transition--Cuban Music]
22:37
[Descarga Mambo--Israel “Cachao” Lopez]
22:46
Entonces en el año 37 entre mi Hermano y yo nos… [transition to English dub] In 1937, between my brother and I, we took care of this mambo business. We gave our traditional music, our danzón, a 180-degree turn. What we did was modernize it… [transition back to original audio] …lo que hicimos fue modernizarlo.
23:04
In the late 1950s, Cachao got a group of Cuba's top musical artists together for a set of 4:00 AM recording sessions that started after the musicians got off work at Havana's hotels and nightclubs. The group included Cachao's brother, Orestes, El Negro Vivar, Guillermo Barreto, and Alfredo León of Cuba's legendary Septeto Nacional. Cachao says he called those jam sessions descargas, literally discharges, because of the uninhibited atmosphere that surrounded those recordings.
23:33
En la descarga se presa uno libremente, cuando uno esta leyendo música no es los mismo… [transition to English dub] In the descarga you express yourself freely. When you are reading music it's just not the same. You are reading the music and so your heart can't really feel it. That's why that rhythm is so strong and everyone likes it so much… [transition to original audio] Fuerte! Y muy bien, todo el mundo encantado.
23:57
[Descarga Mambo--Israel “Cachao” Lopez]
24:31
His music has inspired me over the years and has brought solace to me and many times and has been a companion for me. Anybody who knows me will know that I carry tapes of Cachao with me in my pocket.
24:43
Actor Andy Garcia is one of those young Cubans on whom Cachao's music made a lasting impact. Garcia recently directed a documentary on the musician's life titled "Cachao...Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos." "Like His Rhythm, There's No Other."
24:57
Cachao has been, in a sense, overlooked for his contributions musically to the world of music, world internationally. Musicians know of him and anyone say, "Oh, he's the master," but in terms of the general public, he's been really ignored. So it's important to document something, so somehow that would help bring attention to his contributions to music.
25:19
The documentary mixes concert footage with the conversation with Cachao. The concert took place last September in Miami, bringing together young and older interpreters of Cuban and Latin music in a tribute to Cachao and his descarga.
26:28
[No Hay Mal Que Por Bien No Venga--Gloria Estefan]
26:43
The album "Mi Tierra" has become an international hit in the few weeks since its release. The documentary, "Cachao, Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos", has been shown at the Miami and San Francisco film festivals. Cachao also plans to go into the recording studio later this year to put together an album of danzónes.
27:00
Es baile de verdad Cubano, y se ha ido olvidado… [transition to English dub] It's the traditional Cuban dance, and it's being forgotten. Here you almost never hear a danzón. I wish the Cubans would realize that this is like the mariachi. The Mexican never forgets his mariachi. Wherever it may be, whatever star may be performing, the mariachi is there. It's a national patrimony, as the danzón should be for us and we should preserve it... [transition to original audio] …danzón…y debemos preservarlo también.
27:31
Cachao strongly believes in preserving Afro-Cuban culture and its musical traditions. He hopes to keep those traditions alive with his music. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro.
27:47
[No Hay Mal Que Por Bien No Venga--Gloria Estefan]
27:57
[Closing Theme]
28:03
And for this week, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emelia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman, Elena Quesada, and Manolita Wetherill. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you, so why don't you call us on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 18
00:06
[Opening Theme]
00:16
I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, Hispanics and the Catholic Church.
00:22
People with a different culture and different values and a different way of expressing wonderful and beautiful Catholicism.
00:29
A standoff at the border over aid to Cuba.
00:33
We've told them that they will not be arrested, they will not be prosecuted. We will release the bus, that people can go freely. They refuse to budge.
00:41
Also, keeping the mariachi musical tradition alive.
00:45
It's the most addicting music of all. Once it's in your blood, you'll never get it out.
00:51
That's all coming up on Latino USA. But first Las Noticias.
01:21
In a state where we have within Los Angeles, a community of illegal immigrants the size of San Diego.
02:48
Where were they when they had to censor the Robert E. Lee statue? Where were they when they had to censor the Balbo statue? They haven't censored anything. Now they want to censor the Puerto Rican community.
04:13
Thank you. Thank you very much.
06:00
[Transition--Folk Music]
06:10
Pope John Paul II made his first visit to the United States since 1987. The pontiff along with 170,000 Catholics from around the world came to celebrate World Youth Day. A commemoration of Catholicism and religious worship. American Catholic clergy are hoping that as a result of the fanfare, traditionally Catholic Latino communities will renew their interest in the church. But as Ancel Martinez reports from Denver, many Catholic parishes are confronted with apathy and a church parishioners feel is sometimes too conservative.
06:46
[Church Bells]
06:50
One parish that wants to avoid the image of state Catholicism in apathy among Catholics is our Lady of Guadalupe. It's Adobe and Brick colonial style church and courtyard is just across the railroad tracks from Denver’s sleek office buildings. The pastor just ended a three-week fast to protest gangs that dominate summer street life around here. Our Lady Guadalupe is housing, hundreds of pilgrims celebrating World Youth Day. Church Deacon Alfonso Sandoval says for Mexican Americans it should be a time for reflection.
08:56
[Church music and signing]
09:04
The Church of Christ Elam holds thrice weekly services in the basement of the circa 1900s Methodist church in the center of Denver's Latino neighborhood. Furnishings are minimal, fold up chairs, linoleum floor, and a small stage, several teenagers sing, a few dozen followers wave their hands and clutch Bibles, Pastor Manuel Alvarez, explains Catholicism simply isn't spiritual enough for many, so they seek other faiths.
09:27
They found something that is not a religious but a new experience with God when they can talk to God and have a relationship with God, not with religious or not with that organization, but a special relationship with Jesus Christ.
10:40
[Muevete--Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeno Band]
10:55
Since it first opened in Los Angeles in September of 1991. The art exhibit known as CARA, the acronym for Chicano Art Resistance and Affirmation has traveled throughout the country to Denver, Albuquerque, El Paso, San Francisco, the Bronx, and Washington DC, bringing art inspired by the Chicano political and social movements of the 60s and 70s to audiences that had sometimes not even heard of the word Chicano. The CARA exhibits last stop was at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Museum patrons on this last afternoon of the CARA exhibit seemed to appear a little bit more intently than usual at this collection of 130 works by 90 Chicano artists from across the country. San Antonio artist David Zamora Casas was among those getting a last glimpse of the landmark art exhibit.
11:53
It has opened up the link that we have with our collective past. It has made it okay to and cool to be Chicano again.
12:10
There’s so much of the heritage and seeing it through the eyes of the Mexican American. The quote over there, the A Chicano is a Mexican American through non-Anglo eyes, speaks very much to me through this exhibit.
12:28
Combining art, politics and history. These diverse works, posters, murals, and multimedia together defined a distinct Chicano aesthetic.
12:38
What that meant some 15 years ago is that Chicano artists began to look inward at their own experience to look at their own traditions.
12:47
Art historian Dr. Jacinto Quirarte curated the exhibit in San Antonio.
12:53
Things that the Chicanos themselves had experienced rather than leapfrogging over to Mexico and looking at things indirectly. By the mid-70s Chicano artists began to really know who they were and by the 80s they were really well onto their own.
13:11
In three years of touring the Chicano Art, Resistance, and Affirmation exhibit has brought this distinctive artistic style to the attention of the mainstream art world, but perhaps its most lasting impact has been on audiences who had seldom before seen themselves reflected on museum walls.
13:30
We worked the fields in the summer and on weekends during the school year, whatever crop was seasoned. So uh-
13:38
30 year old beautician, Sally Ortiz came to see the exhibit twice in San Antonio before it closed. The familiar images she says like that of the Virgin of Guadalupe and of farm worker life and struggle touched a deep cord of memory.
13:54
The lettuce and the grapes and the pesticides. I remember my mother talking about the pesticides and of course I was very young and I never understood, but she used to always say, ‘que era muy venenoso.’ Just looking at everything. Just, it's like looking into my past all over again.
14:12
And for others too young or not around during the heyday of the Chicano movement, the CARA show proved an education.
14:20
Looking at the photos of all the rallies that they had, I found my mother in one of them and it just made me feel really proud that my parents had never really told me about it. But then they started telling me about all this stuff, makes me really proud that people were so alive back then and it just makes me want to be more alive now with the movement because it is still going on.
14:43
In San Antonio, as well as the other cities where CARA was exhibited, the show brought in more Latinos than had ever visited those institutions previously. The challenge now say many observers is to keep them coming.
14:57
[Guadalajara--Mariachi Mexico de Pepe Villa]
15:23
[Mariachi Music]
16:11
Well because it's challenging. It has more than three chords. It's basically what I think rock and roll is. And not that I'm knocking, I like rock and roll, but it's challenging. It's more challenging to play, you know, learn a lot more from it.
16:23
[Mariachi Music]
16:32
With this music, you can express your feelings more.
16:36
How?
16:37
Um, with the songs, the words and stuff, they're very powerful words.
16:42
Jennifer Luna is the leader of Mariachi Oro del Sol and shares Watson's enthusiasm. She says in her part of Texas, young people are very drawn to this style of music.
16:53
A lot of young people play in El Paso. That's mostly what there is there. The groups are younger kids. Cause over there it's in the schools they teach it to you, so it's pretty common over there.
17:05
The word mariachi comes from the French word for marriage. According to history, French people who came to Mexico in the 1800s became interested in the Mexican string bands of the time and invited them to play at French weddings. Today, mariachis typically include guitar, violin, trumpet, and the vihuela, which is a small guitar, and the guitarrón, which is a very large guitar. While they carry on traditions, youth mariachi groups like Oro Del Sol are also different from the older generation of mariachis in that they tend to be more gender balanced. Nick Watson says his mariachi group is all the better for including young women musicians.
17:41
They're good. We just picked who’s good and they're good. So we take them, it doesn't matter. Sex has nothing to do with it. If you're good, you're good, you play.
17:48
[Mariachi Music]
17:55
There's no doubt that among the young people attending this year's Mariachi Spectacular is some great future talent. Alex De Leon is a vocalist for the Mariachi Azul y Blanco from Adamson High School in Dallas. This 17 year old has already received high praise for his vocal talents.
18:12
[Mariachi Music]
18:22
People keep giving me comments, I'm good and stuff. So now I want to get better.
18:27
Young Mariachis, like De Leon have a chance to learn from more experienced mentors like Al Sandoval, who teaches music in the Albuquerque public schools and is director of Mariachi Romántico. Sandoval says, attendance at the Mariachi Spectacular workshops has tripled since last year. Sandoval says because of its expressiveness, mariachi music is a big part of Southwest Hispanic culture.
18:50
It's the most addicting music of all. I mean Southwest, it's the most addicting music. It grows on you and once it's in your blood, you'll never get it out. It's worse than the worst habit you can ever have because I mean, you grow to love it and you can never get away from it.
19:05
[Mariachi Music]
19:12
Everything about Mariachis hearkens back to Old Mexico from the ornate charro outfits and broad brimmed hats to the instruments and the old songs. But on the final night of the Mariachi Spectacular, as the teenage musicians joined the world's most famous mariachi groups on stage for a grand finale, the tradition seemed certain to continue for a long time to come. For Latino USA, I'm Marcos Martinez in Albuquerque.
19:46
[Preludio Proyecto Latino--Gonzalo Rubaclaba]
20:57
I see a whole bunch of semis waiting in line to go to Mexico, and in the middle of all that mess, there's this little school bus and I feel sorry.
21:07
Retired Laredo social worker, Manuel Ramirez sits on a sidewalk near the border wearing binoculars. He's trying to get a better glimpse of the scene across the street, there off to the side of the Lincoln Juarez Bridge. in an enclosed lot where semi-trucks wait to be inspected by the custom service sits a yellow school bus with a sign which reads ‘End The Embargo Against Cuba’. Inside the bus, 12 people ages 22 to 86 wait out the blazing hot August days. They've refused to leave the vehicle and to take any solid food, since the bus was seized by the customs service on July 29th. Among them is Pastors for Peace leader, the Reverend Lucius Walker of Brooklyn.
21:48
We see a nation that is threatened, a nation that is not our enemy, with which we are not at war. We were asked by the churches in Cuba to take this mission on and having responded affirmatively to their request, we have come to see for ourselves the importance of what we are doing.
22:06
What the Reverend Walker and Pastors for Peace hope to accomplish by their hunger strike and their attempt to take aid materials to Cuba is to call into question this country's 32-year old prohibition against trade and travel to that island. Pamela Previt of the Customs Service says her agency tried to help the aid caravan get through the border smoothly, but that this bus clearly violated US Law.
22:58
They simply were not able to stop it because this was a human wave and a vehicular wave of people who were determined that this is a law that can no longer be enforced.
23:10
The law Walker refers to is the Trading with the Enemy Act enforced by the Treasury Department. So far that government agency has not responded to a proposal from the Pastors for Peace to allow someone from the World Council of Churches to escort the yellow school bus to Havana. On the 10th day of the hunger strike, there was a rally, in Laredo to support the hunger strikers and an end to the embargo against Cuba. A microphone was passed across the fence and the strikers told the crowd they were prepared to stay indefinitely.
23:43
We are all determined to stay on the school bus until the school bus goes to Cuba.
23:50
Cuba is not perfect, the government's not perfect, but it's way better than what they have in Latin America. And I realize that…
23:57
That among the 12 people on hunger strike is 32 year old Camilo Garcia who left Cuba four years ago.
24:03
And I decided that I will do everything I can to help the revolution to survive, and I will stay in here as long as it take no matter what it take, even if it take my life. So what?
24:15
The 100 degree heat, the exhaust fumes and the liquid only fast are taking their toll on the health of the hunger strikers. Doctors brought in by the Customs Service and by Pastors for Peace are monitoring the group's health condition regularly. For Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin reporting.
24:32
[Mariachi Music]
24:47
Northern New Mexico is almost another country, a place of great natural beauty where los llanos y las montañas, the plains and the mountains, have for many years kept communities isolated but also close-knit and friendly. Producer Deborah Begel recently moved to Northern New Mexico. She sent this report about one local custom.
25:19
Let's see, here comes Vanji from the clinic and she waves. Yeah, she wiggles her fingers. Hi, how are you guys?
25:39
There goes Mapo, he smiles and waves at everybody,
25:42
A few paces down the street. Retired Marine Elipio Mercure is standing outside Pastores feed and general store.
25:50
We're so far apart, our communities, and sometimes you don't get to see each other for two or three or four days, so when you meet each other on the road, you wave at each other and say, hi, how you doing? And it's contagious.
26:07
Loyola Archuleta, the manager of the store, explains that most Chama Valley locals practice three waves, a kind of scale of friendliness.
26:16
One is for people that you don't really know too well. You just pick up one finger and for people that you really know a little more, you pick up your whole hand. But if you really know somebody that you really, really like, you really shake your hand back and forth [laughter]. Let's see, this is going to be {unintelligible]. Let’s see, hi. See he waves and then he shakes his finger at me, that what am I doing? [Laughter].
26:48
All the history of a family, a community, a friendship are revealed in a wave.
26:53
And this is her now. She's my, she's my comadre I baptized her daughter when we're ex sister-in-laws. So she'll wave and say hi, and that's as much as it goes.
27:08
John Nichols, author of the Milagro Bean Field War, describes his return to Taos after a long trip in his book, If Mountains Die. "When I raised my hand in greeting to a car driven by a stranger", he writes "and received a salutation in return, I knew I had a arrived to a place worth trying to call home". Pedro Archuleta of Tierra Amarillo, or TA as the locals call it, couldn't agree more.
27:33
The moment you see somebody just wave at you, as you come [unintelligible]. It's a different feeling because hey, I'm home. Finally home feel better.
27:41
My husband was telling me that one time he was coming down the grotto. And we have a tradition that when we pass the grotto, we cross ourselves. And instead of making the sign of the cross, he waved to the grotto.
28:00
[Closing Theme]
28:08
And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA. The Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by María Emilia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luévano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzmán, Elena Quesada, and Karyl Wheeler. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So why don't you call us, llámenos, on our toll free number. It's 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 in Austin. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 19
00:06
[Opening Theme]
00:16
I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, the race is on for approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
00:23
If you are a Chicano entrepreneur in the border states, you're likely to do very well by NAFTA. If you are an industrial worker in the Northeast or in the Midwest, your company might find it advantageous to move your job to Mexico.
00:38
From East LA, an Elvis for El Pueblo. El Vez, the Mexican Elvis.
00:44
One of my favorites is [singing] ‘you ain’t nothing but a chihuahua, yappin’ all the time’. We start the show with the lighter easy songs, the familiar ones and then we hit them with the one-two punch.
00:55
That's all coming up on Latino USA, but first las noticias.
01:32
We're here today as a coalition of Latinos, leaders in our community, leaders in business, and leaders in the political arena to hold Governor Wilson accountable for his recent proposals to President Clinton.
02:34
We know well in our community that this is a historical cycle. During the depression in 1931, immigrants were made scapegoats. In 1954, immigrants were made scapegoats. During the inflationary periods of the seventies, immigrants were made scapegoats. And the 1990s, in today's recession, guess what? Immigrants are being made scapegoats.
03:17
There's a hundred thousand, 100,000 Latino owned businesses in Los Angeles alone generating six and a half billion dollars in revenues every single year. For the politicians to blame the economic problems on immigrants it sends out a dangerous message. Immigrants did not take away the jobs in the defense industry. Immigrants are not taking away jobs from corporate America, bad economic policies are.
06:02
[Transition Guitar Music]
06:57
The theme of the song is about a community united in an effort that is uncontainable. On a sweltering August afternoon, a throng of protestors stood on the steps of the Chicago Park District headquarters singing that and other songs as they awaited the outcome of the board's vote. Inside close to 200 people listen to community leaders who backed the effort to raise a statue in Campos's Honor. Absent however, were voices of opposition, which led many to argue that none exists. One prominent opponent however, the commissioner of the city's Human Services Department, Daniel Alvarez, says those who spoke out against Campos were intimidated with threats of violence.
09:17
And now here comes the statue of a Puerto Rican, one that this room here believes in. And you're saying, "No," you're saying, "No." Why is it that every time it comes down to the Puerto Rican community, you have to say no? Let me present to you that community. How many people in this room are in favor of the statue? [Cheering and applause]
09:44
But a spokesperson for the board says the commissioners had the whole community in mind when it decided not to accept the statue. And while the opposition is pleased with the board's decision supporters say their fight is far from over. They plan on taking the board to court to force them to erect the statue of Pedro Albizu Campos. For Latino USA, I'm Tony Sarabia in Chicago.
10:05
[Chile Sin Carne--Flor de Caña]
12:42
We have now formed a block in Congress of people that are on the fence that are part of this bill, they're saying, "If we get the NADBank or most of it, then we can vote for the free trade agreement." I don't think that the administration can afford to ignore that. I mean, they haven't got enough votes. They need to work with us and the proposal that they now have, even with the side agreements are not going to be enough.
18:43
[Black Magic Woman--El Vez]
19:12
[Highlight--Music--El Vez] You're pretty el vez, stand in line, make love to you baby, till next time. Cuz I'm El Vez. I spell 'H' hombre, hombre...(Cover of I'm a Man--Bo Diddley)
19:32
16 years after the death of Elvis Presley. Elvis lives in many forms. For instance, the dozens of Elvis impersonators out there, the teen Elvis, the Black Elvis, the Jewish Elvis, flying Elvis's galore. Pues, what do you think of an Elvis con salsa, or the Elvis for Aztecs? With us on Latino USA is someone who's been called, not an Elvis impersonator, but an Elvis translator. He's Robert Lopez of East Los Angeles, also known as El Vez, the Mexican Elvis. So tell me about it, Robert Lopez. Why Elvis for the Latino community?
20:24
[Está Bien Mamacita--El Vez]
20:42
I would say about 15% of Elvis's impersonators are Latino. You'd be surprised because all over California and all in Illinois, there are many other Latino Elvis impersonators. But I'm the first Mexican Elvis, I take my heritage and make it part of my show.
21:59
[Transition--Music--El Vez]
22:14
Some people have called you a cross-cultural caped crusader singing for truth, justice and the Mexican-American way. So for you, it's more than just musical entertainment, you've got a message here in the music that you're bringing.
23:08
[Singing] One two three four, I'm caught in a trap, do do do do. I can't walk out, because my foots caught in this border fence, do do do do do. Why can't you see, statue of liberty, I am your homeless, tired and weary...
23:37
[Immigration Time--El Vez]
24:12
Huaraches azul. Instead of That's Alright Mama, Esta Bien Mamacita. One of my favorites is [singing] ‘You ain’t nothing but a chihuahua, yapping all the time’. We start the show with the lighter easy songs, the familiar ones, and then we get them with the one-two punch and get them talking about political situations, sexual situations, and rock and roll situations.
24:35
[En el Barrio--El Vez] En el barrio, people dont you understand, this child needs a helping hand, or he's going to be an angry young man one day. Take a look at you and me-
24:49
Robert Lopez, also known as El Vez, is now negotiating with the producers of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for a possible TV sitcom. He'll also be playing Las Vegas for the first time.
25:00
[En el Barrio--El Vez] So he joins again. Ok if there's one thing he can't stand that's to have to join a mariachi band in el barrio...
25:35
The Hispanic community is not getting very well educated, okay? We need to push more for education.
25:42
We're working our way up, and I want to see us in power, not let everybody else walk all over us. We're going to be doing a lot of the walking, and we've got a lot to do.
25:51
President Clinton, up to this day, I feel that he takes in a lot of information from his public, from his staff, and he later he comes up with the plan out of that.
26:04
I think he's done a good job so far. I think he's the best president ever since John F Kennedy.
26:10
I'm sure he has good intentions. He can't please everybody all the time. He's looking out for the general welfare of the whole United States.
26:20
I do like the fact that he has let gays and lesbians in the army and stuff like that because I mean, that's their own private life, and nobody should get into that because it's theirs and it's personal. So I mean, we shouldn't hold that against them. Their preference is their business as long as they can do their work right. I mean, I think that's cool.
26:40
That's a tough situation. And the way it is right now there, we know that there are some gays in the military, but we don't know who they are, if they keep it quiet or ... Once you do know, I do know of one, a guy that was in my unit, and he seemed just like any other guy. So on a personal level, it's all right, but when you think about the overall picture, it's kind of an eerie feeling.
27:03
I don't know if you can say maybe the sixties, free love, everything like that was a part of it. And some of the people took that wrong as to what free love was, and they took it to the extremes with sex. And nowadays, you have a generation that holds nothing sacred.
27:21
Yeah, I believe that it's women's choice, even though in the case of rape, they should have an abortion, like incest and stuff like that. But I do believe it's women's choice.
27:32
Abortion is not a word for me. I don't believe in it.
27:37
Sex is not a game. It's not something we should play with. Responsible sex is knowing that you're going to have sex and knowing that the possibility of having a child is there and taking that responsibility if a child is in your womb.
27:49
I work in a neighborhood where the dropout rate is 75% of our high school and 75% of that, 45% of that is due to pregnancy. And I can't justify telling a kid for whatever reason, not to have abortion, not to have abortion, but I think it should be there to be addressed correctly.
28:03
And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emilia Martin. The associate producer is an Angelica Luévano. We'd like to acknowledge our administrative staff, Dolores Garcia, Vidal Guzmán, and Dr. Gilbert Cardenas. We had help this week from Elena Quesada, Belinda De La Rosa, and Karyl Wheeler. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We really want to hear from you. So why don't you call us, llámenos, on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 20
00:00
[El Cuchipe--Los Lobos]
00:00
On August 24th of last year, Hurricane Andrew ripped through South Florida, wreaking devastation. When the rains and winds had died down, 150,000 people were left homeless. One year later, many communities hard hit by Andrew have generally recovered, but that's not the case in the mostly agricultural region of South Dade County, where construction and repairs are still in progress. Many farms remain closed or are operating at half capacity. Reporter Emilio San Pedro was in the Florida City homestead area of South Florida on the anniversary of Hurricane Andrew. He reports that life is only very slowly returning to normal in this primarily farmworker community.
00:00
The Centro Campesino in Florida City is a farm worker support organization that serves as the unofficial town center for many of South Dade's migrant and year-round farm workers. Housing counselor Leslie Guerra says that every day, the staff at the Centro sees indications that the damages caused by Hurricane Andrew are still affecting the area's farmworkers.
00:00
I'm going to ask Governor Chiles to say a few-
00:00
Today, on the eve of the anniversary of Hurricane Andrew, Terry Adellano and others at the Centro Campesino are hosting Florida's governor, Lawton Chiles, and other dignitaries who are paying visits to many of South Dade's hardest-hit regions.
00:00
Outside the office of the Centro Campesino is a housing development called Centro Villas. The more than 60 homes are owned by farmworkers that have participated in the Centro's sweat equity program. Antonia Torres lives in one of the houses and is the president of the Centro Villas Homeowners Association.
00:00
No, me falta terminar la cocina…[transition to English dub] I still need to redo the kitchen, and the kitchen cabinets haven't been replaced. Also, the tool shed was destroyed, and my fence has not been repaired [transition to original audio]…todavía.
00:00
Today, Antonia brought her husband and two boys to the Centro Campesino to hear what the governor had to say.
00:00
Que bueno que nos visitó el gobernador, que bueno…[transition to English dub] It's great that the governor came here, and hopefully it won't be just a visit. Hopefully it will result in assistance for all that need it. Sometimes it happens that way. They visit, look around, say they're going to help, and in the end, they don't do nothing [transition to original audio]…ojalá que esta vez sí ayuden.
00:00
[Gloria Latina-- Local Traditional Artists & Gérard Kremer]
00:00
Yo, this is Orchard Beach in the boogie-down Bronx, the Puerto Rican Riviera.
00:00
If you can't get out of the city on vacation, this is the place to go. This is our version of Cancun, our version of Puerto Rico.
00:00
Tell you about this beach. It's blacks, whites, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Indians, Iranians, you name it. [Laughter] But uh-
00:00
This beach is full of culture you know. This beach, you got all kind of Latin Americans. Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Cubans. Get all kind of heritage walking around and having a good time, dancing. There's music bands over there.
00:00
[Highlight--Music--Cuban music]
00:00
I love it here because you don't see your brother, your sister, for 20 years. Hey brother, remember me? Oh, remember, I was your wife a long time ago? [Laughter]
00:00
This is the only place that we come here to forget, and not be- right, enjoy the summer. Because it's good being here, you know away from things, away from problems, away from home.
00:00
What do you try to forget about when you're here?
00:00
Stress.
00:00
Stress. Stress. Problems. Stress.
00:00
Work, accounting. Living in the ghetto, which is the most toughest part.
00:00
Right. When you come here, everything is different. When you go back home, you're back to the same old thing, same old-
00:00
Mostly we're all in projects. You know bad neighborhood, worrying about looking over our shoulders. So, this is a place where we just get away. Everybody's just being themselves, hanging out. We don't have to worry about someone coming behind us and trying to do something. This is relaxing. That's why we come here.
00:00
Everybody's trying to get away from that bad environment out there. You know what I'm saying? The shooting and the drugs and all that. Over here, it's not a bad environment. I'm saying, you don't see too many fights over here. I haven't seen a fight broke out yet. If anything, everybody likes trying to help each other. I come here to try have a nice time with my family. Have a few beers, smoke a blunt. You know what I mean?
00:00
Yeah. Really. Forget about everyday work and get out of the hot steamy streets, dirty filthy streets and stuff.
00:00
Do you ever go into the water?
00:00
Not really. I don't like going in that water, cause it's filthy. That's the truth. Where's everybody at? Look, the sand. Very few in the water. And if they're in the water, they're only in up to their knees. That's about it.
00:00
I just got to say, the water is very polluted.
00:00
Look what happened to his face. It's all red. Jellyfish got in his face.
00:00
Yeah, it hurts. It hurts a lot.
00:00
I saw there was lot of suckers in there. I wouldn't get in the pool now. I wouldn't put my finger on the pool.
00:00
It's not about going in the water. The water's no good. It's just about hanging out on the boardwalk and meeting people.
00:00
That's America. You know what I mean? Turn loose. That's what it's all about. You could be you, here in Orchard Beach. It's a symbol of all cultures exposing and expressing what America's about in one little corner of the world. [Laughter]
00:00
[Highlight--Music--Cuban music]
00:00
[Recordando a Tschaikowsky--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
Before the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, jazz music flowed freely from this country to Cuba and back. That musical cross-pollination has been more difficult in recent years, though. However, Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba made history this summer when he was permitted to play in the United States for the very first time. Alfredo Cruz reports.
00:00
[Recordando a Tschaikowsky--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
During the first half of this century, Cuban music was a very popular source of entertainment in the United States. The Mambo y cha-cha-cha, and other rhythms dominated radio waves and dance halls across the country. Cuban music was being heard here, and jazz over there. But in 1959, following the Cuban Revolution, all cultural and political connections between the two countries were cut. And in Cuba, jazz became a Yankee imperialist activity. Playing or listening to jazz was done in an underground clandestine manner. Since then, things have changed. For one, the Havana International Jazz Festival, now in its 14th year, has attracted world-class musicians and helped raise the social and political acceptance of jazz in Cuba. But as pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba says, it wasn't easy.
00:00
[Mi Gran Pasion--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
At 30 years of age, Gonzalo Rubalcaba is considered one of Cuba's premier pianists. His father played with the orchestra of Cha-cha-cha inventor Enrique Jorrín, and later became one of Cuba's most popular band leaders. Gonzalo himself played with the legendary Orquesta Aragón while still a teenager, but it is through his solo playing that Gonzalo has made his mark in Cuba and around the world. Because of political differences, however, the United States audience remained out of reach to Cuban jazz and musicians like Rubalcaba.
00:00
[Simbunt Ye Contracova--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
Bueno Estados Unidos debió ser uno de los primeros escenario…[transition to English dub] The United States should have been one of the first places for me to play. But since 1989, there's been a mystique and anticipation surrounding my not being allowed to enter this country. Very simply put, it's been a politically motivated maneuver to not grant me a performance visa, and has nothing to do with artistic or musical considerations. But now, my first appearance in this country, I think signals that we are entering a new era. But that doesn't mean I haven't had any contact with American musicians, because I've played with many in Cuba and in festivals around the world [transition to original audio]…contacto con músicos Norte Americanos.
00:00
American bassist Charlie Haden met and played with Gonzalo Rubalcaba in Switzerland at the 1989 Montreux International Jazz Festival and brought him to the attention of Blue Note Records. Haden, along with Blue Note executives and Lincoln Center in New York City, negotiated with the US State Department to grant the young pianist a performance visa. And finally, in what seems to have been a political icebreaker last May 14th, Gonzalo Rubalcaba made his US debut performance before a sold-out audience at Lincoln Center.
00:00
[No name (Live at Lincoln Center)--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
Nueva dirección, del viento, el aire lleva…[transition to English dub] There's been a change of wind, politically speaking, a relaxation of attitudes and perceptions that are now opening the doors to dialogue in an effort to eliminate tensions. And it seems to me that this is a common goal of both Cuba and the United States. Even though we still can't really speak of this in practical terms, but ideally, this could be the beginning of normalizing relations between the two countries [transition to original audio]…esto podría ser un pequeño parte de eso, un comienzo.
00:00
[Unknow Track--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
Many artists in both countries do agree that a relaxation of political policy between Cuba and the United States would be a positive development. And Rubalcaba's US debut has generated a renewed optimism within the cultural community, even though the visa he was issued allowed him to play only one concert, and on the condition that he would not be paid. Recently, Gonzalo Rubalcaba's recording, entitled Suite 4 y 20, was released in this country on the Blue Note record label. For Latino USA, I'm Alfredo Cruz in Newark, New Jersey.
00:00
[Unknow Track--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:00
[Closing Theme]
00:00
And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by María Emilia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luévano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzmán, Karyl Wheeler, and the Hispanic Link News Service. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We really want to hear from you. So why don't you call us, llámanos, on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
00:05
[Opening Theme]
00:16
I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, Homestead, Florida, one year after Hurricane Andrew.
00:20
[Simbunt Ye Contracova--Gonzalo Rubalcaba]
00:24
My God, it's been a year. Our lives have been affected so much that we were living so fast, so quickly.
00:30
Also, for the end of the summer, a Nuyorican pastime.
00:34
Yo, this is Orchard Beach in the boogie-down Bronx, the Puerto Rican Riviera.
00:39
And a proposal for a free art agreement.
00:43
Through trilingual publications, radio, video, and performance collaborations, more complex notions of North American culture could be conceived.
00:55
That's all coming up on Latino USA. But first, las noticias.
05:01
There was another free trade-related summit in Tijuana, Mexico. This went to form a community-based agenda regarding NAFTA. Joseph Leon has this report.
05:11
Hundreds of people representing US and Mexican environmental labor groups met to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement. The US, Mexican, and Canadian governments believe that NAFTA will tend to the economic and environmental needs of the communities throughout North America. But for the community groups, the agreement will accomplish quite a different goal. Mike Guerrero of the Southwest Organizing Project in New Mexico.
05:36
The North American Free Trade Agreement, as it's negotiated now, has nothing to do with free trade. For them to increase their profit margins means cutting our wages, cutting environmental regulations, cutting social services, and that's basically what it's all about.
Latino USA Episode 21
00:00
This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, Latinos in the US workforce.
06:24
[Archival sound] Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and all hill of Mississippi.
09:10
[Natural sounds of march] Even though a majority of the marchers declared that little has changed in the 30 years since the first march, there was a feeling of optimism for the future in the air. Henry Cisneros, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, said his optimism comes from faith that this administration will help out those who have been in need for so long.
14:57
[Transition Music]
20:24
[Hip-hop remix of US National Anthem]
20:37
[Mexican folk music] The Chicana writer, Ana Castillo, had an abuelita, a grandmother who signed her name with an X. Castillo's father dropped out of high school. Her mother only finished primary school, but all three had an indelible impact on Castillo as a writer. They told her stories or cuentos. And in her latest novel, So far From God, Ana Castillo brings these cuentos to life.
23:36
[Mexican Folk music] [Reading] Esperanza let out a shriek, long and so high-pitched that started some dogs barking in the distance. Sofi had stopped crying to see what was causing the girls' hysteria. When suddenly the whole crowd began to scream and fainted and move away from the priest who finally stood alone next to the baby's coffin. The lid had pushed all the way open and the little girl inside sat up just as sweetly as if she had woken from a nap, rubbing her eyes and yawning, "Mami?" She called, looking around and squinting her eyes against a harsh light. Father Jerome got hold of himself and sprinkled holy water in the direction of the child, but for the moment, was too stunned to utter so much as a word of prayer. Then, as if all this was not amazing enough, as Father Jerome moved toward the child, she lifted herself up into the air and landed on the church roof. "Don't touch me, don't touch me." She warned. This was only the beginning of the child's long lives' phobia of people.
28:08
And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emelia Martin, the associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from John Hansen, Caryl Wheeler, and National Public Radio. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you so ¿por qué no nos llaman? Call us on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 22
00:00
This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. [Opening music] I'm Maria Hinojosa today on Latino USA, a controversy over art and undocumented immigrant workers.
05:49
[Latin hip-hop transition music]
08:31
In the 1970s, tenants at La Marqueta organized to run the marketplace and later several developers took over all without success. La Marqueta became the site of building code violations and neglect as small vendors retired or moved elsewhere and there was no one left to take their place. A year and a half ago, the city finally took charge again. Through the Economic Development Corporation. [Natural sounds of neighborhood] The city is fixing the one remaining building hoping to welcome new tenants by October. There's now a task force working on choosing a new developer to boost La Marqueta to a new future. The city is committed $5 million to the project and the task force is hoping for state and federal money in addition. East Harlem City council member Adam Clayton Powell IV envisions La Marqueta as a tourist attraction and an affordable neighborhood shopping center.
10:13
[Archival sound] Temperatura en la cuidad de Nueva York en los 84 grados.
11:16
[Transition music] [Rock en español]
16:01
[Transition music, Flute]
17:49
[Natural sounds of Museum] 40 objects representing the work of 26 Santeras are on view in the small exhibit room. There's a bulto tableau of Noah's Arc by Marie Romero Cash and her tin Smith husband, complete with wooden animals, a tin arc and foot tall carvings of Noah and his wife With Hispanic features and early 20th century dress, popular saints are rendered in various media Santo Nino de Atocha, a Christ child who helps prisoners. Dona Sebastiana or La Muerte, a skeleton in a two-wheeled wooden cart who represents death and of course our Lady of Guadalupe and Indian Virgin Mary who's especially venerated throughout the Americas.
20:20
[Natural sounds of woodworking] What I'm doing now is the actual roughing out taking the excess wood away.
20:51
[Natural sounds of woodworking] After all the excess wood is gone, I'll be able to start working on the face and the hands and toning it down, and then it'll be ready for sanding and gesso and painting.
23:58
I invite you to come see me in my retirement. I live in the hills of Puerto Rico in a place called El Yunque, which is a magical mountain. [Natural sounds of clapping] A magical mountain where the Tainos, who were the people who were in Puerto Rico, when Columbus came to find Puerto Rico.
25:54
I stand before you as an Indio, as un Indito, to celebrate the literature of our people. I don't look cultured, I look illiterate. I have been asked as a grown man whether I can read, but that's my advantage because I'm always underestimated. People never know what I'm going to come up with. [Laughter] Así es que cuidado.
27:58
And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA. The Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Amelia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from station KUNM in Albuquerque, WNYC in New York City, Neil Raush and the Hispanic Link News Service. Latinos USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you, so ¿por qué no nos llaman? Why don't you call us on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima, until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
Latino USA Episode 23
00:00
This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, a celebration of Hispanic heritage.
00:24
Heritage simply means those traditions and beliefs that are passed on to us by our forebears.
00:33
Forebears. Oh, I love it.
04:42
A la victoria. Les quiero mucho. I love you all.
04:48
Cuatro años más.
06:00
One, two, three, four. [upbeat music]
06:12
I'm Maria Hinojosa. From mom-and-pop stores to computer corporations, the number of Latino-owned businesses in this country is growing rapidly. According to the US business census, 20 years ago, there were just over a hundred thousand such enterprises. Today, they number over a half a million with total revenues of over $34 billion. That figure is expected to rise to $49 billion by the year 2000. A number of CEOs of the top Latino-owned business firms were in Washington, DC recently for a dialogue with policy makers in the nation's capital. Latino USA's, Patricia Guadalupe reports.
10:08
Those attending the business leaders conference also met with members of Clinton's cabinet. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.[transition music]
11:09
It was a black tie, long gown night of celebration for well-connected Latinos, a festive night of cultural pride in the nation's capital. With her sleek black dress and huge red earrings, mistress of ceremonies Rita Moreno was joined at one point by a surprise celebrity.
24:56
[festive mariachi music]
25:52
¡Viva!
25:55
¡Viva!.
25:57
¡Viva!
25:59
¡Viva!
26:03
¡Viva!
26:06
¡Viva!
26:08
¡Viva!
26:17
[mariachi music]
27:12
We came here with intention to work and lent our force, labor force, I should say. And we want to be able to also participate in the intellectual development of the Mexico and the United States. So I believe that anybody that wants to disregard our ability to group together and do things like this is kind of not paying attention what the reality of our country formed with immigrants anyway is happening.
27:43
[Multiple people cheering] [Accordion music]
28:03
[transition music] And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Emelia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had helped this week from Karyl Wheeler and the Hispanic Link News Service. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We really do want to hear from you, so ¿Por qué no nos llaman? Call us on our toll-free number. It's 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. Y hasta la próxima. Until next time, I'm Maria Hinojosa for Latino USA.
12:04:52
Latino campaign workers and fans wish Dinkins has four more years in office, but Giuliani is also hoping for Latino support in his campaign, and he's running with former congressman and Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo. Badillo is the as the city's elder Latino politician and is on the November ballot on the Republican and Liberal lines. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.
Latino USA Episode 24
00:00
This is Latino USA, the radio Journal of News and Culture. [opening music 0:00:05] I'm Maria Martin. Today on Latino USA, Latinos react to the President's health plan.
00:22
The plan does not at all address the border healthcare as a major issue. The strategies should not just be from our country, but should be bi-national.
00:32
Also, a controversy over a border fence in Arizona and this year's winner of the National Professor of the Year Award.
01:04
This healthcare system of ours is badly broken and it is time to fix it.
01:29
As many as a third of you as Latinos now lack health coverage. Perhaps no group stands to benefit more from an extension of health insurance, but members of the Hispanic Medical Association, a coalition of 25 Latino health groups say they have several concerns about the administration's health plan. Among these, what happens to community health clinics and to the public health if there is no coverage for the undocumented. Association president, Dr. Elena Rios.
04:13
Go ahead and move between the two cement bridges, see if we can cover both of those areas.
04:18
As helicopters fly over the Rio Grande, one can see Border Patrol units about every hundred yards. This is Operation Blockade. A strategy which Border Patrol Chief Sylvester Reyes says will cut down on the number of illegal entries into the US. Reyes says that the operation may also cut down on crimes committed along the US Mexico border.
05:10
About 50 yards from where agents are looking through binoculars, a group of women carrying children are wading across the Rio Grande from Mexico. One of the women says the blockade hasn't affected her personally.
05:29
She says it is hard for the men who cross to work. She asks, are the Americans now going to do the work that is done by Mexicans? She says she has the patience to wait until the blockade is over, but not everyone is patient. Recently, Mexican workers staged a protest on the international bridges, halting traffic for several hours. But for the Border Patrol, Operation Blockade is doing what it's set out to do. Officials say the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants has dropped by 90%. For Latino USA I'm Luis Saenz in El Paso, Texas.
Latino USA Episode 25
00:01
This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. [Opening Music]
00:15
I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, a Smithsonian tribute to Cesar Chavez.
00:23
This is a man who had an eighth grade education. His family were migrant workers. He was a self-educated man, but he learned one thing, he learned how to organize.
00:33
A mega showcase for Latino business. And Puerto Ricans get ready to decide the island's political status.
00:40
The only people that can talk about Puerto Rico now are the people that are living here in Puerto Rico.
00:48
I was born in Puerto Rico. When I die, whether it's New York City or Puerto Rico, I will die as a Puertorriqueño.
05:59
[Guitar Music]
09:41
Latino business owners and entrepreneurs met in New York City recently for the 14th Annual Convention of the US Hispanic Chambers of Commerce. The gathering took place as Latino business people ponder the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement and as more and more US companies try to make inroads in the rapidly expanding Latino market. Latino USA's Maria Martin was in New York for the business convention and prepared this report.
10:10
In one exhibit booth, you could call anywhere in the world from a giant telephone for free. At another a mega television screen blared out soft drink commercials.
11:04
From small concerns to some of the largest enterprises, many of the more than 600,000 Hispanic-owned businesses were represented at the Business Expo. The combined sales of these companies are estimated to be some $38 billion annually. John Cortez of Goya Foods, the largest US Latino-owned business.
11:24
Today we are listed as the number one Hispanic food company in the United States of America. We are presently grossing about $450 million, and our growth for the last 20 years has been phenomenal. We are entering new markets in various other states every day. We're currently in about 42 other states.
11:49
Well, I'm working with Bustelo. We are here in the Bustelo booth. We've been very busy. People love Café Bustelo.
11:55
At the Café Bustelo booth, young Latinas portioned out small paper cups of espresso. Luis de la Mata is the marketing director for that top Hispanic owned company.
12:29
Goya Foods and Bustelo coffee, both companies traditionally associated with Puerto Rican products, are branching out. Bustelo to salsas, Goya to guacamole and other Mexican products. Meanwhile, some major corporations like JC Penney have begun to make inroads into the so-called ethnic market. After several years of studying the tastes of its minority consumers, that giant retailer will start to offer lines of clothing and cosmetics designed to appeal to African American and Hispanic women. It's estimated that this country's 25 million Latinos have a combined annual purchasing power of over $185 billion. That fact isn't lost on the media industry. In many major Latino markets, the daily newspapers have begun to include weekly inserts aimed at their Latino readers, such as the case in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and now Chicago, where the publication called La Raza is now distributed by the Chicago Sun-Times. Alfredo Valderas is the communications director for La Raza.
15:47
The members of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce adopted resolutions strongly supporting the North American Free Trade Agreement and calling for more aggressive action to remedy the lack of Latino representation on corporate boards. Of the more than 10,000 board seats pertaining to Fortune 500 companies, only about one third of 1% are held by Latinos. In New York City, for Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin.
18:23
Councilman Robles and other New York Puerto Ricans say their voices will convey enormous weight on the Congress's decision. But on the island itself, there is much resistance to the idea. At the Plaza de Armas in Old San Juan, Jesus Quinoñes, says Puerto Ricans who left the island have no right to say what should happen.
19:11
While some Puerto Ricans left for a better life, she says, they still have Puerto Rico in their hearts. Santiago says she would like Puerto Rico to be independent since that's the right of every people. But she fears being cut off completely from the United States will hurt the people on the island.
19:34
Debates about the status of Puerto Rico are raging throughout the island, from government buildings to local bars. A group of men drinking beer outside Juniors Cafe on Calle Sebastian in San Juan talked about the pros and cons of the plebiscite, both in Puerto Rico and New York.
22:55
(singing) Entre regas se encuentre el patriota. Con el arma rota de tanto dolor. Su delito es querer revivir a su patria querida.
23:09
Jose Rodriguez scrapes by with pocket change he earns by singing in the streets. He doesn't have a job and he's been living with AIDS for 10 years. He says the government never helped him, why should he bother voting in the plebiscite? Still like many Puerto Ricans, he has strong patriotic feelings. Jose Santiago cast his vote for Puerto Rico, not in the voting booth, but by singing in the streets of Viejo San Juan. [José continues singing] For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.
25:07
I hope that the end of this fast will mark beginning of the victory here in Arizona. And so I say to any who doubt that victory can be won in Arizona, sí se puede.
27:30
On the second floor of the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, under a glass case, is displayed a black jacket with a red farm worker eagle, the same one worn by Cesar Chavez.
Latino USA Episode 26
00:01
This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture. I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, a historic focus on issues affecting Latinos from Washington, to San Juan, to Los Angeles.
00:27
Yes, we are different national origins. We're different partisan roots, but the truth is we have much more in common than the things that separate us.
00:39
We'll also go to Miami, home of MTV Latino, and the growing Latino entertainment industry.
07:10
It's a ghost town. It's a ghost town. It's very bad. We've been like this for almost what? Three weeks? Yeah. This is our third week, so it is affecting everybody in downtown. All the merchants here are very upset right now. I don't know what's going to happen.
07:31
¿Cómo está-(unintelligble 0:07:32) ¿Qué estilo busca? No se olvide que aquí le ponemos iniciales gratis. Tenemos especial de ‘blockade.’ (laughter)
08:40
Para dar un trato justo tanto para la cuidadana americana como al mexicana.
09:05
Meanwhile, merchants are doing what they can to attract customers, but even on a good day, some say businesses down about 70% from what it used to be. One Mexican shopper told us, "Many people are staying away because they think they may have their passports confiscated at the border crossing. If you have all your documents, you have nothing to worry about," She says.
11:10
In New York, Congressman Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, resident commissioner Carlos Romero Barcelo is in San Juan. We have Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Congressman Lincoln Diaz Ballard with an audience in Miami.
14:01
Those questions and responses having to do with the prevalent anti-immigrant climate seem to get the most response from those in the town hall audience, not only in the area of education but regarding the exclusion of the undocumented from the administration's healthcare plan. Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez.
15:51
There are no easy answers to all the questions and issues facing the Latino community and addressed during the three days of sessions on Capitol Hill, but what was perceptible in Washington was a new attitude. The Hispanic caucus has been energized by new leadership and by the additional members elected in November, including its first Mexican-American and Puerto Rican congresswomen. There was serious talk of coalitions between Hispanics and African-Americans in Congress at one of the sessions, and at the same time the issues forum was taking place, the 20 members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had an opportunity to show their new clout when they blocked a bill which would've extended unemployment insurance by cutting off benefits for blind and disabled legal immigrants. Congressman Xavier Becerra.
17:36
Finding an agenda which can unite the many diverse and regionally scattered Latino communities is what brought together some 800 invited guests and the Hispanic members of Congress for an electronic town hall meeting joining together seven cities.
17:37
The town hall session of the Issues forum sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was broadcast over public television stations in New York, Washington, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Chicago. For Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin.
18:25
Diez. Nueve. Ocho. Siete. Seis. Cinco, cinco cinco. Cuatro. Tres. Dos. Uno.
18:37
The MTV Cable Network has just launched MTV Latino, a new 24 hours Spanish language music network distributed throughout Latin America and to some US cities.
18:55
For years, the entertainment industry serving the Latino market was based either in Latin America or in Los Angeles, where non-Latinos controlled much of the business. But now the bulk of the Latino entertainment industry, like the new MTV Latino network, is based in Miami where Latinos are establishing their own turf. Melissa Mancini reports.
19:19
Miami ranked 16th in US media markets, but it's the number one location for the Latin entertainment industry, headquartering, Latin television, music and print trades. The reasons are simple. Nearly 60% of Miami's population is Hispanic and the city's location is convenient to Central and South America. In addition, Miami has more reliable air transportation and telephone service than its southern neighbors. With the whole of the Hispanic media located here, entertainment attorney David Bercuson says, "Miami is the premier stop for Latin recording artists and other entertainment figures promoting their current projects."
20:01
In addition to television, it's a center hub for a lot of Spanish media, print media. So with all those things working for it and the record companies, there's a lot of symbiotic relationship. The record companies are here, they send them right over to whatever magazine it is for interviews, and then they send them right over, it could be even be the same day, to one of the major networks for television exposure where they can do 3, 4, 5 shows at one network, and the next day do a number of shows at the other network.
20:31
As the US city with the Latin American flair, Miami offers another big payoff. The amount of money pumped into the national economy via Telemundo and Univision, the two major Hispanic television networks. A recent industry study shows that TV advertisements spurred Hispanics to spend $200 billion annually on consumer goods and services, and it's estimated that number will increase 40% by the year 2000. In addition to the television and print media, Miami is inundated with Hispanic radio stations, and it's here that other Latin stations throughout the US look to when they're charting music trends. David Bercuson says, "Miami's Betty Pino is one of the most important radio programmers for Spanish pop music."
21:49
Sony Discos Is the Latin music heavyweight of record labels. Established about 10 years ago in Miami, Sony Discos was the first Latin label to sign artists such as Julio Iglesias and Gloria Estefan, allowing it to corner the market. Sony Discos vice President Angel Carrasco.
23:03
I tried to do it in LA and it was hard. It was really hard to open doors, and I remember I used to go and sit down on the sidewalk at A&M recording studios and try to talk to someone.
23:21
Latin music is a $120 million a year business in the US in Puerto Rico. Although it's estimated Hispanics makeup only 10% of the total market Sony Discos' vice president Angel Carrasco says the Latin market is strong and growing.
24:52
Pop rhythms and grungy glamour were the rule at a recent opening night party for MTV Latino. The party in Miami South Beach went late into the night as the global rock music giant MTV celebrated its move into 11 Latin American countries and the US latino market. Nina Ty Schultz was at the celebration and filed this report.
25:24
With hundreds of exotically dressed people crammed into one of South Beach's hottest nightclubs, MTV Latino is launched. There's as much Spanish as English in the air and as many models as musicians. It's all part of MTV's image of youth and ease and scruffy good looks. Take Daisy Fuentes, she's a model turned MTV host who will anchor the new show in Miami as the master of ceremonies here tonight, she's got the kind of bubbly, bilingual enthusiasm that MTV Latino wants to project.
26:29
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
26:37
He expects the business to be lucrative, not just for MTV, but for Latin American rock and pop stars as well. Gonzalo Morales from Mexico is one of the video jockeys for the show.
27:09
The rock groups here tonight come from all over. Maldita Vencidad from Mexico, Los Prisoneros from Chile, Ole Ole from Spain. But oddly enough, the first artist to perform is the not so Latin Phil Collins. That's no mistake. Over three quarters of the music on MTV Latino will in fact be from so-called "Anglo musicians". "That's what Latin teens want to hear," say MTV execs who feel they know the market after running a year long pilot show. Though they say programming may change depending on audience demand. For Latino USA, this is Nina Ty Schultz in Miami.
Latino USA Episode 27
00:06
[Opening Theme]
04:38
Since May, the administration has filled well over a hundred Senate confirmation slots. So even though they've added all kinds of people to the administration through their appointments, Latinos are moving backwards instead of moving forward. It's very discouraging and we get a lot of lip service. We get promises that trust us, it'll work out, you'll be happy with the results. And we've been waiting and we're not seeing any results, so.[Background, people speaking]
06:03
[Two Janes--Los Lobos]
07:09
Arriba Puerto Rico! Arriba! Que se quede como esta.
07:10
Viva Puerto Rico!
07:12
Que viva Puerto Rico. [Laughter]
10:20
Congress knows that there is an election taking place on November 14th in Puerto Rico. Yet, officially or unofficially, they have sent out any signal that they're recognizing that election in Puerto Rico in any way.[Background, urban life]
11:24
[Desenredando Nudos--Sotavento]
16:54
[Guitar]
17:26
[Raiz Viva--Los Folkloristas]
23:12
[Raiz Viva--Los Folkloristas]
23:52
[Chicano Rap Beat]
27:31
[Chile sin carne--Flor de caña]
27:53
[Chile sin carne--Flor de caña]
Latino USA Episode 28
00:06
[Opening Theme]
09:14
[La Muerte de Francisco Villa--Dueto Las Pajaras]
09:46
[background music] Pancho Villa, a name out of Mexican history, the subject of corridos, a hero or a villain, depending on your perspective. Well, on November 3rd, an episode of the public television program, the American Experience takes a look at this controversial figure in American and Mexican history in a documentary called The Hunt for Pancho Villa. With us from Austin, Texas to talk about the production is the director of the Hunt for Pancho Villa, an award-winning filmmaker, Hector Galan. Welcome to Latino USA Hector.
11:53
[crickets] March 9th, 1916, Columbus, New Mexico, three miles from the US-Mexico border. [hoofbeats]
12:02
A little after midnight, they came across the border, about 600 of them, to attack the town.
12:09
[hoofbeats] [gun clicking and firing, gunfire, shouting]. Viva Pancho Villa!
14:06
Se le comparan aquel entonces como el Robin Hood…[transition to English dub] He was seen as a Mexican Robin Hood of this region, the north of Durango and the south of Chihuahua, because it was said that he helped the poor by taking from the rich [transition to original audio]…a los ricos.
14:21
[rooster] One of Villa's wives described how his early life shaped his character. He and all his people had to work like slaves from daylight to dark on the hacienda where he was born. He grew up suffering the cruel…
16:37
[Viene clareando--Sotavento]
17:41
[Background--Natural Sounds--University Campus] On the manicured campus of the University of Denver there's no hint of the troubles of South Central Los Angeles, the barrios of El Paso or the gang turf of West Denver. Yet the 200 people who have come here to attend seminars must return to those areas with strategies on how to address increasing social problems among immigrants as well as US born Latinos. Paul Cardenas, who specializes in alcohol abuse, co-founded the nationwide group called Hispanic Addictions Resource Training, also known as HART. Because, he argues, not only do Latinos have different needs than Anglos, but their numbers cannot be ignored.
18:18
[background sounds cont.] The Hispanic community is growing. In the last 10 years, we've doubled in size. By the year 2020, we will probably be one out of every four individuals in the entire United States. So there's a great economic force that we're all going to have to cope with whether we know it or not, whether we're prepared for it or not.
18:35
[bg sound cont.]The symposium was designed to address the myriad of issues facing Latinos. One problem begins here. [Microphone noise] There are not many Latinos in social work. For instance, hundreds finished Denver University's graduate school of social work every year, but only a handful are Hispanic Americans. HART wants more minorities to enter the field. Another problem arises when Latino professionals apply for government grants. There's little information on alcoholism or drug abuse among Hispanics. So justifying grants, say for aiding Latinas, is difficult. So the goal for many is tailoring programs for those they serve.
19:10
[bg sound] Women from El Salvador, from Puerto Rico, from Mexico, and they're like so separated because they don't know a thing about one another.
19:19
[bg sound] Mary Santos is a program director for the Boyle Heights Family Recovery Center in Los Angeles who works with the growing Central American population,
19:58
[bg sound] Besides organizing comprehensive treatments, much work remains in the area of intervention before people become addicted to violence or drugs. David Flores, an LA-based gang counselor, warns society needs to offer treatment and not simply jail time for risk-prone youth. Flores has spent years documenting gang life in Southern California.
20:18
[bg sound] The number of gangs are continuing to grow. The number of kids getting involved in gangs are also growing, and what's kind of scary is that we're seeing the development of new gangs, which will probably dramatically add to the membership unless we intervene and do something about it like right away.
20:36
[bg sound] What are the differences between those new gangs and established gangs?
20:40
[bg sound] Well, the majority of the new gangs are really tagger/bangers, what we call tagger/bangers or kids who are tagging, then forming groups that tag as a group or a set and then become an actual gang. So we're seeing a significant increase in taggers, which will then add to the number of gang members that we will see in the future.
21:03
[bg sound] Flores workshop on how street gangs get a boost from young blood was one of the best attended during the three day symposium. Every workshop stressed the need, that the 3,800 members of HART from across the country need to map out their strategies on say how traditional spiritualism and Chicano or Caribbean cultures is part of the healing process. Or how non-profit agencies can stabilize a community confronted by low wages. By forming a nationwide group HART members say they're dedicated to changing what medical and social services will be available to Hispanic Americans for years to come. For Latino USA, I'm Ancel Martinez in Denver.
27:50
[Closing Theme]
Latino USA Episode 29
11:51
“Eso no se pregunta mijo, los Latinos votamos por Dinkin.”[Latin music]
11:56
Presente! Latinas! Con Dinkins! Presente! Latinas! Con Dinkins!...
12:44
[Background people speaking] The choice is clear. For us, it's clear, particularly for the Latino community. The mayor has done in four years what this man has not done in his lifetime.
18:16
[Mexica ceremony/danza sounds: flutes, shell rattles]
18:28
In many Latin American countries, people believe that the spirits of the dead return to celebrate with the living on the first two days of November, los Días de los Muertos, the days of the dead. On those days, people visit cemeteries, march in processions, or make ofrendas or altars to their loved ones who have passed, with flowers, candies, candles, liquor and sweet bread, all of the food and drinks they loved in life. These celebrations are festive and colorful, reflecting the indigenous belief that death and life are part of the same never-ending cycle. Here in this country, el Día de los Muertos has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, and nowhere more so than in San Francisco, where the celebration begins with a procession through the city's Mission District.
19:18
Okay. Now we like to ask everybody to please line up against the fence in order for us to start the procession.
19:27
I think this procession and the honoring of the dead should continue, because in that manner, we bring them back. El festival naturalmente es para recordar los Muertos y en esa forma viven. [Drumming, flutes, shell rattles]
19:42
It's very fun, and I'm here to honor my great-grandfather who died. [Drumming and whistling]
19:49
[Drumming and whistling] Dia de Muertos antiguamente era una celebración Azteca para celebrar los guerreros que murieron en batalla…[transition to English dub] The day of the dead was an Aztec tradition to honor warriors or hunters who died in battle or during a hunt. Today, it's the same spirit of joy, celebrating those who passed on[transition to original audio]…sostiene el mismo Espíritu de alegría y celebrar los difuntos.
24:39
We went there to discover ourselves through the cultural mirror of the people of Mexico as they viewed and celebrate the days of the dead. [Choir vocals]
24:50
In Noche de Muertos, the artist also paid tribute to the life and struggle of farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, who passed away last April. [Choir vocals]
24:58
And alongside the exhibit, you will see for nichos that are all tributes to Cesar Chavez, the farm workers, and Dolores Huerta. They were done by Megan Rodriguez, Tony Ortega, Aileen Lucero, and myself, as, again, the nichos with rosaries, with candles, celebrating what Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the Farm Worker Movement was all about. [Choir vocals]
25:26
The altar is shaped like an inverted pyramid, representing the eagle emblem of the Farm Workers Union, and built with empty letters boxes sent by the UFW's office in Salinas, California. [Choir vocals and whispers]
25:38
[Whispers]...Cesar...Juanita...[Whispers, voices]
25:45
Noche de Muertos also features a number of collaborative altars in memory of deceased relatives. One of them called Altar a Nuestras Abuelas includes an image of the Lady of Guadalupe, surrounded by photographs of the artist's grandmothers. Artist Sylvia Montero. [Whispers]
27:06
And so, Noche de Muertos and Día de los Muertos was important for us to go there and document in some way so that we and the generations to come will remember what our ancestors and the people who came from Mexico and migrated here to this country, how they understood and interpreted their dead, and how they respected that within the culture. [singing]
27:30
[Choir vocals]
Latino USA Episode 30
13:11
[Natural sounds--community center] The altar exhibit in Austin isn't the only effort linking the traditional Mexican holiday to the reality of a growing cause of death in the Latino community where AIDS is now the leading killer of young Hispanic men, and the third leading cause of death among Latinas ages 25 to 44.
13:29
[Natural sounds--pop music performance] San Antonio artist David Zamora Casas does a performance piece for El Dia de Los Muertos called Cuentos de la Realidad or Tales of Reality, which tells of the painful death from AIDS of his friend Jesse.
13:52
[Natural sounds--pop music performance] In the piece, Zamora Casas tries to make a connection between his loss to AIDS and all of the other losses, individual and collective, which may have been suffered by those in the audience.
14:56
[Natural sounds--guitar playing] Good morning and welcome the Culture Warriors presents Dia de Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead…
16:39
[Natural sounds--acting performance] In this scene, a group of the kids visit the cemetery on the night of Dia de Los Muertos as is the tradition in Mexico. The kids say these presentations allow them to look at both life and death in a more positive way.
17:36
[Natural sounds--acting performance] And so an ages old traditional commemoration for the dead has become a relevant way to look at issues facing the living.
18:02
[Natural sounds--applause] For Latino USA in Austin, Texas, I'm Maria Martin.
18:19
For over 30 years, pianist Eddie Palmeri has been pushing the creative limits of Latin music. His unorthodox experimental style has defied musical categories. [Highlight--piano music] Reporter Alfredo Cruz of station WBGO in Newark, recently spoke with Eddie Palmeri, the musical renegade, and he prepared this report.
18:49
[Background--piano music] Like his music, Eddie Palmeri is intensely energetic. His piano solos have been known to go from delicate, esoteric explorations to fist pounding accents all within the same phrase. He has developed his own musical identity. When Eddie plays the sound of a note or accord is immediately recognizable as unmistakably Palmeri. He admits, however, he didn't always want to be a pianist.
19:43
[Highlight-- Afro-Cuban Jazz]
20:07
[Background-- Afro-Cuban Jazz] One of Palmeri's earliest and most important musical influences was his older brother Charlie, also a pianist who not only served as mentor, but helped Eddie get started in the business over 30 years ago.
20:18
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
20:21
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] My brother Charlie used to play with Tito Puente. That was one of the most important conjuntos that we've ever had here. Wherever my brother would go and play, he would recommend me and that's how I got into an orchestra called Ray Almore Quintet. And first Johnnie Segui in '55, Vincentico Valdez, Pete Terrace in the interim, back to Vincentico Valdez for a summer in '58 in the Palladium, and then the '58 to '60 we took the holiday. After that, I went on my own.
20:50
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
21:17
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
21:34
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] They were a sensation at dance halls like the now legendary Palladium were battle of the bands were common and Palmeri reigned supreme.
21:41
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
21:52
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] This was done in 1968. That's when La Perfecta breaks up. The beginning of '68, we did a tour of Venezuela, and after that, that was the ending of La Perfecta, phase one, one curtain down. That was it. Boom.
22:09
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
22:22
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] Over the last 25 years, many of Palmeri's recordings have become classics and his orchestras have provided a proving ground for promising young Latino and jazz musicians. Much like Art Blakey's Messengers was to jazz. But in spite of winning five Grammy awards, record companies have met his innovative musical experiments with skepticism. Recently, however, Palmeri finalized negotiations on a new contract with Electra Asylum records.
22:48
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
22:56
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] And we're going into a whole other direction. We're going into the Afro-Caribbean jazz, per se. My first attempt by writing specifically in that form. See, I have recorded in that vein as far as composition like chocolate ice cream or 17.1 or VP Blues that I have done. And I'm always looking in that direction in that country. But this time I'm really writing specifically in that vein.
23:21
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
23:32
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] As to what's in store for the future, whatever musical direction he might take, Palmeri says the core of his music will always remain in Latin rhythms.
23:41
[Background--Afro-Cuban Jazz] Those rhythmical patterns will always intrigue me. They've been here now for 40,000 years, so they'll be here for another 40,000 for sure. But I will not be here that long. But in the time that I'm here, I'm going to utilize it to the maximum and then achieve and have a wonderful time doing that and incorporating that into our music because it's something that has certainly intrigued me and I must achieve that and will.
24:09
[Highlight--Afro-Cuban Jazz]
24:33
[Transition--Music--Yemaya y Ochun]
24:47
[Transition--Music--Hip-hop]
24:50
[Background--Music--Hip-hop] Friday night I was hanging with my boys. We were chilling at this guy, Chino's house, drinking forties while he took care of his kid. I hadn't hung out in a while, so I didn't mind babysitting. But the rest of the guys seem restless. When I finally asked what was up, they told me that they were expecting a delivery of skis, also known as cocaine.
27:46
Commentator John Guardo, a writer and student lives in New York City. [Background--Music--Closing] And for this week, y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by Maria Amelia Martin. The associate producer is Angelica Luevano. We had help this week from Vidal Guzman, Dolores Garcia and David Goran. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. The executive producer is Dr. Gilbert Gardenas. The theme music is by Ben Tavera King.
Latino USA Episode 31
05:57
[Transition--music--theme]
06:12
[Transition--music--Latin folk]
10:45
[Transition--Music--Salsa]
11:14
[Background--Music--Salsa] Ever since 1898, when the island of Puerto Rico first became a US territory, Puerto Ricans have debated their relationship to the United States. 40 years after becoming a US commonwealth in 1952, the debate still continues with some Puerto Ricans favoring the status quo, others advocating the island become the nation's 51st state, and still others calling for Puerto Rico's independence. During his electoral campaign, Puerto Rico's governor Pedro Rosello promised to try to put an end to the eternal debate over status by calling for a plebiscite. That vote on November 14th may not be the last word on Puerto Rico's status, but Puerto Ricans are hoping it will force the US Congress to act. Latino USA's Maria Martin is in San Juan to report on the plebiscite.
12:06
[Highlight--Natural sounds--broadcast media]
12:40
[Archival sound--radio production] Caravanas del Estado Boricua siguen con mas fuerza. Este Sabado desde Guayama, Naguabo, Calle y Aguas Buenas hasta el gran mitiga y el Domingo….
14:38
[Natural sounds--mall ambience] Yo no se, pero… He speak better, he speak better English than I. But I prefer to be a state.
19:52
[Background--natural sounds--city ambience] It's five days before the vote and hundreds of people are gathered outside the studios of San Juan's Telemundo television affiliate. Inside the studios, representatives of Puerto Rico's three principal parties prepare for the last debate of the campaign, but for now, the debate out here appears to be over what group can wave the larger number of flags or who has the loudest sound system.
20:18
[Highlight--natural sounds--city ambience]
21:17
No me cogen con los totones [Laughter] [inaudible] [Highlight--natural sound--resturant ambience]
21:44
[Background--natural sound--restaurant ambience] There's just too much confusion, she says, it's hard to decide just what I'll vote for. And analysts say it'll be the substantial number of still undecided Puerto Ricans like Maria Torres who determine the political option on which the US Congress is being asked to take action. For Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
22:02
[Transition--Music--Guitar]
22:31
[Transition--Music--Accordion]
23:14
[Highlight--natural sound--fire] Della Roy Ball was up at four making dough and stoking pinon fires, preparing for the Harvest Festival here at El Rancho de las Golondrinas.
23:56
[Highlight--natural sounds--nail pounding] I'm going to make a large... Well, a large, not too large a nail, but larger than some you'll see.
24:08
[Background--natural sounds--museum ambience] The museum hosts about a half dozen living weekends every year. Portraying what life was like in New Mexico from the 1600s to 1900. At the old Spanish mill, the present has yet another link to the past.
25:16
[Highlight--natural sounds--marching] Don Shoemaker of Albuquerque wields a 12 pound 69 caliber flintlock musket. In colonial times, he may have fought with Comanche, Navajo, Ute, Apache, and other indigenous warriors in hotly contested battles over the land in northern New Mexico.
25:48
[Highlight--Natural sounds--Indigenous spiritual singing] By the mid-1800s, clashes with the natives and problems with the Mexican government drove out many of the Spanish priests who had come to New Mexico, lacking formal religious leadership, small adobe houses of worship, called Morales, sprang up throughout the mountains. Here at las Golondrinas, the small Morale is an exact replica of one in Abiquiu. And is hosted by Dexter Trujillo.
26:14
[Highlight--Natural sounds--Indigenous spiritual singing] You know, if it would have been for the Hermano Peniten, which were the ones that kept the faith alive in New Mexico for many years, we probably wouldn't even have our religion or anything right now.
26:14
[Highlight--music--folk]
26:39
[Background--music--folk] Of the more than 40,000 people who visit El Rancho de las Golondrinas every year, about 12,000 are children like Melanie Carr and Terry Nelson. They're here on a field trip from their grade school in Albuquerque.
Latino USA Episode 32
01:04
[Highlight—natural sound—protest] Hey, you're blind. You don't know the future.
06:43
[Background—natural sounds—Congressional proceeding] On this vote the yeas are 234, the nays are 200, and the bill has passed.
16:10
[Transition—music--Tejano]
17:13
As the polls closed on election Sunday and the returns came in from throughout the island of Puerto Rico, two things became clear. The vote between the options of Commonwealth and Statehood was going to be close, and the small percentage of votes for independence would take support away from both other options. In the final tally, none received a majority, but the Commonwealth option with almost 49% of the vote beat out statehood by close to three percentage points. [Background—natural sounds—car horns] Jubilant Commonwealth supporters took to the streets on election night on their way to an outdoor victory party outside the headquarters of the Pro Commonwealth Party. [Background—natural sounds—celebration] In the narrow streets of Ol' San Juan, entire families from young kids to senior citizens danced and celebrated. Doña Rosá brought her family to the celebration from the town of Rio Grande.
20:48
[Highlight—natural sounds—Senate halls] In the marble halls of the Puerto Rican Senate where press from around the world gathered as the official returns came in, political analysts were not as optimistic as the governor over the meaning of this vote for the future of statehood for Puerto Rico.
24:07
[Transition—Music—Regional Mexican]
Latino USA Episode 33
06:00
[Transition--music--Chicano world] [Cumbia del Sol]
06:13
[Background--music--Chicano world] By now, Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band has a reputation up and down the California coast. Their fun-loving style is broad in its range from cumbias like this to Dixie Land, the blues or a mix of gospel and soca with a little bit of Afro-Cuban percussion for spice. The members of this nine piece band like to think of their work as Chicano world music. The band leader is Dr. Loco, also known as Professor José Cuéllar, PhD and Chairman of La Raza studies department at San Francisco State University. Dr. Loco says his music is an example of what Chicano culture is all about. Mixing and blending unlikely elements to create something entirely new.
06:55
[Background--music--Chicano world] We see Afro-Cuban rhythms that have been a part of our culture since the twenties. We see Germanic elements that have been part of our music since the late 1800s. We see indigenous rhythms, indigenous instruments, and the reintegration in the influence of nueva canción of the sixties, the cha chas and mambos of the forties and fifties, the doo-wop of the fifties and the rhythm and blues and more recently the rap influence as well as influences from rhythms around the world, songo, soca and et cetera. So we decided to call it Chicano world because we think it's Chicano music and it also represents the influences of the world on our music.
09:04
You can really hear the pochosizing of your music when you take a song like “I feel Chingon” from your album Con Safos or “Chile Pie,” also from Con Safos. [Background--music--Chicano world] Both of these are like fifties remakes of black songs, ¿que no?
09:19
[Background--music--Chicano world] Absolutely, absolutely. “I feel Chingon” is our jalapeno version of James Brown's “I Feel Good” and “Chile Pie” is a remake of the classic. It's always reverberating Chicano community, it resonated, it's the cherry pie.
10:00
[Highlight--music--Chicano world]
10:11
[Background--music--Chicano world] Black music is a very important part of the Chicano experience from the West Coast?
10:15
[Background--music--Chicano world] It's been an integral experience throughout. I mean whether we're Chicanos in Texas, we had the influence of the Louis Armstrongs and the Dixielands way back. I mean Ernie Caceres, Emilio Caceres, the jazz musicians, they're tremendous, in the thirties were influenced by Afro-Americans a lot from New Orleans. And then throughout the forties and fifties, the blues have been strong. It's one of our greatest blues singers that Chicano blue singers have been tremendously influenced by the blues. Freddy Fender wrote “Wasted Days”, the first Chicano blues.
10:47
Well, one of the themes that runs through most of your music is the idea of Chicano pride and it's really especially apparent on your most recent CD called Movimiento Music. But at some point, Dr. Loco, don't you feel like, for example, let's take “El Picket Sign”. I mean it sounded kind of predictable, kind of a throwback to the seventies or eighties, real stayed, predictable, even like rhetorical kind of political music. I mean, at what point do you continue to talk, let's say, in music that is considered panfletaria, [Background--music--Chicano world] really propagandistic, and on the other hand really wanting to do something that is communicating something else on a cultural level?
11:27
[Background--music--Chicano world] Well, the reason we included that song, in fact, that song was the reason... The rest of the album grew out of that song conceptually for me. And that song was a song that we performed because the farm workers are still boycotting grapes. And because we're so close to really having more and more people understand the dilemma of pesticides on our food and our jobs and how many people in Ernie Mark and in other communities are really suffering from these pesticides, there has to be other ways of dealing with our food so that we have safe food and safe jobs.
12:10
[Background--music--Chicano world] Well, what do you say to people who believe that political music like this is really passe, that it's something of the past, and it's really from an old school, an old trend that's already gone?
12:24
[Background--music--Chicano world][El Picket Sign]
12:58
[Background--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome] The last piece on your CD is an interesting remake and an interesting version of We Shall Overcome.
13:28
[Highlight--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome]
13:58
[Background--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome] We believe that this is the essential song for the movement of social justice. I mean, it has been someone that sung all over the world, from Tiananmen Square to Berlin to South Africa to the fields of California. So we decided to do a remake, our own remake, blending something that would kind of reflect both its historical essence, and it's rooted in the south and the southern spirituals and the African American experience, but that has gone around the world and back and with different and interesting influences. So that's why we decided to do it in a blending of spiritual soca with Chicano jalapeno flavor.
14:37
[Background--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome] Speaking with us from KQED studios in San Francisco, Professor José Cuéllar, leader of Dr. Loco's Rockin' Jalapeño Band.
14:46
[Transition--music--Chicano world] [Nosotros Venceremos/We Shall Overcome]
14:56
[Transition--music--Salsa]
20:33
[Transition--music--Latin folk] [Viene Clareando]
21:20
[Background--natural sounds--crickets] La subida es dura. It's a steep climb, but after a few hours, the walking gets easier. The valleys and peaks of this beautiful rocky Sierra spread out before you like a solid ocean suspended in time. This is a dry land, almost a desert, yet sometimes I'll find a tiny spring in a niche of a canyon wall or I'll happen upon a small shrine in a lonely valley. Almost every day, I'll come across a shepherd tending his flock or I'll hear the sounds of children and discover they're gathering wild herbs like oregano or Rosa De Castilla.
22:02
[Background--natural sounds--birds chirping] Often, early in the morning, I'll see a woman or a man driving two or three burros loaded with mountain produce, heading for a nearby town or city. [Background--natural sounds--farm animals] I make it a point not to camp close to someone's home, just out of respect and so as not to use a firewood that doesn't belong to me. Firewood is scarce around here. This day, as I crested a hill, I spotted a ranchito, just a little two-room house, adobe walls with a flat roof. Smoke was rising from the chimney. I was barely 300 yards from the ranchito and it would be dark soon. [Background--natural sounds--crickets] It was too late to move on. It was going to be a cold night and the only firewood I could find was already cut, tu sabes. For the rancho's wood stove. Ni modo. I used the firewood. I felt guilty but warm that night. [Background--natural sounds--fire] Anyway, I would make it up to them in the morning. [Background--natural sounds--rooster]
23:35
He reached into his bag and handed me a small bundle. My wife packed this for you, he said. [Background--natural sounds--birds chirping] It was bread, goat cheese and jamoncillo, a homemade candy made from fresh milk. We talked for a while. I told him I was a painter who took inspiration from the Sierra. He told of his early life as a shepherd in these same mountains and of his many years as a miner in Zacatecas. The mines are bad luck he said, es muy duro. Siempre en lo oscuro. Always in the dark digging with dynamite for God knows what or for whom. Here, on top of the earth, we have everything a man can need. What more can one ask for. Dios provides the earth, the sun, wind and rain. We provide the labor, he smiled. Somehow, my pack felt especially light that whole day.
24:45
[Transition--music--regional Mexican] [Ven]
24:50
[Background--music--regional Mexican] Thanksgiving for commentator Bárbara Renaud González has never been a traditional type of holiday. Sometimes she goes out cumbia dancing in Austin's east side with friends and her swinging mom. So she was very surprised when her 60-something proud to be single mother called her recently to ask what she wanted with her turkey.
27:56
[Transition--music--closing]
Latino USA Episode 34
06:00
[Transition--music--guitar]
09:24
Indeed, the government is spending millions on a new border crossing to handle more commerce. Lower tariffs and open investment laws under NAFTA will now allow border businessmen to plan years in advance. [Backgound--natural sounds--office work] Secretaries type out waybills and answer calls from warehouses at Bill Polkinhorn's custom brokerage house. The company was founded by Bill's grandfather at the turn of the century, originally shipping cotton from Mexico to Los Angeles for markets in the Orient. Now his grandson mostly handles electronics with a made in Mexico label. Polkinhorn explains NAFTA will increase trade.
10:44
Custom brokers like Polkinhorn on the US side of the border are excited about NAFTA, but one only has to wander a few blocks to the Mexican border to see how poverty still separates these two countries. In Calexico and Mexicali, the different standards of living still cause disputes over immigration and border pollution. [Background--natural sounds--harmonica] Yards away from US. Customs checkpoints, one man panhandles with his harmonica on a Mexicali street. Boys and Girls Hawk, chicklets and newspapers, thousands come to this city searching for a better life and delivering jobs, housing, schools and health clinics are problems that'll take more than a paper treaty like NAFTA to solve. For Latino USA, I'm Ancel Martinez in Mexicali, Mexico.
16:42
[Background--music--classical guitar] They've been called the world's foremost guitar duo, Sergio and Odair Assad have been playing classical music together ever since. They were young boys in their native Brazil. The Assad brothers recently completed their 13th US tour. Nina Tiecholz caught up with them in New York. She prepared this report.
17:02
[Background--music--guitar] Sergio and Odair are practicing absorbed with concentration. The brothers practice 10 hours a day every day, but they "never tire of it," says Sergio and music is always on his mind.
17:28
[Highlight--music--guitar]
17:41
[Background--music--guitar] Sergio says his brother Odair is more relaxed, although of the two Sergio is more talkative and open. It's an openness that extends out to their audience when they play or more like an interplay says Sergio, since the audience affects how they improvise.
17:57
[Highlight--music--guitar]
18:13
[Background--music--guitar] From the beginning, we never planned anything, just let it go. I think that's the only way to have a nice feeling when you play a concert. That you can be improvised. So some of the dynamics come there on stage. It depends on the hall, it depends on the people. It comes together. Everything comes together.
18:44
[Background--music--guitar] And it gets intense, absolutely intense. They are willing to go as far as the audience wants them to go.
18:50
[Highlight--music--guitar]
19:07
[Background--music--guitar] These are the kinds of rhythms and melodies that Sergio and Odair grew up with in the house of their father, an amateur mandolin player who still lives in their small hometown outside of Rio de Janeiro. For a long time, Brazilian songs and Argentine Tangos were all they performed, but as teenagers, they began listening to classical music and in a turn away from Latin America, the Assad's latest release is devoted entirely to 18th century baroque music transcribed from pieces written for the harps accord. Because the instrument was plucked and therefore more percussive, its rhythms work well for the guitar.
19:44
[Highlight--music--guitar]
19:54
[Background--music--guitar] When the Assads play, it's as if they have four hands, two guitars, but only one body. Their starts and stops are so accurately timed that you think they were somehow wired together.
20:07
You have your internal temple, right? Everyone does. So what happens at through the years we started to have the same temple, internal temple. So I don't know, sometimes I find it very strange to begin a piece. Sometimes I don't give any sign, but he starts with me. So I don't know. Sometimes it's weird. [Background--music--guitar]
20:32
[Background--music--guitar] Weird, but also seamless and intimate. Even when they play classical music or American jazz, you can hear the echo of Brazil with its sensual passionate rhythms. For Latino USA, I'm Nina Tyschultz reporting.
26:31
[Background--music--symphony] I never knew her when she was healthy, when she could run or walk in the sun or rain. I never knew her when she was able and willing to play with her children, feed them or cloth them. In fact, I never really knew her, never met her or even talked to her. But I heard her once in an interview and cheered her at a rally, listened to her dreams that she so clearly stated, "I want to buy a house. I want to go to Disney World and always in between the words I want to live and see my children grow." A long time ago, unbeknownst to her, she came across death by association and her world was never the same again. In the end, thanks to her, we come across life by association and in the end, our world will never be the same either.
Latino USA Episode 35
02:42
[Background--natural sound--protest] This week, Fuerza Unida brought their campaign to San Francisco, California where Levis is headquartered to intensify pressure on the company to negotiate a fair settlement for the dislocated workers. Irene Reina is the co-coordinator of Fuerza Unida.
02:56
[Background--natural sound--protest] We know that they're very, very proud of their lily-white reputation, and that's what we're going to do, to make the public aware that they are not the progressive responsible company that they claim to be because it's obvious.
03:10
[Background--natural sound--protest] Levi's management has met twice recently with the dislocated workers, and are still willing to negotiate. But at this point, they say they feel they've gone beyond the requirements of the law to help their formers workers make the transition to other work opportunities. For Latino USA, I'm Chuy Varela in San Francisco.
06:03
[Transition--music--guitar]
07:31
[Background--natural sound--march] Led by a motorcycle policeman flying the red and black farm workers flag, and by a parade of low rider cars and Aztec dancers, about 1000 people marched to inaugurate Austin's new Cesar Chavez Street.
07:50
[Highlight--natural sound--march] ¡Viva la Raza! ¡Que viva!
08:03
[Highlight--natural sound--march] ... themselves can come and-
08:12
[Highlight--natural sound--crowd]
08:16
[Background--natural sound--crowd] These young students were not even born when Cesar Chavez began his efforts to organize farm workers and provide them a more humane existence in California, and here in Texas. Still, says Juana Nieto, he set an example that means a lot to young people.
15:54
[Transition--music--rock and roll]
18:18
[Transition--music--fusion]
20:36
[Background--natural sound--performance] In every sense, you could say that the Indigenous people of Mexico needed protection. Only 12 years had passed since the Spaniards had conquered the Aztec empire, enslaving many Indians. Countless others had fallen victim to war, brutality, and disease. Father Jerome Martinez spoke about this historical period at a conference about the Virgin of Guadalupe in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
22:27
[Highlight--natural sound--performance]
23:28
[Highlight--natural sound--performance]
25:03
[Highlight--natural sound--performance]
26:48
[Background--natural sound--drumming] Jose Antonio Morelos is the leader of a group of matachines, who dance and honor The Virgin in El Paso, Texas. He says he made a promise long ago that if he became a legal US resident, he'd dance to Guadalupe every single year. The Virgen also inspires musicians and poets like Juan Contreras.
27:10
[Background--natural sound--drumming] Yes, and we dance, and we dance a dance of universal love, of beauty, of honor, of forgiveness, of being. To you, Madrecita Querida (singing). If only for an eternity. Thank you. [Background--natural sound--applause]
27:31
[Transition--music--Norteño]