Chola Culture on MadTV

Debra Wilson and Nicole Sullivan as Lida & Melina on MadTV.
This goes way back to the '90's but they were pretty on point!
I wasn't very critical of this skit back then, and watching it now, I still think it's pretty funny. But maybe that's because I understand the culture... I wonder what other people who have never met real cholas thought... hmmmm.
Objectification or simple entertainment?
I wonder what an episode of Lina and Melina meet the cast of Jersey Shore would be like! Would they think Snookie was a skanky hoe like Lina's cousin Rosa? lol... Ah...

Book Review: Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles

USC_AMST 554
Readings in Chicano/Latino History
w/ USC Professor George Sanchez

Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music in Los Angeles. By Steven Loza. (University of Illinois Press, 1993.)

December 14, 2009

Published in 1993, "Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American Music" in Los Angeles was and continues to be a much needed analysis and documentation of music from a population of people. As a volume in the series “Music in American Life” Steven Loza adds a plethora of information from oral histories, primary resources, songs, and personal narratives on the historical and contemporary styles and genres of what is considered Mexican American music. Drawing from the origin and power of early California history, Loza explains the influence of the Spanish crown, the Mexican revolutionary era, the use of radio and the rise of popularity of radio stars like Pedro J. Gonzalez and Los Madrugadores. Clearly, throughout the history of California, “Mexican-American” music has been front and center to the many changes that have occurred throughout the state.

Loza outlines the business side of the music industry as he showcases the development of radio, both English and in Spanish and the role of the recording industries – some of which, if not most, took advantage and underpaid its talent. From early Boleros, to Corridos in the Spanish era, to Swing in Pocho Spanish by artists like Lalo Guerrero, to Salsa, to Mariachi, to Mainstream Rock and Roll, to what he calls “The Eastside Sounds” of the melodies of bands like The Midnighters, and El Chicano, to the new wave of the punk band scenes of the 80’s, "Barrio Rhythm" smoothly transitions from each period, showcasing its mass appeal to the general audiences and significantly showcasing the vast array of talent and musical ability of the Mexican American Chicano community of Los Angeles. The Eastide Renaissance and the legacy of Chicano music, in murals, literature, theater and politics was a large part of the identity of Chicano music in East Los Angeles – a framework that is clearly outlined in Loza’s work.

With photographs, song lyrics, sheet music and more, Loza covers a span of over 300 years of music history in California specific to Los Angeles and the Mexican American community. Most urgently he points, Mexican American music is not solely music created by Mexican Americans, but music that defines an experience, such as the birth of sounds and scences from East Los Angeles. In contemporary terms, as Loza points out, many of the artists, like Willie Heron and Los Lobos were inspired by European music, soul, funk, and even son jarocho. The creation of new and hybrid sounds and towards the early 90’s sets the tone for continued work in the future chronology of “Chicano Music” in Los Angeles and the many ways in which it may change and evolve. The book is an incredibility entertaining, luring and poetic way of attempting to answer the question “What is Chicano music?” With the evidence presented, Loza alludes that Chicano music has a history, is not synonymous with a time, space or style,  but instead, is a hybrid of many elements fused together to create a sound from a loud and booming perspective. 

South Park & Jaime Escalante

Eric Cartman as Jaime Escalante!
Props to South Park for doing the Stand and Deliver parody, Eric has the comb-over, the glasses, the plain shirt and the accent down pretty good. 
Honorary Xicanisma mention.
via: Hot Air

Chicano as Political Idenity:

The below is a thread from a Twitter/Facebook post that I wrote late Sept. '09. Check out the discussion on how interpretations, ideas, concepts, and education play a role in identifying what "to be Chicano" really means:

Wendy Carrillo In todays society its very small minded to think "chicanismo" will solely continue to be a mexican identity, its more a Political identity

Cindy Mosqueda

MEChA has been saying this for years. Well, officially since 1999.

Angela Rodriguez

Yeah I agree. I'm not Mexican or Mexican American but my husband is Mexican from Mexico who came to this counrty at the age of 29! He is very political but because of the age he immigrated does not identify withe the traditional Chicano movement. There are many like him who are very involved but do not identify with the Chicano movement.

Carlos Aguilar

uh...historically, i'ts the political identity of mexican-americans. while some might think the movement should move beyond its history, others think its history is what gives it shape. i couldn't imagine puerto ricans identifying themselves as Chicano, no more than I can imagine a Mexican-American identifying herself as Boricua.

Gerard Meraz

Chicano/a writers/artists like Ana Castillo, Cherie Moraga, Guillermo Gomez Peña, n many others have been saying this since the early 90's especially with the 500th anniversary of the gran encuentro n two years later the Zapatista movement. There are a lot of people who already know this whose roots go bk to countries other than Mex but still proudly claim Chicano. Chicano is a borderless identity. Nit of here nor there but anywhere we choose to be n celebrate our mix.

Wendy Carrillo

@cindylu sometimes MEChA can be its own worst enemy. Not progressive, stuck in 1960's. The equivlant of Jerermiah Wright

Wendy Carrillo

@carlos I assume you are well aware of the NewYorikan civil right movement rightt? Seems like our national identities have to much in common to squabble over who is who. Heritage and political identity are not mutually exclusive.

A Salvadoran Chicana Identity Part I

The below is a draft of a larger paper I'm writing on a historiography of identity.

By: Wendy Carrillo
USC_AMST 554
READINGS IN CHICANO/LATINO HISTORY

November 20, 2009

When I was in high school in the mid 90’s, I wanted to join the MEChA group at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles. I went to a meeting where everyone said where they were born, some students mentioned cities in Mexico while others said they were born in the U.S., but validated their presence by saying that their parents were Mexican. When it was my turn, I said I was born in El Salvador. The room was quiet for a minute and then the next person went. At the end of the meeting, a few members approached me and asked why I wanted to be in the group, I wasn’t really Mexican.

I was made to feel like an outsider that day, I wasn’t really Mexican and I didn’t really belong. At 15, I couldn’t really explain how I landed in East Los Angeles as a young girl after escaping a civil war back home, how I had lost my biological father to that war, or how my mom came to America and remarried a man from Zacatecas; a man I have known as my father since I was six years old. In exploring the concepts of identity as a social construction, as identity is not a nationality, ethnicity or race, notions of identity seem fluid, and even more so are notions of self-identification. In “Coloring Class: Racial Constructions in Twentieth-Century Chicana/o Historiography,” Vicky Ruiz explains concepts of identity with people of Mexican birth or decent. She writes, “Self-identification speaks volumes about regional, generational, and even political orientations…multiple identities even surface within individual families.” In my case, my mother was Salvadoran, my (step) father was Mexican, my younger sisters, all born in the U.S. were Mexican-Salvadoran-Americans, and I was strongly identifying as a Chicana, in large part due to my uncles work with Chicano identity in East Los Angeles.

In “Chicana Lesbians: Fear and Loathing in the Chicano Community,” Carla Trujillo writes that much of the identity of Chicanas derives from the “parasitic” identification from a man, as we grow up “defined in a male context: daddy’s girl, some guy’s girlfriend, wife or mother.” While Trujillo is writing about the sexual identity of a woman through the historical “ownership” of a man, can it be possible to associate these notions of ownership through familial identity politics? Trujillo explains that heterosexual Chicanas “need not be passive victims of the cultural onslaught of social control,” if anything she goes on, “Chicanas are usually the backbone of every familia.” As my affiliation with Chicansimo grew from the teachings of my uncle, who very early on described old lands of green jungles and a connection to the earth, my connection to the indigenous teachings were also cultivated. Because my uncle was a Chicano, I also identified as one.

Book Review: Negotiating Conquest: Gender and Power in California

USC_AMST 554
Readings in Chicano/Latino History
w/ USC Professor George Sanchez

Negotiating Conquest: Gender and Power in California, 1770s to 1880s. By Miroslava Chávez-García. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004. xxvii + 240 pp. Illustration, map, tables, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. $39.95.)

November 18, 2009

The study of women’s history has been a topic of much discussion in academia, but the study of Mexican-American, Indigenous, African, and mixed raced women in the history of California is a new frontier. In her book, Negotiating Conquest, Miroslava Chávez-García has found a way to bring forward the often dismissed history of women in the West. By using a legal framework in which court documents tell the story of how women negotiated power and conquest from their husbands, their families, the legal system, the government and each other, Chávez-García paints a picture in which the status of women in society played a huge role in her ability to move ahead. Most urgently, for students and scholars unfamiliar with intersectional identity, Chávez-García describes in great detail the various descriptions of mulatas/mulatos – men or women of Spanish African descent, indio/india – Native man or woman or member of an North American indigenous people, indegenas – indigenous people, neofita/neofito – Christianized native men or women, espanoles/espanolas – Spanish men and women, gentiles – Non-Christian pagan people, casta – a racially mixed individual, and gente de razon – Spanish speaking colonists as distinguished from the native peoples of California.

These identification markers are important as they are part of the fabric of history in which Chávez-García sets her narrative as to who was able to seek assistance from the courts when it came to land, power, abuse and the Americanized trend of divorce. Using legal court documents, Chávez-García sets out to argue that gender played a role in early California throughout the Spanish and Mexican eras and the American West. Negotiating Conquest is not only referring to colonial conquest, but also refers to the negotiation that women made in order to achieve personal upward mobility. Part of negotiation power for women also including the negotiation of power by men. Although most of the court documents used by Chávez-García are set in the 1840’s and some are incomplete, the documents show that women were able to take to court husbands who illegally took possession of their lands and/or were not responsible bread winners or fathers. Because gender roles played a big role in the household, expectations of female roles also deemed for the expectations of male roles. This shift in power and the degree in which women knew how to maneuver within the system allowed them to seek independence from otherwise uncomfortable situations that dealt with physical abuse, infidelity, and lack of financial care.

This power however, was limited. Chávez-García demonstrates in her book that it was women who were gente de razon and espanolas that securely moved through the system. Neofitas, indias, indegenas, castas, and mulatas, had little resources or means. This class system amongst women adds to the many layers of patriarchy, gender, and the position of power in which Mexican California originated from and how it changed with the development of the American West. Chávez-García adds a new and exciting narrative to the history of women, women of color and the often overlooked history of a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and three times colonized California.

USC Graduation Speech 2009

On May 14th 2009, I was fortunate to give the graduation speech at the 29th Annual Latino/Chicano USC Graduation Celebration hosted by El Centro Chicano. As a graduate student, it was a great honor. I hope the students that were present took something important from it, and if you are reading it now, I hope you do as well. :)
Fight On!

W.C.




Good evening parents, faculty, staff, distinguished guests and fellow graduates.

It is with great pride and humility that I stand before you today as your graduation speaker for the 29th Annual Chicano/Latino Graduate Celebration for the University of Southern California’s Class of 2009.

Bienvenidos a todos ustedes que celebran con nosotros el dia de hoy, a los papas, mamas, abuelitos, abuelitas, hermanos, hermanas, tias, tios, primos y amistadas, y hasta los vecinos que decidieron venir, les agradecemos sus precensias y apoyo.

El honor de estar frente de ustudes como representante de la clase universitaria 2009 de la Universidad del Sur de California es completamente mio.

Look at us.

We stand tall and proud on this beautiful day, our Raza sashes hanging proudly around our necks. What a sight we must be.

Only we know the sacrifices we made to me here, to have completed, finished a grueling academic career at one of the best Universities in the nation.

No one said being a Trojan was an easy task.

Being a Trojan is hard work.

But we know hard work, don’t we?

Some of us come from families that have immigrated to this country with blood, sweat and tears as down payments for a better tomorrow.

We have parents that work two or three jobs to make ends meet.

As students, some of us have had to work two or three jobs to pay tuition and buy books.