As many of you know I am obsessed with Frida Kahlo. So are my sons. Today we celebrate this magnificent woman's bday.https://www.instagram.com/p/-7RsjmngBkhttps://www.instagram.com/p/40Cfh3HgBehttps://www.instagram.com/p/BHitKJdhCLk
Yo Soy Oro
Yo Soy Oro is a state of mind, a feeling and a destination. I Am Gold means as good as it gets, the best that money can buy, constantly increasing in value. El Centro de Oro is all that and more. Third generation family owned businesses thrive, while new investments bring change to the streets. Lovely long haired ladies in shiny gold outfits stride confidently down clean sidewalks where bright yellow big bellies on every corner keep trash where it belongs. Taste the rich flavors of tropical dishes and rock to the sounds of solid gold hits from the best of Latin music.
Obsessed with the Obsession
As many of you know, I am obsessed with our collective obsession with Frida Kahlo. And with all of the never discovered before photos, writings, and found artifacts, the internet is a playing field for all new things Frida. I try to catalog as many of these things as well as Frida inspired art, photos as Frida, Frida tattoos, and Frida products on obsessedwithfridakahlo.tumblr.com.
Valentines from El Rio
Wonderful Valentines day love from the always magical El Rio. Love em' share em'.
New Futuro featured in The Atlantic's series on economic progress
[brightcove vid=1939423568001&exp3=1054655355001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=29913724001&pk=AQ~~,AAAABvb_NGE~,DMkZt2E6wO3_sfth6vHgTpNZZSEwcydt&w=480&h=270]
New Futuro, founded in 2008, works with community organizations and schools in urban Latino neighborhoods to provide students and their families with access to the college materials they'll need, all of which are available in both English and Spanish translations. The company's web platform offers America's largest Hispanic scholarship database and hundreds of articles featuring useful advice on college planning, as well as profiles of successful minorities who've reached high levels in their careers. New Futuro also publishes a bilingual print magazine, which is distributed for free in high schools and through nonprofit and community partners.
read the full article in The Atlantic: New Futuro Narrows the Education Gap for Latino Students
Escobar-Morales at The Painted Bride in Papeles: Are we what we sign?
PAPELES: Are we what we sign? aims to serve as a visual examination of our social bond with papers as legal signifiers of identity that shape individual mobility, cultural acceptance, gender and sexual-orientation equality, economic access, labor opportunities, and educational attainment. Visual artists, community leaders, and arts administrators use this project to reflect upon the socio-cultural impact of documentation processes present in American society.This exhibition gathers twelve influential—established and emerging—artists working in drawing, painting, installation, printmaking, photography, and mixed media. Participating artists include Andrea Rincon, Andria Morales, Carlos Nuñez, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Erika Ristovski, the duo Escobar-Morales, Jonas Dos Santos, Jorge Figueroa, Lina Cedeño, Michelle Ortiz, Paula Meninato, and Susana Amundaraín. They propose social-visual experiments from their positions as immigrants and/or descendants of immigrants from Latin American nations. New and existing works in this exhibition illuminate the concept of documentation into powerful narratives of critique, ambiguity, longing, and resilience. 
The Painted Bride230 Vine Street | Philadelphia, PA 19106 | 215.925.9914September 7 – October 21, 2012Gallery hours: 12pm – 6pm, Tues – SatFirst Friday receptions: September 7, October 5 | 5-7:30pmGuest Curator Andreina Castillo | Co-Presented with Acción Colombia
Fractured Jewishness
Is being half-Jewish, like being half-pregnant? Yes.Intrigued? Want to hear more?I have the honor of being the keynote speaker at the Half Jewish?" The Heirs of Intermarriage conference at Northwestern University, which runs from 4/20-4/22. My Friday night talk will center around the construction and the perpetuation of fractured cultural identities. On Saturday my dear friend Yoni Sarason, aka The St. Lou Jew, aka Midwest Director of Birthright Next, will be speaking on a panel with Dan Libenson, moderated by Denise Handlarski. Come check out the conference. Meet some lefty Jews. Learn and mingle.Register here.
Digital. Creative. Conceptual. Think Tank Team.
Ladies and Gents, life is good. I am the Creative Director for New Futuro.New Futuro provides Latino families with fully bilingual resources and tools to get students into college and beyond! We are committed to making you an education rockstar! We will teach you how to get into the college of your dreams with money to pay for it. It's all about making the right classes at the right time, knowing the right people, and getting involved with the right groups. College is your future, so why should it be a challenge to get there? New Futuro will help you achieve your dreams through education! Read more about my #awesome creative team here.
Love is never too late.
I know it's almost April, but I would be remiss if I didn't share Rio Yañez's 2012 crop of valentines amazingness.Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends and lovers! El Rio’s Valentine’s Day Cards are back in the ring to take another swing! This is the 6th year of my cards and it’s turned into my longest running project. Enjoy!
As always, please post these cards on the pages of your online friends, real life enemies, booty calls, baby daddies, friends with benefits, people you're stalking on facebook, and people you would be stalking on Google + but don't want to go through the hassle of signing up with a new social network.
AMerican MEdia Output in Texas
[youtube=http://youtu.be/CMDhowuCwDE]AMericanMEdiaOutput.com
Escobar-Morales
Artist Statement and BioEscobar-Morales is a team comprised of Maya Escobar and Andria Morales. The two artists, based in Chicago and Philadelphia respectively, have been working together over the Internet since 2010. They produce digital media and performance art that explores the role of self-representation in visual culture and its ability to deconstruct ingrained ideological conventions. By locating their performances online where they are free from restrictions of time and place, Escobar-Morales is able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously creating a unified hybrid self.Maya Escobar was born in Chicago, IL in 1984. Andria Morales was born in 1982 in New York, NY. Escobar received a BFA from the School of the Art Institue of Chicago (2007) and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis (2009); Morales received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania (2004) and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (2008).
THE WORLD IS WATCHING ARIZONA
(via guardian.co.uk article by Roberto Cintli Rodriguez)
Arizona's cultural genocide law
Legislators in Arizona are pursuing a white supremacist campaign to erase Mexican American presence from teaching
The onslaught in Arizona of reactionary and immoral racially-based laws has managed to attract worldwide attention. The brown peoples of this state are being relentlessly persecuted by a majority population that wants to forcefully remove us and suppress our rights and deny our humanity. Here, the state has even gone so far as to, via HB 2281, to prohibit the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona schools.
Unquestionably, the brown peoples of this state are treated as less than human. Not everyone treats us this way – just the majority: mostly conservative Republicans, many of them with a supremacist ideology. Their general attitude is: if you're brown (read Mexican), get the hell out of our God-given country. And for those of you who remain, either assimilate and abide by our [contrived and unconstitutional] laws or face the full wrath of the state.
There is embedded hate against brown peoples in Arizona – the kind associated with the 1800s, a time when the United States forcefully annexed half of Mexico. All of it is thinly veiled under the guise of opposition to "illegal immigration" and "border enforcement". However, the battle here is actually civilisational: brown peoples, many of whom have been here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, represent the unfinished business of Manifest Destiny. For conservatives, we represent a return to a past in which we are viewed as a conquered, subhuman species. This brazen attitude informs all the recent anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant bills, proposed laws that long for a return to an idyllic past, which, in fact, never existed.
Aside from HB 2281, other bills include : SB 1070 – the racial profiling law; SB 1097 – the proposed law that will require children to identify the immigration status of their parents; and HB 2561/SB 1308 and HB 2562/SB1309 – bills that seek to nullify birthright citizenship (guaranteed by the 14th amendment ) to children whose parents cannot prove their legal status.
And now, state legislators have introduced the most reactionary bill of them all: SCR 1010 (pdf). This bill seeks to exempt Arizona from international laws. With this bill, these legislators are acknowledging that all their anti-Mexican laws are also outside of international law.
AND read more about HB 2561/SB 1308 (via AlterNet article by Valeria Fernández)
Arizona Bill Would Create Second-Class Citizenship for US-Born Children of Undocumented Immigrants
A baby born in Arizona to two undocumented parents would have a birth certificate that indicates he is not a U.S. citizen under new legislation introduced in Arizona’s State Capitol on Thursday.
The bills (identical in House and Senate versions, HB 2561/SB 1308 and HB 2562/SB1309) will certainly be challenged in federal court and are already steering a polarizing debate in a state known across the nation as a laboratory for anti-illegal-immigrant policies.
GO PUBLIC
"Viaja con Aerolíneas Públicas" ¿Estás cansado de ser perfilado, acosado y tener que mostrar tu identificación cuando vas a, bueno a… cualquier lugar? Vuela en Aerolíneas Públicas y el control de seguridad en tu aeropuerto local será el último lugar donde te pedirán tus papeles. Aerolíneas Públicas vuela sin escalas a destinos amigables como Nueva Jersey, Illinois y el suroeste de Pennsylvania. Te garantizamos que tú mantendrás tu tarjeta de identificación en tu cartera siempre. VIAJA CON AEREOLÍNEAS PÚBLICAS.
“Go Public.” Tired of being profiled, harassed and carded on your way to, well… anywhere? Fly Public Airways and the security checkpoint at your local airport will be the last place anyone asks to see your ID. Public Airways flies non-stop to friendly destinations like New Jersey, Illinois and Southeastern Pennsylvania. We guarantee you’ll keep your card in your wallet for good. GO PUBLIC.
Why did you have to pick this weekend to be a Chicano?
Mayra Ramirez makes my heart pitter patter....(here is a repost of one of her latest posts on her blog Hella Breezys)
It's hard for me to fully express my disappointment and frustration with Arizona's law makers... last week they passed HB 2281 witch bans "Ethnic Studies" in the states K-12 grade classrooms. I cannot emphasize how important it is to be able to learn about the history of our peoples, of our ancestors, and to be able to find pride and empowerment in that. It's such a sad and scary time in both Arizona and the country. Here is a great article about HB 2281 that I found very interesting...
So now I want to share my favorite Save by the Bell episode where Slater finds his Chicano Power!!! I feel it's a great example of why having Ethnic Studies in our classrooms is so crucial...
FUCK ARIZONA'S ETHNOCENTRIC LAWS... WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO LEARN OUR HISTORY, OUR CULTURE AND THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF OUR RAZA... TIERRA, JUSTICIA, Y LIBERTAD!!!
RIGHT ON MAYRA!!![youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0wvG3RMKPc][youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih1Qmq5Ie5k]And be sure to check out her collaboration with the always amazing Rio Yañez
Critical Mixed Race Studies on iTunesU
Camilla Fojas, Director of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul UniversityIf you missed the Nov 5-6, 2010 "Emerging Paradigms in Critical Mixed Race Studies" conference or any of the keynote talks or the welcoming address, you can now download the videos here via iTunesU.
- November 5th Welcoming Remarks by DePaul's Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean Charles Suchar and conference organizers Camilla Fojas, Wei Ming Dariotis, and Laura Kina.
- November 5th Keynote Address by Andrew Jolivette "Critical Mixed Race Studies: New Directions in the Politics of Race and Representation"
- November 6th Keynote Address by Mary Beltran "Everywhere and Nowhere: Mediated Mixed Race and Mixed Race Critical Studies"
- November 6th Keynote Address by Louie Gong "Halfs and Have Nots"
And here are links to recaps of the conference on Laura Kina's and Jonathan Reinert's blogs.more soon...
AM I her or is she ME: The Chronicles of The Fat Free Elotera
The Fat Free Elotera is a (developing) character on Are You My Other? The Battle Between The Self and The Other, an ongoing self-portrait dialog exchange project, produced by myself (ME) and Philadelphia-based performance and installation artist Andria Morales (AM). Through a series of weekly exchanged blog posts, Andria and I publicly negate, deconstruct, and reconstruct our individual histories, identities, and conceptions of self.
Click on images below to experience the creation of our latest persona.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIAL-MCPe_A]
Día De Los Muertos Individuales
Check out the Día De Los Muertos art project I designed for Spanglish Baby, a wonderful blog dedicated to raising bicultural and bilingual children.I wanted to create a project that would inspire family togetherness, cross-generational dialogue, and communal interaction. A project where the process through which the work was produced, becomes an integral part of of the work itself.So, I came up with Día De Los Muertos Individuales- functional collaged placemats, modeled after altares, that can be used inside and outside. The image below is of the Individual I made in honor of my abuelita.
Visit the project on Spanglish Baby and on YouTube. And if you decide to make an Individual, PLEASE send me pics! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.Feliz Día De Los Muertos!xoMaya
Ultimate Promo Model for Jewish Identity
have you been kiruv'd lately?
The Most Radical Thing A Woman Can Do Is Own Her Body
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGk3-OJX7KE]A recent tumblr find, led me to the remarkable work of Stacyann Chin.
On Being Pauly D by DJ Pauly D
Over at Are You My Other? AM and I have been having some pretty intense conversations about what it means to become oneself. Needless to say, when I saw this video of DJ Pauly D as DJ Pauly D, I was speechless.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMBMbvLzK8k]
and...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_pbnMIhunE]because this is somehow oddly fascinating and YES because we are still watching
want more? here is a recent Snooki tumbl.