Tag: education

Categories
Book Reviews History of Mexico Movie Reviews

“Roma,” a movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón: a review

[Ver español abajo]

“Roma” is another in the wave of Hollywood movies made, these days, by Mexican directors, this one by Alfonso Cuarón who won a Golden Globe Best Director Award for “Roma” and another for Best Foreign Film. The other directors include Alejandro González Iñárritu (“The Revenant,” 2015) and Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” 2006).

“Roma” is a look back at the director’s family. They lived in the Colonia Roma of Mexico City in the 1960’s (colonia refers to a housing district), and this is where I met my wife, Barbara, at about the time Cuarón was running around as a teenager. Barb and I shared some unforgettable moments there, including the horrible earthquake of 1985. Nowadays we stay there whenever we visit that megalopolis.

I consider “Roma” a significant film because it is a multifaceted re-creation of middle-class life in the colonia, in 1970-1971. My study of Mexico allowed me to see it as a valuable filmic document right away.

The social dimensions of the film are many but Cuarón puts the spot light directly on Cleo, the domestic worker who cared for him as a supplementary mother, played by Yalitza Aparicio. In the film, as in real life, Cleo is a Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, as are thousands of maids in that city, also known as empleadas or more derisively as gatas. They are the ones who make dinner, scrub the floors, wash the family car—and tuck in the kids at night, all for a next-to-nothing salary. And, not all may be treated as well as Cleo is in this movie.

The socio-cultural aspects in this picture are true to life, even to this day. The man of the house, a youngish medical doctor who works in one of the city’s hospitals, abandons his wife and children, including young Cuarón, for another woman. This must hit home for many viewers because it is a regretful reminder of Mexican machismo, very much alive.

The apartment in which the family lives is also a perfect re-creation of the many such living units in residential buildings, called vecindades, still standing today in Mexican cities. My sister, Soledad, commented to me after watching the movie, that she had seen home interiors like the ones shown in “Roma” many times, in old Mexican movies. Indeed. Their reproduction by Cuarón, right down to the kitchens with windows that look in to a back washroom, must be admired by anthropologists and archaeologists.

 

The politics raging in 1971 also appear in “Roma,” though tangentially—but that too, I think, is part of the Cuarón’s factual memorization of his early years. The movie allows us to see the events that he witnessed as a boy, but not the larger story behind them: the political demonstrations that turned bloody, right before his own eyes while visiting a department store in the company of his grandmother.

The director re-created the infamous suppression of students, known as the halconazo on the feast of Corpus Christi (Jueves de Corpus), which fell on Thursday, June 10, 1971. Many students were killed that day and many more were killed on a related carnage, October 2, 1968, the notorious Tlaltelolco massacre. What we see in the movie is an aftermath of October 2nd.

The event is known as the halconazo (halcón = hawk) because the men, who beat up the students with sticks, and some with armed weapons, as we witness in the movie, were referred to as halcones. Like a hawk, they could swoop down and catch or harm their prey, the demonstrating students, and then disappear, and the government could not be blamed directly. Cleo’s boyfriend is one of the halcones, having been trained specially to suppress and get away with it, as “Roma” shows us. Halcones are also referred to as paramilitary agents. Cuaróns insistence on making the film in black and white simply adds to its authenticity.

In summary, Cuarón’s movie, about his childhood in the Colonia Roma, provided me with abundant details of life behind the doors and walls Barbara and I walked past so many times.

If you read Spanish you might enjoy a short story about middle class life in the Colonia Roma, also in the 1960’s and 1970’s, by Jose Emilio Pacheco, Las batallas en el desierto (Ediciones Era, 1981).

                                                              

“Roma”, reseña de una película dirigida por Alfonso Cuarón.

“Roma” es otra en la cresta de películas de Hollywood hechas por directores mexicanos en estos días, esta por Alfonso Cuarón, quien ganó el premio Globo de Oro por Mejor Director de la película “Roma” y otro por la Mejor Película Extranjera. Los otros directores incluyen a Alejandro González Iñárritu (“The Revenant, “2015) y Guillermo del Toro (” Pan’s Labyrinth “, 2006).

“Roma” es una mirada atrás a la familia del director. Vivían en la Colonia Roma de la Ciudad de México en la década de 1960 (Aquí es donde conocí a mi esposa, Barbara, cuando Cuarón se paseaba como adolescente por las calles de la colonia. Barb y yo compartimos momentos inolvidables, incluyendo el horrible terremoto de 1985. Hoy en día nos quedamos allí cuando visitamos esa megalópolis).

Considero “Roma” una película importante porque es una recreación multifacética de la vida clase-mediera en la colonia, en los años 1970-1971. Mi estudio de México me permitió reconocer su valor cinematográfico inmediatamente.

Las dimensiones sociales son muchas, pero Cuarón puso el foco directamente sobre Cleo, la trabajadora doméstica que lo cuidó como madre suplementaria, papel interpretado por Yalitza Aparicio. En la película, como en la vida real, Cleo es una mixteca de Oaxaca, al igual que miles de sirvientas en esa ciudad, también conocidas como “empleadas” o más groseramente, como “gatas.” Ellas son las que preparan la cena, limpian los pisos, lavan el auto familiar y arropan a los niños por la noche, todo por un salario exiguo. Y es posible que no todas sean tratadas tan bien como Cleo en esta película.

Pienso que los aspectos socioculturales en este cuadro son fieles a la vida, hoy mismo. El hombre de la casa, un médico joven que trabaja en uno de los hospitales de la ciudad, abandona a su esposa e hijos, incluido el joven Cuarón, por otra mujer. Esto debe afectar a muchos cinéfilos porque es un recordatorio penoso del machismo mexicano, muy vivo.

El apartamento en el que vive la familia también es una recreación perfecta de las muchas viviendas, llamadas vecindades, que aún hoy se encuentran en ciudades mexicanas. Mi hermana, Soledad, me comentó después de ver la película, que había visto interiores de casas, como las que se ven en “Roma,” muchas veces en películas viejas mexicanas. Sin duda. Su reproducción por Cuarón, hasta las cocinas con ventanas que dan a un baño trasero, debe ser admirada por antropólogos y arqueólogos.

La política que se libra en 1971 también aparece en “Roma”, aunque tangencialmente, pero eso también, creo, es parte de la memorización objetiva de Cuarón cuando era niño. La película nos permite ver los eventos que presenció de chico, pero no la historia detrás de ellos: las manifestaciones políticas que se volvieron sangrientas, ante sus propios ojos, en el momento que visitaba una tienda de departamentos en compañía de su abuela.

El director recrea la infame supresión de los estudiantes, conocida como el Halconazo de Jueves de Corpus, que cayó el 10 de junio de 1971. Muchos estudiantes fueron asesinados ese día y muchos más liquidados en una carnicería del 2 de octubre de 1968, la notoria masacre de Tlaltelolco. Lo que vemos en la película es una consecuencia del 2 de octubre.

El evento se conoce como el halconazo porque se les llamó halcones a los hombres que golpearon a los estudiantes con palos, y algunos con armas de fuego, como vemos en la película. Como un halcón, podían descender en picado y dañar a sus presas, a los estudiantes, y luego desaparecer, y no se podía culpar al gobierno directamente. El novio de Cleo es uno de los halcones, y vemos que ha sido entrenado especialmente para reprimir y salirse con la suya, como nos muestra “Roma”. Los halcones también se conocen como agentes paramilitares. La insistencia de Cuarón en hacer la película en blanco y negro simplemente aumenta su autenticidad.

En resumen, la película de Cuarón, sobre su infancia en la Colonia Roma, me prestó abundantes detalles de la vida detrás de las puertas y las paredes que Barbara y yo pasamos muchas veces.

Si te gusta leer, puedes disfrutar de un cuento escrito sobre la vida clase-mediera en la Colonia Roma, también en los años 60 y 70, de José Emilio Pacheco, Las batallas en el desierto (Ediciones Era, 1981, y ediciones subsecuentes).

Categories
Book Reviews United States

Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America: a book review

Belew, Kathleen. Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018). The White Power Movement, a decidedly racist amalgam of men, remains alive and well, according to this scholarly work, but its threat to the nation and to the average American is not entirely clear.

The author, a university professor, helps us understand some basic landmarks in the evolution of the WPM. First are the connections between the Klu Klux Klan and the WPM in the years around World War II and their hellish campaign against Blacks. Secondly, the reader learns of the traitorous identification and fascination of WPM rebels with Nazism and its associated anti-Semitism. Thirdly, and the most important lesson offered by the author, is the role that the Vietnam War played in the formation of disloyal veterans whose leaders declared “war” on the U.S. government, a traitorous act, hence the subtitle of the book, “bring the war home.” WPM leaders disavowed their government fearing it was taking the American people in the wrong direction.

These men organized paramilitary teams and thereby posed credible challenges for American law enforcement personnel. Along these lines, the author connects several events, including Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas, to the deadly Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The author affirms a WPM connection, but she also maintains that the FBI and the ATF, primarily, kept the white rebels off balance and against the wall.

I have two main observations about this work. One is that while Professor Belew alleges the continuity of a serious racist threat, my reading didn’t find sufficient support for it. The conspiratorial connections are laid down, alright, but the organizational capability of the WPM raises questions, namely that the insurrectionist leaders, as presented in the book, strike me as unsophisticated, back-country rustics squaring off with the U.S. government somewhat blindly. Secondly, while I find the author’s information abundant and well researched, I also find it circuitous and repetitive, a surprise given her prestigious publisher. Nevertheless, Bring the War Home offers a worthwhile gathering of valuable information, including names, and events, for students of racism in America and issues of national, domestic security.

Categories
Book Reviews

El olvido que seremos (Colombia’s “violence” from a personal perspective)–a book review

Abad Faciolince, Hector. El olvido que seremos (Bogotá: Planeta, 2006). [English below]

El autor escribe un elogio apasionante a su padre en El olvido que seremos y una denuncia enérgica de sus asesinos, al mismo tiempo. También es una memoria de su infancia y su íntima relación con su padre, tierna evocación que además nos ofrece una mirada conmovedora a la “violencia” colombiana, tan larga y tan dolorosa.

Abad pinta a su padre como un educador totalmente entregado a tender una mano a sus prójimos y abrir las puertas a jóvenes estudiosos pero desprovistos. Nos habla de su devoción total por levantar los estándares de vida de la gente pobre. Y también nos cuenta como esta mentalidad se vuelve subversiva en un conservadurismo empedernido y salvajemente criminal, incluyendo al clero católico. Es asesinado. Irónicamente, el autor nos hace ver, además, que sus familiares pertenecen a esta corriente tradicional retrógrada como obispos, monseñores y monjes, y por ende el lector descubre a nivel personal el laberinto enredoso atrás de estas circunstancias.

A pesar de incluir varias páginas verborreadas que parecen ser productos de la emoción causada al recordar ciertos eventos, El olvido me ayudó a entender la tal llamada “violencia” colombiana. Por eso vale este libro. Creo que a los colombianos les faltó una revolución para deshacerse de un conservadurismo de corte colonial.

The author writes an enthralling eulogy to his father in El olvido que seremos (The Forgotten That We’ll Become) and an energetic condemnation of his murderers, at the same time. It is also a memory of his childhood and his intimate relationship with his father, a tender recall that also provides the reader a distressing look at Colombia’s long and painful “violence.”

Abad describes his father as a totally dedicated educator who reaches out to his community by opening doors to young but destitute scholars. He tells us of his father’s total devotion to raising the living standards of poor people, and how this world view became subversive to hardened and criminal conservatives, including the Catholic clergy. He’s assassinated. Ironically, the author’s family members belong to these retrograde institutions as bishops, monsignors and monks, so the reader can catch a glimpse of how intricate and complicated these situations can be up close.

Despite pages in which a verbal diarrhea seizes the author, no doubt triggered by the emotion that comes from remembering certain events, El olvido helped me understand Colombia’s infamous “violence.” That’s why this book is worth reading. I believe that Colombia missed having a revolution that might have shaken away its colonial conservatism.

Categories
Talks and other events We Became Mexican American, a book

INVITE CARLOS B. GIL TO TALK ON MEXICAN IMMIGRATION

INVITE CARLOS B. GIL TO TALK ON MEXICAN IMMIGRATION TO THE MEMBERS OF YOUR ORGANIZATION IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH THROUGH HUMANITIES WASHINGTON

 

 How?                                                                                             (See Spanish below)

Applications are open to host a Speakers Bureau event for 2019. Learn more and apply today at https//www.humanities.org/program/speakers-bureau/

If you have any questions? Contact Hannah Schwendeman at hannah@humanities.org or call 206-682-1770 ext. 101

 What is Humanities Washington?

 Humanities Washington’s Speakers Bureau is a statewide program that offers high-quality speakers who give engaging presentations on history, politics, art, and everything in between. Funding, resources, and promotion are provided to create successful events in your community. Last year, we partnered with over 175 organizations to reach more than 12,000 Washington residents.

Take a look at our 33 new speakers, carefully selected for their expertise, exciting topics, and ability to inspire discussion at, https//www.humanities.org/programs/upcoming-speakers/

Check out Carlos B. Gil as the Humanities Washington speaker on Mexican immigration here: https://www.humanities.org/speaker/carlos-gil/

 Name of Gil’s talk:                                      

 “From Mexican to Mexican-American: A Family Immigration Story.”

As immigration has become more hotly debated in the United States, the arguments have become cartoonish, with one side often painted as naïve and another as xenophobic. What has become lost is the human story of immigration to America, with all its complexity, heartache, and hope.

Carlos B. Gil sought to understand Mexican immigration to the United States by tracing his family’s history from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. In the process, he discovered the excitement, culture shock, inter-family conflict, and questions of identity that so many face who are seeking a better life in another place. Based on his book, We Became Mexican-American: How Our Immigrant Family Survived to Pursue the American Dream, his talk explores these topics, including immigration to Washington State, all through the lens of a single family’s story.

Carlos B. Gil is an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Washington, where he taught the history of Mexico and other Latin American countries for over thirty years. He previously toured the state offering a public lecture entitled, “The Hispanization of the United States.” A Spanish language version of his book will be available in early 2019.

Gil lives in Seattle.

This talk is available in both English and Spanish.

INVITA A QUE CARLOS B. GIL DÉ UNA CHARLA ACERCA DE LA INMIGRACIÓN MEXICANA A LOS MIEMBROS DE TU ORGANIZACIÓN A TRAVÉS DE HUMANITIES WASHINGTON

 ¿Cómo?

Haz tu solicitud. Las solicitudes están abiertas para presentar la charla del profesor Gil o cualquier otro evento del Buró de Conferencistas de Humanities Washington para el año 2019. P       uedes obtener más información y presentar tu solicitud hoy en https // www.humanities.org / program / speakers-bureau /

¿Si tienes alguna pregunta? Pónte en contacto con Hannah Schwendeman en hannah@humanities.org o llama al 206-682-1770 ext. 101.

Nombre de la charla del profesor Gil:

 De mexicano a mexicano-americano: la historia de una familia inmigrante.

A medida que la inmigración se ha debatido más acaloradamente en los Estados Unidos, los argumentos se han vuelto caricaturescos, con un lado pintado a menudo como ingenuo y otro como xenófobo. Lo que se ha perdido es la historia humana de la inmigración a Estados Unidos, con toda su complejidad, angustia y esperanza.

El profesor Gil trató de entender la inmigración mexicana a Estados Unidos al rastrear la historia de su propia familia desde la década de 1920 hasta la de 1970. En el proceso, descubrió la emoción, el choque cultural, el conflicto entre familias y las cuestiones de identidad que enfrentan muchos que buscan una vida mejor en otro lugar.

Basada en su libro, We Became Mexican American: How Our Immigrant Family Survived to Pursue the American Dream, esta charla explora estos temas, incluyendo la inmigración al estado de Washington, todo a través de un lente puesto a la historia de su familia.

Carlos B. Gil es profesor emérito de historia en la Universidad de Washington, donde dictó clases de la historia de México y otros países de América Latina durante más de treinta años. Anteriormente, realizó una gira por el estado ofreciendo una conferencia pública titulada “La hispanización de los Estados Unidos.” Una versión en español de su libro estará disponible en los primeros meses de 2019.

El Profesor Gil vive en Seattle.

Él puede dar esta charla en inglés y español.

 

 

Categories
Book Reviews

Memories of My Melancholy Whores–a book review

García Márquez, Gabriel. Memories of My Melancholy Whores (New York: Penguin, 2014), translation.

The author of this short novel, only 128 delicious pages long in English (I read the Spanish version, see Spanish review below) is one of the finest Latin American writers in recent times. He wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude, in 1967, which catapulted him to international fame, allowing him, at the same time, to introduce his writing style, later known as “magical realism.”  Memories is one of his last works; he died in 2014.

Memories feels more like a biographic fragment than a work of fiction. Even so, we don’t have steamy hot, tropical, bawdy house scenes that might stir our more salacious thoughts. What we do have is the tale of a “dirty ol’” bachelor who lives alone in a back country tropical riverside town that feels Colombian (Garcia-Marquez was Colombian); the old man falls in love with a young prostitute.

Not having fallen in love before, the life of this decrepit eighty-year-old man turns upside down giving the author the opportunity to spin an amusing and intimate tale of a relationship constrained on all sides. One of the most enjoyable scenes describes this senile old fellow sleeping next to his adorable girl as if they were brother and sister, he being unable to do much more.

Memories also gave me the renewed opportunity to appreciate the author’s ability with the Spanish language. With sublime skill he conjures phrases and expressions that wrap this wistful human story in a luxurious linguistic mantel. This book is pleasant and poignant at the same time.

Memoria de mis putas tristes. (Nueva York: Vintage Español: 2004). Esta novelita de 109 páginas deliciosas me suena más como un trozo biográfico que una obra de ficción. Es más, no tenemos aquí un holgorio ardiente de visitas a prostíbulos tropicales que nos exciten nuestros pensamientos lascivos. Lo que si tenemos es una crónica de un “viejo verde” solterón que vive solo en un pueblo provinciano ribereño, se podría decir, de ensueño, al estilo garciamarqueño, y que se enamora de una joven prostituta.

No habiéndose enamorado antes, la vida de este achacoso ochentón salta para caer boca abajo, lo que permite al autor ofrecernos un relato intimo y gracioso de lo que llega a ser una relación amorosa marcada con grandes limitaciones. Una de las escenas más divertidas nos permite imaginar a este hombre chocho gozando solo con poder acostarse al lado de la muchacha que adora toda la noche como si fueran hermanos, porque no pudo hacer más.

La obra también permite apreciar la habilidad de don Gabi para esgrimir el español con una sublime pericia que le confiere a sus frases y expresiones un lujo lingüístico que arropa su fábula humana. Fue una de sus últimas obras. Es divertido este librito y acogedor a la vez.

 

 

Categories
Book Reviews United States We Became Mexican American, a book

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis–a book review

Vance, J.D. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (New York: Harper, 2018), with a new Afterword. With good reason, Hillbilly Elegy received widespread attention when it was first published. Put on the market by Harper in 2016, it coincided with the rise of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and his getting elected soon thereafter. His popularity was attributed to his being able to speak on behalf of poor white Americans, especially those from the south who had supposedly been neglected by Democratic administrations. To my knowledge, Mr. Trump did not use the term, “hillbilly” to refer to his loyal supporters but Vance identifies hillbilly people as Trump supporters. Understanding them came to mean also understanding Trump’s inveterate supporters.

In any case, this book offers a penetrating insight into the people who live in Appalachia, mostly under-privileged whites who allegedly claim Scot-Irish descendence, a cultural note discussed far too briefly. The author writes his book in a compelling and disarming manner, boldly revealing personal family information, sometimes in a startling way. This combination helped give Hillbilly Elegy considerable attention.

The author tells us that he grew up, surrounded by his extended family, in one of the many hollows (“hollers”) scoured into the Allegheny Mountains near Jackson, Kentucky, and so his book puts a spot light on his mountain people, a harsh light. Many of them manifest varying levels of paranoia, to tell the truth. His grandfather’s obsession with guns and a willingness to draw one from behind his back at the slightest threat, his grandmother’s use of foul language and his mother’s abuse of drugs and her chronic inability to keep a husband or boyfriend are examples of this neurotic-paranoiac behavior. In addition, many of the author’s relatives and friends are described as “welfare queens,” some who “drive a Cadillac,” allergic to holding a job, and hostile to the world outside, interest in politics being unquestionably peripheral.

I concluded that a large part of the behavior described in Hillbilly is reminiscent of many poor families, working class and non-working, including Mexican American families and other minority families of color in the United States. Hillbilly thus confirmed in my mind that skin color and cultural antecedence are only casual differences among underprivileged people and they all feel put upon by the people who do not live on the edge. Except for a handful of words, here and there, the author does not make these cross-cultural observations.

Another parallel with minority families is that Mamaw, the author’s grandmother, was able to recognize a gem in the rough, despite her educational and social limitations: the gem is the author, himself. She nurtures him, because his parents couldn’t, even when she skewers him with unexpectedly obscene language, and helps him become somebody (a Yale lawyer and author!). This happens in minority communities too where someone discovers a child possessing enough internal fire to escape the ghetto, in this case, to flee the “hollers” of Kentucky. This book is an elegy to the author’s grandmother, most of all.

Mamaw takes young Vance to live in Middletown, Ohio. On page 252 the author writes that he felt like a “cultural emigrant” in Ohio. He came to regard white middle-class people in Middletown as aliens and so the latter half of Hillbilly Elegy offers an account of his painful assimilation into White Middle-Class America.

Blacks, who fled the South in the 1940’s, landing in places like Detroit, felt something similar, just more extreme. Immigrants, Mexican or otherwise, know fully well what it feels to be a “cultural emigrant,” as I show in my own book, Becoming Mexican American: How Our Immigrant Family Survived to Pursue the American Dream.

Hillbilly Elegy helps us understand less privileged white Americans to be sure. But, as I note, it is a study of poor people anywhere. And, for this reason it also contains cross-cultural implications of the kind I identify here that many emigrants from Appalachia might not relish.

Categories
Trump United States

Mr. Trump is a mini-dictator desperately trying to rise to the status of big-dictator.

Donald Trump’s firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions today, November 8, 2018, is nothing else but the first step to get rid of Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel investigating Trump’s unlawfulness.

Mr. Trump is a mini-dictator desperately trying to rise to the status of big-dictator. His constant battle with the press (Trump’s removing Jim Acosta of CNN from the White House press pool, for example) and his many negative encounters with his own Justice Department (not only Jeff Sessions but many others) are just two examples.

We must stay alert and give strength to our national institutions that can protect us from a Trump dictatorship. We must also press our senators to create a barricade against despotism. Write to them today and tell them: “STAND UP TO TRUMP! PUT UP A BARRIER AGAINST DESPOTISM!

 

Categories
Central America

TAKING A LOOK AT HONDURAN GANGS

This is a portrayal of criminal gangs in Honduras and how the government there responds to them. Alberto Arce, a Spanish reporter, gathered the pertinent information sometime between 2012 and 2014 which he poured into his book (Honduras a ras de suelo, 2016) and which I reviewed on Amazon.com, separately. This is not the review. There is no English version of Arce’s book so far.

Alberto Arce

I decided the paragraphs below helped me understand why Central Americans are seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border in 2018. They might help you understand too. (The Spanish language title is a play on the word “honduras,” which means the hollows or deepest parts, so the title could be translated as: the depths closest to the ground).

The Associated Press assigned Arce to work and live in Honduras during the years mentioned. I am familiar with Honduras because I lived there too, many years ago; one of my children was born in Tegucigalpa, and so I have some affection for and familiarity with the country.

I believe the information below, which I’ve translated, offers a background to the petitions for asylum that Central American migrants are making at present to our federal officers stationed at our southern border. It sheds light on the dilemmas our officials must face in granting or denying asylum. The main question they must answer is, does the asylum seeker really have a “credible fear” of harm or loss of life? A positive answer may lead to asylum. This is a controversial matter today.

Honduras a ras de suelo

The text below (see citation below-my words appear in brackets) I believe is a composite of information which Arce gathered from different Honduran citizens including a taxi driver whom he mentions. It supplements what I know about Honduras (I taught the history of Central America for many years at the University of Washington). Read on.

Gangs have existed in Tegucigalpa since the 1970’s. In the beginning they were no more than groups of youngsters from different schools who differentiated themselves according to the music they listened to, the way the dressed, or the haircuts they used, and they would fight with sticks and fists over the parks they preferred. ‘The tops,’ ‘the bottoms’ or the ‘associated wanderers’ were their names. They didn’t sell drugs nor extort people. The society to which they belonged hadn’t broken down yet.

Everything changed around the mid-1990’s. The United States, which did have a problem with violence and drugs in the suburbs, began to deport Central American immigrants back to their countries of origin. Many of them were teen agers who barely spoke Spanish and didn’t have relatives in Honduras who could help them. They began to congregate in the city parks and take care of each other. There was no interest nor capacity to deal with the new arrivees, and soon arms and drugs began to spread. My taxi cab driver Mairena, remembers it well.

At the beginning they were just deportees who wandered the streets asking for a few pennies to buy a soda while they looked after your parked car. People felt sorry for them. No one gave it much thought. No one looked ahead, and no one tried to find a solution. The police, even less, because they are under paid, ill-trained, and half-literate and, in many cases, are cousins or neighbors of the deportees themselves. They share the food they get on credit from the local stores and live in the same card-board dwellings.

The gangs are generally known as maras, a word used in the local Honduran jargon to refer to a friend. That’s the way they see each other, insecure youngsters from dysfunctional families beaten down by domestic violence.

In 1998 Hurricane Mitch destroyed a portion of the national infrastructure leaving thousands of orphans and displaced families in its wake forced to live in temporary housing. This became a recipe for the recruitment of new mareros, young maras. If you’re nobody, if you feel you don’t have anywhere to go, you have no future, no way to study something, and you’re tired of going hungry, or your step father beats you all the time, then you get into the maras.

Barrio 18 and the Salvatrucha Mara, also known as “13,” named according to the areas they originally controlled in Los Angeles, began to fight over barrios or districts in Tegucigalpa, toward the end of the 1990’s. Later, smaller groups, like the Chirizos or the Combo That Doesn’t Give Up, began taking over parts of inner city.

A large part of violence in Honduras is connected to drug trafficking. The gangs serve as transporters and sicarios [mobile assassins] for the drug cartels. Their services are often paid in kind, merchandise, which must then be monetized on the street, by peddling drugs in small amounts. They also charge a “war tax,” classic “protection” extortion. Most taxi cabs and city buses as well as businesses find themselves obligated to pay. Most of the time they must pay two gangs. If you don’t pay, you die. Recently, some home owners have been charged a tax. In Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula entire neighborhoods stand vacant for this reason because the owners moved away, refusing to pay or be killed.

It’s hard to find a gang member older than 30 because they’re either dead or in jail but also because gangs recruit children. First, they serve as look outs, then as couriers, peddlers, then extortionists. The highest position is a sicario. Gangs order ever younger kids to kill someone because they’re easier to manipulate, and because penal law applies only to someone over 18.

Women, mothers and children have specific but secondary roles within the organization. When a gang controls a neighborhood most everyone feels compelled to submit. The least expected of you is to stay silent. You don’t see, you don’t hear, you don’t speak. When someone [a gang member] has to hide, these organizations require full compliance [from the neighborhood], full support or cover up, voluntarily or out of fear.

There are no official statistics of gang responsibility in the overall violence picture. Experts assign them as the primary perpetrators of violent acts in the country. It’s not possible to know how many gang members there are. Perhaps 10,000. They control practically all the districts in the city. In those they don’t control they can go in and commit a crime anyway. This access gives them impunity.

Honduras approved an anti-gang law at the beginning of the century that penalized gang membership. It has been a total failure. The application of the mano dura [iron fist] has only triggered a war between the maras and the security forces. On the other hand, gangs are becoming more discreet. Identity rules for such things as clothing or tattoos are now only visible in prison or on the bodies of the most important and oldest members, people who got tattooed long ago. Nowadays, they’re sending their smartest kids to the university. They need administrators to move the money they accumulate. They even have doctors on their lists and secret clinics, allowing them to avoid having to go to a hospital when they’re wounded in action.

If during the civil wars and the revolutionary upheavals that afflicted Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras on a smaller scale, there were groups of soldiers and police who summarily executed people just because they were leftists, since the early 2000’s human rights organizations have been denouncing the existence of social cleansing policies against gang members. [Arce’s book is a case by case report of how these policies are applied]. Officials have always attributed the deaths of gang members to their own internal conflicts. [This means that] Every so often the death squads return [meaning Honduran security forces].

This is an excerpt from Alberto Arce, Honduras a ras de suelo: Crónicas desde el país más violento del mundo, Ariel 2016), pages 148-151, translated by Carlos B. Gil. A permission to translate was submitted to Arce by Gil via LinkIn.

Categories
Uncategorized

Keep for-profit schools away from your children Here’s why.

President Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy De Vos, do not care if you or your children enroll into a fake school or college and waste your money as a result. Think of the enormous feeling of deception for a youngster too. A fake school or college places profit above honest training or education. Their degrees are suspect and sometimes totally fictitious.
You can check-out the list of these fake schools here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_for-profit_universities_and_colleges .
  • Left
  • Center
  • Right
Remove

click to add a caption

President Trump’s failed and disgraced Trump University is the best example of what I’m talking about. I discuss Trump University in my book review of Donald Trump in my blog: www.carlosbgil.wordpress.com
The topic of for-profit colleges became newsworthy last week when reporters discovered that Secretary De Vos’s department stopped investigating fraud in these phony schools. President Obama had initially ordered a crack-down on these sham schools and so, obviously, Trump is now rolling it back and De Vos is ok with this. Frontline, a well known investigative television program made the announcement.
If you or your children are considering educational training beyond high school, check out the wikipedia list of schools I identify above before you make a decision.
Our American economic system allows quack schools to flourish just for the sake of making money. This is immoral, but many Americans uphold this practice as a basic American freedom without thinking too much about it, most Republicans included. Other countries do not allow this kind of social forgery. Go figure!
We’re walking into a wilderness.
Categories
We Became Mexican American, a book

READER’S REACTIONS TO “We Became Mexican American”

Gil writes with a cinematic eye for detail, delivering intricate word pictures of the people, places and activities….Vivid, highly informative and entertaining, Gil’s book shines and should be a staple on the bookshelves of history teachers and their students.  (Blue Ink Review, October 2012)

As a lifelong educator in a variety of capacities I find this author’s provocative, endearing life story a special must read for all members of the American School System, regardless of their niche or expertise in the field of education.”  (Leo Valenzuela, October 2012)

Gil plays the role of storyteller and mass organizer in this textbook-thick account of how his family crossed both land and social boundaries to improve their living conditions and be together….[I]t’s an interesting, well-written account of an adaptable, immigrant family. [It p]rovides a unique perspective into the complex cultural struggles immigrant families face and the circumstances that bring them here.  Kirkus Book Reviews (November 2012)

It’s almost poetic. This has to be used in the classrooms for generations to come. You bring everything together in ten different ways: economics, social mobility, immigration, politics, etc. You bring it all together; you offer the big picture. (Phillip Boucher, November 2012)

[It is a] rich, textured portrait….  [This work] shows how the hard work and determination of these Mexican immigrants led to greater economic success and higher social status with each generation. Black-and-white photographs inserted throughout the text vividly express this change of fortune.  (Clarion Reviews December 2012)

Your book is not only inspirational, it is thought provoking and educational. I love history and your book personalizes historical events. As an immigrant myself, I can connect with your family. (Ignacio Marquez, April 2013)

I loved your book! All my daughters want to read it, and my mom. There were lots of things I could relate to. (Molly Montoya, April 2013)

Your honesty was brutal but told in a loving way. I, we are so proud of your book and talk about it all the time. (Rebecca Cruz, May 2013)

Quite an accomplishment. Something I wish I had done for my own family. I learned a lot…about the Mexican American experience, including its regional variations. The book also brought me…to reassess my own [Swedish] family’s experience which in some ways parallels your family’s. Chuck Bergquist, May 2013)

Reading about my great great grandpa Basilio Alvarez in his book brought me to tears. What a journey this book is taking me on…¡Gracias! (Vera Delgado, November 2014)

Again I was blown away by your discussion on why your family would not have been attuned to racism due to the idea of there not being a contradiction to the reality they began life with. Such a tender defense of these people, and I can apply that to my family too. (Abe Pena, February 2014)

It was fantastic! I was so drawn in and fascinated with the stories of his family and all they went through. I’m so glad to have gotten that glimpse into his family’s journey and a better understanding of the lives of some immigrants.  (Mary McLaughlin Sta.Maria, March 2014)