Tag: Latinos

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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).

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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.

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Book Reviews History of Mexico

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo–a book review

Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Páramo. (México: Editorial RM, 1955).    [Ver español abajo]

This work by Juan Rulfo is considered one of the best literary expressions in Mexico.

But having been born and educated in the U.S., I’m less excited about Pedro Páramo, though I do recognize Rulfo’s literary ability. Nevertheless, as with William Faulkner and other “great” writers in other countries and times, I am sure their work deserved all of the encomiums they received in their day, but not necessarily today. Times passes and so do other things, necessarily. I think other writers have arisen as good or better, in Mexico’s case and in the United States’ too. This observation however leads us into questions about now national canons are formed, a topic that does not fit here.

In any case, Rulfo anoints his story about Pedro Páramo’s son searching for his father, with a sense of magic, of ghostly souls that roam the world in order to communicate with their still living relatives. As a result, Comala, where Pedro Páramo lives, is described as a town visited by spirits and occasional renegades stirred by the revolution of 1910. This is one of the elements this prominent novel offers, perhaps as an early Mexican version of magical realism. Another is the austere and effective handling of Spanish where every word counts (there are writers who shed words like a hemorrhage) even as Rulfo skillfully mimics the local vernacular. These aspects launched Juan Rulfo into the upper spheres of literary fame in Mexico in the mid-1950s, more so than his short story collection, El llano en llamas. For these reasons Pedro Páramo deserves to be read, no doubt about it.

Esta obra de Juan Rulfo se considera como una de las mejores expresiones literarias de México.

Pero siendo yo nacido y educado en Estados Unidos, mi aprecio de Pedro Páramo es algo menos apasionado. Sí reconozco la habilidad literaria de Juan Rulfo, sin duda. No obstante, como en el caso de William Faulkner y otros “grandes” escritores de otros países y de otros tiempos, estoy seguro de que el trabajo de estos literatos mereció todo el elogio que les dieron en sus días, en la época que escribieron, pero no necesariamente ahora. El tiempo pasa y muchas cosas cambian también, necesariamente. Yo creo que han surgido otros escritores igual de buenos y quizás mejores, en el caso de México y en Estados Unidos. Pero eso nos lleva a cuestiones de cómo se formulan los cánones nacionales, un detalle que no cabe aquí.

En todo caso, Rulfo unge su cuento, la búsqueda del hijo de Pedro Páramo por su padre, con una sensación de magia, de almas etéreas que vagan el mundo con el fin de comunicarse con sus aun vivientes familiares. A consecuencia, Comala, donde vive Pedro Páramo, resulta un pueblo de espíritus, alejado de la revolución de 1910. Este es uno de los elementos especiales que esta novela insigne ofrece. Otro es el manejo austero y eficaz del español, en que no hay palabras que sobren, ni que falten (hay escritores que derraman palabras como una hemorragia) al mismo tiempo que Rulfo remeda el hablar lugareño. Estos aspectos lanzaron a Juan Rulfo a las altas esferas literarias a mediados de la década de 1950, gracias más a esta obra que su colección de cuentos, El llano en llamas. Consecuentemente, Pedro Páramo merece ser leído.

 

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History of Mexico

MEXICO’S NEW PRESIDENT IS IMPRESSIVE AND TROUBLING AT THE SAME TIME

 

Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), was inaugurated President of Mexico today. He declared a war against corruption by slashing government spending, including government salaries, ending neo-liberal policies, and fighting drug-trafficking-related violence, all of which he believes he can achieve without new taxes. He will not prosecute corrupt officials of the past. He said little about President Trump, but his few words were positive.

***

* He rode in a conventional, white, 2010 VW sedan to his inauguration with a small police escort, not in a big, black SUV.

   * He said:

-“Material things do not interest me”

-“I will cut my salary by 40%”

-“I will not live in Los Pinos” (a luxurious executive mansion)

-“I will end all corruption”

-“I will not allow my wife nor my children to gain through politics”

-“I don’t have the right to fail you”

-“In 2 ½ years you can vote me in or out”

Wow! The statements above, coming from a freshly elected president, rang loud and clear in my mind, and I think you know why, these days: our President Trump is openly benefiting from business ties and his children are too, and all we can do is gape open-jawed.

Mexico recognized AMLO as the new president today, December 1, 2018, and I saw and heard his entire inaugural speech on Televisa and was very encouraged. I regretted not being in Mexico City, even though, had I been a Mexican citizen, I wouldn’t have voted for him back in November.

Having followed the presidential campaign there, I was dubious of his candidacy in part because I’ve studied Mexico nearly all my life and concluded that he was an old 1970’s leftist who was out of touch with 21st century politics. I sympathized with his political leanings but felt that the political winds were moving on and so should he. I wrote as much on my blog.

He won with 53% of the electoral vote (he was one of 4 candidates) and his coalition party captured both houses of Congress. He achieved a clear and overwhelming victory and utterly defeated the PRI, the party that ruled Mexico for nearly a century, building up a selective and muscular apparatus of generously-paid government and party leaders. Clearly, Mexican voters turned their back on the political status quo. AMLO is now all powerful because his people-oriented party (populist?) will most probably endorse his initiatives; there was every indication of that today. No one would have predicted this last year.

             AMLO in his VW sedan

 

I paid attention to things he said and did after he won and before he was officially installed today. An old-line politician, he hails from a modest, traditionally agriculture southern state (Tabasco) and his personal behavior also appears modest and unassuming, hence the 2010 VW white sedan instead of a big, burly, black SUV, and his refusal to live in luxurious Los Pinos on the edge of Mexico City (he’ll live and work in the presidential palace, in front of the zócalo, where most presidents did long ago). He strikes me as an honest ol’ chap; campechano, his friends might say.

      Benito Juarez

He is inspired by 19th century liberal leaders, like Benito Juarez, Mexico’s only Indian president, many of whom fought to the death in favor of a secular and fully democratic republic. This is what AMLO pledged today, and this impressed me very much, since I too admire Juarez and his comrades.

As AMLO spoke in front of both chambers of Congress, I paid attention to his predecessor, Ernesto Peña Nieto, who minutes earlier had removed the tri-colored presidential sash from his shoulders, signifying executive authority, and handed it to AMLO. He sat impassively nearby, listening to AMLO’s powerful repudiation of his PRI administration and the other preceding regimes. (Historically, this is hugely important since previous outgoing presidents did not easily walk off the political stage).

No more corruption, AMLO promised throughout his campaign. He emphasized this message today too, in a country whose high-ranking government officials earn U.S. $ 65,000 to $100,000 per year when you include generous end-of-year bonuses, allowances for new autos, gasoline, I-phones, life and medical insurance, private hospital care, paid vacations, and so on. He vowed that no government employee will earn more than he does and swore today to cut his own salary by 40%, averaging about $65,000 annually. He’s also selling the nation’s presidential airplane and already stopped the completion of what would have been one of the world’s biggest airports near Mexico City. Mexico doesn’t need such costly expenditures, he insisted. Trimming these allowances will eliminate the need for new taxes, he contended, and there is no doubt it will affect many well-heeled families in a country where government jobs prevail and enjoy high status but  where the average worker earns no more than $5 a day.

My biggest concern is that AMLO linked far too many challenges to corruption in his speech today. This is one of the reasons I would not have voted for him had I been a Mexican citizen—he spoke too vaguely about big issues, even today. For example, he devoted a good part of his speech to condemning Mexico’s neo-liberal economic policies of the 1980’s (i.e., free trade, privatization of government owned enterprises, and the general dominance of the public sector in the economy) suggesting that ending them would help eliminate corruption, somehow, yet he welcomed foreign investment and continued free trade!

He clearly suggested too that wiping out corruption would, by some means, bring down drug-trafficking violence but provided no details except for a reorganization of the nation’s security forces, controversial even now, plus a vague reference to amnesty, although he didn’t use the word. He won’t prosecute past acts of corruption but promised to bring closure to the 43 Guerrero students who disappeared.

Without going on too long here, the bottom line is that AMLO sounded good today, but as many street people interviewed on TV said: “I hope he keeps his promises.” AMLO recalled a young citizen on a bike riding up to him (AMLO doesn’t like too much security) recently and telling him, “you cannot fail us!” In his speech before Congress today he said, “I don’t have the right to fail you.” You can remove me in two and a half years if I do.

The world awaits, including me.

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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.

 

 

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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.

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Book Reviews United States

George Washington: Indispensable Man, a review

Flexner, James Thomas. Washington: The Indispensable Man (Boston: Back Bay Books, 1974) The author wrote four volumes of the life of our first president in the late 1960’s and condensed them into these 423 pages, but the text is “almost all together new,” he advises in the “Preface.” Now deceased, the author received the highest awards for his work and so I imagine that his knowledge and appreciation for George Washington remains unequaled to this day.

I gained a special appreciation for the father of our country thanks to the author’s emphasis on the personal aspects of George Washington’s life. For example, I was touched to learn that almost everyone he met, from the time he was a young man to his last years, trusted him almost immediately for his honesty and good will, and fully expected him to execute a plan, whatever it might have been. His famous crossing of the Delaware, as commander of the bedraggled American forces, to surprise the British at Trenton, is probably the best-known example of how his men loyally followed him even when he had been losing numerous battles. He was not a trained warrior, but he was not afraid to take the lead and do his best for his upstart nation. He stressed heavily on this account.

Washington owned slaves who worked on his plantation, Mount Vernon. Contradictorily, however, the author portrays him as a man so concerned about the welfare of others that he refused to sell his slaves to avoid separating family members, something that made him stand out in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Consequently, Mount Vernon gradually loaded up with a surplus of slaves that simply added to Washington’s mounting indebtedness. This situation came to an end after his death only when his wife liberated them all, at a high cost, to be sure. Flexner’s knowledge of George Washington is outstanding, of course, in part because of his secure familiarity with Washington’s writings, letters, mostly. I found the author’s writing elliptically old-fashioned throughout, but it was worth turning every page. His bibliography must be the best up to 1974, the date of publication.

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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
United States

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT PRESIDENT TRUMP ON THE EVE OF HIS MID TERM ELECTIONS

Is there anything good to say about Donald Trump’s administration on the eve of the November 6th elections?

 Short answer:

No. I must confess I’m bending backward in trying to answer this question. But, I can say the following, in trying to be honest with myself and with you and be as fair as possible with this man that we have in the White House:

Yes, there are a couple of things to which I give a reluctant but very limited endorsement. One, is the issue of trade, and the other is immigration.

Beyond these two issues I cannot find anything positive in Trump’s administration. I conclude below that he is a danger to America and to the world.

Longer answer:

Regarding trade with China

On this topic I endorse the direction of his thinking. I say “thinking” because, as you know, he is unable to explain anything intelligently. He can’t say more than 5 meaningful words about any idea or policy. So, I can only refer to the actions executed in his name by his top officials. Knowing, or guessing at the direction of his thinking, they assemble the facts, he nods in approval, barely reading a page or more of what they write, and they produce a Trump action or policy. I think that’s the way his administration is running.

His nod, in this case, recognizes that our trade relationship with China is not right. I agree. The Chinese governments makes demands of American companies wanting to do business there that our government generally does not require of foreign companies wanting to do business in the U.S. In some cases, our firms are prodded to share critically important internal information with local Chinese officials. Apple, Google and Amazon are cases at the top of an iceberg there.

This puts our American firms in jeopardy. The fact that the Chinese practice a form socialism is very much involved here, and that fact changes the playing field, but that’s a huge and separate topic. Chinese muscling American companies is unfair in any case. (Curiously, Mr. Trump hardly ever complains that almost everything we buy at the store is made in China.) There are many other one-sided situations that put our companies and our country against the wall there.

For those of you following these matters you may agree that Obama didn’t push very hard in trying to find a balanced relationship with the Chinese and Bush didn’t either.

So, what is my beef? Why do I give Mr. Trump a failing grade? The answer is that while I support his facing off with the Chinese about trade matters, his approach has been to throw the baby out with the bath water. To use a different metaphor, instead of fixing the house he is wrecking it with a giant backhoe. The tariffs (import taxes) he has ordered on Chinese goods arriving at our ports have the effect of a wrecking machine.

And, how have the Chinese answered? With more tariffs against things we sell to them, in other words, more wrecking machines. It’s the Hatfield’s versus the McCoys. Shoot them before they shoot you. Is that smart? Ask an American farmer about this and he’ll/she’ll tell you how they’re hurting.

If you’ve done some homework on Mr. Trump, you’ll agree with me that he is doing to the Chinese what he used to do when selling real estate in New York and New Jersey. He didn’t negotiate with his business partners, he’d try to cheat them or threaten to sue, or find ways not to pay his due if he didn’t get his way. He left a string of unpaid business partners and employees before campaigning for the presidency, and he paid only if a judge ordered it, settled quietly. That’s who the guy is. (See my book review, The Making of Donald Trump at https://carlosbgil.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/a-book-review-about-donald-trump/).

So, I give him an F for failure on trade with the Chinese even though I recognize he is looking in the right direction.

Regarding trade with Mexico

The other trade-related comment has to do with NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. We’ve had this pact with Mexico and Canada since 1994. Mr. Trump swore up and down he was going to tear it up because it was “worst trade deal the U.S. ever signed.” Now that the negotiations are done we discover he didn’t tear up anything, but claims he has. Lying and posturing is what he does. The truth is that his trade officials badgered Mexico and Canada to sweeten the agreement a bit, but not much.

We now have a NAFTA 2.0. The biggest changes have to do with all those cars we buy, made in Mexico and Canada–that they will now have more parts made in the three countries than before, 75% up from 62.5%. Another big change is that workers, mostly Americans, will begin earning $16 an hour beginning 5 years from now, but only some of them, less than half. Five years from now, did you get that? So, big deal. Amazon is paying employees $15 an hour now. American NAFTA 2.0 workers will have to wait five years to get a raise! And, NAFTA products and merchandise will cost us more money too.

So, has Mr. Trump resolved the “worst ever trade deal?” Of course not. He deserves an F for failure here too and a U for unsatisfactory in lying about it. That’s what I give him, and you should too.

Regarding immigration.

Here, again, as I read and hear about the “Central American caravan,” I bend over backwards in trying to assess this issue as honestly as possible. I theorize that when he decided to run for office, Mr. Trump discovered that our immigration program needed major repairs, but only then. Even so, I agree that it needs major work; I’ve been saying as much for a long time.

However, I am convinced that when he discovered immigration to be a hot button issue he also decided he would handle it in a red neck fashion in order to gain voter support. And, he did, and he got it. Bless our blind-sided folks, right?

You know the dismal story about Trump’s views of immigrants and immigration. Referring to people like us, and the people we’ve known all our lives in San Fernando CA, where I grew up, he called us “drug traffickers” and “rapists,” and has refused to explain or apologize so far. He doubted the efficacy of a Mexican American judge who made a decision that he didn’t like, just because the judge was Mexican American—like me! My daughter is a judge! He may as well have said that about her too! That made me so angry!

His comments about Muslims and Muslims immigrants to the U.S. tell us that he doggedly refuses to separate the few bad ones from the rest. His comments about Africans and Africa reveal his crude and abysmal ignorance of that part of the world. The fact is that all Americans of color are suspect in his juvenile brain. He is a bigot.

Our immigration program (the sum of all our immigration policies) needs fixing, for sure. Having to witness the “Central American caravan,” plodding northward as I write these words, underlines this fact. (By the way, Mexico has prevented more non-documented northward crossings than we have.) There is no doubt that our country possesses the right to control its borders, like all other countries. But, the men and women who are responsible for our immigration policies, including Mr. Trump, insist on overlooking the fact that migrants from Mexico and Central America (the biggest portion of Latin American immigrants at this time) come for jobs, primarily. They are economic migrants, for the most part. They want a better economic life, like my ancestors did, and possibly yours too. They come here because our economy attracts them, like bits of metal to a gigantic magnet and this means nothing to our government leaders. This magnetic attraction has been going on for a hundred years.

If we had recognized the economic pull decades ago and assisted Central American leaders in the creation of more jobs there, we wouldn’t have to be fretting about these Central Americans knocking at our southern door today. Have we addressed this option in a forceful and intelligent manner? No, we haven’t. The fact that Mexican illegal immigration has diminished to historic lows while Mexico’s economy has grown, is testimony to what I’m saying.

Instead of helping El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras strengthen their economies in order to create more jobs and assist them in the way the govern their countries, we’ve directed most of our efforts at the eradication of illegal drugs. It hasn’t worked a bit; money misspent.

Migrants crossing our southern border have gained more attention lately because drug gangs have taken advantage of many of them, forcing some of them to transport drugs into the U.S. While recognizing that there is a whole lot more to say about this, I cut to the core directly:

It is our demand for marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine and other such drugs that lies at the bottom of this Trumpian scare about immigrants posing as security threats. Drug gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are endangering ordinary citizens there and further corrupting local government officials with the piles of cash they get from selling drugs to us, and now to their own people. What has Mr. Trump said about this? Besides flashing the idea of a death penalty for drug traffickers. He’s said nothing.

So, what are his flagship answers to fixing our immigration program?

Build a wall! Bar all Muslims! Separate immigrant children from their parents at the border to stop the flow of Central Americans! These simple-Simon proposals further show his incompetent leadership.

So, I give Mr. Trump an absolute failure for the way he has handled our immigration problem.

Other reasons why Mr. Trump is a total failure:

  • Russian interference in our 2016 elections: everything indicates that he accepted, at the least, their interference placing him a hairline away from treasonous; illegitimate in my view;
  • Global warming: he refuses to accept that our Mother Earth is being choked by industrial fumes. He doesn’t care that these gases are causing us to endure ever increasing wild weather, like the more recent hurricanes, and the end of many forms of animal and plant life. How to understand this colossal disregard? He’s not a reader to begin with, and he is protecting his business supporters who stand to lose money with earth-friendly policies;
  • Good health for Americans. Mr. Trump does not seem to care that far too many Americans, especially those who support him (can you believe this?) lack health insurance and they lack health care (something he’s never been without) . He tried to kill President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, but Americans have fought back because healthcare is important for them and it appears Mr. Trump can’t stop them.
  • Hatred for woman. He has no qualms in disrespecting women, all the way from Hillary Clinton to Stormy Daniels and now it’ll be Senator Elizabeth Warren. Has he ever talked about his mother? She must have done something to him to make him a misogynist when he was a child.
  •  Disregard for NATO and our most important allies. Being the ignoramus that he is, he has brushed aside our vital relationships with Europe. He ignores their past internal wars and Russia’s expansionary designs on them. Mr. Trump is weakening the peace-oriented system we helped build after World War II.
  • Safe and honest college education for young Americans. Mr. Trump’s education secretary has been looking for ways to protect the fake universities that cheated many young Americans. Trump University is the best example of the fraudulent institutions that preyed on American families eager to higher-educate their children. Let us not forget that he paid $25 million to keep Trump University details from being exposed in court. What shame!
  • The list of Trump’s incompetent and disastrous decisions is long. Don’t you get it by now? He’s a danger to America and to the world. 

 

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.