The Next Huerta? Hollywood on the Brazos

I've heard multiple times over the years that the Chicano / Latino civil rights movement needs an energizing central figure to bring cohesion and coherence to such a large and diverse group with equally fissiporous issues. Who could be that uniting force? Who will step up as the Hispanic Reagan (um ... the ability to unite different groups, not the imperialism part), bringing together Miami's Dominicans and Californias Chicanos - Austin Tejanos and Bernallio españoles? Well, a Hollywood soap opera star, of course. Eva Longoria no-longer-Parker recently (March 2) made a splash in Texas by joining in a rally to protest budget cuts to the elderly and handicapped that will total nearly $1 billion dollars.

Parker drew attention to herself just over a year ago by enrolling in Cal State Northridge's Chicano Studies MA program, and in 2006 by supporting protests against deportations and Bush "reforms" on border and immigration issues. A native Tejana (from a Tejano family with deep roots in Mexican and Spanish Texas) with connections to the Hollywood elite, it is doubtful she possesses the sort of radical stomach for change that a Bert Corona or Dolores Huerta brought to the table, and if she does one wonders if she would be willing to trade main-stream acceptance for Martin Sheen-esque marginality due to activism. Nevertheless, pert, pretty, and appropriately mestiza, she might at least draw some attention from her Anglo fan base that still thinks the ALMA Awards are somehow a diverse celebration of all Latinos. But really, check the photo below... is she just giving a finger-wave to somebody at Cannes, or is there a solidarity power salute in there somewhere?

Viva Mexico

Our little town of 30,000 people out here in the Piney Woods area of East Texas has a pretty healthy number of Catholics. Not too long ago the local Catholic congregation held a "diversity day" parade - a decision that is fitting as it has the most diverse congregation in town with LARGE groups of Filipinos, Latinos, SE Asians, South Asians, East Asians, various recently arrived Europeans, etc.

One of the big floats of the parade was built by the Spanish speaking youth group at the Catholic parish on the south end of town. It was a gigantic red, green, and white thing dripping with young kids hanging off of straw bales, all dressed in the peasant cotton / red scarf set up for boys or the china poblana look for the girls. As the float passed by the statue of the Spanish founder of the town in the main square, one of the boys looked around really fast then threw his machete up in the air and gave a whopping - if quick - Viva Mexico. What followed was rather fun. I gave my automatic Viva from the parade route (I hadn't been back from Guadalajara all that long and such Vivas seem automatic), and I'm not sure who got more stares, the embarrassed kid who shrank down in the straw bales after he shouted his viva, or me, the big gabacho guy with the little blonde boys who responeded to him. Either way, the stares we got were not friendly looks of approbation.

What got me thinking about this was a post I read on the Ask a Cholo web site from a "reader" (are those REAL questions???) about why Mexican and Mexican Americans shout Viva Mexico. The incident in the square came flooding back to my mind, along with statements from Richard Rodriguez in Brown about "culture" and Pamela Voekel's really early work called Peeing on the Palace: Bodily Resistance to Bourbon Reforms. I imagine there was a little bit of Rodriguez's compelling culture driving the kid, but I suppose that the machete made me think that this guy was making his little stand in the middle town with his own sign of resistance.

Thinking about what I said yesterday concerning California or Texas, I imagine in Cali that the float would have been covered with kids shouting Viva Mexico (I actually think I have seen that same float in the Santa Barbara Fiesta Parade with lots of Vivas shouted). Here in East Texas I am having a hard time imagining a float full of shouters.

Texas and California

When I first read Jose Antonio Burciaga's "Drink Cultura" I wasn't entirely convinced that there was a huge difference between Chicanos in California and Tejano Chicanos. Then I moved from California to Texas. I was wrong. Way wrong.

I think I'll start a series of posts on California vs. Texas. First entrants.

Ask a Chola for California (which is, by the way, the most June Cleaver Chola I have ever seen).

VS.

Latino Comedy Project for Texas (the "Mex/BC" part 3 had me wet my pants laughing).