Other presidents of African descent in America.

A lot it is going to be said this week about Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King as important precedents that made possible the election the first African American president of the United States. However there are other important historical figures that should be remembered as well. One of them is Vicente Guerrero (1781-1831) who was the first president in North America of African decent. He was one of the leading revolutionary generals of the Mexican War of Independence against Spain. His African roots came mostly from his father Pedro who was in the almost Afro-Mexican profession of mule driver in Tixtla. He became the second president of Mexico in 1829 fighting against Iturbide and other conservatives who wanted a constitutional monarchy that would favor the wealthy landowners through continued exploitation of the poor. He defended a democracy of all clases and races and abolished slavery. He was betrayed and executed by Vice-president Anastasio Bustamante in 1831. There is a state named in his honor. He was the grandfather of the important general, intellectual and writer Vicente Riva Palacio. 

We should also remember Alexandre Pétion (1770-1818) who was the first president of Haiti and one of its founding fathers. He was born in Port-au-Prince to a Haitian mother and a wealthy French white father. He was educated at the Millitary Academy in Paris and returned to Saint-Domingue to take part in the expulsion of the British from Saint-Domingue. Championing the ideals of democracy he became president of Haiti in 1806. He gave sanctuary to Simón Bolívar in 1815 and provided him with infantry and support. He died of yellow fever in 1818.

Samuel Huntington 1927-2008

I posted this commentary in yesterday's New York Times online obituary:

Huntington in his paranoid fear of immigrants and Muslims reflected more his intolerance and incapability of assimilation to the world at large. 

Paradoxically he had more faith and respect for Mexico's and Latin America's poor people believing that they will divide the most powerful empire in the history of humanity in two while Mexican (and some Chicanos like Rudy Acuña in his previous comment) intellectuals argue instead that despite abuse and segregation in their former lands they inoffensively will speak English, eat fast food, get fat, consume and become "Americans."

Is it a coincidence that Huntington died a week before there will be an African American president?

Ruben Ortiz Torres
Professor

UCSD

Hi 'n' Lo at LAXART

LAXART
2640 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, California
90034
US

Rubén Ortiz Torres: High ’n’ Lo  

Julio Cesar Morales: Interrupted Passage 

House of Campari Presents LAXART Project Space

November 15, 2008 – January 3, 2009
Opening reception: This Saturday, November 15, 7-9pm


Walk-through with Julio Cesar Morales and Aram Moshayedi
November 15, 6pm

For more information, gallery hours, and contact information, please visit www.laxart.org

LAXART’s programs are made possible with the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Peter Norton Family Foundation, The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, Danielson Foundation, The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, Campari, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Eileen Harris Norton, The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, ForYourArt, The Standard Downtown LA, and the LAXART Board of Directors, Producers Council, Curators Council, founding members, and patrons. 

This exhibition is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

These projects are affiliated with the 2008 California Biennial, organized by the Orange County Museum of Art and curated by Lauri Firstenberg. 

High 'n' Lo was produced with support from Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia; MACLA; and the Zero1 Festival. Hydraulics by Salvador “Chava” Muñoz. Paint, chrome, rims, and grill by ADMWorks. 

Interrupted Passage was commissioned by New Langton Arts, San Francisco and produced in association with LAXART, Los Angeles, and OCMA, Newport Beach. It has been supported by the Nimoy Foundation, Tim and Nancy Howes, Fleishhacker Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation Fund for Artists Matching Commission, Larry Mathews, Deborah Schneider, Ted Ridgway and Ellena Ochoa, and Christopher Vroom. 

Pachucos, Cholos y Chundos Invitando a la Chilanga Banda.

El Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo invita al simposio

Sitio, presencia y ausencia

Apariciones y estrategias del arte después del movimiento chicano

Viernes 7 de noviembre de 2008

12:00 a 14:00 horas y 16:00 a 18:00 horas

Entrada libre l Cupo limitado

En el marco de la exposición Apariciones fantasmales. Arte después del movimiento chicano, el Museo Tamayo organiza este simposio donde expertos y artistas de la muestra analizarán la intervención y la tendencia conceptual del arte chicano.

Registro 11:00 horas

Sesión 1 Apariciones

12:00 a 14:00 horas

Ponentes

Ondine Chavoya, historiador del arte

Sandra de la Loza, artista de la exposición

Mario Ybarra Jr., artista de la exposición

Moderador

Cuauhtémoc Medina, crítico de arte y curador

Receso 14:00 a 15:30 horas

Registro 15:30 horas

Sesión 2 Sitios

16:00 a 18:00 horas

Ponentes

Mariana Botey, historiadora del arte

Christina Fernandez, artista de la exposición

Rubén Ortiz-Torres, artista de la exposición

Moderador

Victor Zamudio Taylor, historiador del arte y curador

Informes 

http://www.museotamayo.org/apariciones/simposio.htm 

simposio_apariciones@museotamayo.org 

Tel. 5286 6519 ó 5286 6529 ext. 2229

Custom Mambo

1992, 5 min. 13 sec.

"Manejar bajo (to drive low) is for the pride. And despacio (slow) is because we want to be seen”.

Crazy George from the "Viejitos" car club. 

Technology can have applications other than material, practical ones. For the Lowrider community, linguistics and aesthetics play a more important role than transportation. They fix their cars in the most incredible, excessive, baroque way ever imagined. Metal flake illustrated paint jobs, gold plated engines and brakes, velvet upholstery, disco lights, video systems and deafening stereos are some of the features that transform Chevies and other makes into shrines to be admired on the streets. Hydraulic systems are used to make the cars jump and dance and the beds of the trucks spin at more than 70 miles per hour. The car symbolizes the Californian way of life. Lowriders slow the freeways disrupting their efficient, pragmatic purpose, transforming them into a playground and meeting place. 

This early nineties video is the first I did about the subject. It doesn't pretend to coldly document this phenomenon but rather functions in a visually seductive way like the machines themselves using images, video technology and effects of dubious taste. The music composed by Xavier Alvarez is an electroacoustic piece that samples Perez Prado (the king of Mambo). Here again new technologies create rhythms and sounds that deal with the notion of "avant garde" and tradition at the same time. "You lower your car for the pride and if you drive too fast, people won't be able to check it out" says Crazy George from the Viejitos car club. These "rides" constitute an effort to be noticed in a society that doesn't want to see the people that ride them. I hope the video conveys the overwhelming experience of the Dyonisian "beauty" that escapes any notion of rationality and at the same time hints at some of the problems it raises.

Mandorla 11

The new issue of Mandorla is out. In its own words: "First published in Mexico City in 1991, Mandorla emphasizes innovative writing in its original language--most commonly English or Spanish--and high-quality translations of existing material. Visual art and short critical articles complement this work." 

It includes a selection of images from my newest photographic portfolio The Past is not What it Used to be and an excerpt of my text A True Account Concerning Conquests of the New America translated by Roberto Tejada. The full text called Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva America was posted in its original "old" Spanish previously in this blog. Considering that English has changed a lot more than Spanish a translation that could keep the spirit of the original text seemed really complicated and certainly beyond my bard capabilities. Roberto did an awesome job. It reads as if I know how to write. Regular readers of this blog might know the truth. No surprise Octavio Paz had him as a translator.

The photo on the cover of the magazine is called Cenote Sagrado and it was taken with a cheap underwater camera in the Bahamas around 2005. 

I also enjoyed reading the poetry of Heriberto Yépez.

El Tren le Arrancó la Cabeza! (The Train Chopped his Head!)

This is the original article published by Alarma! magazine in 1986 that inspired and it is sang in the opera ¡Únicamente la Verdad! Notice the photograph of Camelia la Texana crying next to the mutilated body of Eleazar Pacheco Moreno on the top left of the page. 

Este el el artículo original publicado por la revista Alarma! en 1986 que inspiró y es cantado en la ópera ¡Únicamente la Verdad! Es de notar la fotografía en la parte superior izquierda de la página en la que aparece Camelia la Texana llorando al lado del cuerpo mutilado de Eleazar Pacheco Moreno.

VAZQUEZ, Juan Pablo: "El Tren le Arrancó la Cabeza," Alarma!, no 1191, February 26 of 1986, Mexico, p. 29.