Malinche

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Constraints

8/2/2010 in Bilingual, Malinche by Julio Sueco | No comments

I tend to adopt an attitude towards language that it’s nearly pristine in its stipulations since I exact a nativists view on language that cannot possibly meet the standards I want. That is, I want what it is said in L1 to be exactly the same as in L2.

An impossibility by all means.

Yet this equation, L1=L2 is wrought upon the daily make up of humanity every time the sun rises.

So as I prepare myself to listen to Simon J. Ortiz: A Poetic Legacy of Indigenous Continuance a host of questions and stomach revolt seem to undermine with furious confusion the joy it would be to just listen to the darn thing.

For one, doesn’t it seem odd to you that this continuance happens in English?

Second: can English, with all its constraints that entail the language of pain for indigenous people in Norteamerica be a vessel appropriate enough to deliver the goods?

Am not the one to not allow said company. Consort at will I say. And just to open up more wounds here, look at the presenter’s name: Evelina Lucero.

Yes, its Spanish. Allow me to say it. What the tarnation are we saying here? Why do we choose to pretend that Spanish surnamed so-called indigenous people can tell us something about indigenous people’s continuance in English?

I don’t want to disrespect all the work laid before all this. By all means.

What I am saying though is how original does the L2 language allow us to be our genuine selves in the L2 milieu? Can I even though I have profound knowledge of L1 deliver that in L2?

That’s all am saying. Not just because the way the West looks upon the arts, with its Medici and Meneas paternalistic support. But because the parameters that uphold the standards are unequivocally different than the standards the local native language was once upheld.

I don’t want to diminish nothing here, because I know am stepping on some serious callitos here.

killjoy

6/26/2010 in Malinche, Poem by Julio Sueco | No comments

Bad little voice

bad little boys

sing a llulaby

that kisses me bye-bye

Kill me softly with my own locally grown bad feelings

murder my ego

because it wants to feel me good

Little hell constructed comments that eat me up away

far far into the depths of low self steem, sing a song

a lullaby that puts me me down, please, please,

because that’s all I know what to do about my self image

autodestruct it by sheer will

am sure the psych industry will be psyched to know another case

just blew up its cover

. it’s nothing but autodestruct.

Quinto comment II

5/22/2010 in Books, Malinche, Pocho sentimientos by Julio Sueco | No comments

In relation to the Fifth Comment:

Here in Sweden, Swedes can’t see beyond my ethnic look or what their eyes tell them I am. A brown person. So the idea of an American has also been hijacked by color lines. Although, much to my surprise Swedes don’t see themselves in those color lines though their idea of what an American is certainly is tainted by color. So they have a hard time seeing that there are Americans of brown disposition.

So it irritates me a tad that they can’t acknowledge my gringo side. I hate the fact that they are not able to see beyond my so called Spanish background.  It makes me feel incomplete.

one for the road

10/23/2006 in Ese moods, Foreign Affairs, Malinche by Julio Sueco

In the age of the blog, Stream of consciousness will revolutionize neurosis in ways only television can understand …

Yesterday, my closest friend ever said the unthinkable, he said, I hate Hitler.

I couldn’t believe my ears. He said, upon me asking why, that it was because of him, a state of Israel exists today.

I said, politically speaking, Israel lives in a perpetual state of doubt in the now.

I fail to understand his new gained insight in world affairs but a small inkling tracked me down all the way here.

I nearly got on my knees, I begged, for him to expound.

Had ony Hitler let be, Israelis would never had accepted a state for their physical selves.

Befuddled I implored for more.

Jews suffered their extermination in ways we fail to understand.

But had Hitler just let be, he insisted, maybe jews, the elite, would never ever had agreed to religious zealots dreams.

Instead, zealots, rule Israel.

with that he failed to utter more.

.

Daily Kos

3/28/2006 in Ese moods, Malinche by Julio Sueco

The weird and odd thinker at Daily Kos [too asimilado for my taste] had nothing to add to the immmigration issue and the mass protests that ensued thereby. So much for crashing the gates. There is a thing that assimilated to the core Xicanos loath most and that is Raza being raza. For these kind of Xicanos these raza aren’t gringo enough. Oh, but they’ll go on and on about the US Constitution this and that.

Zúñiga, who hates it when his last name is mispronounced by the general media, no, not Zúñiga but that other funny sounding name, Moulitsas, states that “My heroes are Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, Cesar Chavez“.

I think that this hip young raza man, whose blue-red blood runs deep enough to ignore the raza sediment in his veins, is beyond gente.

Am I being evil? No. I think that he is using his origins and color amén de su nombre to gain political gain. Is that bad? No, but it ain’t honest either.

Yes, I know he is busy being the good Democrat. Oh, am sorry, am not an American? That am a Mexican Xicano, should I have not opined?

PS: the Kos gang zoomed on my post like a rabbit out of the blue, erhm, that doesn’t make sense does it? I wonder what they thought? Sure’nuff and item on the protest appeared on the matter [though, we must admit, that we do not know if our blog had anything to do with that decision, that is, to mention, the protest], jíjole, even on a bullet! Wait till I tell the folks back home about it *insert a jethro from Beverly Hillbillies laugh here* I made a difference.

2

1/26/2006 in Malinche by Julio Sueco

Ok, two rather odd issues are coalescing today though with a very intriguing geographic location in common: Texas.

First things first.

I was reading some of Daily Texican’s posts today and I was reminded of a very old sting I suffered at his hands. If you read very carefully, DT’s blog has a warning text on top of his blog. It states the following:

Ojo: The “Cholo Word Of The Day” is simply for fun. This is not an academic exercise, therefore I do not spend much time checking for espelling or grammatical errors. Most of the words are not only used by “cholos,” but by many people in S. Texas – and their usage can vary. c/s

That was done for one person in mind, me. One day I got the very crazy idea to dip linguistics to a comment I left in some word he pondered upon and he just blew a casket all over the issue. Man was I stung. So everytime I go to his blog am reminded of the sting. Ouch!

Gonzales, hmmm, we here at the offices have lent kudos to the man because, yes, we admit it, he is of mexican descent. We thought, we rationalized, that past güero attornies have done worst behind the scenes and that it was pretty darn honest of a Texan to say uppfront what güero folk deny on the ramlight but do a escondiditas.

This kind of stuff kind of gives food for thought though and makes us question our thinking.

killjoy

12/26/2005 in Malinche, Pocho sentimientos by Julio Sueco | No comments

To the legions of my reader fans who await not a minute before I clamp down the keyword with whatever oozez down my brain, I say no x-mas to you. Alas! I am desillusioned with the lot of humanity so seek not the jule tides with jingles in every pimple million of innocent smirks cause. Humbug! I am a bitter soul the likes of one Bartleby. I stand idle waiting for death to appear down the horizon any day. No friend however curios of life cometh to visit my prison-like solitude nor do they worry about the lot of the world.

X-mas is just a reminder nowadays of how cruel and vicious humanity can be towards one another. People are dying this very instant in some part of the world while someone is buying a present thinking of that dearly beloved one. Bought with the very money the bullet, that killed that unknown in a foreign land, earned in an unethical slushfund on Wall Street. Millions rejoice in América with their cherished ones, eat, drink and piss in tranquility while half the world is protuding in misery.

I have heard the angry ones who will stand not a sight the likes of me. Go to Africa! if thoust must cryth the X-mas dappers.

but

Is it too much to ask for a little reflection some other time of the year other than the 24th of Dic?

Kill x-mas, it has become a lawyer for good tidings.

yupi!

11/17/2005 in Aztlán, Malinche by Julio Sueco | No comments

I got my first anti-aztlán comment in like eons or shoud I say first one at all? Come to pappa baby, let me see you walk …

I think that this “Aztlan” bull-s**t needs to end NOW! The Government claims that it is finally going to do something about it, but until I see bus loads of illegals heading home south of the boarder I will not be satisfied. What we need to do is take apply the lessons learned from the Eisenhower administration in Operation Wetback. A similar policy is desperately needed now, more than ever.

Read the rest of the comment here.

It was written by this guy whose ip address is stated as Vancouver, in Washington.

I always wondered a lot about the term Aztlán and Google. This idea of ours is being trashed around by ultra neo conservatives like a threat greater than you-know-who.

We got history behind us, they, they just have a stupid argument based on ideology.

I shall defend thee, gente Xicana

10/30/2005 in Aztlán, Malinche by Julio Sueco | No comments

I usually don’t mingle my Spanish and English though am known by my most fervent reader, editor, proofreader, slacker, güevón, patron (that is, me) to occasionally indulge in doing so. So far I have managed to mesh the prime philosophy behind my chicanismo, that is, Xicanismo from Tijuana. I am from two nations albeit my xicanismo of lately has had the gull to push me into stating what I have always been, a Mexican citizen. People think that Xicanos are a social construct from the US. I would like to think that I am proof that that is not so and fervently will go to no lengths in discussing with everyone that because I exist, Tijuana must be a realm of Aztlán too. Don’t ask how much of this stuff is a social construct. I suppose that some of it is, gained knowledge that just piles up on old stuff like an Aztec pyramid. I base all of my xicanismo on linguistics. The truth, the being in me that cries out Xicano, bases his ens on language. I trace my being on the spoken word.

I speak therefore soy.

But the point of this is not that but the following. A little background is need though. Eduardo Valle is in self imposed exile because his sort of journalism brought him too close to the mexican mafia. He left México for security reasons and ever since has been writing for newspapers. I have followed his career somewhat and read when chance presents itself what he has to say. I have been doing so for the past diez o quince años or so. For the first time, today he has disappointed me. You can read the rest on the post why was I left muy encabronado.

En referencia a: ¿Jim Crow o John Brown?

Ideologicamente estás equivocado y realmente no estas sintonizado a la esencia mexicoamericana. Mucho más desde donde estas (creo que te encuentras en Washington) pues no estas donde las cosas de Aztlán se discuten en su mero apogeo, el Southwest.

Digo ideologicamente equivocado porque eres monolingüe y tu cosmovisión sólo abarca la ideología interpuesta por el español.

Acusar a los mexicoamericanos de no decirle nada a Hungtinton deja ver tu carencia de lectura en la red o por lo menos de frecuentar tu biblioteca más cercana. Deja ver mucho tus creencias personales además de la extensión de tu comprensión de este grupo étnico [¿qué tanto te has molestado en estudiarnos?] que nada tiene que ver con tu nacionalismo o tu frustración. Por estos días hay cientos de blogs que cubren un buen el espectrum de la comunidad mexicoamericana del Southwest. Te recomiendo que nos leas a diario por lo menos un año para que te puedas formular una idea de lo que semos. Busca en la red la respuesta y leenos en inglés ya que en español casi no escribimos [muy poco diría yo, pero ya nos estamos reacostumbrando] además de que estoy seguro que nuestro español no lo comprenderias por no tener el bagaje cultural para ello además del histórico prejuicio que la clase media mexicana ha inculcado a los monolingües hispanoparlantes sobre nosotros los mexicoamericanos.

Te recomiendo que leas Latinos, Global Change, and American Foreign policy. Un proyecto de la Stanley Foundation en colaboración con The Tomás Rivera Center (1994), para empezar, es un buen punto de partida.

Tú lo que buscas es un lider que se ajuste a tus criterios políticos dentro de Aztlán y eso no va a suceder por dos cosas y no por cuestiones nacionalistas: Una, estamos muy sintonizados a las ideas sobre racismo tanto mexicanas como estadunidenses, lo que tu ves como debilidad nosotros vemos como fuerza, creemos en la constitución americana; dos, compartimos el sueño americano, el mismo que se puede leer sugieres descartemos, no porque lo queramos sino por cuestiones religiosas, somos tanto católicos como protestantes. Una dicotomía dificl de comprender y que lleva muchos años en estudiar.

Comprendo el proceso de adaptación que estas pasando, por eso pasamos todos, después del todo, ¿que llevas en el exterior? ¿10, 15 años? Se entiende, lo que no es comprensible son tus acusaciones sin fundamentos algunos que sólo conllevan a una meta, la distorción de la imagen de los mexicoamericanos en México.

…

9/24/2005 in Malinche by Julio Sueco | No comments

  • He descubierto que el Mezcal no sirve para las actividades mentales. Es una bebida bruta. Si tomo whisky eso ayuda, no sé porque, ni me pregunten porqué. Sólo sé que Mezcal no sirve para disfrutar un rato la computadora. Or at the very least it takes a while before one can enjoy the effects of banging the keys and allow the enjoyment of vitamin B depletion on the brain
  • Noticed the recent spats between Il Vaticano and the Mex Gov? One would think the unthinkable. Very few people take seriously the power struggles allá en la Santa Sede. First things first. Fox is the head for a well known group called Yunque, an offshoot of this organization who by the by’s is challenging the very fabric of Opus Dei. Old Europe, what have you, will not have a Mexican org dictate its cojones. So first the Vat says that Mexico this and that drug barons blah blah. Then comes a statement by an obscure priest from a forgotten village in some Sierra of sorts saying illegal gains get purified through alms giving. A chisme that sets a flurry of otherwise silent intelectuales debating the very issues that, ajem! are well known in Mexican society (brings to mind the Godfather flick right?) but are never discussed in public. The same Pope that dictates more bible reading ought to be instituted now dictates to us that ethics discussions are forbidden. All in all, the Vat gets nervous and then reissues a statement that praises Mexico for its superb (my adv) fight against criminal org’s. Checkmate? Impasse? Who knows but they seem to stop kicking sand to each others ancles at the very least.

    Para más información chekea estos links aquí, aquí, aquí y aquí.

.

6/14/2005 in Malinche, Political thought by Julio Sueco | No comments

What I like about Sandra Dionisi’s painting is that it both reflects a snake and a scorpion at the same time in her work.

Que viva la reconquista!

Requiered reading ese

6/14/2005 in Malinche by Julio Sueco | No comments

“La Malinche.” Slave, interpreter, secretary, mistress, mother of the first “Mexican.” her very name still stirs up controversy.

Associate Professor of History R. Douglas Cope teaches Mexican and colonial Latin American history. He is the author of The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720.

*please notice the 666 on the php doc :)

Aztlán my land: where art thou headed?

5/14/2005 in Malinche, Xicanismo by Julio Sueco

Reading this article am inspired to write the following

I have stated numerous times that the idea of returning the Southwest to México (a preposterous idea if there ever was one) would be detrimental to our culture, the pachuc@, chol@, lowrider, poch@, malinche, chican@, xican@ culture. The moment that the Southwest lands in the hands of México we cease to be all that has happened between now and 1846.

What makes us us is the very conflict that breeds between the two cultures.

However, I must admit that the polarization of the Aztlán homeland is taking place as we speak. Aztlán has reached a critical moment in US history, Aztlán is finally a discourse in American politics and a tool to defeat opponents in democratic held elections, people are taking a stand on Aztlán. The myth of Aztlán is competing with the myth of the American Dream head on.

Though we at the offices of Yonder Lies It insist that the fundamental question that needs an urgent addressing is our stance as americans, that what we as the Xican@ culture of this century must assert is our americanness. Which is far more important than discussing the corner alley impossibility of returning the Southwest to México because the Southwest is not comprissed of one ethnic group anymore and we must respect that, show them that we are different from them.

***

Reasons to turn the tables around in the national discourse for the soul of the Southwest and our denied americanness:

We have assimilated no matter what Huntington says or others attest. Our imagination includes Bejamin Franklin, Abe Lincoln and Ralph Emerson to name just a few of the voices that run in our conscience and we speak inglés. Nor have we only assimilated the gringo lifestyle, we have taken it as our own, that it differs from the more WASP vision and its racist legacy is another matter; in fact, we have stretched out a hand numerous times to those Other Americans yet they continuously refuse to shake our hand. They belittle our culture and refuse to acknowledge us as a people. When will they assimilate to us? When will they speak spanish?

We are a culture that the rest of America doesn’t know or isn’t aware that we have a huge lot in common. This needs to change and be transmitted to the rest of America: we have always existed and it is time they stop denying our existence. If Washington fails to stop this the spiral towards confrontation and ethnic cleansing is at hand. Do we really want a repeat of that in our history books?

Aztlán is no threat to the fabric of the US, what is a threat is the very denial of Aztlán and regard it as a foreign influence when it happens to be an american idea in par with the American Dream just like apple pie is.

California, Bustamante and MeCHA

10/20/2003 in Aztlán, Malinche, Xicano Commentary by Julio Sueco

Citizens against citizens, a view of the blog world led me to interesting commentary on this as they avalanched Cruz Bustamante on his allegiances to MeCHA. There was a conserted effort to question Bustamantes real intentions to get to power as if becoming governor of California would entail the power to return California back to México. We should of ridiculed them right then and there, laugh our heads off all the way to the ballot boxes just like Arny did.

Ah politics, divide and conquer.

Yet they paralyse us like they always have, they paralyse by demanding our allegiances, the age old trick the gringos have always been playing on us, on the meanwhile they get to hoard the goods because we wanna prove to them how good Americans we are.

It is an insult, as a matter of fact, that politicians and the entertaintment industry coalesce to form a front against us Xicanos.

Nobody is questioning that Arnold has charges pending about sexual misconduct yet Judge Clarence Thomas did’nt even get a chance. Tell me there isn’t a conserted effort on part of the white establishment for color preferences? Where was the hounding of the media? Better yet, where is the hounding of media now? So far the pending charges have been given passing mention that Arny should come clean. And there stops the story.

Most disgusting of all was how the entertaintment industry is aligning itself with politics. Oprah Winphrey’s Empire and Jay Leno all pitched in to help Arny. More on this on today’s LATIMES

This is were Latinos of all walks of life should flex their economic muscle to insure that future entertainers do not abuse of the confidence placed on them to promote their politic agendas, they should be boicotted right here and now. I believe it is time we start taking ourselves more seriously and don’t allow the ideology of the white dominated media and body politic to question our seriousness for the American Project. We also have our own Manifest Destiny. Nobody questioned Arny about his ties to Austria where he got some help, nobody wonders whether his ancestral home, as he surely is fond of, is a detriment to the USA and California thereby. Yet We, the Xicano people and thereby latinos of all walks of life who have a vested intterest in the well bieng of our beloved state get chided for claiming our state as ours. We have historical, lingüistic and blood ties to California. California didn’t get named that because some pilgrim came over and named it thus. Yet Manifest Destiny servile agents from out of state do come and try with all their might to insure that California remains within the ideological principles that have California as it stands, so why should we be embarrased about our ancestral homes and our native ideas? There isn’t shame in that, shame be on those who would want to still puppeteer us instead.

Links that contributed to this post California Recall rant …

Michelle Malkin Before it hit the gig time …

Pochismo

8/31/2003 in Malinche, Pocho sentimientos by Julio Sueco

It seems as though Pochismo is hailing a revival unprecedented in the history of our young culture. Just as chicano was once a denigrating term and later spoused as a badge of honor so is pochismo doing that as well and with what a bang!

Curiously enough, pochismo is embracing that which many chicanos are leaving behind them or has not taken into account.

They embrace the mexican culture with glee and commercialize it in very creative ways that do not insult our traditions, in a way they enhance it and promote it. Frankly, it pleases me to see all of this taking place now. In fact, much of the internet entertaintment by way of Chicano culture, for my part anyways, is coming from those aspects of our culture that is/has been ostracized, the pocho culture.

Let’s see, were do I stand in this continuum of our very undefined culture?

As I recall I too fell prey to this moniker but quickly shrugged it off, I must’ve been 9 or so just when I returned from my childhood stay of two years in CA, my friends that I had left behind in Tijuana saw the change, and quickly began the dismantling and I off course abided by it quite naturally. In fact, I turned myself against this form of change, I also called people pochos and pochas although I fear that the degree of despectiveness has something to do with how much acculturation one has intrinsically. That is, it depends how mexican you are or how much you feel offended by the turncoat itself. (in essence the offense lies in the denial of cultural traits by the pocho which the mexican assumes the pocho has even though the pocho denies that and of course which causes a serious offence in the more mexicanized fellow or so thereby)

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the revival of mexican attributes by pochos has taken a different turn though, its seems to me that pochos are bringing in home, curiously enough, since pochos are somewhat banned from the community, the more mestizo aspects of the mexican culture. This is indeed something worthy of observence since Chicanos are more of an indigenous oriented type, the symbol of the Chicano has more to do with the aztec, maya, toltec and so on while the pocho is incorporating the more mestizo aspects of the mexican culture into his identity. That is why you see more things of that nature in pocho semiotics like mexican hero wrestlers, loterísymbols and tipical mexican games, and things that are widely shared by the mestizo population of Mexico.

Even Richard Rodriguez has jumped on the bandwagon too, his latest book, Brown, is in essence an act of conciliation, read it and tell me that his take on the mexican aspects of his book are not about that, indeed, RR has come into the fold, whatever that is, but is adding something, at last, a partial recognition of his identity to the rich and varied culture that is composed of the USA and Mexico.

I wouldn’t be surprised that our culture, which is and should be about the blending of our two cultures, the Mexican and the gabacha, chrysalises out of Pochismo! Who would of thought that they be the torch carriers of our culture ….

Pocho sites:

Pocharte
Pocho.com