El Magonista Newsletter | November 2, 2023 | Vol. 11, No. 33

Dozens of displaced locals gathered in a converted shelter, waiting for resources to be delivered to their ravaged city

In a large church displaying a big blue cross near the Acapulco beachfront, dozens of people dozed in sleeping bags along the pews, prayed in silence or anxiously discussed their next move.

Víctor Hugo Sánchez attentively listened to the pleas from people desperate for food, water and gas two days after a Category 5 hurricane had rampaged through the city, leaving hundreds of thousands isolated and without basic resources. As of Monday morning, 45 people were confirmed dead and 47 were missing, according to the Mexican government’s preliminary numbers.

One woman wanted to know whether more water jugs were arriving soon. A man who traveled from Mexico City thanked Mr. Sánchez for finding his missing relatives. Another woman sobbed quietly, asking him to help her get out of the battered city.

Mr. Sánchez, a member of the Guerrero state civil protection agency, had been assigned as a coordinator here and at four other makeshift shelters in the area. “I imagine more people will keep coming,” he said on Friday. An incomplete list put together by local authorities identified 1,656 displaced people set up in hotels, schools and sports complexes.

“This is chaos,” Mr. Sánchez added. “Acapulco is a disaster... READ MORE

El Gobierno de México destinará 61,313 millones de pesos (más de 3,400 millones de dólares) para apoyar a la población y reconstruir zonas afectadas en Guerrero por el huracán Otis.

El presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, dio a conocer el “Plan de atención a la población afectada en el estado de Guerrero por el huracán Otis”, el cual busca reconstruir el puerto de Acapulco y restablecer las actividades lo más pronto posible.

Desde su conferencia mañanera en Palacio Nacional, acompañado por los principales integrantes de su gabinete y autoridades de Guerrero, López Obrador enumeró 20 puntos donde incluye apoyos económicos a la poblaciónguerrerense, acciones de seguridad, así como reconstrucción de viviendas y hoteles, donde se invertirán 61,313 millones de pesos (más de 3,400 millones de dólares).

“Contamos con presupuesto para financiar todas estas necesidades, estos programas y que no los consideramos o no consideramos el destinar estos recursos como gastos, sino es una inversión. Afortunadamente tenemos finanzas públicas sanas y se cuentan con los recursos sin límite cuando se trata de beneficiar al pueblo. El secretario de Hacienda va a informarles cuánto estimamos, es una aproximación, y si se requiere más vamos a ampliar el presupuesto”, aseguró el presidente mexicano.

“El costo de la inversión, que estamos ya varios días trabajando para aproximarlo lo más posible a las necesidades, es de 61,313 millones de pesos(más de 3,400 millones de dólares) y se distribuye entre los 20 puntos que señaló el presidente de la República, ese es el monto de inversión”, expuso el secretario de Hacienda... LEER MAS / READ IN ENGLISH

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Groups of angry, desperate residents on Friday began blocking the only two entrances to the hurricane ravaged resort of Acapulco to demand food and water, three days after a Category 5 storm ripped through the city, leaving thousands without access to basic necessities.

As Mexico’s military leaders on Friday listed the aid that was beginning to pour into the city – thousands of packages of basic necessities, water, medical personnel – most area residents had yet to see it.

And while authorities had allowed residents to take what they needed from stores across the city, people in more rural areas on the outskirts of Acapulco said their homes were wrecked and they had no access to food or water.

Otis roared ashore early Wednesday with winds of 165 mph (266 kph) devastating high-rise hotels and humble homes alike in the city of 1 million. It took the entire first day just to open the highway allowing authorities to reach Acapulco and two days to make it possible for planes to land.

On Friday, throngs of desperate villagers from impoverished outlying hamlets like Metlapil lined one of the only two roads leading into the resort, waving signs and desperately holding out arms asking for water, milk... READ MORE

It is difficult to find an issue that more exemplifies the dysfunction of American government today than immigration.

In the past year, more than a million people have entered the United States through the southern border, overflowing shelters and straining public services. Most of the newcomers claim asylum, a status that allows them to be in the country legally but leaves them in limbo. They often must wait years for their cases to be heard, and it can be a lengthy process to obtain legal permission to work.

This nation has long drawn strength from immigration, and providing asylum is an important expression of America’s national values. But Congress has failed to provide the necessary resources to welcome those who are eligible and to turn away those who are not. Instead, overwhelmed immigration officials allow nearly everyone to stay temporarily, imposing enormous short-term costs on states and cities that the federal government hasn’t done enough to mitigate.

Vice President Kamala Harris and others have correctly identified corruption and instability in Central and South America as reasons many people continue to flee their homes, and the United States should do what it can to help countries with these challenges. But that is not an answer to the disruption that this recent wave of people is causing in American communities right now.

The federal government’s negligence is fueling anger against immigrants and stoking divisions. The question is whether Congress, mired in dysfunction, can stir itself to enact sensible changes so the nation can reap the... READ MORE

I grew up afraid of ghosts.

The elders in my Mexican family welcomed the dead, but they observed Día de Muertos quietly. My grandmother made a small ofrenda at her home in San Diego (with candles, flowers and framed black-and-white photos of her deceased parents and brother) and took cempasuchil flowers to her relatives’ graves in Tijuana.

As she communed with spirits, I and her other U.S.-born grandchildren shuddered at the thought of warty ghouls and spooky ghosts. We drank atole and ate pan de muertos, but we were distracted by Halloween. We thought the creatures of Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” would spill out into the streets. For us, the holiday was about keeping phantoms at bay, not bonding with them. (Of course, it was also an excuse to trick-or-treat in costume and gorge on candy.)

Today’s children are lucky. They can’t ignore Día de Muertos, which has entered popular culture thanks to Disney/Pixar’s “Coco,” massive festivities, community altars and class projects based on the Mexican holiday. The tradition, which has roots in ancient Indigenous civilizations and Catholic customs, tells us that from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, the boundary between the spirit world and the living world temporarily dissolves, allowing our ancestors to come visit us.

Unfortunately, like many Latinos raised in an anti-Mexican 1990s California, I grew up ruptured from my family history. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I understood the downsides of missing out on a holiday that nurtures a dialogue between the living and the dead.

“When you know where you come from, you’re stronger,” Norma Iglesias-Prieto, a professor of Chicano studies at San Diego State, told me. “When you know where you come from, you can try to avoid the mistakes... READ MORE
 

Originating in Mexico, more people in the U.S. are celebrating as cities like L.A. hold an annual event and more families make ofrendas or altars to remember those who have died.

LOS ANGELES — Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a time for family and friends to remember their late loved ones and according to tradition, reunite with them.

The two-day celebration, which takes place annually on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, is not a somber holiday. Instead, it celebrates and honors the dead with festivities filled with color, music and food.

Originating and widely observed in Mexico, the holiday has since expanded into Latin America and the United States, including Los Angeles, where the Hollywood Forever Cemetery holds an annual Día y Noche de los Muertos event.

“It’s a celebration about honoring and keeping alive the memory of your loved ones and believing that one day you’ll be together. (It is believed) on that one day, even though you’re alive, that realm opens up and you’re together on the Day of the Dead,” Deisy Marquez, Día y Noche de los Muertos event founder, said to TODAY.com ahead of their Oct. 28 event in Los Angeles. “The celebration, and the event itself, it’s very deep and meaningful for a lot of people and everybody has a different idea (of how to celebrate).”

Whether it’s gathering at home or the cemetery, building ofrendas or altars with photos of deceased loved ones and marigolds, dressing up and sharing loved ones' favorite foods, there are many ways to celebrate Día de los Muertos... READ MORE

Joan Baez’ Mexican American background was "huge" for her, both as a source of insecurity and empathy, said “I am a Noise” filmmaker Miri Navasky.

One of America’s best-known folksingers was around 13 the first time somebody called her “a dumb Mexican.”

Joan Baez says in a new film that a teacher told her that she “was the highest breed of Spanish.” But “Joanie” Baez, as she was then called, was not having it. “I told her no, I’m not. I’m a Mexican. I was defending the Mexican race.”

Now a new documentary takes a look at the life and legacy of the iconic singer, songwriter and activist. In “Joan Baez: I Am a Noise,” filmmakers follow her on her final concert tour in 2018-19 and delve into her archive of home movies, artwork and diaries. In addition to highlighting Baez’s lifelong commitment to social justice, the film explores issues of fame, identity, aging and forgiveness.

Baez, 82, was raised in the San Francisco Bay area. Her father was a Mexican-born physicist, and her mother was of Scottish descent. Converts to Quakerism, Baez’s parents instilled a social consciousness in her from a young age. Baez recalls in the film that, as a child, “I was aware that there were sorrows way greater than mine.”

Growing up, Baez often felt like an outsider. “I thought I was inferior, especially to the white kids, and the rich kids,” Baez says in the film. “Most of the time at school, I felt ‘less than.'”

“I Am a Noise” Miri Navasky, one of the film's three directors, said that Baez’s Mexican American heritage was “foundational” for the singer. “It was huge for her, both as an insecurity, and as a source of empathy. ... I think that followed her through her whole life, and to some degree, still does.”

Singing was Baez’s escape, her source of joy — and it led to what became an extraordinary career. A college dropout, Baez was singing barefoot in small coffeehouses around Boston when she was invited to perform at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. There she was “discovered” and began a meteoric rise to fame. She sang at Carnegie Hall before she was 18 and landed on the cover of Time magazine at 21. “For whatever reason,” Baez says in the film, “I think I was the right voice at the right time... READ MORE

Spoiler alert No. 1: This isn’t a story about Edward James Olmos. Well, not technically, anyway.

It’s a story about the Latino Film Institute, the nonprofit organization that Olmos founded, chaired and — when necessary — quietly paid for out of his own pocket. Its purpose is to celebrate and bolster “the richness of Latino lives” by providing “a launching pad from our community into the entertainment industry,” in the ambitious words of its mission statement.

It’s also a story about what is arguably California’s most innovative and successful education initiative of the last decade that you’ve probably never heard of: the Youth Cinema Project. The YCP grew out of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF), the annual showcase that Olmos co-founded with Marlene Dermer and George Hernández in the 1990s, under the umbrella of the Latino Film Institute. 

YCP, the film festival and LatinX in Animation are the Latino Film Institute’s three signature programs. If the Latino Film Institute is the launchpad, and LALIFF is the red-carpet attraction, the Youth Cinema Project is the organization’s maternity ward, its laboratory, its classroom. 

It’s been known for decades that Latinos and other ethnicities are absurdly underrepresented in the film and TV industry. No news there. It’s been the same conundrum since before Olmos got out of East Los Angeles College in the early ’60s, when many Latino actors still were confined to bit parts as bandits and floozies, and the handful of bona fide stars often played down their Latinidad. 

“Anthony Quinn still hadn’t come out as a Mexican yet. And Anthony Quinn was great, but he was doing ‘Zorba the Greek,’” Olmos said a few weeks ago over lunch at the Smoke House Restaurant in Burbank, a classic old-school joint popular with industry folk where even the waiters seem straight out of central casting.

For decades following his breakout role as the sleek and insinuating El Pachuco in“Zoot Suit,” while his own career rocketed upward with “Miami Vice,” “American Me,” “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” and “Battlestar Galactica,” Olmos lamented the lack of opportunities for other people like... READ MORE