Inarritu's best director win makes it two years in a row that the honor has gone to a Mexican filmmaker. His friend, Alfonso
Cuaron, won the Oscar last year for "Gravity", the 3-D space thriller starring Sandra Bullock and George
Clooney.
This year the keynote speakers were John Valadez producer of the Longoria Affair and Paul Eno, Director of Information Technology of General Motors. 
If
the statistics do not exist, the need for change does not exist. Like in
the case of urban renewal, the objective is growth that allows larger
administrative salaries, larger staffs, and bigger buildings that are
then named after donors – again they are messing with memory. 
February,
8th, at the Annual Grammy Awards, Legend “Flaco Jimenez” was
presented a Lifetime Grammy Award. Attached is a brief video
tribute to the legendary Artist of Tejano American Tex-Mex culture in
music and more. Truly overdue I'm sure.
Councilmember José Huizar joined Veterans Monday to celebrate Presidents’ Day with a commemoration opening ceremony of the new El Sereno Veterans Monument located in the heart of El Sereno, a community with a long and proud history of military service. As part of the ceremony, the monument’s new flagpole was named in honor of the late WWII hero Guy Gabaldon, an eastside native.
Councilmember José Huizar worked with The American Legion Post
139, the El Sereno Veterans’ Monument Committee, and the Bureau
of Street Services on details for the approximate $100,000
project, with Councilmember Huizar securing the funds to
implement. The monument is located on a large median on Huntington
Drive North, near Van Horne Ave. In years past, Veterans and
Memorial Days’ ceremonies, and other patriotic events, took
place on a cramped median located on the traffic heavy Eastern and
Huntington Drive intersection. The new location is open and
spacious and will allow for larger events in a safe environment.
“As we honor great U.S. Presidents like Washington and Lincoln,
men whose vision and resolve guided our country through conflicts
that came to define the values we hold dear as Americans, I can
think of no greater tribute than to honor the Veterans who made
that vision possible,” said Councilmember Huizar. “We are also
naming the monument’s flag pole in honor of late WWII hero Guy
Gabaldon, an eastside Veteran whose bravery is reflective of the
military service many Latinos from communities like El Sereno have
given to their country. I am honored to help turn the El Sereno
Veterans Monument dream into a reality – a beautiful tribute
that will allow El Sereno Veterans, community members and visitors
to honor and reflect on those who answered the call to service and
thank them for their sacrifice.”
A long-time supporter of Veterans throughout CD14, Councilmember
Huizar’s office worked with local Veterans and the Bureau of
Street Services (BSS) on the design for the monument, which
provides a high-profile tribute to local men and women who have
served our country.
The monument features a circular design that centers on an
American flag that will be lit at night; a base for the flag with
five seals representing the five branches of the military; red
benches on opposite sides of the outside of the circle; and raised
lettering spelling out El Sereno Veterans Memorial.
residents
of this traditional Chavez Ravine community. Unfortunately, this form of
social gentrification and profit-driven urban removal that dislocated
this closely-knit neighborhood over fifty years ago is still alive and
stronger than ever. The present economic power of developers and the
drive to profitably exploit vulnerable communities within the central
city and drastically change their ethnic, class and cultural composition
continues to steadily displace the long-time residents of many
neighborhoods. Chavez
Ravine home owners stage a sit-in outside the office of Mayor Bowron to
protest their evictions.
was
trying to hustle up a different site in Brooklyn for his new Dodger’s
baseball stadium and had used the tactic of threatening to move his team
to another city as leverage to strong-arm New York politicians into
agreeing to his plan. This request by O’Malley for a new stadium site
was firmly rejected by New York officials who felt that he was trying to
take advantage of the city’s taxpayers. The next characters to enter
this political mix were LA City Council member Roz Wyman and other
politicians and developers who saw the potential benefits of a financial
deal that would bring the Dodgers to LA.
and
developers with the Dodger organization left a trail of unethical
political maneuvering, pay-off money and broken families for those
driven out of their homes and community by this wealthy and powerful
alliance. During the decade of the 1950’s many of the evicted
residents from Chavez Ravine were dispersed like refugees into other
neighborhoods such as Echo Park, Riverside Drive and across the river
into Lincoln Heights.
In
1960, the woodsy hills of Chavez Ravine were bulldozed by the city to
build Dodger Stadium for O’Malley. 
The
victims of gentrification do not simply disappear from sight. There is
now a homeless camp along the Arroyo riverbank made up of ex-Highland
Park residents who have been evicted due to the rapid wave of
gentrification occurring within the north end of Highland Park. There
are many other homeless camps now sprouting up along the banks of the
river and in areas of Elysian and Griffith Parks. The question for these
new homeless people of where to live is a growing problem not only for
them, but also for many others in the same situation. Forcing people out
of their homes and neighborhoods and disrupting their families and
children’s lives is not a logical solution, but merely contributes to
broader social and financial problems for those evicted and for our
society while simultaneously creating an aggressive new system of
economic and ethnic segregation within the city. Organized
resistance to gentrification is growing such as in Boyle Heights. 
Truly
she is a Daughter of the Dons — beautiful, vivacious, talented
Lucretia del Valle, scion of an ancient Spanish-California family,
whose picture is to circle the globe as that of a typical California
girl, so declared by her compatriots in southern California. That the
choice is an especially happy one, and that the commonwealth is to be
congratulated on the wisdom of the Southland in selecting this
particular one of many charming daughters to carry her message around
the world, is evident from even a brief survey of the facts.
http://www.scvhistory.com/gif/mugs/lucretiadelvalle.jpgA
lifesize, 70x60-inch portrait titled "The Leading Lady" by the
American impressionist painter Guy Rose depicts Lucretia in her role as
Doña Josefa Yorba. It won the gold medal at the 1915 Panama-California
Exposition in San Diego and now resides in Balboa Park's San Diego
History Center.
San
Ysidro and The Tijuana River Valley (Images of America (Arcadia
Publishing)
The
railroad solidified Laredo’s lasting importance for transportation to
and from Mexico and contributed significantly to Laredo’s development.
In 1881, Laredo was connected with Corpus Christi by the Texas Mexican
Railroad and San Antonio by the International and Great Northern
Railroad. As the first Texas border city south of Eagle Pass to have a
railroad, Laredo prospered in the late 19th century, especially with the
completion, in 1887, of a railroad connecting Nuevo Laredo with Mexico
City. Laredo became a key stop in a long railroad network of
Mexican-American economic exchange.
The
Alexanders, one of the most prominent Jewish families in Laredo, also
arrived at the end of the 19th century. Confederate Army veteran Sam
Alexander and his wife Rosa were German immigrants who arrived in Laredo
from Victoria in the 1890s, though it was their sons who contributed
heavily to Laredo’s growth and development. By 1896, their eldest son,
Isaac, owned I. Alexander Clothing Company with his brothers Louis and
William. Isaac, remembered long after his death as a “business genius”
by a local newspaper,
Due
to the leadership of these New York-based rabbis, Laredo Jews
established a congregation, B’nai Israel (“Children of Israel”),
in 1916, with Ferdinand Wormser as president. By 1918, the Jews of
Laredo were holding weekly Shabbat services, though the style of these
services is unclear. The Laredo Timeswrites of high holiday services at
“Congregation B’nai Israel Hall” for Rosh Hashanah in1919, though
the Jews of Laredo almost certainly used rented facilities, such as the
Western Union building or a room above a drug store. By 1919, the Jews
of Laredo had formed a Ladies’ Jewish Aid Society, a cemetery
association, and a Sunday school, organized by Albert Granoff, which was
held in a Laredo public school. Due to the leadership of these New
York-based rabbis, Laredo Jews established a congregation, B’nai
Israel (“Children of Israel”), in 1916, with Ferdinand Wormser as
president. By 1918, the Jews of Laredo were holding weekly Shabbat
services, though the style of these services is unclear. The Laredo
Times writes of high holiday services at “Congregation B’nai Israel
Hall” for Rosh Hashanah in1919, though the Jews of Laredo almost
certainly used rented facilities, such as the Western Union building or
a room above a drug store. By 1919, the Jews of Laredo had formed a
Ladies’ Jewish Aid Society, a cemetery association, and a Sunday
school, organized by Albert Granoff, which was held in a Laredo public
school.
Another
example of the blending of Jewish and Mexican culture on the American
border can be seen in the family of Israel Goldberg. Goldberg, a native
of Lithuania, traveled from Europe to Tampico, arriving in Nuevo Laredo
by 1929. He eventually became a Mexican citizen and immigrated to the
United States in 1946. In 1947, Goldberg took over his brother Nathan’s
Army and Navy Surplus store. Goldberg was advised to adopt a more common
Mexican name to help his business, so Israel Goldberg became “Don Raul”
Goldberg and his store became “Casa Raul.” In 2011, the store
remained in business, run by Raul’s daughter Evelyn Selig and her two
brothers, Moses and Henry Goldberg.
In
1924 the congregation once again discussed the building of a synagogue
though they avoided the question of religious ritual. The group
eventually purchased a plot of land, though they had not yet made a
decision about the religious affiliation of the congregation. In a
tenuous sign of unity, the two groups collaborated for high holiday
services in the 1920s, renting the same building though holding separate
services. The Orthodox group held services first, followed by the Reform
group. However, according to Albert Granoff, the collaboration drew the
groups further apart, as the Orthodox group was intolerant of Reform
practices while the Orthodox customs were misunderstood by the Reform
congregants. One year in the late 1920s, the Reform group brought
down student rabbi Aaron Lefkowitz from Hebrew Union College in
Cincinnati and held separate services in the American Legion Hall.
Laredo’s Jewish community had split over religious lines. Despite this
conflict over religious rituals, Laredo Jews worked together in B’nai
B’rith, with members from both factions serving in leadership
positions with the local chapter.
When the theater opened its doors in
1947, it introduced the Fernandez family to a new and exciting daily
adventure which consumed the time of my Grandmother Mama Lolita’s
family.
idel
was in charge of selling tickets, but sometimes Ofelia Segura or cousin
Dolores Fernandez assisted.
One day (a long time ago—in the
pre-Internet era) I was a graduate student at the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor chipping away at my master’s degree in social studies
education, and so one day I went to what was then called the UofM
Graduate Library which was in the middle of the campus. I had gone there
to explore what I was told might be a source of data on the demographics
of Michigan prior to 1900. One librarian told me that perhaps I might
therefore want to look at the census data contained in the volumes (i.e.
dusty old books) of census data in the attic area of the UofM Graduate
Library.
Mary
of Agreda obediently told the three priests all that concerned her
visits to the Indians of America. Since she was a child, she said, she
had been inspired to pray for the Indians in New Spain, whose souls
would be lost unless they converted to the one true Faith.
Hearing
the words of Mother Mary of Jesus, the missionary priest was much moved.
To verify the truth of her account, he asked her specific questions
about the area, if she could identify certain landmarks and describe the
other missionaries, as well as specific Indians. “She told me many
particularities of that land that even I had forgotten and she brought
them to my memory,” he noted. She also described the features and
individual traits of the missionaries and various Indians, with details
that only a person who had been in New Spain could know.
“We used to have a very derogatory view of the abilities of Neanderthals,” Shipman said. “But the more we look at what’s going on, the more sophistication there is and the more subtlety there is.” With new scientific tools, the fields of archeology and paleoanthropology have advanced far beyond simply examining artifacts. Scholars can now study Neanderthals’ metabolic energy expenditures and investigate their diets by analyzing bone chemistry. Many long-discovered archeological sites are now undergoing re-dating using more precise methods than those available in the 20th century; that, too, is leading to new insights and information on how and when humans and Neanderthals might have interacted.
From
the time I arrived with my friend Clara to meet Javier in this state
capital city of 125,000 until the moment she and I reluctantly drove out
of town, we were delighted by everything we experienced in Zacatecas.
Three days were not nearly enough time to really savor its Colonial
pleasures. The simple 4-hour drive northeast from Guadalajara to
Zacatecas makes this trip one that we can repeat often—and we
certainly want to go again soon.
The
Pedro Coronel Museum is named for one of the foremost Mexican
painters and sculptors of the 20th Century, and a zacatecano. The
massive and eclectic art collection of this older Coronel brother
(1923-1985), is housed in a huge colonial building which has been at
various times in its history a Jesuit college, a Dominican convent,
early military headquarters, and a jail. Room leads to room, and each is
filled with treasures.
The Francisco
Goitia Museum is housed in the state governor's former mansion,
located a longish walk or short cab ride from the historic center of the
city. Two huge rooms of the museum house works by Zacatecas artists
Julio Ruelas, Pedro and Rafael Coronel, Manuel Felguérez and others.
Another illustrious zacatecano, Francisco Goitia (1882-1960) has been
compared to the best European painters. Several downstairs rooms are
devoted to Goitia's haunting paintings. Up-and-coming younger Mexican
artists are often invited to exhibit in the second floor rooms.
Ángel
Custodio. Aunque quizás usted no lo conozca, hay un pequeño principado
en medio del Atlántico que tiene una curiosa historia y que os contaré
tal como yo la he conocido.
