Absolute delerium: Mexico reconquers California

Posted on April 6, 2008 by Antonio

La Plaza : Los Angeles Times : Mexico reconquers California? Absolut drinks to that!
It’s rare that ads and maps actually converge so blatantly, but such is the case of a recent Absolute Vodka campaign running in Mexico. In an “absolute world” Mexico would still have the land that was ceded in the Mexican-American war. Though the political borders of today are obviously different, the demographic one is pretty on the mark. Ultimately I hate the idea of an alcohol company exploiting the deep feelings people have regarding nationalism and colonialism– an alcohol company being its own kind of mental colonialism– but I still find this ad rather funny. I don’t mind that they stir the pot a little.

Technorati Tags: Absolute Vodka

The clash of civilizations is bunk

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Antonio

I think I showed this one before, but it resurfaced again, so I’ll post it once more because I like the style and ‘tude of the video.

Latino enough

Posted on August 16, 2007 by Antonio

Right on to Gary Bentz who writes in “Creativity is My Culture,” that Latinos should not be pigeonholed into having a so-called Latino perspective. People often say to me, “You don’t look like a Lopez,” to which I reply, “My mother never told me what a Lopez was supposed to look like.” Looks, and culture, can be deceiving.

Advertising Age:

You see, we Hispanics share the same diverse cultural insights with most of the general American population. Culture is not only defined by ethnic background, color of skin or language. It’s much more. Computer Gurus — that’s a culture. Wine Connoisseurs, that’s another culture. Baseball Fans, NASCAR Fans, Soccer Fans, Broadway Fans. Members of these cultures all speak the same language, even if their accent is different and the color of their skin is not the same. They can be defined! They live in their own little world, their very own culture, at least part of the time. But even for them, a particular culture is just one slice of the pie that defines them. A doctor from the Midwest can be a wine connoisseur, a sports fan and a great salsa dancer.

They like cheap labor, but not their humor

Posted on July 30, 2007 by Antonio

Nacogirls-Brown
Apparently some Americans are not quite ready for rasquachismo, the Mexican practice of folk kitsch appropriation (I blogged a while back about it here). When NaCo, my favorite Mexican design outfit (I blogged about them here) offered T-Shirts at Macy’s proclaiming “Brown is the new white,” vociferous and scared anti-immigration activists pressured the retail giant to pull the T. Too bad. People need to take their cultural status less seriously. After all, it is the irony of all ironies that those of European descent who are so against Mexican immigration call themselves “nativatists.” I wonder how those from the First Nations think about that? Still, the fact that NaCo is in Macy’s means the battle is being lost. I recall that Gabriel García Márquez once said that Latin American didn’t need to invade the US with armies. It would take over with telenovelas (soap operas). The sooner the better!

Advertising Age – Hispanic Marketing – Kitsch Is Key to Apparel Maker’s Branding Effort:

Macy’s, however, quickly found that not everyone is amused by NaCo’s sense of humor. Its T-shirt with the fashion-parody slogan “Brown is the new white” drew immediate fire from a conservative anti-immigration website, generating e-mails to Macy’s threatening a boycott and online rants about racism and immigrants trying to take over America (one poster pointed out a possible link between Macys’ red-star logo and communism). Fox News did a story, and Macy’s pulled the “Brown is the new white” shirt.

Technorati Tags: naco, rasquachismo

More truthiness stranger than fiction: Invasion of the “Autonomous Security Apparatus”

Posted on April 10, 2006 by Antonio

Electronic motes anyone? Designed like something straight out of Neuromancer, US Globalnanospace (you’ve gotta love the name) is engaged in the wacky world of border security, bio decontamination foam and cigarette filters. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the wrong business; writing, meditating and teaching doesn’t seems nearly as fun as what these guys do. Thinking this stuff up is probably as psychedelic as an editorial meeting for the Weekly World News.

In particular, Globalnanospace’s Autonomous Security Apparatus (MAPSANDS™) has garnered some press of late (most definitely check out this news report). Its electronic wall dispenses sounds, pellets and non-lethal force if necessary, relegating security to data pattern recognition. Ah, if only computers could rule the world, everything would be so peachy!

This fantasy of an electronic border guard once again denies the greater sociopolitical reality: why is the US-Mexico frontier so permeable? I hate to fall back on old cliches, but recall the Chicano slogan, “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.” To paraphrase Mike Davis, the border region (or Aztlan) is a transient construct.

I’m not against trade but when designating money with more border-crossing rights than humans, something is gonna give. Sci-fi walls of sanitary sound barriers in the middle of the desert is yet one more ridiculous application of xenophobia in a world characterized by immigration, urban slums and climate change. Paranoia seems to need its own border check.

Oh yeah, one last thought. What about the animals we humans share space with? How are they to be regarded as they are bombarded with nauseating sound frequencies as they traverse the border?

USGN :

MAPSANDS™ is an autonomous, intelligent, fully integrated wide area perimeter security and access denial system.

MAPSANDS™ was specifically developed for large wide area perimeter applications such as international and sovereign borders, oil & gas infrastructure and other high value critical asset installations.

MAPSANDS™, unlike traditional perimeter security solutions, is a fully programmable, integrated autonomous system that can monitor, detect, track, target, warn, establish intent, deter, and if necessary deliver a non-lethal response to the would be aggressors, subject to compliance with applicable laws, regulations and treaties.

A day without Mexicans

Posted on April 10, 2006 by Antonio

Today there will be national demonstrations against revised efforts to “reform” immigration law that are expected to draw over a million folks. This is great news. In an effort to explain why this sleeping jaguar has awakened, some in the mainstream media have finally examined the debate from a Latino perspective. In particular CNN profiled the producers of A Day Without a Mexican (watch the trailer here). The film spoofs the immigration debate by depicting a hypothetical event in which all Mexicans disappear from California. The resulting chaos is predictable and kinda funny. The film itself is a bit of a one trick pony. It tries to extend the one-liner into a feature-length movie when a short would have sufficed. Still, the idea is a great meme that deserves circulation. Indeed our entire system would likely collapse without immigration, and especially from hard-working and industrious Mexicans who for our economy, in the words of Enterprise caption Jean-Luc Picard, “make it go.” So though I personally found A Day Without a Mexican a so-so movie, I’m glad it’s getting revised interest. The title itself should get our brain melons picked.

Visit the filmmaker’s site.

$200 sneakers I want bad!

Posted on March 23, 2006 by Antonio

This is slightly old news, but it needs to be said again that Brinco shoes are slammin’, and it is one of the few occasions when conspicuous consumption is in order. Commissioned by inSite-05, artist Judi Werthein designed these for border crossers who face real dangers, but for me they appeal to my inner-alien (I like this better than “illegal”). What attracts me is not the little pocket for pain killers, but the awesome Aztec eagle inlay and border map sole.

Trainers for border crossers:

“The shoes are named Brincos for the Spanish verb ‘brincar,’ which means ‘to jump,’ as in, across the border. They includes a compass, a flashlight because people cross at night. The pocket in the tongue hides money or some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing.

Illegal immigrants’ primary mode of transportation is their feet. ‘If they go through the sierra, they walk eight hours. Their feet get hurt. There’s a lot of stones and there are snakes, tarantulas. So that’s why it is a little boot,’ Werthein says. The Brinco is an ankle-high trainer which is green, red, and white – the colors of the Mexican flag. An Aztec eagle is embroidered on the heel. On the toe is the American eagle found on the US quarter, to represent the American dream the migrants are chasing. And on the back ankle, a drawing of Mexico’s patron saint of migrants. A map – printed on the shoe’s removable insole – shows the most popular illegal routes from Tijuana into San Diego.

The artist first passed out trainers for free to migrants, then sold limited edition of them at a hip store in San Diego for $215.”

(Via We Make Money Not Art.)