6.1.2015: Mas derechos, menos terrenos: Collaboration and Community in Global Grassroots Media

Skip Navigation

Admissions & Aid1. Academics2. Medical3. Research4. Global5. Arts6. Libraries7. Athletics8. Giving To Duke9.

SchoolsTrinity College of Arts & SciencesDivinity SchoolThe Fuqua School of BusinessThe Graduate SchoolSchool of LawSchool of MedicineNicholas School of the EnvironmentSchool of NursingPratt School of EngineeringSanford School of Public PolicyDuke-NUS graduate Medical School (Singapore)Duke Kunshan University

University InstitutesDuke Institute for Brain SciencesNicholas Institute for Environmental Policy SolutionsKenan Institute for EthicsInstitute for Genome Sciences and PolicyDuke Global Health InstituteJohn Hope Franklin Humanities InstituteSocial Science Research InstituteInterdisciplinary Studies

Duke ToolsMapsCalendarMobileA-Z DirectoryServices & AdministrationEmergency Alerts

Duke ResourcesComputing

Duke University | Program in Latino/a Studies John Mckiernan-González http://latinostudies.duke.edu/arroba/john-mckiernan-gonzalez

1 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

NewsSocial MediaEmploymentDiversityGiving to Duke

Resources ForStudentsFacultyStaffAlumniDuke & DurhamVisitors

Duke University. Durham, NC 27708 | Contact

Search or Browse all of Duke University

AboutAcademicsStudent ProfilesArrob@ BlogEventsResourcesContact Us

Home /Arrob@ Blog /John Mckiernan-González

John Mckiernan-GonzálezVictoria Bouloubasis [1/15]R. Galvan [12/14]Patricia Engel [10/14]Izel Vargas [9/14]

06.01.2015

Más Derechos, Menos Terrenos:


2 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Collaboration and Community in Colombian Grassroots Media

The Arrobo@ blog opens ques ons about the rela onship La nos shape between art and poli cs,

between history and transforma on, between terror and joy. This post takes up history and

transforma on.

Uprooted: Jhojan in Quibdo. Jhohan looks over the river in Villa Espana, a refugee encampmentin Quibdo. All photos credited to Juan Mejia.

.

A er slavery, displacement is the biggest organized crime facing black communi es in

Colombia.

–– Juan Mejia, 2004[1]

For someone trained in history, I confess I aspire to providing back stories to current dramas, to bringing

microhistories of color to bear on dimensions of the American modern. This desire illuminates my most

consistent poli cal involvement in immigrant rights organiza ons and movements: a note taker, a

transcriber of other’s stories, researcher of news items for poli cally mo vated public art, the scrivener in

mee ngs, transferring poli cally dense as well as fairly mundane interac ons to the printed page. My secret

hope as a transcriber was that others who follow me into the archive can find enough drama and context in

board memoranda to provide accurate and responsible accounts; my notes purposely included ripples from

the currents running below the surface in these cross‐class interac ons that make up the immigrant rights

movement. I wanted to provide an archive that historians a uned to microhistories can use in their analyses

of post‐IRCA Chicago, the federal cons tuencies for Folclorico in D.C., youth public histories in Greater

Tampa, and immigrant labor organizing in Central Texas.[2]

There is a built‐in frustra on in this scrivener’s dream: why would anyone want to wait two decades for a


3 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

collabora on to bear fruit?

Northern New Mexico Soccer Fields. Field in action on private school campus.

This brings me to Juan Mejia, filmmaker, ar st and documentarian. We met in the early 1990s on the soccer

fields of a high school where our parents were staff members. The wall in our duplex connected two‐thirds

of the Colombian migrant community in Las Vegas, New Mexico.[1]

Here, between cascaritas and

uruguayitos, Juan introduced me to the collabora ve dimension of ethnography and film: he discussed the

work that emerges when people in communi es on the margins use cameras to name and narrate

themselves. This conversa on inspired me to use cameras as a key tool in the Cuentos de mi Familia public

history project in Tampa.

Uprooted: Reverse Camera.

Juan, however, commi ed to the act of handing off the camera, sharing the camera, and collec vely


4 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

delibera ng with community members regarding the shape and purpose of narra ve film. His career since

the late 1990s has involved work, travel, and collabora ve film. His first large project – Merging Voices –

wove extensive interviews with a number of college‐age Salvadorans across the class chasm wrestling with

hope a er the 1996 elec ons. The film is notweworthy not just for convincing Roberto D’Aubisson Jr., to

include his story and image in a film about the struggle working‐class FMLN par cipants and torture

survivors had in becoming everyday university students, but for having “Ceci” highlight the costs of

becoming part of everyday life in San Salvador. Since 2000, he has been involved in community media

projects with displaced Afro‐descendand communi es first in Bogota and more broadly, Colombia. The film

Uprooted (2007) is one of the fruits of this collabora on, using one woman’s labors to provide an

opportunity for her son to engage with the micropoli cs of aspira on and discrimina on for black internally

displaced communi es in Bogota.[4] Uprooted is among a variety of grassroots media projects adopted by

AFRODES in which Juan has been involved, ranging from websites to newsreels.

Juan’s work builds on other collabora ve cultural projects in Colombia. Enrique Buenaventura’s Teatro

Experimental de Cali scriptwriters and residents of vecindarios populares improved, wrote, staged, cri qued,

and re‐wrote the scripts, the staging, and the sound un l they resonated with the vast majority of audience

members and collaborators. A collec on of these plays, Papeles del Infierno (Pages from Hell) achieved

renown in North American circles with people familiar with Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Marta

Rodriguez and Jorge Silva have been producing beau ful and evoca ve documentaries, since their first

documentary Chircales [bricklayers] that foreground the experiences of work for men and women across

Colombia. Their film, Love, Women, and Flowers, on the flower industry in Bogota, may be the most directly

relevant to American consumers. His aunt, Sylvia Mejia, pushed this collabora ve element and turned film

into a key medium for community dialogue and consciousness raising, a workshop process she called Video

Transforma on. These workshops have led to documentaries that directly with ques ons of sexuality,

power, and popular culture.

Uprooted: Noris and Juan in Canoe.


5 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

… to use film as a research methodology.

Juan agreed to answer ques ons regarding the collabora ve and transna onal trajectory of his work.

When did you decide to involve collabora ve elements in your art?

For me the collabora on, the ac vism came first and the art came second. I became interested in film in

response to frustra ons I had with academia and par cularly with the limited scope in the diffusion of

formal academic papers and knowledge. I saw film as a more democra c medium that also lent itself to

collabora on in very interes ng ways. Collabora ve video projects provided for me more clear ways in

which to try to decolonize the research/fieldwork/produc on rela onship between researcher/filmmaker

and community. In this way, I guess, collabora on was at the root of everything from the very beginning. My

love for film as an art form came with me.

In what way did your training in anthropology in Swarthmore College shape your understanding of film?

I was working a lot with Prof. [Miguel] Diaz‐Barriga doing labor organizing with mushroom workers in

Kenne Square, PA.[5]

The idea surfaced to do a short film about the 1993 strike by the workers against the

Kaolin Mushroom Farm, as a way to cement this crucial event and as an organizing tool.[6]

It was by any

account a very poorly made film, edited in an analog sta on we learned to use as we went. It was made up

of interviews, some TV stock footage and archival footage shot by the workers themselves during the strike.

But I remember clearly the reac on of the workers that saw the film; especially those that par cipated or

where present during the me of the strike. They were genuinely moved, even inspired. It was a small, but

sharp shot of electricity and definitely served to energize the movement, even if in the short term. This was

a valuable and powerful lesson on the power of film as a whole, and how impac ul it could be for a

community to see itself represented on screen.

When did you decide to meld elements of anthropology in your film‐making? When did you decide to use

film as a medium to do anthropology?

Again, film came first as a device. Ini ally I guess as a research methodology; more along the veins of

straight‐up visual anthropology. My thesis for anthropology at Swarthmore included a documentary film on

the youth of El Salvador and their reflec ons on the civil war, the peace accords and the future of the

country. I was fascinated by the modern history of El Salvador and especially by libera on theology. We

(Roosbelinda Cárdenas and Juan C. Castañeda) made the film only a er I had spent over 6 months studying

in San Salvador and speaking to many folks about the current situa on. This was part of the point we were

trying to push for. To avoid this idea of just simply going out there and shoo ng a film. But to use film as a


6 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

research methodology.

Thus, it was a ma er of doing careful research and workshopping ideas with folks on the ground to come up

come up with a concept. Then using film as a medium to get across the message. I wasn’t yet thinking of a

specific collabora ve approach other than trying to build important rela onships with folks on the ground.

But the fact that we were genuinely interested in what folks had to say and took the me to listen, as well as

the fact that we were quite young and naive (read as not threatening) and were forthcoming about our

inten ons, opened a lot of doors. Yeah, and I think luck also had to do with it. El Salvador was going through

a transi onal period where folks were looking for pla orms to get their thoughts and idea across. Big

changes were happening and people really wanted to talk about that. I think that is the only reason

someone like D’aubuisson Jr. would speak to some hippie, raggedy kids with a camera.

S ll, even today, when I see the film and laugh at some of our choices or the terrible graphics and effects, I

can s ll find real value in it, and I think that’s because we were genuinely curious and willing to do the

work… We asked good ques ons.

Uprooted: Noris and Home. Photo taken outside encampment.

Which of these elements con nue to play a part as you move toward more wide‐spread feature

documentary films for fes vals and television?

My work with the Black social movement in Colombia taught me the tremendous value in of genuine

commitment to a par cular struggle and in using truly collabora ve methodologies, both for me as a

researcher and for the communi es I worked with. However, I also came to understand the limits

established by a degree of false modesty. A er all you don’t want to come in and impose your own views,

right? Yet, at a certain moment in the rela onship, people were like: So you are a filmmaker, right? How

about you make a film that we can use to publicize our situa on and our struggle. It was a fair ques on. And

so we did. I was star ng an amazing MA program in Social Documenta on at the University of California,


7 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Santa Cruz and it gave me the chance to embark on the next film: Uprooted, which was by all means a

collabora ve project, yet, it was a different type of collabora on.

Uprooted is a character driven film about the struggle of Noris, a displaced Black woman in Colombia, to get

enough money to purchase her son a cket so he can a end a soccer academy he has been recruited for in

the capital city of Bogotá. I shot and edited the film and had my friend Ricardo Angulo operate sound. Yet,

the Associa on of Displaced Afrocolombians, AFRODES, was key in helping me scout the story, introducing

and vouching for me with the families at the refugee shelter and forging a rela onship with Noris. Moreover,

they were ac ve consultants and cri cs throughout the process. We knew the goal of this project was

different from previous ones was and that it it required a different type of collabora on. This seemed

inevitable as we moved toward seeking more widespread distribu on.

I had spent a few months back home in Colombia and was affected by the influx of internallydisplaced people to the capital, Bogotá. It moved and angered me. A large number of themwere Black Colombians, that on top of confronting violence and uprooting now faceddiscrimination and racism in a cold and hard city like Bogotá. I didn’t quite grasp the scope ofthe tragedy but it stayed with me and I decided to focus my MA work on trying to understand itfurther. And so, naturally I tried to fuse together participatory cinema, indigenous media,video transformation and now the theories of activist research all together into something Icalled critical grassroots media.

What other tradi ons did you draw from in developing your own kind of documentary?

A er Swarthmore I travelled for a year with my former compañera doing community video workshops

across South America.[8]

We were implemen ng these projects with a beau ful methodology called Video

Transforma on—started by an aunt, Sylvia Mejia. Video Transforma on departs from the realiza on that

through the mul ple dynamics involved with being behind and in front of the camera, the confronta on

with one’s own image and the technical appropria on of the television myth, it is possible to elevate

people’s self‐esteem and liberate their poten al for self‐discovery and ensuing empowerment.[9]

This was a transi on into a full collabora ve approach that sought to transfer the means for knowledge

produc on (video skills and equipment) to the hands of the communi es; to collaborate with them in their

own produc ons, while ques oning how media operates and how they have been (or haven’t been)

represented (or misrepresented) in mainstream media. We produced community video projects with

Shipibo‐Conibo peoples along the Ucayali River in the Peruvian amazon, youth ac vists in La Victoria,

San ago (Chile) street children in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) and peasant coopera ves in Ayora, Cayambe

(Ecuador). We were definitely moving beyond a par cipatory cinema approach and bringing in prac ces of


8 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

indigenous media together with transforma ve video methodologies aligned more with art therapy … a bit

of a crazy combina on; but effec ve nonetheless.

Your third film dealt with comunidades afrodescendientes (afro‐desplazadas?) in Bogota?

Yes. I began the MA La n American Studies program at the University of Texas Aus n, which was a truly

forma ve me for me as a filmmaker. I was introduced to ac vist‐research methodologies from the likes of

Charles Hale and also took my first actual film classes.[10]

Ac vist research fit so well with what I wanted to

do. I realized a lot of the work all the way back to Kenne Square shared a lot of the same characteris cs, I

just don’t think we even knew what to call it back then. Anyway, the idea that my deepest poli cal

commitments should be at the core of my research; that it should drive the research, really resonated with

me.

Before going to UT [The University of Texas at Aus n] I had spent a few months back home in Colombia and

was affected by the influx of internally displaced people to the capital, Bogotá. It moved and angered me. A

large number of them were Black Colombians, that on top of confron ng violence and uproo ng now faced

discrimina on and racism in a cold and hard city like Bogotá.[11]

I didn’t quite grasp the scope of the

tragedy but it stayed with me and I decided to focus my MA work on trying to understand it further. And so,

naturally I tried to fuse together par cipatory cinema, indigenous media, video transforma on and now the

theories of ac vist research all together into something I called cri cal grassroots media. So there it is. An

unnecessarily long explana on of the fusing on anthropology and video, one which went beyond simply

pursuing visual anthropology.

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Panoramic. Film crew at work in Haiti.

In your following project, you started using digital anima on reminiscent of video games to add flesh to

the tes monies of terror given by desplazados with whom you worked? What were the rewards of this

approach? What were some of the risks?


9 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Well, Uprooted did have successful distribu on and audiences could really relate to the film. Uprooted

brings you into the world of internal displacement in Colombia through one very personal story; its a very

in mate approach. Now we wanted to do something that would provide a more general cri que of the

issue. Together with AFRODES and the PCN (Proceso de Comunideades Negras), we hoped to s ll use

mul ple personal stories to tell the complicated story of the displacement of Black communi es from the

Pacific of Colombia and point to direct causes for this displacement beyond generalized extreme violence by

outlawed groups. We knew there were powerful economic interests as well. It was a very ambi ous and

complex project: The Ba le for Land… So ambi ous, we’re s ll finishing the edit.

Battle for Land: Interviews. Photo taken during filming of Battle for Land.

.

In The Ba le for Land we therefore opted against the more conven onal on‐camera interviews

where we see and hear the person remembering and recoun ng their memories. We felt it was

important for the audience to relive the chaos and violence our characters lived through and we

decided to do this by pushing stylis c boundaries. We used flash‐based anima on as a way to bring

their memories to life.

You always run the risk of old school cri cs and viewers reac ng nega vely to anima on; thinking it

takes away from the seriousness and validity of the film. But I think we are at a point where

documentary is really evolving and vastly expanding its boundaries. I think audiences are reac ng

very posi vely to the ways that documentary is diversifying and experimen ng. When audiences

stop rela ng documentaries only to the voice of god films in Na onal Geographic and the History

channel, it will be a good day.


10 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Market Scene. In a market in San Pedro de Macoris.

.

You are now working in the broader world of the black diaspora in the Americas, like your documentary

‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ working along the Dominican‐Hai an border. How has your work with

comunidades afrodescendientes in Colombia shaped your work in the DR? What have you changed in

your daily prac ce in the DR to build toward this film?

Death by a Thousand Cuts explores the illegal charcoal trade (made from mber) along the Hai an‐

Dominican border. It deals with urgent environmental issues, but it is at its core a film about the compe on

for natural resources and the poten ally devasta ng consequences it can lead to under the current poli cal

and economic climate. The film is part crime thriller, part environmental exposé, and part a character driven

analysis of a par cularly dangerous moment in me.

This film has been quite a different and fascina ng process for me and a great learning experience. We are

working in associa on with another produc on company and I’m actually co‐direc ng with Jake Kheel who

had the original idea for the film. It is a bigger produc on with mul ple trips over the course of thee years, a

bigger team, more resources, and a TV network… you know, a real movie ;) At the end of the day there are

obvious advantages and the hope from all of us involved is to make a very urgent film that is also beau ful

and thrilling and that will have widespread distribu on.


11 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Transport. Sailboat transferring shipment from Haiti to theDominican Republic.

.

Death by a Thousand Cuts is an extremely well researched and thought out film and we con nue to foster

honest and open rela onships with folks on the ground. The communi es we are working with are o en the

poorest of the poor both in the DR and in Hai —communi es o en marginalized and neglected (the

periphery within the periphery). In this regard the work is similar to what we have done in Colombia and I

draw on lessons on how to best tell these stories—avoiding “misery‐porn” and sensa onalism and stressing

dignity and resilience. However, it is also clear that with more players involved and network deadlines, it is a

much more hec c process. Things seem to go faster and there is a need to constantly be moving, which

translates into a different process than the one in my previous films.

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Market Scene II. Market scene in San Pedro de Macoris, DominicanRepublic.


12 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Where are you now? What trends do you see in your current and future projects?

A er close to over 4 years in Colombia where I produced a number of films on issues of ethnic communi es,

autonomy and territory together with Enlalucha Films, I moved to New York City close to three years go.

Since then, I work with Human Pictures, a produc on company born out of the dreams my friend Juan

Carlos Castañeda and I had since we were teenagers in Bogotá. As far back as Merging Voices— the film on

El Salvador from 1999— produc ons had the Human Pictures logo (regardless that the company didn’t

formally exist). Since 2009 Human Pictures is a reality, founded by Juan Carlos and another dear friend, Juan

Esteban Yepes and I’m very proud of the work we currently produce. We are dedicated to the crea on of

progressive media; films, documentaries and alterna ve adver sing campaigns that promote transforma on

and jus ce. We are commi ed to joining the struggle of communi es facing cri cal cultural and/or

territorial uproo ng and hence we have worked for years around struggles for territorial rights and

autonomy of ethnic communi es across La n America and the Caribbean and today have joined the fight for

Prison Reform and against the prison industrial complex in the United States. (Oddly enough these topics are

actually quite related; all it takes its a quick look at the history of the “war on drugs”).

Keeping with the ‘Between James and Juanes’ theme: James or El Pibe?

Pibe. James is incredible, he has such intui on and quickness and finesse. But today there are

other players like James, that have similar styles and a ributes. He stands out, for sure, but

he isn’t unique. El Pibe… there was really no body doing what he did at the me. The control,

the pa ence, the vision… he was ahead of his me, and I think players had to really learn how

to play with him. I think that was a great part of the reason he wasn’t that successful in club

teams outside of Colombia.

Uprooted: Jhojan and Friends. Soccer academy aspirants in Bogota.


13 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

LINKS

• AFRODES Asociacion Nacional de Colombianos Desplazados• Enlalucha Films• Human Pictures• Drugs, War and People | Vimeo• Human Pictures | Facebook

__________NOTES

[1] This is what my mother concluded a er her review of land reform efforts in Colombia in the 1960s. In the1990s, the cons tu onal recogni on of Afro‐Colombian right to land accompanied the mass displacementof black communi es on the Pacific Coast. More rights, less power. the quote comes fromJuan Mejia y Botero, Cri cal Grassroots Media: Towards a Visual Anthropology of Libera on, (Aus n:

University of Texas Thesis, 2004), 1.

[2] See the United Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights newsle ers, 1991‐1993. The Washington Postpiece has a great intro: “What is it that draws three dozen people of all ages to Malcolm X Park everySaturday? The hearty rhythms and exuberant spirit of Mexican folk dance, a warming influence even as theweather turns cooler. The Mount Pleasant landmark is the unofficial rehearsal studio for the De ColoresMexican Folk Dance Company, formed three years ago by a rainbow coali on of dance enthusiasts.” SarahKauffman, “Taking Steps Toward Mexico,” Washington Post, 11/6/1998. John Mckiernan‐Gonzalez, “Goingpublic?: Tampa Youth, Racial Schooling and Public History in the Cuentos de Mi Familia Project,” Beyond ElBarrio: Everyday Life in La na/o America, (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 189‐210. SeeRebecca Torres, Rich Heyman, Criz na Tzintzun, et al, “Building Aus n, Building Jus ce: ImmigrantConstruc on Workers, Precarious Labor Regimes, and Social Ci zenship,” Geoforum, 10/23/2012.

[3] There were three Colombian families in Las Vegas, New Mexico, which added up to 7 Colombians in the

census. There were also 10,161 people (in a town of 20,000) who iden fied twice as Hispanic. This wouldbe “other Hispanic,” a label that includes Spaniard, Spanish and Hispanic, but not Mexican, Cuban, Puerto

Rican, Dominican, Central American, or South American. See U.S. Census, “87701,” Fac inder Census.gov.h p://fac inder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=CF, 05/26/2015.

[4] Juan Mejia y Botero, Uprooted, 5/28/2015.

[5] The Chicano Connec on. For his work in visual anthropology, see Margaret Dorsey and Miguel

Diaz‐Barriga, “Beyond surveillance and moonscapes: an alterna ve imaginary for the U.S./Mexico borderwall,” Visual Anthropology Review, (2010) 26:2, 128‐135. He is currently Professor of Anthropology at theUniversity of Texas – Pan American and visi ng professor of anthropology at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

[6] See Rick Kearns, “La no Mushroom Workers Unionize,” Hispanic (May 1999): 12, 5.

[7] See The Watson Founda on, 5/26/2015.


14 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

[8] See “Sylvia Mejia,” Ashoka Founda on, 5/26/2015.

[9] Charles R. Hale, Engaging Contradic ons: Theory, Poli cs, and Methods of Ac vist Scholarship

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). Charles R. Hale, Más Que un Indio: Racial Ambivalence andNeoliberal Mul culturalism in Guatemala (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research, 2006). Charles R.Hale, Resistance and Contradic on: Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan State (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1994)

[10] Probably best to start with the web presence itself: AFRODES: Asociacion Nacional de Afrocolombianos

Desplazados, 5/26/2015. See also Be na N’Gweno, Turf Wars: Territory and Ci zenship in theContemporary State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). For iconic North Atlan c looks at this classicques on, see Arturo Escobar, Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes (Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 2008) and Encountering Development: the Making and Unmaking of the Third World(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) as well as Michael Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fe shismin South America (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2010) and Peter Wade, Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamicsof Racial Iden ty in Colombia (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1995). For transla ons of a canonical Afrocolombianwriter, see Manuel Zapata Olivella, Chango: The Biggest Badass (Lubbock: Texas Tech University, 2010) andChambacú: Black Slum (NY: La n American Literary Review Press, 1989).

05.14.15

My Mother is Selling Her House:A Diasporan Pastoral

The process of family migration was often tortuous. It was likely to involve careful decision-making concerning which family members should be on which side of the border… Economicopportunities and emotional attachments had to be weighed.–– George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American [1]

On January 30, 2015, my mother let us know that she had to sell her house. La casa en Cali.


15 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

This is the house that my mom paid for with her earnings as an editor from 1964 to 1967 for Editorial

Norma Carvajal. Against viento y marea, my mother became a mortgage owner in 1965.

Twelve years earlier, her father was killed after spending two years hiding, expecting to be killed each night.

When her family moved back to the finca in Trujillo, Abuela Celsa’s family chipped in for tuition for one

year at the Colegio Maria Imaculada in Caicedonia. She had trouble her first semester, and Abuela Celsa

brought her back to Trujillo to re-experience the discipline of farm life. She returned to the monastic

discipline of the Colegio and, after April 9th, to a Caicedonia in armed revolt against presidential authority

after the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.[2] She enrolled at Escuela Normal Superior in Manizales and

became Aristoteles Tres Pelos, one of the best students at this rigorous school. She then attended La

Universidad Pedagogica Nacional Femenina in Bogota. There, with many of her friends, she became part of

the national student movement against General Rojas Pinilla, became a board member of Acción Catolica and

leader in the Cursillo movement. [3] Upon graduation, she returned to Caicedonia, Valle de Cauca, to become

teacher and principal in the Liceo Femenino, the girl’s school.[4] In 1960, she joined the Servicio Cooperativo

Colombo-Americano where she helped train and supervise teachers. In the summer of 1962, the Alliance for

Progress through the United States State Department awarded her a scholarship to pursue graduate education

in the United States. She earned a Master’s in Geography at the University of Florida. Upon her return in

1964, one of her friends in the program told Editorial Norma Carvajal y Cia about her expertise, and they

offered her a job creating textbooks for Boom era Colombia. She moved to Cali, and turned every possible

piece of income into her house in Prados del Norte. This is the diet of rice and water Juanes mentioned in

Los Angeles.[5]

In 1966, she met and married my father, John Mckiernan. Like her, a teacher. Like her, a beneficiary of

federal funds for working-class educations. They left Cali for New York. My sister and I were born within

two years of their arrival. Somewhere in between, she became a substitute teacher in New York City’s public

schools. Jose Vicente Romero rented her house.[6] In 1969 we moved to Ethiopia, where Larry was born. In

1972, Abuela Celsa asked my mother to return to help with the case against her brother’s murderer. We left

Ethiopia, just before the Revolution. Just in time, perhaps.[7]


16 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

John Mckiernan-Gonzalez shares family photos and history in the latest postings on Arrob@. Photo credit: Patricia Mckiernan.

The Colegio Simón Bolivar, the local American overseas school, hired both of my parents. The commute,

however, meant driving all the way across Cali to the recently created subdivision created by the Hacienda

Pance. After much discussion, my mom agreed to sell her Prados del Norte house and buy a lot in the

adjoining and recently subdivided Hacienda La Maria, as my dad had little savings from his time in New

York and Ethiopia.

La Casa en Cali and some other parcelas in Pance reflected these heady Third World movement times.


17 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Inspired by the vernacular architecture movement and E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful, my parents

decided on a style that reflected the long history of working-class rural settlement in the coffee highlands of

the Valle de Cauca, what I might call campesino modern. Her friend and architect in the School of

Architecture at the Universidad del Valle designed a small earthquake friendly three bedroom house that

would evoke the fincas around Trujillo and Caicedonia. Rather than the bahareque construction of the fincas

that required continuous maintenance, my mother bought bricks and clay tiles from demolished colonial

houses in downtown Cali.[8] The only design items without a history were the chemically treated wood

beams that held up the tile. The house had an open floor plan with a hallway on the outside of the living and

dining spaces. One of our friends and neighbors, Doctor (and poet) Laureano Alba, committed deeply to the

Finca Aesthetic, building a tin roof gallinero [chicken coop] large enough to accommodate him, his office,

his partner, and his paintings.[9] For ventilation, both houses relied on the late afternoon breeze that swept

down the Cordillera from the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the Andes, but Dr. Alba’s home had his home

lifted a full half-meter above ground and exposed to keep breezes going through the full day. Only three

strands of barbed wire separated these houses from the surrounding cow pasture, marking an openness of the

houses to their surroundings.

PreviousNext


18 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM


19 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

This openness marked our relationship to the disappearing cow pasture. One of my chores was to bring thefreshly milked milk back to our house from the local hacienda, a task that made me deeply appreciatewatered-down pasteurized American milk. We avoided bulls when visiting friends. After Eileen came downwith a serious infection, my mother, building on her student movement connections, had a nearby nun giveher the full series of injections. The openness was a touch suspect. As Larry recalls,

La Escopeta

Larry McKiernan González

“Zzzzzzsh…” my brother and I slept soundly. “Zzzzzzsh… Zzzzzzzsh…”

Moonshadows flash across the yard, dashing from tree to tree.

“Zzzzzzsh” sustained sonorous slumber. “Zzzzzzz… Zzzzzzzz…”

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle! “Jálale más fuerte, imbécil!”

I jolt from my slumber. “¿Qué fue eso?” I ask my brother.

“Zzzzzz….” his dreamy response.

In Colombia, Joncito and I slept in the same bed so waking him was no problem: I

nudged him, “¿escuchaste eso?”

“Déjame en paz, Loro,” he demanded and turned himself over….

”¡Idiota! Jálale más fuerte, pero sin hacer tanto ruido. ¡Te van a escuchar!” outside our

glassless windows, stifled threatening voices, worried their attempts to tear down our patio

door may wake us. Clearly, somebody was trying to break into our home. With our dad and

sister gone, my brother and I thought it our emerging masculine duty to defend the manor.

What should two brave young men, ages four and eight, do? What was the master plan?

“¡¡MAMÁ!! ¡¡NOS ESTÁN ROBANDO!!” we boldly cried out as we dashed under

our covers.

No response.


20 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

“Ya ves, imbécil. Te escucharon. ¡Apúrate!” The thieves heard us and now the

rattling at the door seemed to take a louder sense of urgency: RATTLE! RATTLE!

“A ver que responde la mama.” The rattling stopped.

We all waited for mom’s response, a brick wall dividing my brother and I from… two, maybe

twenty, thieving, monstrous ogres trying to break into our house, listening for a sign from my

mom.

Nothing. Was my mom okay?

The thieves continued their attempt to tear down the iron door, their whispers like daggers.

“¡Síguele, pero más fuerte!” How could my mom not hear these orders, the intensifying

rattles?

We needed an alternative plan. We looked at each other. “Ya se, ve a su cuarto y

despiértala,” my brother suggested.

No way. I was not walking down the hall alone to wake her. “Estás loco! Pueden entrar y me

matan!” I replied. The rattling had subsided for a moment, so maybe they were already in our

home. Besides, if he thought it was such a brilliant idea, why shouldn’t he, the author of the

idea and older brother, make the valiant trek down to my mom’s room?

“¡No, ve tu!” I retorted. Our back-and-forth was going nowhere. I clutched my covers. There

was no way I was leaving my safe haven. Instead, I switched to tried and true tactics:

“¡MAMÁ! ¡NOS ESTÁN ROBANDO!”

Silence still? I now simply feared for my mom’s safety.

“¿Qué pasa, Lorito?” my mom yelled back.

“¡MA’, NOS QUIEREN ROBAR!” my brother and I simultaneously warned.

I heard deliberate rummaging from my mom’s room as the rattling continued outside

my window.

“¿Qué haces, mamá?”

“Estoy sacando la escopeta,” she hollered loud enough for all to hear. My mom was

taking out the rifle? What rifle? I had seen her refusing her uncle’s constant entreaties to take

one of his weapons. She believed that guns had killed too many family members and refused to

bring them into her home. What gun was she talking about?

“¡Ladrones! ¡Lárguense mientras puedan!” my mother’s demand that the thieves

run for their lives even scared me. “De aquí salen corriendo o muertos. Decidan.”

The thieves needed to leave, running or dead? Who was this woman?

The moonlight shone across the hall and I saw my mom’s shadow, carrying a long,

horizontal object next to her cheek.

“¡Vámonos! ¡Esta casa no vale mi vida!” The thieves ran off. Our modest house, in

the middle of nowhere, really was not that valuable, thankfully.

My brother and I ran out to hug my mom. Where was she? We ran into the living

room where she sat, holding a broom.

A broom?

That broom became my favorite toy, my “escopeta.”[10]


21 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

This suburban pastoral had a use-by date, for the moment for these neo-fincas passed quickly. The houses

that followed the finquita and the gallinero had air-conditioning, concrete walls, glass windows, and brick

walls, a style more befitting the American Overseas School three blocks to the west. With the advent of black

Ford Explorers with drivers flush with cash, conditions in Cali became more precarious. As the conflicts

heated up in rural Colombia, these troubles also engulfed Pance. At the church adjoining the convent where

Eileen received her rabies shots, the Ejercito de Liberación Nacional held 19 students of the Escuela

Colombo-Britanica hostage. The architecture quickly moved from strands of barbed wire to trees and brick

walls. Difficult times in downtown Cali and an increasingly assertive Ejercito de Liberación Nacional in the

cordillera led to armed apartments, and in Pance, gated subdivisions, multiple security guards, and high-end

duplexes. My mother entrusted the house to her cousin, and she did her best to find people who valued the

Finca Aesthetic, because these were the only people who would rent a finquita in what became a suburb rich

enough to be known in Dallas.[11] Eventually, a contractor who had grown up in rural Antioquia but made his

career in New Jersey ended up settling in la Casa en Cali. As the previous photos show, the house opened out

to the yard, but the yard was fully cut off.


22 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Both the Gallinero and la Casa en Cali were designed to fit Cali of the 1970s; the dangers of Cali suburbs

transformed the environment around the house, but did not alter the tropical realities. As gates and walled

houses overpowered the landscape, wood-boring insects affected the chemically treated wood, the only new

part of the original house. The possibility of a B&B over. The repairs became too much. The decision to sell

means confronting the permanence of settlement in the United States. This is the difficulty. As the only

surviving sibling in her immediate family, and the youngest of 7 in her step-family, giving up the return home

after decades of work in Mexico and the United States is difficult. It means completing “a reorientation to

living and working in the United States.”[12] Paralleling Los Tigres del Norte , she is part of a larger cohort of

migrants who worked in the United States in the 70s and 80s and became residents after the amnistia that

came with IRCA.[13] La Casa en Cali always made the reality of return a possibility, invoked both during


23 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

“times of family conflict,” and “during periods of crisis and abrupt change, such as the death of a parent or a

new marriage.”[14] Like Los Tigres and more than a million others, it took Newt Gingrich and the Contract

with America to encourage my mom to become a citizen, to defend her hard-gained social security dollars.

That La Casa has failed to bear the burden of these wishes is tragic.

La casa en Cali bears witness to another dimension of Colombian life abroad: the transnational family

economy. Sarah Lynn Lopez’ recent work Remittance Landscapes and Walterio Iraheta’s photo series

Faraway Brother Style present the houses as transnational incursions that separate private households from

the village landscape and remind neighbors of the families’ relative success abroad. [15] [16]


24 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

The Espinosa family economy has done something else to Pance. La casa en Cali represented a material

alternative to life in the United States for us. To the neighbors, the wooden shutters, the chicken-screen

windows, and the absence of air-conditioning, were a reminder of a different way of being middle-class in

Colombia. The commitment to keeping the house open to the joys of the Valle de Cauca cast back to a

different time, when the city came together to celebrate ¡que viva la música! [17] The house is a material

reminder of this different time. El exterior has kept this vision going. Que viva la casa en Cali.


25 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

__________NOTES

[1] George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano LosAngeles, 1900-1945 (NY: Oxford University Press, 1994), 133.

[2] The historiography on La Violencia is far too extensive to list here. Three books stand out in NorthAmerican accounts: Herbert Braun, The Assassination of Gaitán: Public Life and Urban Violence inColombia, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986); Mary Roldan, Blood and Fire: La Violencia inAntioquia, 1946-1953 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002); and one focused on the western Valle deCauca region, Gonzalo Sánchez and Donny Meertens, Bandits, Peasants, and Politics: The Case of “LaViolencia” (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001). This last was first published as Bandoleros, Gamonalesy Campesinos (Bogotá: El Ancora, 1983). Jose Alvarez Gardeazabal has published El Ultimo Gamonal, adeeply fictional account of rural politics reminiscent of Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat (NewYork: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001).

[3] The path to Vatican II went through Colombia and the Universidad Nacional. My mom remembers CamiloTorres, who was both a sociology professor and the priest who gave the noon mass. This mass wasimmensely popular among students. As she recalled, “todas atendian misa por que era muy inteligente, muybuen orador y guapo.” [Everyone attended because he was smart, a good speaker. And handsome.] CamiloTorres returned to The Universidad Nacional de Colombia after finishing his Ph.D. in seminary in Belgium.He later joined the Ejercito de Liberación Nacional and died in an assault on an armory outside Cali. SeeGermán Guzmán Campos, El Padre Camilo Torres, 1923-1968 (Mexico: Siglo XXI Editores, 1968). Thispath translated into English as Camilo Torres, Revolutionary Priest: the Complete Writing and Messages ofCamilo Torres (New York: Random House, 1971).

[4] Colombian historian and anthropologist Lucy M. Cohen’s dissertation focused on the first professionalclass of women in Colombia, the majority of whom came of age during La Violencia. See the update andtranslation of this work in Lucy M. Cohen, Colombianas en la Vanguardia (Medellin, Colombia: EditorialUniversidad de Antioquia, 2001).


26 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

[5] See John Mckiernan-González's earlier Arrob@ blog entry, “Between James and Juanes,” Program inLatino/a Studies in the Global South. 27 April 2015.

[6] The reason the tenant has a name is that he had been mayor of Cali. The connection followed from theconnections she made in Acción Catolica and the student movement. Ana Luisa Renjifo continued to work inAcción Comunal, where she became acquainted with JV Romero, who also forged close links with this urbanmovement. I heard tell of city-wide strikes by domestic workers organized in church after Sunday mass.

[7] Maaza Mengiste, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011). Mengiste took inspirationfrom the novels written under dictatorships in Latin America to compose her version of the transition to theEthiopian Revolution. My mom believes most of her artist friends who took her Spanish classes did notsurvive the revolution. For an account that seeks to connect upheaval, revolution, and terror, see DondaldDonhan, Marxist Modern: An Ethnographic History of the Ethiopian Revolution (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1999).

[8] Bahareque construction uses a bamboo frame – like steel in skyscrapers – and interweaves the frame withmixture of leaves and clay. For the use of bahareque construction in the settlement of the coffee highlandssouth of Antioquia, see Jorge Enrique Robledo and Diego Samper, Un Siglo de Bahareque en el AntiguoCaldas (Bogotá: El Ancora, 1983). Most accounts trace bahareque to settlements before European arrival.The frames can move when under stress, giving these buildings flexibility during earthquakes. Baharequeappears to be having a ‘sustainability’ and earthquake resistance revival in countries along the Pacific Rim.See Manuel Lopez, Julian Bommer, and Patricia Mendez, “the seismic performance of bahareque dwellings

in El Salvador,” 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering, 14 May2015. See, as well, Jaime Mogollón Sebá, “Bahareque: Seismic Culture of the Colombian CoffeeRegion,” online at the BuildWell Library, 14 May 2015. Survival under extreme stress does mark theregion. See Michael Evans, “Trujillo Declassified,” National Security Archive, 5 October 2008.

[9] See his PEN writers page,”Laureano Alba,” PEN Colombia.

[10] There was a family gun in the house, from my great grandfather in the Guerra de los Cien Dias.

[11] Scott Parks, “Forced to Play the Kidnap Game, Colombian Style,” Dallas Morning News, 8 May2015.

[12] Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 133.

[13] Jacqueline Hagan, Deciding to Be Legal: A Maya Community in Houston (Philadelphia: TempleUniversity Press, 1994). For Tigres del Norte, José David Saldívar, Border Matters: Remapping AmericanCultural Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997): 1-16; and Josh Kun, Audiotopia: Music,Race, and America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005): 1-28.

[14] Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 131.

[15] See "The Remittance Landscape: Material Histories and Visual Representations of TransborderMigration."

[16] "The Remittance Landscape."

[17] Andres Caicedo, ¡Que Viva la Música! (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, 1977). For more on thelabor and Afro-descendiente neighborhood dimensions of this moment, please read Alejandro Ulloa, La Salsa


27 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

en Cal (Cali: La Universidad del Valle, 1992) and Lise Waxer, The City of Musical Memory: Salsa, RecordGrooves and Popular Culture in Cali, Colombia (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 2010).

05.06.15

Precarious Belonging:On the Education of Larry Mckiernan

In 1978, my parents left teaching in Mexico City to pursue graduate education at the University ofAlabama. We arrived the year the United States Supreme Court mandated the integration ofTuscaloosa County’s public schools. We attended Verner Elementary, an integrated lab schoolassociated with the University of Alabama. I went to 6th grade, my sister attended 4th, and mybrother 2nd grade. The district decided to place all 7th grade students in metro Tuscaloosa inTuscaloosa middle school. I faintly recall that all my friends in the YMCA soccer league who were alsoin Verner Elementary went to Holy Spirit, the private catholic school. In 1980, we moved to Querétaro,Mexico.

In 1982, my father passed, drowning in Manzanillo. In 1986, my mother returned to Tuscaloosa to seekfurther higher education and escape a difficult professional work environment in Querétaro. Shebrought Larry, my younger brother with her. The schools in Tuscaloosa had been working underfederal court order for six years now. My mother became a student yet again, working with facultymembers in the Department of Education at the University of Alabama. She graduated with a Ph.D. in1989. This is one of my brother’s reflections on a moment in those three years.


28 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Larry Mckiernan. Photo credit: John Mckiernan-González.

CULLMAN, ALA. (1988)

“Dr. Bishop and I will pick you up,” I listened to my mom from the other side of the phone. “We should bethere between seven and eight in the evening. Ok?”

“Sure. I can’t wait!” I replied. I couldn’t wait to get out of my little Catholic boarding school in Cullman,Alabama, that controlled every minute of my day.

Dr. Harold Bishop was my mom’s favorite professor. Mine, too, even though he never taught me since I was inhigh school. I loved visiting his office when I came back from school to wait for my mom’s Tuesday class tofinish. I always knew when to enter, when there was a rare lull in the laughter and a graduate student orfellow professor left his office. “What’s cooking, Larry? Any girlfriends, yet?” He knew the answer. “Theydon’t know what they’re missing, right?”


29 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

‘What have you learned about us today?’ He really wanted to know what I thought aboutAlabama, especially since I had just moved from Mexico. He was one of the few adultsconcerned about how I was adapting. Though he never said it, he knew I felt isolated. He tried tocheer me up, help me understand that I had something important to contribute. In fact, towardsthe end of the academic year, after many Tuesdays, he even invited me as a guest lecturer intoone of his leadership classes. In a year where I often felt like a pebble, I left his office feeling likea mountain. He had a way of making those around feel like giants.

Five years before taking a university teaching position at the University of Alabama, Dr. Bishop had been thesuperintendent of Birmingham schools. According to my mom, his leadership was legendary. Teachers andstaff loved working with him. He was smart, caring, and maybe most importantly, a lot of fun. Although hisimpeccable dark suits with matching ties, handkerchiefs, and socks belied a man preoccupied with everyminor detail, he was relaxed and carefree. I always believed his relaxed and carefree demeanor must havebeen hard to maintain: he was a Black man in Alabama.

In any case, I was excited that he and my mom were picking me up that Friday night, especially since I knewthe drive from Cullman to Huntsville would be a lot of fun. That’s why I was shocked when I entered the carand it was silent.

“No digas nada, Larry,” my mom commanded. Silence in Dr. Bishops’ car? What was going on?

Dr. Bishop simply put the car in drive and took off. We were silent for a long time, no music on the radio, andDr. Bishop’s usual fast driving this time at a steady cruise control of 55.

When we left Cullman County, Dr. Bishop turned around with a bright smile, “How’s my man, doing? Anygirlfriends in the boarding school? Just like in Tuscaloosa, they don’t know what they’re missing, right?”This characteristic remark seemed almost uncharacteristic given the previous silence.

“You’re probably wondering why we were so quiet, Larry,” Dr. Bishop asked.

“Yeah.”

“What do you know about Cullman County?”

“That it’s boring and small,” I responded.

Did you know that up until 1982, just six years ago, there were signs posted all over the countythat said, ‘Nigger, come sundown, Cullman ain’t your town?’

“No.”

“The signs might not be up anymore, but we know better.”

In our hotel room that night, my mom told me that the drive had been typically fun up until Cullman County,with Dr. Bishop, Dr. Essex, and my Colombian mom singing and laughing together. However, as soon as thecar had passed the Cullman county line, Dr. Bishop had turned the radio off, stopped talking, and had drivendirectly to my school to pick me up. He had no desire to linger. He had felt fortunate not to cross paths withany police cars along the drive.


30 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

He was hoping that on the drive back he could drop me off in the afternoon, not in the evening.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to spend more time with my mom. Unfortunately, I now knew better—if that’sknowing better.

In May 2014, the Atlantic Monthly used Tuscaloosa as a vivid example of school resegregation.[1] The storyabove bears witness to the volatile work of integration.[2]

Larry Mckiernan-González – aka Lawrence Mckiernan – teaches in the Suva Intermediate School in theMontebello Independent School district. He will be part of the Principal Leadership Institute at UCLA inFall 2015. He loves his job.

Larry Mckiernan. Photo credit: John Mckiernan-González.

__________NOTES

[1] Nikole Hannah Jones, “Segregation Now,” Atlantic Monthly, May 2014, accessed April 27, 2015.


31 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

[2] There are three works that have explored the broader cultural history of integration and higher educationthrough student experiences. Frank Guridy, in his magisterial Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and AfricanAmericans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010),17-69, explores the larger social and political dimensions of learning race (racial schooling) in highereducation in Alabama. Maylei Blackwell’s ¡Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in theChicano Movement (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), a sharp and important account of Chicanastudents making their way in the movement cultures forged in California State University–Los Angeles,brings out the enhanced vulnerability her interviewees felt––and experienced––at this institution.GeraldoCadava, in Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 2013), makes it very clear that universities are key migration hubs. I am confident Dr.Bishop might be willing to discuss the risks he took for his students, given his graduation from the Universityof Alabama in 1972, his doctorate in 1976, and his career until his early passing at 63. See “Harold L.Bishop, Sr.,” Tuscaloosa News, accessed April 30, 2015. Also consult Evan Berlanger, “List: Who are theUniversity of Alabama's most prominent black graduates,” AL.COM, accessed April 30, 2015.

04.27.15

Between James and Juanes:Latino Studies, Colombians, and the Global South

James and the Selección demonstrating when differences are complementary.

In the world of the Colombian diaspora, I float somewhere far between James and Juanes, the twomost popular Colombian men on the planet. They average between fifteen and seventeen million hitson Google, while Gabriel García Márquez merely rates 12 million hits.[1] Music and athletic labor havemuscled out magical realism to become one of the ways the world consumes the contributions of


32 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Colombian men.

Like los tres grandes above, I have taken residence and labor in places far beyond the place I attended

elementary school; unlike them, few people will consider my midfield skills or musical moves to be

representative of lo colombiano. So, in the name of unexceptional Colombians living in el exterior, I would

like to use James, Juanes and John to shake the heavy presence of the United States in Latino Studies.

Perhaps shake is too heavy a word. Maybe place the United States among other sojourns and settlements in elexterior, towns and cities where Colombianos have made their place among other migrants and residents, thatmigrant itineraries do not necessarily include the United States. With James, we have Cúcuta at the borderwith Venezuela; Envigado in Antioquia; Buenos Aires in Argentina; Porto in Lisbon, Monaco in Monaco,and Madrid in Spain. For Juanes, we have Carolina del Principe and then Medellin, in Antioquia; Pereira,Risaralda; Cali; (all Colombia) Los Angeles in California, and Miami in the United States. For John (me,third person singular), a more diasporan itinerary starts in Flushing Hospital and goes to Cali, Mexico City,Alabama, Queretaro in Mexico, Alabama, New Mexico, Chicago, Michigan, Tampa, and Austin. Beginningwith my mother’s wedding in 1966 Cali, the Colombian family’s sojourns include beautiful and violentTrujillo, Valle de Cauca; Tulua, Cali; Pereira, Risaralda; Medellin; Austin, Texas; Lima, Peru; Leticia,

Amazonas; Raleigh, North Carolina; Lima, Peru; Barranquilla; Dallas, Texas; Madrid, Spain; Houston,Texas; Berea, Kentucky; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Bologna, Italy; Sarasota, Florida; Coleman, Florida;New York; and London, England. Many other Colombian families share in this family-based map of theworld, and knowledge of these places in el exterior is unexceptional to many others. As a student of mine inTampa told her father about me, “es Colombiano como yo. De muchos lados. Y de aquí."[2]These familialemplotments are almost a case study in "the power of kinship to subvert national border."[3] Colombianfamilies bleed beyond national borders.

So, what place in the global firmament does the United States hold in the constellation of cities, siblings andstars that make Greater Colombia. Perhaps a suburbia, where love and ambition can have a home. When Imoved to Tampa in 2002, my uncle told me Caleños called the (Tampa) Bay Area suburbia, thought, partlybecause of it being El Pibe Valderrama’s rumored residence. It is possible that the U.S. represents a vastworking-class suburb, where class status, class aspiration, and the dual nationality option for Colombians hastranslated into the recently expanded movement of professionals into the United States.[4] These aspirantstake their place alongside the longer movement of textile workers, teachers, digital marriages, students,diplomatic personnel, actresses, and musicians to various hubs in the United States.[5]

It may be – relative to Colombia – the United States has become a suburb for working professionals. Censusdata seems to bear out the professional dimensions of this regional labor hub. In the last census decade,according to the Pew Hispanic Center, Colombians have nearly doubled in population since 2000, from471,000 to 972,000.[6] Pew also indicates that Colombian households have come to match many of the basicdemographics usually linked to Cuban American households in almost all measures except home-ownership.This means almost the highest average household income (for Latinos at 48,00.00), as well as the highestcollege graduation rates among Latinos (32%).[7] Sofia Vergara, of course, has skewed this number by beingthe top-grossing woman in Hollywood. Census numbers also indicate that college educated Hispanics willhave relatively lower earnings over a lifetime (1.7 million compared to 2.2 million for non-Hispanic whites),an amount and a ratio remarkably similar to college-educated African-Americans in the United States.[8] In areal sense, exceptional Colombian college graduates have yet to match the general earnings of white college-educated American households. In another – "race-to-the-bottom, go back to where you came from" - sense,the average Colombian household income in the United States is maybe four times the average income inColombia.[9] The United States may be quickly becoming a broad working-class suburb where people have


33 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

moved on up from urban Colombia (again, among Latinos, the highest percentage of foreign-born residents[63%]), as well as high naturalization rates (64%).[10] For those few people paying attention to Latinocommunity dynamics and not just Sofia Vergara, Millennial Colombians may be becoming the next Cubans,resented for coming closer to the income and privileges most white Americans take for granted.[11] I mean,move over, model minority.

Portrait of the scholar being Colombian in the Mission, post mundial. Photo credit: CaryCordova.


34 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

All this is to say that, except for relatively exceptional household income and home-ownership, Juanes andJames (and Gabriel García Márquez) do not fit the general trend for Colombians in the American exterior.They are not college graduates, and they have not yet naturalized in their country of residence. Los tresgrandes have not shared in a commitment to a political community in their country of residence.

Surveys also say that Colombian children identify with an alternative national political community: Latinos.In his not-so recent article “pigments of our imagination: on the racialization and racial identities of‘Hispanics’ and ‘Latinos,’” scholar Ruben Rumbaut noted the way Latino children, when asked, rejected theAmerican rule of hypodescent: race comes from your parents. And Colombian children seemed the leastrespectful of this natural law. To wit: nearly 58% of Latin American interviewees reported their race as white,while only 21.9 percent of children reported white as their category; moreover, 84.6% of Colombiansreported white and 2.2% Latino, while 58% of Colombian teenagers reported Latino (up there withSalvadorans and Nicaraguans). This transformation can be linguistic, as my brother and I can remembergoing from "Ahi vienen los Mckiernan, con su cantadito Mexicano” to becoming los primos Americanos. Theexperience of being of Colombian parents in the United States seems to be quite latinizing.[12]

This latinizing may have to do with the precarious experience of being in one space from somewhere else.For Juanes, his sojourn in Los Angeles was not a steady climb. He recalled, “I spent my days downtown, orin Wilshire, Pasadena, Glendale, Griffith Park . . . wherever I could find a place to sleep or eat. I still didn’thave a record deal, but I was adamant: don’t go home without achieving your dream… there were times whenall I had was rice to eat and tap water to drink. “[13] For 14 year old James, Buenos Aires defined precarious.Surrounded by First Division teammates at Atletico Banfield who mocked his stutter and withheld the ball,he learned to rely on spare change from stadium employees to pay for his ride home.[14] This sense ofeverything potentially going wrong can only be justified by subsequent success. Memories, however, of thisprecarious belonging do not go away. Diane Guerrero, of Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virginfame, has publicly emphasized the potential American terror of being of Colombian parents. Retelling herparents’ disappearance by ICE agents in Boston, she recalled, “I came home from school to an empty house.Lights were on and dinner had been started, but my family wasn't there.”[15] Her neighbors let her know thatimmigration officers appeared at their door and left, without even giving notice. Sudden deprivation,disappearance, detention, death AND deportation make a presence for themselves across Colombian familiesin the United States. These rough edges of life, as well as a precarious dependence on friends and neighborsdo not figure in most American forms of middle-class community formation. To paraphrase Mo Collier inThe Simpsons, “modern life has a latinizing effect on kids today.”[16] Suburbia seems to be creatingalternative forms of political community among its Colombian residents.

Memories and stories of violence also shape the transnational political community being generated aroundColombians just outside national borders. I am confident that Juanes’ decision to hold a concert for peace inHavana placed him far outside the narrow political boundaries of his Hialeah neighbors. I am also assuredthat most other soccer superstars have not received petitions like this one from an association of displacedIndigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant collectives.

We write to you from our twitter account that your goals in the game against Uruguay expressthe beauty that comes from a shared game, from an individual in harmony with others, of work,of discipline and of persistence…

You and the whole team are the expression of all we desire for our country, plurality in thenational project, a country where differences are complimentary. It is the joy that follows from aninclusive democracy, a democracy that respects the sources of life, like water, trees, prairies andhuman beings; a democracy where no one is killed, is tortured, is disappeared, is displaced for


35 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

imagining a new country, a democracy where we all count, including us, residents of rural areas,because, like on the soccer team, we all contribute…

We live in places of great biodiversity, in places like brazil, or in places where our lands havebeen taken, in regions where we have lived pain, destruction, places almost unimaginable, wehave been there supporting you, supporting the team, and we know you will face millions ofdemands on your time, we want to ask you, cordially, to permit a face-to-face dialogue withmany of our delegated men and women, to talk, only 30 minutes, we are not asking for money oranything else, we simply want your moral support for a proposal to Colombia, a proposal forhope. We await at [email protected] o conpazcolombia@gmail.[17]

The shared experience and possibility of violence in Colombia and suburbia are part of the conditions thatColombians share with other migrants and diasporan subjects in the United States.[18] I hope to use this blogseries, Arrob@, to think broadly about the myriad eccentric connections between Colombia, Latino Studies,and American history, writ large. There will be humorously ephemeral moments, like when Juanes recalledlistening to The Number of the Beast, “To be honest, I couldn’t understand a single word in the entire song,but I still felt completely drawn to it—it was a pure connection with the music and energy.”[19] I may touchon desire, like when Rob Hughes called James Rodriguez, “a perfect 10,” or Juan Forero considers Juanes“a shy, almost reluctant star – despite his smoldering good looks.”[20] Or, simply, the terror and joy thatconnects Colombians to the worlds across national borders.The Arrob@ will mark my first work for publicconsumption on being (not) Colombian in the United States.

Portrait of the Artist as a Mexican Artist. (Juanes and Los Tigres del Norte, MTV Unplugged)."Los Tigres del Norte con Juanes: La Jaula de Oro."

PreviousNext

__________NOTES

[1] Sofia Vergara made 48 million, Shakira made 24 million, and I made 27 hundred on Google.

[2] John Mckiernan-González, “Going public?: Tampa Youth, Racial Schooling, and Public History in the


36 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Cuentos de mi familia project,” Beyond el Barrio: Everyday Life in Latino/a America. Edited by FrankGuridy, Gina Pérez, and Adrian Burgos, (New York: New York University Press, 2010): 189-91.

[3] Omar Valerio Jiménez, River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands(Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).

[4] For generic discussion of this movement, see “Frequently asked questions about dual nationality,” inThe Embassy of Colombia.

[5] For love, see Felicity Shaffer Gabriel, Love and Empire: Cybermarriage and Citizenship across theAmericas (New York: New York University Press, 2012). For work, see Aviva Chomsky, Linked LaborHistories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class (Durham: Duke UniversityPress, 2008). For embassy personnel, see Alirio Díaz Guerra, Lucas Guevara (Houston: Arte Público Press,2001). For musicians, see Maria Elena Cepeda, Musical ImagiNation: U.S. Colombian Identity and theLatin Music Boom (New York: New York University Press, 2010). For a survey-based portrait of the rest ofus, see Luis Guarnizo, Arturo Sanchez, and Elizabeth M. Roach, “Mistrust, fragmented solidarity, andtransnational migration: Colombians in New York and Los Angeles,” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22:2(Summer 1999): 367-396.

[6] For 2000, see B. Guzman, “Colombian Population in the United States,” Census.gov.http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/06/27/hispanics-of-colombian-origin-in-the-united-states-2010/

[7] Seth Motel, Eileen Patten, “The Ten Largest Hispanic Groups: Characteristics, rankings, Top TenCounties,” Pew Research Center: Hispanic Trends, accessed April 27, 2015.

[8] Download the July 2002 U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Reports, written by JenniferCheeseman Day and Eric C. Newburger and titled "The Big Payoff: EducationalAttainment andSyntheticEstimates of Work-Life Earnings," by clicking here.

[9] See Toni Peters, "Colombia’s average wage less than half global average."

[10] Yes, if naturalization is evidence of love, my mom and her peers love the United States and – thanks todual nationality – Colombia.

[11] U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical tables.”

[12] The verb, not the subject. Claudia Milian, Latining America: Black-Brown Passages and the Coloringof Latino/a Studies (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2013).

[13] Juanes, Chasing the Sun Deluxe (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2012), Kindle Locations731-732.

[14] Elvis Martínez Bermúdez, “Biografía no-autorizada de James,” in El Tiempo.

[15] Diane Guerrero, “My parents were deported,”in Los Angeles Times, accessed April 25, 2015.

[16] “Homer’s Phobia,” The Simpsons (1997).

[17] See "Comunidades campesinas, indígenas y afrodescendientes envían una carta abierta a JamesRodríguez," in Radio Macondo.


37 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

[18] I need to mention that my family above has shared in these experiences of death, murder, displacementand deportation, as well as success and migration.

[19] Juanes, Chasing the Sun Deluxe (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2013), Kindle Locations501-502.

[20] Rob Hughes, “James Rodriguez is a perfect 10,” New York Times, July 2, 2014. Juan Forero, “A singerconfronts Colombia’s pain,” New York Times, November 23, 2004.

Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South | 124 Friedl | East Campus | Duke University | Box90441 | Durham, NC 27708 | 919.684.4375

You are not logged in.Login

Contact us

Please contact us:

Your name

Your email address

Location on the Site

Comment

Type the two words:


38 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

Cancel


39 of 39 6/15/2015 1:59 PM

6.1.2015: Mas derechos, menos terrenos: Collaboration and Community in Global Grassroots Media

Documents

Transcript of 6.1.2015: Mas derechos, menos terrenos: Collaboration and Community in Global Grassroots Media