by the El Reportero’s staff

Luna Negra

Using paints made with African pigments and white glue, Chilean artist and songwriter Osvaldo Torres created images to Ostracismos, a selection of poems about exile and resistance written as a dialogue in the distance with his brother La Peña’s staff collective member, Fernando (Feña).

The 10 paintings by Osvaldo illustrate a poem conceptualized as an anonymous dialogue about exile and resistance to military rule during the Chilean dictatorship. The poem was written between 1978 and 1979 when both brothers were separated as a consequence of harsh political repression by the Pinochet regime. Almost 30 years later the poems became public when Osvaldo started to make the paintings.

From March 1 until April 29. 2008. Now until April 29, at 6:30 p.m. At La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley. 510-849-2568 www.lapena.org.

Luna Negra: A Night of Women’s Live Art A show that has been honoring the art of women in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past six years, the evening includes the live mediums of poetry, music, performance and video.

Poetry with “poet icon” Nina Serrano and Mamacoatl, a fusion of jazz and Venezuelan music with Jackeline Rago, ALJIBE Flamenco dance company directed by La Tania, and OJALA, six women percussionists performing Afro Cuban folkloric rhythms, song and dance.

General: $7.00, students and seniors: $5.00. For more info (415) 821-1155 www.missionculturalcenter.org  and http://luna-negra-mccla.blogspot.com/.

SF Chamber and Sup. Gerardo Sandoval to host summit

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval will host the next in a series of Neighborhood Merchants Summits, this time in Sandoval’s District 11.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval

At the summit, the Chamber will provide small businesses with referral information including access to ChamberVoice (visit www.sfchamber.com and click on Chamber Voice to access a portal providing businesses direct access to local, state and federal legislators); links to employer-mandate compliance guidelines; and the Small Business Commission’s resource page.

Additionally, other small business resource providers will be on hand with pertinent materials and representatives to answer specific questions before and after the formal presentations as well as during breaks.

On Thursday, March 27, 6-8:30 pm, at the OMI Senior Center at 1948 Ocean Ave., SF.

Jazz, fusion, classical benefi t concert for Christopher Rodríguez

On January 10th, tenyear old Chris Rodriguez was taking his first piano lesson at the Piedmont piano company in Oakland.

In a terrifying moment he was struck by a bullet fired during an attempted robbery across the street.

Chris Rodríguez

Chris suffered major organ damage and a severe spinal injury that has left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Through this ordeal Chris has fought valiantly and maintained a remarkably positive attitude.

Chris has been released from the hospital and is eager to continue his musical studies.

“Came to make a LOUD statement the violence that is devastating our cities and ruining the lives of so many of our young people,” said John Santos.

The music will be great and the spirit uplifting.

John Santos will be playing, along with Frank Martín, José Neto, Kai Eckhardt, Narada Michael Walden, Anton Schwartz, Dan Feiszli, Roger Glenn, Carol Alban, Matt Herskowitz, Suellen Primost, Tina Glenn. This event is expected to sell out early. Tickets are on sale now! At Yoshi’s Jazz Club, Jack London Square, Oakland, Calif. March 24. Call the Yoshi’s box offi ce at (510) 238-9200. Shows at 8pm/$25 and 10pm/$18.

by Tim Chávez

(NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: THIS COLUMN WAS WRITTEN BEFORE TEXAS’S PRIMARY)

There may be more good news awaiting U.S. Sen. Barack Obama when the results — influenced by a large Hispanic vote — are announced following the March 4 Texas Democratic Party primary.

Texas can be a whole different enchilada than California when it comes to Hispanic political and social thinking. It can be as different in the Lone Star state as the red salsa versus the green salsa sitting on the table in an authentic Mexican eatery.

My descendants are Texas Hispanics. We always viewed our California brothers and sisters (who voted in large percentage for Sen. Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday) — with curiosity, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. It was not our intent to express that they were wrong in any way for their intense political activism and collective loyalty to specific leaders. They were just different when it came to needed “change” — the motivating word in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

Even the word “Chicano” did not catch on with my family and relatives. My mother said it carried the connotation of being slow and clumsy. She felt we had enough obstacles against us in society. Why add another?

Texas never felt any ripple effect from California’s Proposition 187 movement that grew out of then-Gov. Pete Wilson’s public attacks against Hispanic immigrants. Every tejano knew that sort of nonsense would not be practical. Then-Gov. George W. Bush helped stop that movement in the 1990s before it reached the Mississippi River.

I don’t mean to suggest that Texas is without its own obstacles for Latinos. My father swore he would never live there. “They’re still fighting the Alamo!” he’d yell. Lynchings of Latinos continued into the 1900s. Corpus Christi’s late, great Dr. Héctor García founded the American GI Forum in 1948 to deal with rampant discrimination against Hispanics. In its fi rst act, the civil rights group partnered with then-congressman Lyndon Johnson to get a Latino war hero buried in Arlington National Cemetery after a local funeral home refused to allow the hero to lie in repose with his white comrades in arms.

When Texas becomes majority Hispanic in little more than a decade, new enemies will need to be confronted. That kind of change provides some advantages for Obama’s “change” message in Texas that he didn’t have in California.

Here are a few tips for his campaign based on my family experiences:

• Fill your Texas support staff with Chicago Hispanics who know the senator well: My family crossed the border into Texas during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, then relocated to central Kansas, where my father went to work for the Santa Fe railroad. My abuela would regularly catch the train from Kansas to Chicago to visit relatives. Texas Latinos have a lot of kin in Chicago. And hearing of Obama’s good work from relatives’ lips will go a long way toward convincing Lone Star Latinos.
• Hit the Hillary flip flop: Senator Clinton staged an abrupt political retreat earlier this year when she deserted an effort by New York’s governor to allow immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses without having to prove legal residency. To the governor, it was a public safety issue. Clinton deserted him when opinion polls showed a political backlash against the proposal. Obama has consistently supported the license proposal.
• Stress jobs, jobs, jobs: Unlike many politically active California Chicanos, my family believed working twice as hard and long as anyone else would provide them with the ultimate change — beginning within their own families. Money remains the power in U.S. society.
• Obama should stress his work on the immigration reform legislation that failed last year in Congress. It had bipartisan support. Texas Latinos have shown themselves less aghast at reaching across the aisle to work with Republicans, even voting for them occasionally.
• Bring Latinos and blacks together: Obama can gain Hispanic support by encouraging healing in the rift between Latinos and African Americans in many parts of the South. It exists. Dallas public schools suffered greatly while whites kept fl eeing to the suburbs.
• Latino families in Texas constantly preach the value of education. Alberto Gonzales’ story is not just a once-in-a-lifetime tale. It happens. Black powerbrokers, still trying to cope with the unresolved needs of their own children, have shown themselves hesitant to embrace Hispanic needs and support a more balanced allocation of resources. Obama must preach to both groups how to work together so urban centers do not become educational wastelands.

The late El Paso-bornand-raised writer and muralist José Antonio Burciaga used his talent to teach with humor about creating change through direct involvement. He pointedly cited the differences between Texans and Californians of Hispanic descent.

In his book “Drink Cultura: Chicanismo”, Burciaga devoted an entire chapter to his own “mixed marriage.” His wife Cecilia was born and raised in California. Obama’s message of hope can help change the more disunifying aspects of the Chicano, tejano and black existence. And it can help all Texans accept the change that’s coming their way by the year 2020. On March 4, Texas Latinos can give Obama the kind of delegate breathing room he needs to capture the Democratic nomination. Hispanic Link.

(Tim Chávez of Nashville, Tennessee, is a political columnist. He can be reached at timchavez787@yahoo.com). ©2008

by José de la Isla

José de la Isla

D’Vera Cohn and Jeffery Passel authored a new Pew Hispanic Center study projecting U.S. population growth for the next four decades. At the end of their press conference announcing their findings, they declined to draw conclusions from their report.

That is not a constraint here.

However, they did slip in a suggestion that high intermarriage rates among Latinos and other ethnic groups may find Latinos no longer identifying as such.

Cohn and Passel project the total U.S. population will increase nearly 50 percent by 2050, from 300 million today to 438 million in the next two and a half generations.

Newly arriving immigrants will account for 47 percent of the growth, while their children and grandchildren will be responsible for 35 percent.

Latinos, now 14 percent of the national total, and already the largest so-called “minority” group, will increase to 29 percent.

Non-Hispanic whites will also become a minority, or 47 percent.

Blacks are expected to remain at 13 percent.

While today immigrants are one in eight of the nation’s population, the ratio will decrease to one in five.

Cohn and Passel’s findings are in line with projections made since 1990 about the expected fast Hispanic demographic growth. However, more significant might be the social and cultural changes coming to the general population.

A 2003 study by Roberto Suro and Passel reported that first generation Latinos, like other immigrants; tend to marry within their ethnic/racial group. Only about eight percent of foreignborn Hispanics marry outside the group. But not so those that follow. Thirty-two percent of the second-generation and 57 percent of the third-plus generations are projected to intermarry.

The greatest change as we morph into 2050 may not be in ethnic, racial or other groupings. Instead, the biggest changes may come from how popular thinking is tweaked. Racial stigmas, evident since the 1920s, are now taking their last death gasps.

Most prejudicial racial and ethnocentric attitudes will not survive the trip to 2050.

The reason? Negative attitudes against ethnic groups will increasingly apply to one’s own family or circle of friends. Racists 2(overt and covert) are the dinosaurs of the current age.

A broader notion about national identity will probably emerge. Since the 1920s, which defined the United States as a unique club possessing ­the national values, a more open society, even an international one, will become the predominant ideology.

We talk that way now, but we will become it in the next period.

To get some perspective on the road ahead, it’s helpful to imagine what 2050 will look like. Imagine today is 1960. Then think about each and every milestone and setback from 1960 to today. Then multiple that by two or three to account for the wind-sheer acceleration events get from knowledge and experience. Welcome to 2050.

[José de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. He is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (Archer Books). E-mail: joseisla3@yahoo.com]. ©2008

by Marvin J Ramirez

Marvin J. Ramirez

Just recently, San Francisco Mayor Newsom proposed what he called, a Nightclub Reform Legislation to address “the recent spate of violence outside nightclubs.

These are the three proposed ordinances the mayor would like to put in effect:

• The first ordinance would require promoters to obtain a permit before holding two or more events per calendar year, thus enabling the Police Department and other regulator agencies to know who is directly responsible for an event and hold them accountable for a security plan and any violations of health or safety rules.
• The second ordinance amends existing law to tighten the permitting process, and grants emergency powers to the Director of Entertainment Commission to suspend permits for a variety of safety and noise.
• The third ordinance clarifies the application requirements for Extended-Hours Premises Permits (premises which are open between 2-6 a.m.), requiring these premises to create security plans, which the Executive Director of the Commission must approve.
• The final ordinance makes it illegal to loiter within 10 feet of a club for more than 3 minutes. It only applies between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. and does not apply to people waiting for a bus or other activity. A person must be warned before they can be cited.

The mayor thinks that extending more police control over private promoters, loitering and violence is going to end. Mr. Mayor, can you have proof that the cause of the violence and loitering you are talking about is caused by nightclub promoters?

Yes, there is violence sometimes at nightclubs that sell alcohol, but you can’t or anyone law enforcement officer could testify under oath, that promoters are the cause of any of the charges you try to insinuate.

A promoter should not be responsible for what goes on outside a nightclub, neither should the city penalize a person who promotes one night every week at a nightclub.

To my opinion, this is just another intent to shorten people civil liberties of assembly. It imposes police control over civilians who otherwise don’t have a legal obligation to submit their private information to the police, and in this case on people who don’t hold the responsibility to run the nightclub. It’s just a way to of using an excuse to enter into people’s lives as in a police state.

This is no different from what the Bush administration has done to the people in the United States after the Sept. 11, – with the excuse of “protecting” the homeland – he has eroded the fundamentals of liberty and the right of individuals to privacy with the infamous Patriot Act.

The Board of Supervisors should think it twice before going this far in voting for this ordinances. The promotership is a private contract between the owner of the nightclub and a private citizen. The state should be out of private contracts, since the owner already has a contract with the state and the police via their operating licenses.

The nightclub owner is the one responsible for running the club and keeping the necessary security to protect the patrons. With promoter or no promoter, the club has to meet the security needs in the establishment where alcohol is served, as required by state laws and local ordinances.

If this is the type of governorship you’re proposing if you become governor, thanks but no thanks. We don’t need a governor who is doing to expand the existing police powers over civilians.