Wouldn’t it be great if large parts of the Latin Alternative Music Conference were pre-empted by Jean Luc Godard filming the Jefferson Airplane playing “House at Pooneil Corners” and then the police came to break it up?
Read moreOliver Stone’s Noble “Savages”
You don’t want to mess with her: Salma’s Elena in Savages is merciless. For those of you who had visions of Tony Montana brandishing a machine gun over a pile of cocaine, Oliver Stone’s Savages is not exactly a classic gangster flick. Snarkily delivered moral lessons about the Drug War aside, it’s mostly a murky mess of barely distinguishable genres, propelled […]
Read moreImpunity Island: PR Government in Denial About Police Problems
Puerto Rico: Rampant police brutality on ‘impunity island’ A new report exposes police brutality cases in Puerto Rico. Here, Betty Peña and her 17-year-old daughter Elisa Ramos Peña get doused with tear gas at a peaceful 2010 protest. By ED MORALES It doesn’t exactly paint the picture of “La Isla del Encanto.” But in “Island of Impunity: […]
Read moreLatinos in the News (For All the Wrong Reasons)
We’re all a little weary of Latinos popping up in news reports all around the country as perpetrators of petty crimes and tacky behavior, you know, the kind of low-rent antics that if they were white would be referred to as “trailer-trash” stuff. (The latter of course not a laughing matter I guess because for […]
Read moreHuffington Post Latino Voices Links to a Story About Me!
Hey wait a minute! Maybe that thumb is shifting a little bit, a few degrees north. Perhaps I’ve been unfair in the past. Perhaps this is a fine example of English-language journalism about Latinos after all. La vida te da sorpresas. Gimme that ol’ time narcissism! The Nuyorican Poets Café, in the Words of Ed Morales, Author, […]
Read moreFort Apache: Blue Notes Let the Clave Ring
There were plenty of blue notes played at the now annual Fort Apache Band reunion last night, but Jerry Gonzalez wasn’t worried. Anchored by his brother Andy, who hovered over the bass as if he were guarding the entrance to heaven, Jerry calmly switched from a set of congas to flugel horn, penetrating the Monk-Rican […]
Read moreTrouble in Tuscon: The Battle Over Precious Knowledge
Like many dramatic films, Precious Knowledge, a documentary directed by Ari Luis Palos, sets up an inevitable conflict between two forces on a collision course. On one side is a group of students and teachers at an Arizona high school who want to use education as a tool for self-awareness and empowerment. On the other, is […]
Read moreEl Dilema del Bilingüismo
¿Por qué cruzó el charco el caribeño? Obviamente para llegar al otro lado. Citando al cubano-americano Gustavo Pérez-Firmat citado por el dominican-jersey Junot Díaz: “El hecho que te estoy escribiendo en (español) ya hace falso lo que te quería decir”. Y con eso entramos a otro nivel del dilema del bilingüismo, o sea, les doy […]
Read moreTaíno revivalism: Going back to La Tierra del Eden
Some artists and academics in the U.S. want to revive the culture of Táinos, a people indigenous to the Caribbean, but not without controversy. By ED MORALES Caridad de la Luz, better known as “La Bruja,” is a fabulous Nuyorican poet and actress whose performances echoes an urban style cultivated in her ancestral homeland, the […]
Read moreEx-Murdoch Tabloid and Phone-Hack Scandal Hack Axes Latin@s
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEWS: (NEW YORK) The minions of Colin Myler, a cold-blooded fiend posing as a Good Samaritan announced this Saturday that the Daily News’s weekly Spanish-language publication Hora Hispana will cease publication, and that the editor of the Viva section, which focuses on Latino/as and has been edited by veteran journalist Maite […]
Read more
ED MORALES 