Seriously. And I’m not sure what to say about it, other than it’s kind of weird. But tasty, at least. KPCC has the story.
Culture/Identity
A category relating to stories about ethnic identity and the immigrant experience, and how both are represented in the arts.
RECENT POSTS
Out of the closet twice: Cartoonist Julio Salgado on coming out as undocumented and gay
The art of illustrator Julio Salgado has become synonymous with the immigrant rights youth movement, that embraced by U.S.-raised young people who were brought here illegally or stayed on with expired visas after their parents brought them to the U.S. as children.
Art courtesy of Julio Salgado
His bright, chunky characters, sometimes depicted in graduate cap-and-gown attire, are found on posters and t-shirts advocating for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, proposed federal legislation that would grant conditional legal status to young people who arrived before age 16 of they go to college or join the military. Last year Salgado created “Liberty for All,” an online political comic strip about a young college graduate named Libertad, or Liberty, who can’t find work beyond menial jobs.
The comic strip paralleled Salgado’s life. The Cal State Long Beach graduate, now 28, arrived with his family on temporary visas from Mexico when he was 11. They overstayed when his sister became ill and never returned. It’s been some time since he joined a growing movement of young people who have “come out,” borrowing a gay rights term, with their status as a political act.
Salgado now works as a freelance journalist and co-founder of DreamersAdrift.com, an advocacy collective that has produced a series of videos titled “Undocumented and Awkward.” Over the past few months, starting with an essay last fall that appeared in The Huffington Post, Salgado has been writing about the parallels between one of the secrets he once kept – his sexual identity – and the other, his immigration status. Especially for children of immigrants who face harsh judgment at home, coming out as gay can be a particularly difficult step. So can coming out as undocumented for someone raised in the U.S., with its potential repercussions.
Here is Salgado’s take on what it’s like to come out twice – or not:
M-A: Over the past few years, the practice of “coming out” undocumented has become a rite of passage of sorts for undocumented young people in the U.S. But among these are youths who have come out twice, once as undocumented, and again as homosexual. You’ve written about this quite a bit lately. For you, what do the two have in common?
Salgado: Both issues have so much in common. For one, both the migrant and LGBTQ communities have been a special target from (people who) have made it their goal to go after us.
Undocumented and queer youth are more likely to suffer from depression…and we need to come out of the shadows. Whether than means coming out as undocumented or queer. In some cases as both.
M-A: Are there often two secrets kept, one (sexual identity) around Latino or other immigrant culture and especially elders, and another (immigration status) around peers? What is it like to keep two secrets like that? What does it take out of you?
Salgado: For sure, I truly believe that religion plays a huge part in that way of thinking. In my case, I have never told either one of my grandmothers that I am gay. Specially my father’s mom, who truly believes that homosexuality can be cured by reading a pamphlet.
As I get older, I have learned to respect her beliefs. I have come to understand that she comes from a different generation. Even my father, who still struggles with the idea of me being queer, has sort of come around because I’ve given him that space to try and understand what is like to have a gay son. Being around my peers has been a different story. I remember when I was in high school, I was out as gay to some of my friends, mostly girls.
For the most part, it was easier to come out as undocumented because I knew that some of them were undocumented as well. I remember having conversations with some of them about what our lives would be like after high school and we just simply had no answer. Mind you, this was toward the end of the year 2000. There weren’t such things as DREAM Teams.
After high school and during college, I sort of put my queer identity to the side and focused on finishing school. I also tried to keep my immigration status a secret. College counselors were often the only people I came out to as undocumented in the hopes that they could help me score a scholarship through their networks. Sometimes it worked. I felt safe with them. Even if they didn’t know how to help me, it helped to just let go of this huge burden I had with me.
Every time I told someone I was undocumented, I felt liberated. I began to use that coping mechanism with my queer identity. That was another huge intersectionality. When you are both queer and undocumented, you have to be extremely careful who you come out to. You wonder, “How are they going to act? Will they like me less if they know my secret?”.
More MorrisseyOke (Morrissey + karaoke), the audio version
Photo by Mae Ryan/KPCC
What is MorrisseyOke? Why Morrissey + karaoke, of course.
Today’s Madeleine Brand Show featured a segment (with me as guest) on the latest incarnation of Latino L.A.’s well-documented love of Morrissey, the pop icon and former lead singer of The Smiths. Every other month or so, the DJ at a Boyle Heights bar called Eastside Luv spins original Smiths and solo Morrissey songs, dubbing down the vocals so that patrons can sing over them.
Then people take turns climbing onstage and belting out classics like “Shoplifters of the World Unite” and “Barbarism Begins at Home,” karaoke style. It doesn’t matter if it sounds good. It’s Boyle Heights, it’s Morrissey, and it’s one big sing-along pachanga for fans who, like me, were raised on an Eastside soundtrack in which The Smiths figured prominently.
I featured a more detailed post with a video this week. And if you’re one of these people who knows all of Morrissey’s lyrics by heart, there’s another MorrisseyOke at Eastside Luv tonight.
American snapshot: Masa in Pico Union (and all over town)
Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC
Bags of masa harina on the shelf at a small grocery store in Pico Union, waiting to be mixed and eaten
Hurry, it’s time! Time to shop for ingredients for last-minute tamaleadas, time to pick up those orders if you’re ordering them, time to read (or not) the annual onslaught of tamales-related holiday stories that crop up in the media this time of year.
But I’m not above a little gratuitous masa harina shot. There are tamal purists who scoff at the use of masa harina, preferring to grind their own corn (“It tastes like tamales you’d buy at 7-11,” a corn-grinding friend snapped once when I admitted using it), but who has time? Plus once it’s mixed and ready to steam, it tastes kind of good raw. Buen provecho, tamal makers and eaters.
What is MorrisseyOke? Exactly what it sounds like (Video)
Several months ago, I saw a tweet that about made me jump out of my chair. I don’t remember exactly what it said, only that it was from the Boyle Heights wine bar Eastside Luv and that it referred to something called “MorrisseyOke.” Which could only mean one thing.
Now, it’s no news flash that in places like Boyle Heights (and Huntington Park, South Gate, Downey, Pico Rivera, Norwalk, West Covina, Santa Ana…yes, places where Latinos live), there are some huge fans of Steven Patrick Morrissey, aka simply Morrissey, the pop icon and former lead singer of the 1980s British band The Smiths. Their music played an important role in the soundtrack of my Eastside upbringing, as it has for many others.
For years, writers and filmmakers – heck, there’s even a forthcoming book – have documented the love we Latino types have for Morrissey, whose lyrics capture a sense of alienation that many a kid living between two cultures is bound to feel at some point. In L.A., even our local Smiths cover band is fronted by a Latino. Some, like the OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano, have pointed out how Morrissey’s songs of longing and angst echo the emotion of classic rancheras sung by old-time Mexican crooners (and to be fair, most of Morrissey’s Latino fans in L.A. are Mexican American, though you’ll catch the occasional stray Salvadoran or Cuban as well.)
In an exploration of the Latino cult of Morrissey in The Believer, Chloe Veltman wrote: “More devoutly than any other pop icon, Morrissey embodies the outsider.” Which makes perfect sense. When the rain falls hard on a humdrum town full of working-class families with kids who are American but not quite, living on the margins of a big city, it needn’t be Manchester for those lyrics to resonate. It could just as well be South Gate or Maywood.
Now for the fun part: The latest manifestation of Latino Moz love has been taking shape in that little bar on First Street across from Mariachi Plaza, Eastside Luv, once every couple of months for about 8 months now. A DJ spins Smiths and solo Morrissey tunes while dubbing down the vocals so that the bar patrons can get onstage and sing along. It’s not karaoke with the bouncing ball – you can still hear a bit of Morrissey’s vocals – which makes it, well, MorrisseyOke.
What does it sound like? Check out this guy’s rendition of “Barbarism Begins at Home.”
MZ000051 by KPCC
Hey, it’s a bar, okay? I recorded more audio during a MorrisseyOke event last month, so you can hear additional snippets on tomorrow’s Madeleine Brand Show on 89.3 KPCC FM at 9 a.m.
Crossing the river: One reader’s reflection on L.A.’s First Street Bridge
Photo by aarline.info/Flickr (Creative Commons)
The iconic First Street Bridge, which spans the Los Angeles River between downtown and Boyle Heights, was reopened to the public yesterday after a years-long widening project.
Dating to the late 1920s, the bridge has been a fixture in the lives of generations of the mostly Latino Eastside residents who cross it on a daily basis as they head west to work, then back home again. Along with a series of nearby bridges, it spans not only the concrete-lined river, but one of the city’s most tangible divisions of culture and class.
In a post Monday, I asked readers to share a bit about the role the bridge has played in their lives. Here’s what Erick Huerta, aka blogger and Boyle Heights local El Random Hero, wrote:
One of the things I’ll always miss is the art all over the river. Riding my bike over the bridge on an almost daily basis, different times of the day, it was panoramic to say the least.
Catching the reflection of the sun off the DTLA sky scrapers, hearing the hum of the river after it rains, and feeling the breeze as you make you way across. Not to mention that I always give a stink eye to hipsters trying to have photo shoots once in a while.
What are your memories of crossing the First Street Bridge, or any of the bridges spanning the L.A. River between downtown and the Eastside? What do they represent for you?
Taco-fusion skeptic eats green bean casserole taco – and likes it
Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC
A pair of green bean casserole tacos from Komida, December 2011
A post several days ago posed a question perhaps best not brought up at lunchtime: Can a taco composed of holiday green bean casserole actually taste good? Or in a world in which Kogi-style Korean barbecue “street” tacos are now found frozen at Costco, has taco fusion given way to hipster taco irony gone out of bounds?
This was in reference to a “12 Days of Tacos” promotion at Komida, a Hollywood gourmet Japanese-Mexican fusion taco joint that has been advertising daily taco specials on its Facebook page like roast turkey tacos, agave-glazed ham tacos and venison tacos with ginger-cherry salsa cheekily dubbed “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”
None of which perversely grabbed my attention like the taco special last Monday, Dec. 12, “Grandma’s green bean casserole with haricot vert, roast garlic bechamel, crispy shallots.”
“It sound kind of good,” a couple of colleagues said when I told them about it. I wasn’t so sure, imagining the familiar mushy mouthfeel and avocado-green color of green bean casserole, only in a tortilla.
As it turns out, it wasn’t half bad. I stopped at Komida last week on green bean casserole taco day, taking home a pair of said tacos made personally by a very friendly chef Brock Kleweno. The beans were sauteed and crisp, topped with mushrooms and cheese and freshly deep-fried onions. It would have tasted just fine without the tortilla, but there was something nice about being able to crunch down on salty sauteed green beans as finger food.
Perhaps that’s the lesson to be learned by a taco-fusion skeptic: If you put anything tasty in a tortilla, it’s still going to taste good.
Now for the game meat test: The venison tacos are on the menu today. I won’t be there, but if anybody reading this gets to taste whether Rudolph does well as a taco, please do tell.
What’s your First Street Bridge story?
Photo by aarline.info/Flickr (Creative Commons)
As far as bridges go, it’s neither tall, spectacular nor a tourist attraction. But in the hearts of generations of Angelenos who have grown up crossing it, the First Street Bridge holds a special place. The bridge spans not only the Los Angeles River, but a stark division of culture, race and class in the city. It’s only one of a series of bridges built in the early decades of the last century that connect downtown with the Eastside (the real Eastside, as in east of the river), but this one leads into the center of its cultural heart, Boyle Heights.
The bridge officially reopens Tuesday after a years-long widening project to accommodate the Gold Line. Driving across it – whether heading west toward the gleaming downtown office buildings, or east toward home – has always been special for me, having grown up crossing back and forth over the river during my upbringing in Huntington Park. From the bridge it was east on First, then right on Soto, then south past the Vernon factories to Gage.
For those whose slice of L.A. has included the First Street Bridge, what are your memories of the bridge? What does it represent for you?