Given the scant scholarly literature on this trade, I conducted an exploratory study of this informal, service sector. In addition, as a critical case study this research aims to test theories of social capital, social networks and informality. Based primarily on qualitative methods, my research consists of an in-depth study of a particular subject: By conducting a holistic study, the research establishes a better understanding of this informal trade.
More specifically, I explore the social organization and structure of this trade, focusing on the views of Mexican gardeners and their perspective of this unregulated industry. Through ethnographic research during through , I conducted about one hundred informal conversations with Mexican gardener in the Los Angeles area, fourteen open-ended personal interviews, several focus groups and participant observations. In addition, I analyzed current and archival documentation to complement my field research. My interview sample consisted of self-employed, Mexican immigrant gardeners.
My informants represent men in their mids to lates who have been working as paid gardeners in this country for several years. I initially obtained access to my informants through my organizational contacts, as noted below. Waters expressed concerns about her status as a white, privileged researcher studying marginalized, minority groups. To deal with some of her field research concerns, she hired African American researchers to help with some of the interviews at an inner-city public school.
Discussing her methodology, Waters , writes: The question of trust and access was a very serious one in this research [i. Would young black students answer honestly my probing questions about their family life, their racial identity, their behaviors, and their beliefs about touchy issues like race relations and weapons on school?
I had hired an African America student from Harvard to do interviews for me because I was worried that my race, gender, and ages would make it difficult for students to trust me. Unlike Waters, however, I had already established a level of trust and access with my key informants prior to embarking on this research project. In addition, as a son of poor Mexican immigrants embedded in the culture rural Mexican and language Spanish similar to many paid gardeners in Los Angeles, I quickly overcame many of the common ethnographic obstacles faced by non-Latino researchers who study Mexican immigrants and their cultural norms, work habits and daily practices in this country.
As a result, while I feel very confident in my abilities to translate and interpret my data from the perspective of someone within the culture, as someone who is far removed from the hardships and labor-intensive practices of this workforce, I cannot completely negate my outsider status in this research project. To accommodate my limitations as an outsider, therefore, I provided my key informants with interview transcripts and drafts of my research to check for errors in translation and obtain feedback concerning my portrayal and findings of their informal industry.
Workforce Characteristics of Paid Gardeners in Los Angeles On any given morning in Los Angeles, Mexican immigrant gardeners can be seen working the front lawns of middle income to affluent communities. Primarily dominated by men Flaming, Haydamack, and Joassart ; Pisani and Yoskowitz , , the age of a gardener varies from a worker in his early teens—usually the son of a gardener—to a worker in his 60s and, occasionally, and individual past retirement age.
In their study of gardeners in South Texas, Pisani and Yoskowitz found the mean age of gardeners to be about Further research is needed, however, in order to get more representative data on this population. Labor Dynamics, Structure and Internal Hierarchy Paid gardeners represent independent contractors who negotiate lawn maintenance agreements with homeowners or renters on an individual basis. Instead of formal, legally binding contracts, the gardener commonly the owner of the business and client strike oral agreements based on the size of the lot, type of work requested e.
Gardeners organize themselves in small crews. The owner manages all aspects of the crew and business operations. The worker, who will heretofore be referred to here as the trabajador, is paid for his services like most hired help in any cash-based, micro-enterprise. Since many trabajadores may not have a bank account due to their lack legal status in this country, they usually get paid in cash on a daily or weekly basis. Apart from performing their driving duties, the manejador also takes on similar work responsibilities of a trabajador. Given that undocumented workers cannot legally obtain driver licenses in California, the manejador has become an important part of the basic crew structure see Figure 1.
Thus, successful paid gardeners tend to be long-term residents compared to recently arrived immigrants. Also, given that patrones typically entered into the workforce as trabajadores, this trade potentially provides upward mobility opportunities for ambitious, hard working individuals. Unlike many jobs available to recent immigrants in the formal economy e.
For example, prior to establishing his own gardening business, Jaime—a successful gardener from Zacatecas, Mexico, with over 15 years experience in the industry—worked at a warehouse without any prospects of upward mobility given his lack of formal education and limited English skills: In Mexico I attended school up to the 6th grade since I had to work in the fields to support my family.
I worked for him as a helper. This is how I got started in this business. Rutas, depending on their size and the amount of revenue they generate on a monthly basis, commonly sell for thousands of dollars. As a result, we can clearly see how the ruta, has exchange-value. That is, like commodities in the formal economy, rutas can be exchanged for cash, traded for other commodities or gifted.
According to Marx , , exchange-value represents the important characteristic of a commodity: If commodities could speak, they would say this: What does belong to us as objects, however, is our value. Our intercourse as commodities proves it. We relate to each other merely as exchange-values. Unlike the formal economy, however, rutas are exchanged in the informal market without government regulations, sanctions or issues of taxation. Since paid gardeners mostly operate in a cash economy, neither the seller nor buyer of the ruta pays any taxes on this business transaction.
Nevertheless, the ruta serves as a vital asset for a select group of Mexican immigrant gardeners to succeed in the informal economy. Coming mostly from poor rural communities in Mexico, many of these individuals are accustomed to long, arduous hours for little pay. According to many of the paid gardeners I have spoken to over the past 10 years and those interviewed for this research project, they are willing to work long hours and on weekends, without complaining, so that their children have a better future via education in this country.
Also, many of them put in long hours in order to send money to relatives in Mexico through monthly remittances. In addition to the long hours and labor intensive work associated with this industry, paid gardeners in the informal sector, like day laborers Valenzuela , , ; Valenzuela et al. On September 13, , for example, a Los Angeles Times article labeled contract gardening one of the most hazardous jobs in the country Hamilton , S4: The most common gardener complaint is lower back pain due to repetitive bending, lifting and stooping.
Gardeners typically visit 15 to 20 homes a day and each time, they haul equipment weighing about 50 pounds in and out of their trucks. In addition to the disadvantages associated with this unregulated service sector, paid gardeners do not qualify for Social Security benefits upon retirement. Moreover, paid gardeners face a host of other work related hazards and problems not experienced by most American workers.
Commonly reported problems include the following: Since most gardeners drive to their work sites with their equipment and supplies in the back of their trucks, they are easy targets for thieves. Of the fourteen gardeners interviewed for this research project, all of them claimed to have been robbed at their job sites. In a personal interview that I conducted on April 1, , Guadalupe described the times he has been robbed: I have been robbed about two to three times.
One time I had a weeder stolen. This other time some guys put a gun to my stomach to steal my things, but they only ended up taking my wallet. Weak and Strong Ties at the Workplace Similar to domesticas Hondagneu-Sotelo , ; Mattingly , , paid gardeners predominantly rely on their social networks to navigate the informal economy. While there are problems associated with hiring a family member e. Observation of the wholesale diamond market indicates that these close ties, through family, community, and religious affiliation, provide insurance that is necessary to facilitate the transactions in the market.
If any member of this community defected through substituting other stones or through stealing stones in his temporary possession, he would lose family, religious and community ties. The strength of these ties makes possible the transactions in which trustworthiness is taken for granted and trade can occur with ease. Crews with large rutas of clients or more, for instance, service between 10 to 15 homes per day. For the trabajador, strong ties may represent both positive employment and negative work- related exploitation outcomes.
On the other hand, these same strong ties may represent constraints on the trabajador, who works long hours and weekends for low pay. Cameron , vividly summarizes the plight of the average trabajador: By any measure, their work does not pay well. He works eight to twelve hours a day, six days a week, and all without overtime, paid vacation, or health insurance.
If he does not work, then he does not get paid. The client benefits from this unequal relationship by taking advantage of a cheap labor source to service and maintain his or her yard. Middle-class clients in particular benefit from the low-cost services provided by paid gardeners, since they especially men can pursue other opportunities in lieu of doing yard work. This situation can also be applied to middle-class households who employ domesticas, where the clients especially women free themselves of domestic work, such as cleaning their home or caring for their children at a relatively low cost, to pursue other opportunities Hondagneu-Sotelo , ; Mattingly , Joaquin Success Story Like many immigrants from underdeveloped countries, Joaquin Mejia entered the labor market at a very young age in Sinaloa, Mexico.
Joaquin, 85, vii learned the hard lessons of manual labor as a temporary farmer worker in the Untied States during the Bracero Program viii of the mids, before presently immigrating to the United States in the early s. During the early s, Joaquin moved to West Los Angeles WLA and entered the paid gardening trade with the support of his wife, who worked as a domestica.
After purchasing a truck and a few tools, Joaquin gradually established his own gardening business. As a result, he hired a few trabajadores and had two crews operating simultaneously throughout the WLA area. Through his successful business, Joaquin frequently took his family on vacations to Mexico.
He was also able to help his extended family members both in the U. Furthermore, Joaquin and his wife also managed to send their three children to parochial private schools. While Joaquin can be credited with establishing a successful business without formal education and limited English skills, his entire family contributed to his business success. Not only did his wife work on weekends so he could purchase his first work truck, she also prepared his meals, washed his clothes and nurtured him when ill.
In addition, his oldest son worked as his assistant trabajador during the weekends and summer breaks. Lastly, in addition to helping their father with his business invoices, all three children served as translators between Joaquin and his clients. Shortly before retiring, Joaquin took on a full time job as a gardener for an exclusive residential colony in WLA in order to qualify for Social Security and other retirement benefits.
While he maintained his ruta to supplement his income for several years, Joaquin eventually gifted his ruta to a trabajador as a gesture of appreciation for many years of hard work and dedication. Although Joaquin represents only a select group of successful, self-employed gardeners, his story is important since it illustrates how an individual with a lack of formal education and limited English skills can succeed in the U.
Like many successful gardeners, Joaquin relied on his family and co-ethnic friends strong ties to help build his gardening business. By hiring trustworthy trabajadores from his hometown region in Mexico, for example, Joaquin was able to enjoy family vacations to Mexico without the fear of someone stealing his clients. Also, the fact that he established a good rapport with his clients weak ties enabled Joaquin to expand his business operations and provide his children with educational opportunities he never enjoyed while working at a very young age in Mexico.
While stereotyped on television, Hollywood movies, and mainstream media as ignorant, second-class citizens, Mexican gardeners provide intelligent, productive members of society. They not only provide individual homeowners and other clients with valuable services, but also to the general public by contributing to a greener, cleaner and more beautiful environment. Moreover, by looking beyond the surface, we can see how these individuals represent sophisticated workers and entrepreneurs who managed to carve a niche for themselves in an unregulated market. By accessing their social capital and networks, successful Mexican gardeners generate opportunities for themselves that are not available in the formal market.
Despite lacking formal education and fluent English skills, someone like Joaquin, with the support of his wife and children, can achieve the American Dream. Are poor Mexican immigrants and other marginalized groups better off in the informal economy versus the formal market given their limited educational background and English language skills?
How can planners and others intervene in this trade to protect novice gardeners like Gregory Rodriguez, as noted above and reported in the Los Angeles Times Quinones , who died while trimming a tree without proper protection and training? Should the properly owner be held responsible for hiring someone without proper permits and training or should the state provide free training courses to this workforce? These few questions require additional research to better understand this informal service sector in order to deal with the important issues that policy makers, planning scholars and practitioners need to seriously consider.
Briggs, Xavier de Souza. Easy beauty or meaningful resource? Cameron, Christopher David Ruiz. Castells, Manuel and Alejandro Portes. The origins, dynamics, and effects of the informal economy. Studies in advanced and less developed countries, ed. Benton, 11 — Methodological reflections based on fieldwork in Mexico and the U. Hopeful workers, marginal jobs: Mexican American labor, — University of New Mexico Press. A network theory revisited. Japanese American gardeners in Southern California. Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: A case study of Latino gardeners organizing in Los Angeles.
A history of an American obsession. In History of the Okinawans in Northern America, trans. Ben Kobashigawa, — Los Angeles Business Journal. Examples of common occupations for L. The household service economy and the landscape of suburban fear. Simon, - The case of paid household work in San Diego, California. Domestic service and international networks for caring labor. Low tech, labor intensive businesses jeopardized by leaf blower ban. The challenge for unions in contemporary California. Milkman, Ruth and Kim Vos, eds.. Organizing and organizers in the new movement. Entrepreneurship, informality and home gardening in South Texas.
An exploratory study of the labor market for gardeners in South Texas. Cross-border work in south Texas. Portes, Alejandro and Saskia Sassen-Koob. Comparative material on the informal sector in Western market economies. Between new developments an old regulations. The obsessive quest for the perfect lawn.
Japanese gardeners in Southern California, — In Labor immigration under capitalism: Lucie Cheng and Edna Bonacich, — University of California Press. The development of an ethnic trade. Immigrants in contract gardening. Japanese American Gardeners in Southern California, ed. Naomi Hirahara, 66 — August 15, — December 19, Day laborers in Southern California: Preliminary findings from day laborer survey. Day labor in the United States.
West Indian immigrant dreams and American realities. Mexican immigrant labor in Silicon Valley. Endnotes i See Thorstein Veblen. Latinos represent over 75 percent of the total population. The neighborhood was the most prosperous when inhabited by northern Europeans and continued with the influx of southern Europeans during the s, until the turn of the 20th century.
Though the community experienced significant development until thes, an abrupt decline in the s was initiated by a national economic depression from which Oak Park never recovered. The outmigation of affluent, Euro- American residents took with them the tax base, political and social networks, and economic power that historically maintained the neighborhood.
A study on the redlining and mortgage lending practices in the Sacramento area indicated a distribution disparity of mortgage loans. The Oak Park neighborhood falls directly into this geographic designation. The redlined neighborhood and its inability to maintain and attract businesses and homeowners led to a continual decline which coincided with an increase in crime. Statement of Purpose The purpose of this research is to: In order to better understand how this redevelopment project will impact the social, political, economic, and demographic future of Oak Park it is important to know: Literature Review The following literature review focuses on several issues that provide insight into the gentrifying causes and implications of local governmental redevelopment policy, including: Although there are a multitude of gentrification-related topics, this review of the literature places a stronger emphasis on policy and market oriented issues and to a lesser degree on social issues, such as social division and community conflict, though these issues are equally important.
The reinvestment in historically disenfranchised urban neighborhoods and the subsequent influx of the middle- and upper-classes into the urban core have changed the urban landscape. Scholars of urban policy refer to this process as gentrification. The term, first coined by Ruth Glass , p. As the definitions indicate, gentrification has a significant impact on neighborhoods. Connections Between Public Policy and Gentrification According to Atkinson , governments do not consider how their redevelopment efforts may initiate and support gentrification in urban, low-income neighborhoods once their redevelopment goals are met.
Redevelopment efforts change the ecology of neighborhoods, typically a change that does not embrace low-income residents and threatens their tenure in the commmunity. Following is a discussion that expands on the question of why local governments neglect to scrutinize any gentrifying characteristics that may arise from their redevelopment policies. A study conducted by Newman revealed that local governments have little incentive to assist low- income residents during the redevelopment of their neighborhoods because they are not the targeted consumers of private investment.
Once the rent gap or difference between the actual and potential property value has substantially grown, investment capital begins to flow back into a neighborhood in the form of redevelopment. According to Kennedy and Leonard , this newly viable market serves as a natural phenomenon, and provides a high rate of economic return Smith, As these studies reveal, such redevelopment in low-income urban neighborhoods is done to provide amenities and a physical upgrade of the housing stock for the in-migrating middle- and upper-classes.
However, the redevelopment paints a different picture when posed with the following question: Gentrification and Displacement Displacement of the urban poor is the most contested and controversial of all implications in regards to gentrification. A national housing report prepared by the Department of Housing and Urban Redevelopment, defined displacement as: This removal is accomplished with rent inflation, increased housing prices, and illegal eviction strategies by landlords who are quick to re-convert rental properties into single family homes or condominiums et al.
Who will pay the social cost, and at what price? Although it is known that such displacement occurs with low-income residents, policy makers need to critically analyze the impact of redevelopment upon these residents. Contrary to these findings, Freeman and Braconi , p. These studies on Euro-American affluent gentrification point to the vulnerability of neighborhood low-income residents and their susceptibility to displacement.
Primary sources were utilized to make links with the most current literature relevant to the study of gentrification. In addition, key informant interviews with representatives from several local government agencies were audio-recorded and transcribed, representatives included as the Southern Area Director and Redevelopment Planner of the SHRA, and the Area Director and Neighborhood Services Coordinator for the Neighborhood Services Department Area 3 for the City of Sacramento.
The researcher reviewed policy documents related to the redevelopment project and interviewed key informants in order to gain a better understanding of how the initiative is affecting the community of Oak Park. Statistical data from the Decennial Census and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Census reports for track-level reports 18, 27, and 37 data from all three track-level reports were averaged together were utilized to obtain the demographics of the Oak Park redevelopment area.
Findings and Discussion The researcher chose to focus on the redevelopment policy of Oak Park to create a clearer conceptual framework of gentrification processes and, in particular, to examine the case of Oak Park in order to examine the real material conditions and components of this process, which have serious consequences for people in urban neighborhoods. Here the researcher will reintroduce the conceptual framework into the discussion of the gentrification processes of Oak Park discussed in the methodology section.
Though the framework components are sequential, many, but not all, happen simultaneously. As depicted in Figure 1, each component is connected to one another. Gentrification has a cyclical pattern and hierarchical structure with several stages. The process begins and ends with a dominate, Euro-American neighborhood. This new neighborhood was developed with an elaborately distinct architectural style, such as Victorian Queen Ann, craftsman, vernacular, and bungalow homes.
This is an early indication that developers envisioned a middle and upper class neighborhood Simpson, But by the s and s, Oak Park entered a transitional period. Community in Transition The next stage in the cycle of gentrification is neighborhood change. This was a result of the construction of Years Highway 99, which divided the Oak Park neighborhood 80 in two: Decline of the Community and the Rise of Renters Figure 3.
Decennial As the in-migration of ethnic minorities Families Individuals increased, the Oak Park neighborhood began a steady decline which produced a dominate renting class. The figures 35 show that over the span of thirty years, the number of 42 home owners steadily decreased as the renting Figure 2. Decennial Census 41 Years population emerged as a large majority. As shown, Oak Park has become a magnet for renters. Following the discussion, the researcher also Figure 4.
Of additional importance is the discussion of renters in Oak Park. Analysis of this information suggests that although the wages of the renting population have been increasing, more of their income is going towards rent. The wages of renters are increasing in wages but they cannot keep up with the rising rent costs. These symptoms are producing conditions for further gentrification. Yet this process begs the questions: These two polices are shaping the material conditions and processes of the gentrification of Oak Park.
The analysis of the policy suggests that the redevelopment initiatives are not geared towards the interests of the low-income renter, but for the interest of the middle and upper classes. In conjunction with the St. All of these redevelopment projects are strictly aimed in attracting middle and upper classes, while providing sheik amenities. SHRA has also renovated several historic Victorian homes as a means of providing a redevelopment catalyst for private redevelopment. With all these gentrifying factors including: Limitations This study was limited to a six-month time period, yet it raises issues policymakers at the local level need to address when they consider a redevelopment plan in historic, urban, and low- income neighborhoods.
In addition, the researcher would have conducted an investigation of adjacent communities to reveal any diffusion of gentrification, interview the director of the St. As described throughout the research, the SHRA has utilized its redevelopment policies and encouraged strategic investment strategies to act as catalysts for gentrification. The larger themes of gentrification illustrated by the conceptual framework see figure1 , such as out-migration, and in-migration of residents, community decline, as well as the policy initiatives that put a premium on redeveloping for the middle and upper classes rather than protecting the housing tenure of the renting poor, suggests a failure of public policy fostering an inclusive and sustainable neighborhood for all Oak Park residents.
Racial Tension Erupts in Sacramento. Retrived May 25, from www. The evidence of the impact of gentrification: New lessons for the urban renaissance? European Journal of Housing Policy, 4 1 , Journal of the America Planning Association, Vol. Gentrification, housing redifferentiation and urban regeneration: Journal of Urban Studies, Vol. In the face of gentrification: Case studies of local efforts to mitigate displacement. Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City. Redlining and mortgage lending in Sacramento. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.
Residential mobility in gentrifying neighborhoods. Urban Affairs Review, Vol. Islands of decay in seas of renewal: Housing policy and the resurgence of gentrification. Gentrification, housing policy, and the new context of urban redevelopment. Critical Perspectives on Urban Redevelopment, Vol. Dealing with neighborhood change: A primer on gentrification and Policy Choices. Retrieved April 16, , from http: A reappraisal of gentrification: Government policy, the local state, and gentrification: The case of Prenzlauer Berg Berlin , Germany.
Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol. The new middle class and the remaking of the central city. Newark, decline, and avoidance and desire: From disinvestment to reinvestment. The right to stay put, revisited: Gentrification and resistance to displacement in New York City.
Redevelopment in Oak Park: Gentrification in West Broadway? Contested space in a Wimmipeg inner city neighborhood. Toward a theory of gentrification: A back to the city movement by capital not people. Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. Gentrification and the rent gap. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. The new urban frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city. New globalism, new urbanism: Gentrification as global urban strategy.
The Power of Place Introduction Site-specific art, termed earthworks or land art, developed in s and early s in response to concern over the natural environment and as a critique of overtly commercial exhibition practices employed by galleries and museums. Due to the remote location and ephemerality of many of these environmental installations, documentary photography became an integral element of the artistic process and often created the only record of the artworks.
The concern with space, location, place, and site has continued to engage artists and theorists since the s. Curator and art critic Lucy Lippard considers the notions of space and place in The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society. She differentiates the two terms by suggesting that place implies intimacy, a familiarity with a certain geographic location. In contrast, Lippard proposes that space refers to a physical site, often understood as landscape or nature. Like Lippard, French Jesuit scholar and cultural critic Michel de Certeau considers the production of meaning in particular geographic locations.
Lippard, The Lure of the Local: New Press, , University of California Press, , However, some elements of his argument, especially his notion of how everyday practices create a text as part of the transformation of space into place, create effective tools for exploring the interactions between people and places. Contemporary Chicana photographers Laura Aguilar, Kathy Vargas, and Delilah Montoya have produced extensive bodies of work during the past four decades that investigate the body, land, memory, and the issues of identity formation 6 in relationship to location.
The Trail of Thirst These theoretical constructs support an excavation of the multiple meanings of the sites and bodies portrayed in these works. Aguilar has a condition known as dysphonetic or auditory dyslexia. Difficulty in sounding out words phonetically interferes with the development of reading skills as well. Aguilar remained unaware for many years of her learning challenge, due to the inability of the Los Angeles public school system to adequately diagnose it.
Her auditory dyslexia made correct spoken pronunciation difficult and many people did not understand her when she spoke. He lent her his camera, taught her how to develop exposed film in the darkroom, and helped her make prints from negatives. Aguilar later studied photography at various colleges and photography workshops throughout the southwest. However, she remains a largely self-taught artist.
Like the Chicana photographers I discuss in this essay, Aguilar has produced a body of work that takes the human figure as its central form of inquiry. Some of the best-known images from her early work include the Latina Lesbian Series begun in In much of this work, the women look unswervingly at the camera and engage the viewer with a direct gaze. In addition, Aguilar pushes the art historical genre of portraiture into a distinct expression by using handwritten text as an integral aspect of the image. Two resources that have influenced my thinking include Deena J. University of Arizona Press, New American Feminist Photographies Philadelphia: Temple University Press, She died in of cancer at age Vargas marks the photograph with text and draws on the print to emphasize particular areas of the image.
In this piece, the artist moves seamlessly into self-portraiture and places her body in the center of the triptych, or three-part work. Mexican and US flags appear on either side of her. As she grew up, many people did not connect Laura with her mother based on their visual appearance. Living Chicana Theory, ed. Third Woman Press, , Mexican American Museums in the Diaspora Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, , In a later publication, Jones investigates how the photographic practice of the self-portrait raises questions of life, death, subjectivity, and meaning-making in the representation of gendered, raced, and sexed subjects.
Journal of Women and Culture in Society 27, no. Here Aguilar connects landscape and the female form to the point where these elements merge, the human body becoming earth, land, terrain. The face of the individual is noticeably absent, covered purposefully with a graceful flow of hair or turned resolutely away from the camera. Female bodies become sculptural shapes that respond to the rhythmic line of motion created by upright trees and their serpentine branches.
In Motion 46 Fig. Much as we might wish, unclothed cavorting in nature may not be a typical daily endeavor for many of us. Lippard extends her definition of place stating, Place is about connections, what surrounds it, what formed it, what happened there, what will happen there…A lived-in landscape becomes a place, which implies intimacy; a once lived-in landscape can be a place, if explored, or remain a landscape, if simply observed.
The women in front of the camera, as well as the one behind the lens, did more than merely observe this landscape. One easily imagines a lengthy photo shoot with a sequence of poses proposed by the talent and the artist. A pathway may remain invisible and 12 Telephone conversation with the artist, March 19, Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society, 7. But this site, now transformed from space into place, links conceptually to other locations depicted in the series and therefore produces a network of interconnection.
Laura Aguilar, Motion 46, , Gelatin silver print, 16 in. Tierra, Identidad, Antepasados Kathy Vargas epitomizes a locally lived life connected to both place and community. Born in in San Antonio, Texas, Vargas grew up as the only child of loving parents. Vargas reigned as the center of familial attention in the family home on Martin Luther King Drive where she still lives today.
At this time, she abandoned outdoor photography and moved inside the studio. The artist began to stage small scenes from elements of interest, often objects found in her daily excursions. Like Laura Aguilar, she experimented with the placement of text directly on the photographic surface as well as further manipulation of the photographic image through hand coloring.
Significantly, much of her photographic production began to reference land, memory, and place as predominant concerns.
Why Río Wang?
Consequently in , Vargas produced a photographic series titled My Alamo. The Alamo reigns as cultural icon of the fierce Texas spirit of individuality and drive for independence from Mexico, and simultaneously exists as a multi-layered symbol of mission, shrine, war monument, museum, and commercial commodity.
In the work, Vargas embeds the racialized, female body within the landscape of this specific regional site. Photographs, San Antonio: Flores, Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol Austin: Ramos, Beyond the Alamo: University of North Carolina Press, She declares that she possesses the site; she marks the location with her presence and claims the local territory as her own.
I discuss a single photograph from the twelve images that comprise the work, the first print. In this print, the artist articulates her ancestral connection to the Alamo and marks the site with indigenous and familial presence. When Mexican President and General Santa Anna approached San Antonio in mid-February of to quell its revolutionary rumblings, he forcibly conscripted Tejanos into his existing military force. Juan Vargas was one of these suddenly made soldiers. Juan participated in the Battle of the Alamo armed with the only weapon the Mexican army thought appropriate, a broom.
Kathy Vargas, My Alamo, , Hand colored gelatin silver print, 20 in.
The artist depicts her ancestor as a non-violent actor at the Alamo, vigorously cleaning up after the battle, relegated to this task by phenotype and ethnicity Fig. The artist illustrates layers of information generally invisible or absent in popular representations of the site, including the presence of women of color and indigenous peoples.
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Her portrayal of the previously unacknowledged presence of these groups serves to contest existing narrations and claims the Alamo as personal, intimate, and familial place. Montoya is one of four female siblings, the mother of daughter Lucy, who recently completed her medical degree, and a grandmother of three. Although born in northern Texas, and named after a bar her parents passed while driving through the vast expanses of West Texas, she grew up in the dirty, impoverished, and noxious smelling stockyard district of Omaha, Nebraska.
She spent the first two decades of her life in the Midwest before permanently relocating to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in s. She graduated with deficits in both reading and writing. To support herself and her daughter, Montoya earned an Associate of Arts degree in commercial photography and art in the late s. She then worked as a medical photographer at the University of New Mexico for ten years, while pursuing her undergraduate education and two advanced degrees in Studio Art.
After teaching on the east coast for a number of years, Montoya joined the faculty at the University of Houston in and currently serves as a tenured professor of photography and digital media. In her creative work, Montoya, like Kathy Vargas, first recorded the world and people around her in black-and-white images. The artist conceived and executed the work in collaboration with Orlando Lara, then one of her students at the University of Houston.
In , Montoya and Lara traveled to the Arizona-Mexico border and photographed routes taken by workers passing through the Sonoran 18 Straight photography developed during the mids in response to Pictorialism, a movement that closely imitated the aesthetics of painting as a means to validate photography as a fine art. In contrast, straight photographers believed that photography inherently possessed its own distinct aesthetic and that photographs should be made without any modifications during capture or print processes.
Ondine Chavoya, Women Boxers: The New Warriors Houston: One of the most poignant items that graced the altar was a single red and black cowboy boot, the size that would fit a three-year old child. Montoya brought to life a complete experiential environment for the spectator. In this most recent version of the show, the artist eliminated the video and the altar and instead, surrounded viewers with colorful large-scale panoramic images of the desert landscape, the trails that crisscross its terrain, and the artifacts that constitute a human life littered in the land along the trail.
At the Patricia Correia showing, the exhibition design enclosed the viewing public in every direction with images of border landscape. This comprehensive visual embrace combined with the sheer scale of the photographs dramatically heightened their power. In Migrant Campsite, the photographer plays with the ideas of presence and absence.
Unlike Aguilar and Vargas, Montoya does not openly depict the human figure. The image shows debris, traces of human interaction, that lingers in the desert after workers have moved on. This residue represents the person now absent from the space, and yet physically marks the location with their continuing presence. Duke University Press, , Forms, Agencies, and Discourse, ed. Sorell, and Genaro M. Sorell, "Behold Their Natural Affinities: Tufts University Gallery, , Their presence provokes questions. Is this their temporary shelter? Do the items belong to them? Montoya leaves these questions unanswered.
Poetas uruguayos en Festival de poesía de Nueva Orleans
In the powerful composition Hills, the artist records an uneven pattern of small mountainous slopes against a desert sky. Desert brush and cactus compose the mid-and foreground of the image, while a well-worn path arcs through the left-hand side. Following Certeau, the trace left behind reveals the practice, the daily lived reality of migrating.
The trails taken by the migrants traverse the landscape. With each weary step, the travelers etch their lives directly into the earth. Individual tribal members placed plastic containers of water along the trail as an act of mercy and in an attempt to reduce deaths along these dangerous corridors.
The translucent water jugs glow eerily against the textures of tree, cacti, and rock. Their placement orders the path and indicates the next step in the journey. The tragedy and triumph of these important human stories change an isolated and perhaps forbidding space into an unforgettable place. A brief overview of their lives and art production contextualized the later discussion of particular images that reveal how simple everyday acts, such as walking, sweeping, or watching a parade, leave both metaphorical and literal traces in the terrain.
In their work, each of the artists has transformed space or geographic location into place, something intimately known, something that holds human history, something of great power. The traces that we and others leave in the landscape change it forever and reveal the power of place. Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society, Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space, Duke University Press, The Practice of Everyday Life.
University of California Press, Mexican American Museums in the Diaspora. University of New Mexico Press, Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol. University of Texas Press, Hurtado, Aida, and Patricia Gurin. The Work of Laura Aguilar. Self-Portrait Photography as a Technology of Embodiment.
One Place after Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. The Lure of the Local: New American Feminist Photographies. Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, Remapping American Cultural Studies, Tufts University Gallery, Investing the Body with the Virgin's Miraculous Image. Forms, Agencies, and Discourse, edited by Francisco A.
Third Woman Press, Few imagine a Stetson-sporting vaquero as a representative figure of the contemporary Latin music scene. Yet this is the visual style associated with what is by far the largest-selling Latin genre in the U. These include the mariachi and ranchera sounds most people identify with Mexican national culture. These song forms stem from pre-industrial folk music traditions, and often evoke a pastoral, agrarian past.
Many artists infuse their music with an urbane sensibility, and sometimes even a hip-hop swagger, as is the case with narcocorridos — gritty ballads about gangsta-style drug smuggling antiheroes. A reflection of transnational realities, Mexican regional artists today typically have to do well in the States before they hit it big south of the border Kun Here in the U.
Yet despite its massive U. The music receives little promotional backing from record labels and garners the fewest licensing and sponsorship deals of all Latin genres, despite the fact that it outsells them all. To unaccustomed ears, the blaring brass, polka beats, and waltzing accordions underlying so many regional styles sound either like circus music or Lawrence Welk showtunes. But to the majority of entertainment executives, this image plays into xenophobic stereotypes of Mexicans as illegal aliens, impoverished peasants, and dirty day laborers. Within the music industry, the subordination of Mexican regional music and the privileging of tropicalismo are quite literally structured into corporate organization.
Most Latin music departments exist outside the domestic operations of major record labels, which have New York or L. In Miami, Mexican regional artists are handled by record executives more attuned to salsa-inflected Latin pop or overtly Caribbean forms of music like son, bachata, cumbia, and reggaeton — styles favored more commonly by East Coast Latinos who are primarily of Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, and Colombian descent. In her study of Hispanic advertising, Latinos, Inc. Although many of these cultural gatekeepers may be Latino, rarely are they Chicanos with insider knowledge of working-class Mexican-American tastes and sensibilities.
In the music field, Cuban ex-pats Gloria and Emilio Estefan are still dominant players, ensuring the industry remains firmly entrenched in Miami. Although Latinos comprise the fastest-growing segment of the U. Unfortunately, this is everything Mexican regional music and its fans are thought not to be. In reality, fans of the genre spend significant hard-earned cash on CDs, concerts, and related merchandise, suggesting that further investment in the music would pay dividends for media companies.
In reality the format matches hip-hop and reggaeton in terms of popularity among urban Latino youth. Nearly 60 percent of Mexican regional radio listeners are between 18 and 34 years old — the age range considered the most desirable demographic in the corporate realm Clemens Some companies have begun to shift their geographic locus as well as cultural orientation from Miami to Los Angeles, home to the second-largest concentration of Mexicanos in the world. Univision Music has always been based in L. And the Mexican influence on Latin culture is huge.
We don't want to put a flag on the channel, but we do want to address reality. Companies attempting to reach Latino youth without Mexican music are floundering. Reggaeton presents an interesting new twist on the decades-old tropicalist dynamics of the Latin music industry.
Although the genre stems from Caribbean traditions, it resonates with pan-Latino youth through the common generational language of hip-hop. The over-reliance on reggaeton reveals an ongoing refusal to recognize the cultural values of U. Thus, the hottest-selling genre of Latin music remains ghettoized in broadcast barrios and ethnic retail aisles, kept from contaminating market-friendly island fantasies.
Transcultural Representations of Latinidad. La Prensa San Diego, Sept. Shakira as the Idealized, Transnational Citizen: A Case Study of Colombianidad in Transition. Latino Studies 1 2: The Sound that Sells. Marketing y Medios, Dec.
Ralph Adamo
Billboard 33 , Aug. Billboard 34 , Sept. The Marketing and Making of a People. U of California P. The New York Times, May Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. The Politics of Panza Positive Cultural Production, a Performance The initials throughout this essay correspond to the following names: We, like you, have been to a number of conferences, and we want to acknowledge factors that often go unmarked.
We want to thank everyone for attending this session among the many offerings at this hour. Jamie Bernstein is a writer and entertainer from New Orleans. He moved to New Orleans from West Virginia in seeking inspiration. Upon finding a wellspring of primordial energy from which to create art and music he made New Orleans his permanent home. Jamie began performing in New Orleans as a spoken word poet and has since appeared on stage, and in Television and Film. He regularly performs with the country and western band The Hill Country Hounds, and as a solo artist.
He lives in Mid-City with his wife, artist, Muffin Bernstein and their two dogs. For a decade he reviewed books for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A writer and visual artist, Kristy Bowen is the author of several book, chapbook and zine projects, including salvage Black Lawrence Press, , major characters in minor films Sundress Publications, , the shared properties of water and stars Noctuary Press, , and girl show Black Lawrence Press, Her seventh full-length collection, little apocalypse , is due out from Noctuary Press in His work also appears in Earth, Water and Sky: Brown is a Ph.
Megan Burns is the publisher at Trembling Pillow Press. She has two recent chapbooks: Her third book, Commitment , was published in Presently, he is pursuing a PhD at Cornell University, where he studies experimental poetics and the pastoral. The 80s were a dark time full of fears of nuclear annihilation and environmental disaster and characterized by an utter lack of faith in a political process that was dominated by capital and decadent corporate oligarchs.
Out of this nihilistic atmosphere punk rock was born. What better time, then, to resurrect the genre than today, which makes the 80s seem like a utopian dream of liberalism. The Call Girls are here to do exactly that, and give you a chance to dance hard enough to forget the news you heard this morning, with a repertoire that includes classics from that Golden Age plus lots and lots of originals. Poet and NOPF co-founder Bill Lavender writes the songs and sings them as best he can; poet Chris Shipman works out his frustration on the drums; guitar maestro Eldon Silva cranks the fuzz leads; and the inimitable CDitty expresses her inner self on the bass.
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The Texas Observer recognized him as being one of the top five writers in He has also co-written a conversation book, Nuev s Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue about New Chican Poetics. Currently, he has a new book of poems, Twitter Poems, a bilingual edition and a second volume of the Outrage anthology series. Come back river , a bilingual Bengali-English translation collaboration with the poet and artist Debangana Banerjee is available from Finishing Line Press.
His work assisting non-profit organizations produced over 20 chapbooks for workshop participants. He is also a managing editor for Interstice , the literary arts journal of South Texas College. You can find Isaac in Alton, TX. Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. Citchens is a Mississippi Delta born, New Orleans based writer of fiction. Her work covers themes of race, identity, sexuality, personal triumph and liberation, and magic. Gabrielle Civil is a black feminist performance artist, originally from Detroit MI. She has guest-edited and contributed to special issues of Aster ix and Obsidian.
The aim of her work is to open up space. In , her poems were translated into the Swedish. She lives in San Francisco where she teaches, windsurfs, and snowboards with her homeschooled children. Moira Crone is the author of three collections of stories and three novels. Dick Award for Science Fiction paperback of the year. Her writers have appeared over forty magazines including Image, The New Yorker, The Oxford American and in over three dozen anthologies.
Claire Cronin is a poet and songwriter currently living in Athens, GA. He is the founding editor of Big Lucks Books and a halfway decent cook. He holds a M. Read more [ here ]. Her critical poetics essays can be found in How2 ; Something on Paper; and Ethos: More info can be found at jilldarling. Follow her on Twitter fromthistles or Tumblr http: A Post-Queer Nation Zine. She lives in Colorado. Timothy Dyke lives with parrots in Honolulu, Hawaii.
He teaches high school students and writes poems, essays and stories. His chapbook, Awkward Hugger , was published by Tinfish Press in Tinfish will also publish his collection of linked prose poems, The Homosexual Agenda , in Timothy is currently working on a collection of stories. She is the author of huminsect , prism maps , Pigtail Duty , the leaves the leaves, green glass asterisms, and several other chapbooks.
More of her work can be found www. Rushelle Frazier is a permaculture designer, gardener, herbalist, teacher, spoken word and visual artist based in Worcester, MA. Born in Queens, NY, she has been involved with for the past decade, hosting poetry readings, workshops, and other cultural events throughout the East coast. She is currently the writer-in-residence and Literary Arts Director at Sundress Academy for the Arts where she works closely with visiting poets and an entire herd of sheep. How We Bury Our Dead, a poetry collection, was recently released by.
She also writes creative nonfiction and short stories. Her work has appeared in The Alalitcom, Negative Capability. An ArtPrize Anthology , among others. Her degree is in English from. She has two daughters and twin granddaughters. Susana Gardner is the author of the full-length poetry collection: The Geraniums are a nonconforming New Orleans band known for rare and riveting shows. Together for nearly twenty years, Gallagher and Treffinger have honed their trades with Rene Coman bass , Daemon Shea drums and Tom Marron violin and harmonica.
The Geraniums are the kind of music you should like. While only two records have hit the streets, The Geraniums have a considerable library of recorded material that will now be made public. It is hard to keep the record in stock. She lives in Denver. He divides his time between southwest Florida and western Pennsylvania. Chloe Hanson is a Ph. She enjoys expensive beer, cheap wine, and forcing her dog to wear homemade costumes.
Her poems have been published most recently in Torch Literary Magazine. Sustaining the Sacred Post-Katrina showcases her talent as a producer and researcher. Some of her other publishing credits include: Poems for James Brown and many more. Poems to Stretch the Sky. She lives in Houston. Has written three novels, all of them translated into several languages: He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Tulane, in New Orleans.
His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, anthologies, and college textbooks, including The Bloomsbury Review , Columbia Poetry Review , Highway Jeffrey Higgins is a poet, filmmaker, and sort-of musician from rural central Illinois, currently living in southeast Texas. Jade Hurter is a poet and teacher living in New Orleans. Her most recent book, Remembering Animals was published by Nightboat Books in She lives in Seattle and online at laurenireland.
Tim Jones-Yelvington is a Chicago-based author, multimedia artist and nightlife personality. He lives and works in New Orleans. Visit his website at http: She lives, works, writes, and makes Montessori materials in Athens, GA. Her translations include The Invisible Bridge: A Bilingual Anthology of Environmental Poetry. She is a contributing editor for The Wanderer and an editor at smoking glue gun. You can find her online at www. Bill Lavender is a poet, novelist, musician, carpenter and publisher living in New Orleans. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in dozens of print and web journals and anthologies, with theoretical writings appearing in Contemporary Literature and Poetics Today , among others.
His novel, Q , a neo-picaresque view of the surreal world of the future, appeared from Trembling Pillow in A chapbook, surrealism , was published in by Lavender Ink. His Amazon author page lists most of his books. Read an interview with Bill about his poetics and about the press at Jacket2.
Readings and interviews can be accessed through PennSound: Selected Essays She currently lives in Los Angeles. She can be found online at http: She has been a soprano, a lyricist, an art and design magazine editor, a philosophical counselling assistant, and a cowherd. Poems East of La Mancha. Her poems have been featured in various art exhibits, and in a Radiophrenia Glasgow broadcast. Visit her website for more information. Whether digging into her Louisiana roots and tapping her boots to an original honky-tonk tune or emoting alongside wailing electric guitars in a consuming 90s-esque, alt-rock trance, Kelcy Mae undoubtedly sings from the heart, which—to the benefit of audiences—is often right on her sleeve.
She has been published in a number of journals including Waccamaw , Hobart , and Big Lucks.