Gregg Barrios : Cantinflas 101 in San Antonio

Dia de los Muertos altar honors the memory of Cantinflas at San Antonio retrospective. Photo by Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog.
Catinflas 101:
Don Mario's silent empire

Known for his 'little tramp' outfit of patched, baggy pants, rope belt, tattered vest, straw hat, and a slim mustache, Cantinflas personified the Mexican 'peladito,' an everyman.

By Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog / November 5, 2012

SAN ANTONIO -- On a recent afternoon in San Antonio’s Market Square, a German tourist asked one of the vendors for a uniquely Mexican souvenir. After pointing to a plethora of Aztec calendars and rebozos, the vendor produced a ceramic Cantinflas.

“Es muy mexicano, es único,” she said. Behind her, a display shelf held dozens of Cantinflas figures depicting roles that had made the actor famous. A short legend was inscribed below the figure of Cantinflas as a doctor: “I’ll cure you of whatever ails you.” The tone in español is almost picaresque.

The tourist asked if the shopkeeper had statues of other national heroes.

“Solamente Benito Juárez y la virgen de Guadalupe,” she replied.

The German took the Cantinflas.

This year marks the 101st anniversary of the beloved comic’s birth, and appropriately the San Antonio Public Library, KLRN and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation celebrated Latino Heritage Month with a long overdue Cantinflas retrospective. In addition to an exhibit of film posters and photos that span his life and times, local library branches screened the lion’s share of his 50-plus films.

Known for his “little tramp” outfit of patched, baggy pants, rope belt, tattered vest, straw hat, and a slim mustache, Cantinflas personified the Mexican “peladito,” an everyman. His use of convoluted, hilarious wordplay was later aped by Abbott and Costello in their “Who’s on First?” routine, and on TV by Professor Erwin Corey, an Anglo legacy that hints at the impact this Mexican comic genius had on Spanish-speaking audiences around the world.

Film purists still insist that Hollywood’s golden age of comedy ended with the talkies. And although Spanish-speaking audiences enjoyed the slapstick comics of Hollywood, their interest waned as movies began to speak in English. That’s when the Mexican film industry took off.

Its most successful star was Mario Moreno, aka Cantinflas. His slight build was perfect for the screen, and fame came quickly, starting with Está es mi tierra (This is My Country) in 1937. His most famous films dealt with the everyday life of a penniless vagabond, el peladito -- not unlike Chaplin’s Little Tramp-- who wore his pants lower than even today's hip-hop standards might allow.

Both comics had worked in the circus and vaudeville and began their film careers in one-reel comedies. After a Los Angeles screening of Cantinflas’ Ni sangre ni arena (Neither Blood Nor Sand), Chaplin called Cantinflas the best living comic in the world. That film’s daring and hilarious bullfighting sequences are especially impressive because Moreno, an amateur bullfighter, did his own stunts.

But Cantinflas was so much more than a physical comedian. There was a method to the madness of his Spanish-language double entendres and verbal nonsense. He befuddled and jabbed at politicians, diplomats, lawmen, and the wealthy in his films. His brand of humor spread like wildfire, so much so that the Real Academia Española added the verb cantinflear -- to speak in a nonsensical manner -- to the dictionary.

The golden age of Mexican cinema began in 1936 and lasted more than 30 years. Latino families made weekly treks to el cine and a new Cantinflas film was often the reason. San Antonians of a certain age still remember when the small comic occasionally appeared at the Alameda theater along with such stars as Jorge Negrete, María Félix, Gloria Marín, Pedro Infante, Dolores Del Río, Pedro Armendáriz, and Tito Guízar.

By the 1950s the era of great Hollywood comics had faded, but Hollywood came courting the populist and popular Cantinflas. His role as Passepartout, David Niven’s valet in Around the World in 80 Days, remains the one high point in the 1956 Best Picture Oscar-winner. Cantinflas also won a Golden Globe for best motion picture actor in a comedy/musical for his role -- beating out Yul Brynner and Marlon Brando.

But when Hollywood attempted to cash in on Moreno’s newfound fame by casting him in as the lead in 1960‘s Pepe, the film bombed. Jorge Camara, vice president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which sponsors the Golden Globes, says the reason for its failure is simple.

“In Around the World in 80 Days, Cantinflas was able to use his physical comedy, something he didn't do in his followup film, Pepe,” Camara said by email. “His genius and one of his greatest talents was the comic way he used (or misused) the Spanish language to fit his character and his situations. That ability, unfortunately, did not translate into English.”

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1980, many downtown movie palaces were programming Spanish-language films to meet the demand of recently arrived immigrants. The new waves of immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua had one thing in common: Cantinflas. Most had grown up watching his comedies. He not only was a first-class film star, but also a cultural hero to his countless fans, especially the working class who identified with el peladito.

Cantinflas lookalike at San Antonio retrospective. Photo by Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog.
But the end was near. The Mexican film industry was beginning to churn out substandard films filled with gratuitous nudity and blue humor.

Writer Sandra Cisneros has kept a ceramic figure of el peladito in her bathroom for nearly 20 years. “Isn’t it from the street that all fashion and pop culture ultimately comes from?” Cisneros asked.

Every time I see someone walking down the street with their pants falling off, I think, mira, hay va Cantinflas. El peladito was ahead of his time for showing his calzones and dragging his pants down to his hips like hip-hop kids do.

Cantinflas is a cultural icon like la virgen de Guadalupe. You have to have an image of the Virgen and Cantinflas whether or not you’re Catholic or have seen his films. They are omnipresent in Chicano culture and in some ways the antithesis of themselves because each one in a sense is god: the Guadalupe is the compassionate face of god, while Cantinflas is a symbol just like the Virgen of the oppressed. For a few moments, he makes you laugh, and if that isn’t God I don’t know what is

For a mural at the Teatro de los Insurgentes in Mexico City, Diego Rivera painted Cantinflas as a Christ figure with an image of the Virgin on his clothing -- a latterday Juan Diego. The mural drew outrage and was later modified and the Guadalupe removed. Today it depicts Cantinflas taking money from the rich and redistributing it to the poor. In real life, Moreno was a co-founder and president of the Mexican actor’s union, ANDA, and funded La Casa del Actor, a haven for needy film industry workers.

Herbert Siguenza, a founding member of the Chicano performance troupe Culture Clash, considers Cantinflas a muse and a hero. Siguenza wrote a one-man show that pays tribute to Moreno, commissioned by Houston’s Alley Theater. Part biography, part comic sketches, his Cantinflas! illustrates el peladito’s influence on comedy today and introduces the character to a new generation that perhaps only knows the him from the animated children’s Cantinflas Show on Spanish-language TV.

“There is a new generation, a second generation of young Latinos growing up, and these kids don’t know who Cantinflas is,” Siguenza said in a recent phone interview. “They know who Will Smith and Jim Carrey are, but I wanted to show them that we also have a comic hero; we have someone who was as big as Charlie Chaplin. And we should remember that. He was one of the first crossover stars that we had.” Still, Siguenza admits it's a hard sell to English-only audiences. “The verbal antics aren’t transferable. It’s like trying to translate Groucho in Chinese.”

In 1983, on assignment for the Los Angeles Times, I interviewed Don Mario in Mexico City two years after what was to be his final film, El Barrendero (The Street Sweeper), which at the time had made more money at the box office than any other Mexican film. He was still upbeat about his art, and expressed a desire to have el peladito cross the border into California to join César Chávez’s farmworkers and perform with Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino.

He spoke of his screen counterpart in the third person:

Cantinflas has changed because he is part of the world, part of the people. We all change. The little guy isn’t the same one from 30 or 40 years ago. He has the same ingenuity, but he is better prepared than he was before to deal with life. He may see the same problems of years ago occur again today, but he sees them from a different perspective. Cantinflas has changed but he still carries the essence of being part of the common people. The clothes he wore before aren’t worn anymore, so he doesn’t wear them, but he’s the same guy underneath. That won’t ever change.

Later, watching his penultimate film, El Patrullero 777 (Patrolman 777), I saw what he meant. His comic style of cantinfleando had morphed into the everyday doublespeak of politicians everywhere. In the film, Moreno portrays a patrolman, but he still sports his signature bigotito, his thin mustache. When his commanding officer asks why he no longer wears his pants low, he retorts: "Todo a subido” (“Everything’s gone up”).

Yet the old Cantinflas, more the social reformer than the social satirist, makes an appearance at the end of the film. In a speech that contains little of el peladito’s double talk, he laments the loss of trust and dignity in public officials in a speech in front of a building named for former Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, under whose orders hundreds of university students were killed during the 1968 protests in Mexico City.

Cantinflas then lifts his gloved hand, echoing a moment during the 1968 Summer Olympics -- also held in Mexico City -- when African-American medalists raised clenched fists in a human-rights salute. By that time, I was in tears.

This article was published at Plaza de Armas and was crossposted to The Rag Blog.

[Gregg Barrios is a journalist, playwright, and poet living in San Antonio. Gregg, who wrote for The Rag in Sixties Austin, is on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. Contact Gregg at gregg.barrios@gmail.com. Read more articles by Gregg Barrios on The Rag Blog.]

• A clip from Cantinflas’ 1940 film Ahí está el detalle (There’s the Rub) with English subtitles, can be seen here.

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Alice Embree : 'Fierce Women' March in San Antonio

Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
International Women’s Day:
'Fierce women' keeping the faith

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 5, 2012

See gallery of photos by Carlos Lowry and Susan Van Haitsma, Below.

SAN ANTONIO -- For the third year I traveled south from Austin to San Antonio to take part in their International Women’s Day march with others from CodePink Austin. It was the twenty-second annual Women’s Day celebration in that city, which has kept the faith better than any city I know of.

The march did not disappoint. A blustery wind whipped against our banner, “Women Say No to War,” when we left from the Grand Hyatt on Saturday, March 3. But the wind died down as we made the now familiar trek to Milam Park and the Plaza del Zacate. CodePink Austin invoked various “Supershero powers” as the contingent marched in costumes, adorned with capes and crowns, and accompanied by a prison-garbed and shackled “war criminal."

The International Women's Day celebration was organized by a coalition of “fierce mujeres” from community and social justice organizations -- union organizers for nurses, hotel workers, and domestic workers, advocates for reproductive choice and LGBTQ rights.

Graciela Sanchez of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, her mother, Isabel Sanchez, two women from Fuerza Unida, and a former councilwoman carried the leadoff banner for the march. Other banners and signs displayed the diversity of causes and issues, calling for an end to NAFTA and to war, defending immigrant rights and decrying the border wall.

Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
The generations ranged from Girl Scout participants and the youth of the Martinez Street Women’s Center to the elders like Graciela Sanchez who have kept this tradition alive for more than two decades. Indigenous dancers and a calavera (skeleton) -clad duo were reminders of the Native American and Mexican ancestry of South Texas.

San Antonio displayed once again its ease with crossing boundaries of race, age, class, national origin, and sexual orientation. The call for the march proclaimed:

We, like women and girls all over the world, are the voices of conscience, the roots of change, and the leaders of local and global movements. We seek healthcare, housing, education, environmental justice, and fair wages, not just as women, but also as people of color, as youth and elders, as immigrants and indigenous people, as lesbian, bisexual, intersex, two-spirit, transgender, and queer women, and as poor and working class people.

We oppose all forms of violence. We advocate for reproductive choice. We call for an end to war, genocide, and occupation. We claim our own voices and come together to share them in public space. We march in solidarity with women and social justice movements around the world.

I hope that we in Austin will again see such a diverse coalition of fierce women. As the Republican primary candidates attempt to dial us back to the 50s, as women’s basic healthcare comes under attack, as women are advised to “hold an aspirin between their knees” as cheap birth control, as Rush Limbaugh hurls accusations of “slut” and “prostitute” at a college student defending access to birth control, the need for outrage and ferocity grows.

Austin musician Marcia Ball is “seeing red” and calling for women (and men) to join her wearing red on the Capitol steps each of the next three Tuesdays -- March 6, 13, and 20 -- from noon until 2 p.m. On March 9 at 7 p.m., a presentation at Austin’s feminist bookstore, BookWoman, will remind us of the beginnings of the women’s movement, with clips from an upcoming movie, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.

Time to let the rage out of the bottle, sisters. I guess it’s the only thing Rush and the two Ricks can understand.

[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist, organizer, and member of the Texas State Employees Union. A former staff member of underground papers, The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement, she is now active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project. Read more articles by Alice Embree on The Rag Blog.]

Also see: "San Antonio: Thousands Rally for International Women's Day," by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2010


Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
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Alice Embree : Texas Actions Mark 100 Years of Celebrating Women

More than 1,000 marched in San Antonio March 5, 2011, to observe International Women's Day. Photos by Susan Van Haitsma (top) and Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
International Women’s Day:
100 years of celebrating women

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 7, 2011

See gallery of photos below.

SAN ANTONIO -- March 8th is International Women’s Day. CodePink and BookWoman are collaborating on an event in Austin to mark this day.

San Antonio observed International Women’s Day on Saturday, March 5, with its 21st annual celebration -- a march of more than 1,000 that embraced issues of reproductive rights, attacks on transgendered people, local union struggles for nurses and hotel workers, and women’s demands for peace and justice. The spirited march through San Antonio culminated with poetry, music, and speeches. CodePink Austin participated for the second year.

I was unaware of International Women’s Day and its roots in U.S. labor struggles until 1970. As the women’s liberation movement was beginning to reshape my consciousness, I participated in a small celebration in the basement of an Austin campus-area church.

The March 8 events gathered scope and were observed throughout the 70s with activities that included women’s theater, skits, and workshops on global struggles for women’s rights from Asia to Iran to Austin. Workshops highlighted gay and lesbian rights and the dual oppression experienced by women of color.

It was a period in which women challenged countless barriers, including those to employment. Women filed lawsuits, or threatened them, to become Austin bus drivers, emergency medical technicians, firefighters, and cable splicers. Out of Austin came the historic legal challenge to abortion laws, Roe V. Wade. Women set up peer counseling services and demanded services for victims of rape and domestic abuse.

International Women’s Day is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. In many countries, it is a national holiday, a time when women and men honor the struggle for equality, justice, and peace. The United Nations has observed March 8 as International Women’s Day since 1975, a year designated by the UN as International Women’s Year.

The idea of an international day for women was advanced by socialist parties in the United States and other countries and propelled by the historic struggles for women’s suffrage and workplace rights at the turn of the century. In 1911, more than one million people attended worldwide rallies demanding the women’s right to vote, hold public office, and organize on the job to end discrimination.

Less than a week after these rallies, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 women garment workers. It was a horrific fire with a devastating loss of life because women had been locked into the building. 100,000 people participated in the funeral march for the women workers. PBS has recently aired a documentary on this event.

In 1912, in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts, 20,000 workers walked out of the mills protesting wage cuts. Most of them were women. The strikers had a committee of 56 representing 27 languages.

The strikers -- mostly immigrant women -- won significant concessions and a placard, “Bread and Roses,” inspired a poem by James Oppenheim that was later set to music by Caroline Kohlsaat. The song, "Bread and Roses," captures the spirit of International Women’s Day.

In 1917, with two million Russian soldiers dead as the result of World War I, women chose the last Sunday in February to strike for “bread and peace.” Four days later, the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on the 23rd of February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on March 8 on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.

Fast forward to today. We can see the legacy of the second wave feminist victories from women’s leadership in countless progressive organizations to a woman president of the Texas AFL-CIO. But we are witnessing historic backlash with assaults on reproductive choice and funding for programs as important as domestic and international family planning.

At the University of Texas, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies was singled out for severe cuts. In Wisconsin, we not only see an assault on workers’ rights, but on teachers -- a field in which women workers are the majority. It is my hope that this International Women’s Day will mark the beginning of an era in which progressive fights converge as effectively as Austin’s pro-choice rally merged with the Wisconsin workers support rally on Saturday, February 26.

The rising of the women is the rising of us all!

[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist, organizer, and member of the Texas State Employees Union. A former staff member of The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement, she is now active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project.]








Peeking through the pink peace symbol above is The Rag Blog's Alice Embree.
International Women's Day in San Antonio. Group of photos above by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog.




Lower group of photos by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
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Dick J. Reavis : How Davy Crockett Really Died

Costumed Klansmen plying their trade. Image from University of North Carolina.
The true story:
David Crockett and the KKK in San Antonio

By Dick J. Reavis / The Rag Blog / June 23, 2010

During a bout of recent microfilm reading in the pages of an old and obscure newspaper, I discovered who killed Davy Crockett and how he died. The story reporting it is below. Perhaps history buffs in San Antonio will be able to help me flesh out this startling Texana find:

SAN ANTONIO, Tex.—David Crockett, 24 year-old jobless white worker, is believed to have been “done away with” by Klansmen, following his disappearance and the finding of his bullet-shattered automobile.

“Warning. We are certain you raised the Ku Klux Klan issue in this campaign,” said a note he received the day before his disappearance. “If you want to remain in good health, tend to your own private business and leave us alone.” The note was signed “K.K.K.”

The issue of the right of Negroes to vote in the Democratic primary has again been raised in this present campaign, with many demanding this right following a U.S. supreme court decision supporting upholding it. Negroes are, nevertheless, still barred from the primaries and the Texas supreme court has upheld this rule.

The trick of this story is revealed in its headline: “K.K.K. ‘Gets’ White Texan.” It is from the Sept. 1934 of the Southern Worker, a newspaper published by the Communist Party in Birmingham, Ala.

It leaves much untold. Who was this David Crockett? A city directory would tell us, and so, too, might copies of the July or August issues of the “boss” dailies in San Antonio. (I am not in Texas. If anyone wants to volunteer to do the library work, I’d be much obliged.)

Maybe David Crockett, the one mentioned here, ought to be a hero for the Left in Texas!

[Dick J. Reavis, a contributor to the original Rag, is a professor in the English department at North Carolina State University. He can be reached at dickjreavis@yahoo.com .]

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San Antonio : Thousands Rally for International Women's Day

More than 2,000 demonstrators celebrated International Women's Day, Saturday, March 6, in San Antonio. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
International Women’s Day:
Multi-ethnic coalition
Celebrates the struggles of women

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2010

SAN ANTONIO -- International Women’s Day, celebrated the world over on March 8th, has its origins in the struggle of women garment workers in the United States. But, like May Day that also commemorates a U.S. labor struggle, International Women’s Day is often ignored in this country.

It’s not ignored in San Antonio, Texas. Continuing a 20-year tradition, a coalition of San Antonio groups celebrated the power of women organizing with a march and rally that drew an estimated crowd of 2,200 on Saturday, March 6. Beginning at the doorstep of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the rally featured Iola Scott, Hyatt employee and member of Unite Here, a union organizing hotel workers in the tourist-intensive district.

Leaving the Hyatt to the beat of indigenous dancers, the march snaked down Market to Milam Park, chanting

“Hyatt, Escucha! Estamos en la lucha.”
“Money for homes, not for prisons. Money for healthcare, not for war.”
“Se Oye! Se Siente! La Mujer Esta Presente!”

With an inspiring mix of African American, Mexican-American, Latinas, and Anglos, the march commemorated organizers past and present. Images of San Antonio 1930-era labor organizers like Emma Tenayuca of the Pecan Shellers Union danced above the crowd. Crosses commemorated the women dead in Juarez. One sign read: “End NAFTA, Stop the Femicide in Juarez.”

A somber procession honored the dead from violence against transgender people. Life-size black plywood figures stood on small altars with wheels, carrying the stories of the victims. Photos of their faces stood out in color against the black wood.

More than 20 organizations co-sponsored the march, including academic women’s studies centers, Planned Parenthood, gay and lesbian alliances, and several labor organizations. Providing 20 years of organizational stability to this kind of coalition building is the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. www.esperanzacenter.org

At Plaza del Zacate, speakers and entertainers included Betita Martinez -- Chicana social justice activist, writer and educator -- Suzy Bravo, Amanda Flores, Kiawitl Xochitl, and many more.

I guess it takes 70 miles down an interstate to experience the kind of coalition work that Austin doesn’t dare to dream of. I marched with a contingent of Austin CodePink. It was invigorating to be part of an effort that transcended the divides of race, class, and sexual preference. An excerpt of the coalition’s vision statement states:

We, like women and girls all over the world, are the voices of conscience, the roots of change, and the leaders of local and global movements. We seek healthcare, housing, education, environmental justice, and fair wages not just for women, but also as people of color, as youth and elders, as immigrants and indigenous people, as lesbian, bisexual, intersex, two-spirit, transgender, and queer women, and as poor, and working class people.

We oppose all forms of violence. We advocate for reproductive choice. We call for an end to war, genocide, and occupation. We claim our own voices and come together to share them in public spaces. We march in solidarity with women and social justice movements around the world.

• For more of Alice Embree's photos, go here.

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Gregg Barrios: Human Mother Beasts : Tales from Young Souls

Image from the San Antonio Current.
Human mother beasts:
Tales from the young souls
In San Antonio's Southton

By Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog / March 2, 2010

“Rid the streets of the poet / to whom the doors are locked.”

There is a wise dicho in Spanish: Cada cabeza es un mundo. Every individual is unique in this world.

When Gemini Ink’s Writers in Communities asked me to facilitate and teach a poetry writing class last fall, I was humbled to be part of this innovative program that sends professional writers into diverse settings to work with teens to develop their own unique voices through oral traditions, reading, and creative writing.

The workshop was open to incarcerated youth at the Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center, a residential program for adjudicated Bexar County offenders known to generations of San Antonio youth as Southton. In the 1950s its residents included a teenage Fred Gomez Carrasco; today, most of its young offenders, ages 12-17, face charges ranging from possession and assault to robbery and truancy. The average length of stay is nine months to a year.

"Yo Soy -- I Am" was a four-month poetry workshop. The dozen residents selected to participate in the workshop, mostly young men, came from Mexican-American and African-American backgrounds, from San Antonio and a few from post-Katrina New Orleans.

They tested me as I did them, asking about my previous work and listening to my own poetry. And while the presence of a state-mandated security officer might have stifled an open flow of ideas and the building of trust, by the third session, it was a non-issue.

My goal was to use identity as a springboard to find individual voice: What’s your name? What does an ID say about your background? Is your given name the one you prefer? Would you change any of these?

The first evening I used Shirley Ellis’s classic pop ditty, “The Name Game,” with its interactive entreaty to rhyme one’s name to the lyrics of the song: “I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody’s name.” The old-school hit proved daunting until they realized its rhyme and reason shares roots with the more familiar world of rap and hip-hop.

They later wrote prose about their definition of success. To get them to read it aloud, I used the instrumental track from hip-hop artist Drake’s “Successful.” By validating their music with poetry, their definition of poetry began to change and offer new possibilities. Their prose converted itself into vibrant poetry, and the floodgates opened.

The group’s dedication to succeed was more than evident. Our class was held in the early evening after a full day of regular classes, counseling, and other requirements. We held double sessions on school holidays -- even during the Thanksgiving weekend

Doing time is harder for teens, yet some of our greatest literature has come out of prisons. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, the first modern novel, in jail. In recent times, other dissidents and outsiders have written poetry, memoirs, and essays while imprisoned, from George Jackson and Angela Davis in the 1960s to raulrsalinas and Jimmy Santiago Baca in the ’70s.

Each generation picks its literary heroes, and certainly the late Tupac Shakur would be high on that list today; however, it wasn’t until my students read his book of poetry, The Rose That Grew From Concrete, that they encountered the sensitive and tender side of the gangster rapper. They considered the romantic poet John Keats “a playah,” and judged the rhyming quips of the young Cassius Clay as “clowning.”

They also found two unlikely poetic heroes: Maya Angelou and Bob Dylan. Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings brought a shock of recognition, and her description of how she changed her name from Marguerite Johnson to Maya elicited smiles. Watching the young Bob Dylan singing “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in D.A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back [sic] took on special significance once we discussed its rebellious intent.

They were mesmerized as “the old hippie” beat poet Alan Ginsberg passes the torch to a new generation in the film’s opening. Later, they aped Dylan as they recited their own poems while flipping flashcards that often contained words within words: one card labeled “REVOLUTION” contained the italicized word LOVE.

They chose to learn sonnets instead of “kid stuff” haiku. They wrote 14-line poems in the style of Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Each measured the iambic and labeled the rhyme scheme. One evening was spent in deep discussion about why a line like “and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death” was so dark, beautiful, and inspirational.

Each class began with a reading from a poet’s work. After hearing poems by Cynthia Harper and José Montalvo and learning both poets were from San Antonio and deceased, they felt an immediate bond, asking how old they were and how they died. And then I realized that this experience was the first time they had heard a brown or black voice express itself in poetry and verse. Whether it was Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit” or Jimmy Santiago Baca lamenting the loss of 10 years of poems in a fire, these young people were deeply moved. They understood what it means to be young, gifted, and a poet.

Each session ended with a recitation of the students’ work. I was amazed by the energy and pride with which they tested new material, hoping for approval and constructive feedback. One young woman sang a cappella -- lyric poetry if you will. Homer would have been proud.

When the time came to cull and edit their best work, most of the students were responsive to making their poetry leaner and stronger; others vigorously defended a certain word, a phrase, or a title: “I’d rather it be untitled, that way the reader can give it their own title,” or “That’s the word, the expression and the spelling we use” in our barrio, in the Ninth Ward.

Were we successful? The answer lies in the creative harvest from the workshop: a chapbook and a public reading. You may recognize the voice of your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, your homies, your brave young poets.

When they return to their home schools, they may find that arts education programs have fallen to budget cuts and an emphasis on achieving higher test scores. Is it any wonder that dropout rates in San Antonio are at an all-time high? For some of these writers, their poetry and prose will grow and mature, for others this may be the first and only time they commit their minds and souls to verse. I pray not. But most important is the realization that they have the option to use their passions and experiences in nonviolent and creative ways and to give rise to a new voice filled with power and beauty.

[San Antonio poet, playwright, and journalist Gregg Barrios is on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. Gregg wrote for The Rag in Sixties Austin. This article was also published in the San Antonio Current.]

Yo soy — I am

A few of the poems that will be published by Gemini Ink in March in the chapbook Push and Pull: Poetry by Residents of the Cyndi Taylor Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center. Copies can be purchased at Gemini Ink, or online at geminiink.org, for $10. Proceeds support Gemini’s Writers in Communities program.

Mother Courage by Taylor S.

It takes sacrifice, fear for your life
And love to do what you did
Something I would not
Have been able to do.
You were fading in front of me
Why didn’t you let go?
Dying each night and day
Brought me to tears.
Damned nurses and doctors heedless
They knew you were very ill
You were quivering deathlike
To the point of no return.
Sacrificing your life for my sister Asia
Just to see her grow up and smile
You are phenomenally courageous
It could have taken you the deathbed.
It takes sacrifice, fear for your life
And love to do what you did
Something I would not
Have been able to do.
Mom, I love you.

Brown Threat 2 Society by Alejandro V.

A menace to society and a vago from the hood
And porque my skin is brown
People assume I’m up to no good
They don’t feel safe when I’m around
They look down on me cuando hablo Espanglish
A bloodthirsty descendant of the Aztecs
Porque I don’t speak the “proper” language
I speak what’s known as Tex-Mex
Because I come from the Deep South
And have aggressive attitude towards people
But in my life, there’s been nothing to smile about
It’s full of sin, struggles, and evil
All they show is resentment and fear
But if you look closely into my eyes
You’ll see the pain from all those troubled years
I disguise it with black shades in daylight
And at night wash it away with a case of beers
But still at times in the still of the night
Alone in the dark I fight away tears
Pero no me entiendes, you can’t understand
When the odds are against you, how can you prosper?
When during childhood you become a man
And after that deranged into a monster
This is for all my misunderstood brothers
Who won’t settle for minimum wages
Who are a danger to themselves and others
For all the carnales confined up in cages.

Untitled by Erick M.

Dreams deserted burnt the surface
Yet find that silence is
Picture perfect sinner’s torment
A mind divine as this.
I try with rhyme defining life
A criminal unraveling
The twine of mind confined in time
Living with insanity
Damnation by humanity
Cold conviction of my spirit
Society denying my plea
Bold nonfiction though, why hear it?
Is how they think and so they chose
I guess to simply not then
Rid the streets of the poet
To whom the doors are locked
Many times I’ve been incarcerated
Awoke in straight jacket hospitals
But kept determination and inspiration
Despite of all these obstacles
Do you know what it’s like
To pray until you fall asleep?
Handcuffs tearing your flesh
And shackles on your feet?
I’m a son; I’m a brother;
I’m a lover; and future father too
But to the law and the judges
I’m nothing — but a fucking monster!

Pursuit by Trevon M.

Pursuit is just the act of pursuing
Pursuing is just the verb of pursue
Pursue is just the noun of capture
And capture is what I do
My pursuit is becoming a rapper
Pursuit on gaining knowledge
Pursuit on also gaining intellect
Pursuit on getting my prey
My prey is knowledge and paper
I put those two together to express
Through writing utensils and paper
Pursue the thing I do best
Pursue my dream through all the pain
All the confusion and the sorrow
I strive to succeed I strive to be better
I persist on pursuing while I pursue

Human Mother Beasts by Bryan S.

Elegant beasts impregnated against their will
For purebred babies made to kill Monstrous
Moms distorted souls locked in battle
Overused like a horse and saddle
Owners watch and get their kicks
As these fierce moms get nicked and bit
If their necks are reached they may lose their litter
May lose their lives as they struggle to survive
Their souls begin to lock like push and pull
Give and take their legs start to shake
Some of these beasts’ mate is their brother
So to the litter its aunt and its mother
A mother’s love is like no other
Can you feel it as you get smothered?
Never doubt the pain of your mother
To give more than they have
And show you their love
So take these absurd words
As we live with the women we love
We as people are nothing more
Than the beasts we domesticate

FALLING by Savannah F.

It’s just so hard to make any sense and less easy to conceive
What I have to do with these questions still living in mystery
Every word you said wasn’t worth it there will be no fighting
When shall it be exciting again?
I’m stuck not knowing what is the matter
It is indifference through circumstances
This rage is starting once again
And fate still isn’t finished with me
Or does it want to escape the truth again?
I am reaching in all my conflictions
My thoughts are polluted now
Why can’t I stop and fade away
And remove this weight of sorrow
Love, I’m not falling face down again.

To my Dark Side by Michael P.

Why do you hold me back?
Is it cuz I’m Mexican and a little black?
But I don’t care what the reason
Mexican blood is what I’m bleeding
You can call what you believe
I know I can achieve anything
As long as you stay away
I believe I’m going to pay
For my sins that I’ve done
There’s no place to run or hide
Because deep down inside
I know I can become something
I’m a human being
That’s the opposite of what I feel
Because I feel like a caged animal
Waiting to be killed is no thrill
It gives me a creepy chill
I’m not who you think I am
I’m not Mexican but I’m a Mexi-can
And I’m a super powerful android
That refuses and cannot be destroyed
The darkness is just a decoy
For me to deploy
My good side
Not the hood side
But the real person
The one that’s really hurting
I’m working for the right side
You know that light side
Not the dark night side
To my dark side,
I’m on the wrong side
You know I’m going to ride
When my good and evil collide
So watch as I ignite
The words that I recite

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Whad'Ya Know? Terrellita Maverick's Still Fighting for the Family's Good Name

Terrillata Maverick: A real Maverick still fights the good fight.
'Mother's interview was priceless! She was funny and quick on the uptake. She talked about the election, ancestral anecdotes, and backpacking around the world.'
By Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / November 23, 2008

After weeks of a whirl of pre-election interviews surrounding my family's indignant "John McCain, You're No Maverick" campaign, a period of joy and relief ensued with the November 4 election of Barack Obama. We felt good about what we had accomplished, but I, for one, was glad that I could focus on the emotion that was the result of this marvelous, historical victory.

But there was one more; my 82 year old mother (Terrellita Maverick) told me that she was to be interviewed November 22 on "some NPR radio show" at Trinity University in San Antonio. Turns out, the show was Michael Feldman's "Whadda Ya Know", a very popular and venerable (they have been around for over 20 years) quiz show in the format of "Prairie Home Companion" with live audience interaction and musical guests. Those of you who live in parts of the country other than Austin may be familiar with it; we, unfortunately are not.

Anyway here's a little rundown of what was in store for me and my mom today:

I had a long day; up at dawn to get mother to the beautiful auditorium at Trinity U, got her backstage for her gig as interviewee on "Whadda Ya Know," and settle myself in the audience with an elderly friend of hers (a lovely woman named Jane). The show was beautifully produced -- very regional decor on the big stage -- fiesta taco booths and Big Rainbow Colored Papier Mache letters spelling out "NIOSA" (night in old San Antonio). A very fine jazz band opened the show.

Mother's interview (about 15 minutes long) was priceless! She was funny and quick on the uptake - best I have ever seen her. She talked about the election, ancestral anecdotes, and backpacking around the world in her late forties. You had to be there, but I was very proud of her. She was followed by Feldman's "quiz show" with an audience member, and a phone in guest, followed by a musical interlude with the Krayolas and Augie Myers, plus the West Side Horns. Then more audience interaction, and a great cooking demo with a local SA mexican chef (yes, you can do a cooking demo on the radio, you just have to talk about everything you are doing - and have fun).

Oh, and a 7 foot tall San Antonio Spur (I forget his name) was another guest. Cute guy!

Looks like you can get a podcast after Monday the 24th on the notmuch.com website -- check it out -- it's a hoot.

[The Texas Maverick clan -- a venerable pack of political progressives and iconoclasts who inspired the popular usage of the term "maverick" -- spoke out during the 2008 campaign about the theft of the family's good name by John McCain and his (not so) trusty sidekick Sarah.]

More from The Rag Blog on the Maverick family of Texas:

* Hey John : You're No Maverick. And We Can Prove it! / Brave New World Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 29, 2008

* Austin's Fontaine Maverick Tells CNN Why McCain and Palin are no Mavericks / Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 9, 2008

* McCain a Faux Maverick : Stealing a Texas Tradition by Paul in Austin / The Rag Blog / Sept. 13, 2008

* Fontaine Maverick : John McCain is no Maverick! by Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / August 31, 2008

And * This Maverick The Real Deal by Joe Holley / The Rag Blog / March 1, 2008

Also see Public radio host did his S.A. homework by Amy Dorsett / San Antonio Express-News / Nov. 23, 2008

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McCain a Faux Maverick : Stealing a Texas Tradition

The Maverick political family -- Maury Maverick, Sr. is sworn in by his father as San Antonio mayor, as Maverick, Jr. looks on.

John McCain has appropriated a cherished name from Texas progressive politics. A scoundrel like McCain calling himself a "maverick" doesn't sit too well with those on the Texas political left. Fontaine Maverick, grandaughter of famed Texas iconoclastic politico Maury Maverick, Sr. and niece of Maury Maverick, Jr., wrote of this ironic bit of thievery in The Rag Blog on August 30. Now "Paul in Austin" -- aka Paul Robbins -- has posted two interesting and informative pieces on Daily Kos about the subject.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / September 14, 2008

Identity Theft: McCain Stealing Maverick Family Name
by Paul in Austin / September 13, 2008

This is my second diary about the irony where John McCain is branding himself a Maverick, when the name comes from a family of progressive Democrats in Central Texas, including two elected officials, Maury Maverick, Sr. and Maury Maverick, Jr., both of San Antonio.

Maury Sr. was the grandson of the original Texas Maverick Sam, one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Maury earned a law degree, and then fought in W.W.1, where he received a Silver Star and Purple Heart. He was county tax collector (1929-1931). He was elected for two terms to Congress (1934-1938). He was defeated, in part, by red-baiting tactics. Maverick was elected Mayor of San Antonio between 1939-41. But he lost reelection in main because he supported freedom of speech through a crowd permit to a labor union with ties to Communists.

I am a friend of Fontaine Maverick, Maury Jr.’s niece. In discussing McCain’s identity theft of her family name, she directed me to a fascinating online book by the late Maury Sr.

Part autobiography, part history, part storytelling, and a good part political philosophy, this book-now-blog describes the life and opinions of an unrepentant Southern Democrat and liberal who thought it was society’s duty to protect the poor and disadvantaged, who believed government was part of the solution and not part of the problem, and who had concerns about the environment long before it was a national focus.

He decried overpopulation in the South as one of its main causes of poverty, the environmental degradation of its land, and its disrespect for labor.

Put in plain American language, this means the South has plenty of natural resources, but they are being wasted; that in skilled trades the region is low; that the population is too great, and although there is a culture of a kind, this culture is unsatisfactory. And it also means the South could be a prosperous and happy place, but isn't.

Some five or more million acres have been ruined in the Black Bottoms, the Mississippi keeps rolling along with its floods—and millions of tons of fertilizers wash down to the sea in rains. The South is forced to use huge quantities of fertilizer. Per annum it uses five and a half million tons. All of the rest of the nation uses only two and a half million tons.

As for labor, I find not a single state which has a minimum wage law. Only one, Arkansas, has approved the Child Labor Amendment. Labor is generally in a bad shape. And it must be organized, so that it can build up a purchasing power, buy itself out of hock, and trade with the rest of the nation as an equal. This needs progressive labor legislation, with decent pension laws.

On health care:

It is a damned outrage that a poor man can't go to a doctor. Why should a man in moderate circumstances have to die because he hasn't got the money for an operation and hospital expenses?

On classism and the American Revolution:

The new American Tories were worse than the British Lords—and some of them, including the arrogant, swell-headed, lace-collared John Hancock, merely got out of paying their debts. They quickly proceeded to exploit their own people at home.

On race, he was the only Southern Democrat of his day to vote in support of anti-lynching legislation.

His monograph had interesting stories about how, at the beginning of the Great Depression, he and 2 friends disguised themselves, Mark Twain-style, as hobos and visited the missions, soup kitchens, and hobo camps to see the poverty first hand.

We stood there in the cold. It was drizzling, and some sleet came down. A youngster about thirteen years of age stood by me, hatless and coatless. The sleet fell on his hair.

In a group under a shed there were about twenty-five men. One seemed to have pneumonia. I came up and insisted that the man go to the hospital, but all said that there was no use, that he had already been refused because he was not a resident of the town. I never found out whether this particular incident was true, but widely, all over the country, "transients" were denied hospitalization even in the gravest emergency cases.

During the trip:

I found that a very large proportion of those riding the freight trains were tenant farmers, share-croppers, and agricultural workers. The old-time tramp constituted only a negligible portion, say ten or fifteen per cent of the whole. People just didn't have any place to go. I traveled with one old man who had with him his two young sons. He lost his farm, became a tenant, then lost out completely. I did not have the heart to ask him if he had a wife and daughters.

Back in San Antonio, after our return home, I organized the transient relief stations...We had relief stations at all the freight depots and when anyone came in we gave him a very cheap meal of hot coffee, bread and beans, and sometimes Mulligan stew. I had freight train schedules made up and gave information as to the best travel routes, and the best place to board trains without getting in trouble.

This spirit and conscience were inherited by his son, Maury Jr. I will save this for another installment.

But I ask again how anyone can equate Maury Maverick’s life and philosophy with John McCain?

Source / Daily Kos

Here is Paul in Austin's previous post about the real Maverick:

Senator McCain, You’re No (Maury) Maverick
by Paul in Austin / September 10, 2008

The McCain campaign has become infamous for using other people's copyrighted material. During the campaign, popular songwriters have chafed about how their music was used without permission. These have included Jackson Browne, John Mellencamp, and most recently, the Wilson sisters of Heart, when their song "Barracuda" was used as the theme for the new Vice President.

But McCain's campaign is also stealing a family name and a political legacy: a Democratic one. If you use the word "Maverick" in Central Texas, you are referring to a family of progressive Democrats that McCain has decidedly little in common with. This is indeed the family descended from the original 19th Century Texas Maverick. And some of his descendents are not at all pleased. While one cannot copyright a name in the public domain, McCain’s use of the word goes over as well in this region as trying to dub McCain a "Kennedy" in the Northeast.

The first Texas Maverick hailed as Sam. He migrated to Texas in 1835. He was a patriot who was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, fought in the Texas Revolution, and was jailed in a Mexican prison for it.

After the war, he was a lawyer and land speculator that sometimes took cattle instead of money for payment. He never branded them, so they were eventually appropriated by neighbors. These unbranded cattle became known as ‘mavericks."

Sam was the grandfather of Maury Maverick Sr., a New Deal Congressman and Mayor of San Antonio in the 1930s.

Jan Jarboe Russell, writing for the San Antonio Express, recalls:

...he and a group of other liberal Democrats pressed to push the New Deal further than President Franklin Roosevelt had in mind. These members of Congress — first identified on March 10, 1935, as "the Mavericks" by the Washington Herald — pushed through legislation to clear slums, created the National Cancer Institute, and passed bills to conserve natural resources.

Maverick was elected mayor of San Antonio in 1939 and served only one term, yet still ranks as the city's most progressive mayor. He got federal money to build the San Antonio River Walk and reformed corruption at City Hall.

His political undoing came when he supported granting access to the Municipal Auditorium for a rally for a labor union with Communist connections. A lynch mob emerged outside the auditorium. They hung Maury Maverick’s effigy. His unqualified support for freedom of speech effectively ended his political career.

Maury Maverick, Jr. continued the legacy.

As a member of the Texas House during the McCarthy era, Maury Jr. broke with fellow Democrats to oppose the banning of books and other anti-communist hysteria laws that he believed violated the U.S. Constitution. As a civil rights lawyer, he broke with President Lyndon Johnson, once his friend, over the Vietnam War.

Maury Jr.’s niece, Fontaine Maverick (now of Austin), was recently quoted in the Austin Chronicle about the sordid misuse of her name.

Maury's niece Fontaine* wrote last week that her brother (yet another Maury, in a lengthy line) told her that "if he hears that John McCain is a Maverick ONE MORE TIME, he is going to shoot the TV. ... Every time we hear that use of our name, it is like fingernails on a blackboard times ten." Expect to feel that sensation a lot, this week and over the next couple of months – while you do everything you can to make certain it won't persist for the next four years.

McCain and his handler’s have proved they will misuse art, history, and whatever else they think they have to in their efforts to win. I think we should challenge McCain to live up to the standard that the real Mavericks have set for him.

Source / Daily Kos

Also see Fontaine Maverick : John McCain is no Maverick! by Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / August 31, 2008

And Point Austin: More Mavericks by Michael King / The Austin Chronicle / September 12, 2008

And The Real Original Maverick by Rick Casey / Houston Chronicle / September 6, 2008

And for more background on the Maverick legacy: This Maverick The Real Deal by Joe Holley / The Rag Blog / March 1, 2008

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John Edwards? Paging Henry Cisneros

Henry Cisneros and friend: In the day.
San Antonio's Cisneros 'was on his way to becoming the Latino Obama before he cheated on his saintly wife'
By Melinda Henneberger / August 10, 2008

John Edwards is reminding me more and more of poor Henry Cisneros, who was on his way to becoming the Latino Obama before he cheated on his saintly wife, Mary Alice, while she was pregnant with their third child, a son born with no spleen and a malformed heart and stomach. Bill Clinton asked Cisneros to serve as his housing secretary anyway, a few years later, and by then, the affair was such old news that it never even came up during his confirmation hearings. Yet in the course of his background check for the cabinet post, Cisneros lied to the FBI - not about whether he was supporting his former mistress, but about the amount he paid her -- and as a result, was subjected to a four-year investigation by a special prosecutor, a probe that cost taxpayers $9 million.

Heck of a public servant, Henry, so big-hearted and capable; watching him work a crowd in San Antonio back in the day, you'd have sworn you were looking at the future. But at some point after he stopped paying Linda Medlar, she started taping their phone calls, and triggered the investigation. When the judge who presided over his trial finally asked Cisneros why he'd lied in the first place, he explained that while he wasn't positive himself about the amount he'd paid Medlar, he was positive he didn't want his wife to know how high that figure was. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, and when he left public life, we all lost out. So, what's the relevance?

First, it's that scary as we wives can be, federal investigators are scarier, and if any of the $15,000 a month that's being paid to Edwards' ex-girlfriend came from campaign funds, I cannot overemphasize how seldom fudging the facts with the Feds works out. Second, what do Monica Lewinsky, Linda Medlar and Rielle Hunter have in common? All were employees, and world-class blabbermouths. (You never really hear about the guys who get involved with the quiet types, do you?) It's silly to say we don't care if politicians fool around as long as they don't lie about it; how is that supposed to work? And until we figure it out, we're stuck pretending these people are perfect and then, we when find out otherwise, pretending we're surprised.

As it is, we're so perplexed about how to treat this stuff I can't even tell what this first-person Newsweek piece is trying to say. In it, reporter Jonathan Darman tells about his own adventures with Rielle Hunter, a woman so fascinating that after meeting her on a trip to Iowa with Edwards in 2006, Darman spends weeks trying to track her down and months getting to know her. After concluding she's an unreliable source, he keeps in touch anyway: "I continued to see her...I liked Rielle'' and "let her do my astrological chart.'' From the way he describes their first, boozy lunch, I can't tell if he suspected she and Edwards were carrying on or not: Is the tone confessional because he missed the story, because he had the story and sat on it, or because he fell for the "I can tell you're an old soul'' hoodoo himself? (The last guy I knew who talked like that wound up blowing town with the life savings of several women who each thought they were going to marry him and start an ashram.) Hunter told Darman that in this incarnation, she wanted to help Edwards become a transformational figure on a par with Gandhi or MLK; better luck next time?

Source / Slate

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