POWER HOUSE EPISODE!

First Gen Podcasters Pauline and Adan talk politics and belonging in their most recent podcast. Their take on the impending (threatened) ICE raids and deportations. This one is a banger. Share far and wide.

In this episode Adan and Pauline discuss their first winter break, returning to campus and the existential dread of switching majors. 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction I am speaking with two exception young scholars Candelario Moreno and Selah Hernandez. We are discussing their recent presentation at the National Association of Chicana Chicano Studies conference in San Francisco. Its a good talk.

First in a series of conversations bringing different voices from the Latino community around the in to talk about daily life in a pandemic. Our goal is to publish daily.  

This is an older recording from last fall. I just forgot about it and am now posting. Excellent conversation about performance art, understanding the body and some about afro pessimism. 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish speak with Berte Reyes a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arizona in the Rhetoric, Composition and teaching of English program. In this episode we will talk about the nature of hate and how video games are being used as a recruiting tool by the far right. 

Milta Ortiz is smart, passionate about her community and showcases her commitment through the arts. Ortiz is a bilingual, bi cultural playwright, poet, and performer born in El Salvador. She moved to the United States at the age of eight and was raised in Northern California. She currently a director of the Borderlands Theater Company in Tucson, AZ., where she lives with her family. 

I had some trouble with the recording so the first couple of sentences are a little garbled but its fine after that. 

Here is the Wikipedia page for Milta.

Please share widely and feel free to leave comments. If you want to contact me directly you can do that on Twitter @ernestomireles. 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Oscar Medina a recent Ph.D. student in Sustainable Education and a high school teacher in Tucson, AZ., talk about their own educational journey and how bringing Indigenous epistemologies to Raza students is helping to heal the inter-generational trauma of settler colonialism. 

 

https://changemakerhighschool.org/

https://www.facebook.com/Praxis2019/

 

Please DM me on Twitter @ernestomireles www.waroftheflea.org

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction our panel of Xicanx experts will be discussing the 2019 mass shootings in El Paso, Tx., and possible responses that could be pursued by the Xicanada. 

 

 

As always you can DM me on Twitter @ernestomireles or Alex Yanish @bingbongvictory

 

Check out www.waroftheflea.org 

Dr. Anita Fernandez is the director of the Prescott College Tucson Center, located on the campus of Changemaker High School. Dr. Fernandez has been critical here in the state of Arizona in defending Mexican American Studies in the public schools and has helped to found the Xicanx Insitute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO) a professional development institute for teachers that is working with school districts across the country. 

In this conversation we cove a wide range of topics about the attacks on ethnic studies in the past 10 years, the victories not only in Tucson but across the country and how it is more important now that ever for dedicated RAZA educators, artists, organizers and parents to get deeply involved who will be responsible for bringing ethnic studies to our K - 12 schools. 

 

 

When you get a chance DM @ernestomireles on Twitter with questions or comments.

Also, check out www.waroftheflea.org. 

Nick Panlibuton is a Social Justice Community Organizing masters student here at Prescott College originally from the Washington D.C. area. In this episode Nick talks with Prof. Ernesto Mireles about his experiences working for the Painters International union this summer as an apprentice. How that experience expanded his ideas about social justice and brought home the necessity of theory in labor struggles. Nick is starting his first semester as a SJCO student and is currently involved in local immigration campaigns, and working with harm reduction organizations in the state of Arizona. Nick is Filipino, with a rich family history in activism. His fathers father emigrated to San Francisco in the 1930s. His family was part of the International Hotel eviction struggle in the 1970s, which brought students from the newly created Ethnic studies programs at San Francisco State University to aid in the fight.

You can check out Prof. Mireles at:

@ernestomireles

www.waroftheflea.org

Adriana Abundis is a rising star in the Xicanx educational world. Working as a teacher in San Antonio, Tx., for the past eight year Abundis has immersed herself in the life and culture of that city. She is an emerging muralist who is creating visual resistance and opportunities for her students to immerse themselves in the history and cultury of their Xicanx community. She has led and created 3 inspirational murals on the West Side of San Antonio that stretch over 3,000 square feet and continues to create artistic symbols of indigeneity, identity and pride with her art network: Arte de Lush.

Please listen in on the future of Xicanx education in the Occupied Territories. Brave New Voices for a New Century.

 

www.waroftheflea.org

@ernestomireles

@bingbongvictory

In  the episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish speak with famed organizer/author Ernesto Vigil of Denver, Colorado. Vigil was a leader in the Denver based Crusade for Justice and worked closely with Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez during the heyday of the organization. In his early 20's Vigil was the first Xicano draft resister in the Southwest and has spent the last 51 years pursuing justice for Xicanos in the United States. In this episode Ernesto Vigil will be talking about his forthcoming book titled Decades of Deception: the American Indian Movement, the FBI and the death of Anna Mae Aquash. Don't miss this riveting first hand account fully documented by one of the foremost scholars on the FBI's campaign against Xicano/Indigenous movements in the United States.

-----

Vigil is also the author of The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Government's War on Dissent first published in 1999. Below is a description of the book:

This definitive account of the Chicano movement in 1960's Denver reveals the intolerance and brutality that inspired the turbulent rise of the urban Chicano organization known as the Crusade for Justice. Ernesto Vigil, an expert in the discourse of radical movements of this time, joined the Crusade as a young draft resister where he met Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, the founder of the CFJ. Vigil follows the movement chronologically from Gonzales's early attempts to fight discrimination as a participant in local Democratic politics to his radical stance as an organizer outside mainstream politics.

Drawing extensively upon FBI documentation that has become available under the Freedom of Information Act, Vigil exposes massive surveillance of the Crusade for Justice by federal agents and local police and the damaging effects of such methods on ethnic liberation movements. Vigil complements these documents and the story of Gonzales's development as a radical with the story of his personal involvement in the movement. The Crusade for Justice describes one of the most important organizations fighting for Chicano rights.

www.waroftheflea.org

This episode is a recording of a National Association of Chicana Chicano Studies presentation by Melanie Vega. She is a first year student at Northern Arizona University in the political science department. The title of the panel was Voices Unheard: Accent Discrimination Against Chicanos in the United States.

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Prof. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish talk with historian Dr. Nora Salas and Daniel Osuna creator of the presentation 1492: Invasion or Discovery, 500 years of Indigenous Resistance. (https://youtu.be/qOgaK1UEJns)

This wide ranging conversation begins with the recent MEXA situation and goes through the necessity of building mass movements, the role of social media in building mass movements and the lack of leadership in the currenty Xicano movement.

We apologize for the sound on Brother Osuna's comments. We did the best we could and will work to improve it for the next time we have him on. 

Check out our website:

www.waroftheflea.org

Get in touch on Twitter with us:

Alex Yanish @bingbongvictory

Ernesto Mireles @ernestomireles

In this episode we speak with Kurly Tlapoyawa. Author and activist for Mexikayotl and the Xicano movement. Kurly is a founder of the Mexica Eagle Society and author of three books: We will Rise, Slipper Earth and Totacho: Our Way of Speaking. Kurly is a professional stuntman with an impressive list of movie and television appearances, directed his own horror movie and recently graduated the University of New Mexico with a degree in Anthropology. Among other sites Kurly maintains Mexika.org, which is a destination site for us with excellent information. 

During this free ranging conversation we talk about Xicano identity, the role of archeology in helping understand the world and the importance of maintaining Xicano indigenous identity. 

 

 

 

Check out our website:

www.waroftheflea.org

Hit up our YouTube:

REALITY DYSFUNCTION YOUTUBE

Get in touch on Twitter with us:

Alex Yanish @bingbongvictory

Ernesto Mireles @ernestomireles

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction, Prof. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish discuss the applications of Mao's theory of protracted warfare to North American Indigenous struggles. They do this through the frame of the essay by Edward Lawrence Katzenbach, who worked at the Pentagon as deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for education and manpower resources during the Kennedy administration. His brother Nicholas deBelleville "Nick" Katzenbach (January 17, 1922 – May 8, 2012) was an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney General during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.

 

 

Check out our website:

www.waroftheflea.org

Hit up our YouTube:

REALITY DYSFUNCTION YOUTUBE

Get in touch on Twitter with us:

Alex Yanish @bingbongvictory

Ernesto Mireles @ernestomireles

The last discussion on the master work Left/Right: On the Significance of a Political Distinction. In this episode we go after it, Freedom and Authoritarianism and the Book end chapter Polestar. 

In this special episode, we go after the most nefarious enemy, THE CENTRIST...

NY TIMES: CENTRIST ARE THE MOST HOSTILE TO DEMOCRACY 

 

Check out our website:

www.waroftheflea.org 

Hit up our YouTube:

REALITY DYSFUNCTION YOUTUBE

 Get in touch on Twitter with us:

@bingbongvictory

@ernestomireles

 

A special episode! Alex Yanish and Dr. Ernesto Mireles sit down to talk with Maddox Wolfe about their organizing with the National Audubon Society, their theories of power and change, electoralism, and even a little about RED EMMA. 

Maddox is a long time friend of The Reality Dysfunction and is doing great work nationally. 

Get in touch with the Reality Dysfunction 

@ernestomireles

@bingbongvictory

Check our Website

www.waroftheflea.org 

Third of a four part discussion by Prof. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish on the book by Norberto Bobbio which investigates the importance of the Left/Right political distinction in contemporary politics.

In this episode the Reality Dysfunction works through Chapter 5, Other Criteria and Chapter 6, Equality and Inequality. Why is the distinction so confusing? Does the Right or Left have the monopoly on Equality or is it about how one defines what inequality really means? The conversation continues...

Check out our website:

www.waroftheflea.org 

 Get in touch on Twitter with us:

@bingbongvictory

@ernestomireles

 

The Reality Dysfunction sits down with Turiya Coll of Sonoran Prevention Works. We sit down with the Northern Arizona Harm Reduction Coordinator to talk about Harm Reduction and different ways of approaching people who use drugs. 

 

#Harmreduction #Arizona 

This episode is a recording of a National Association of Chicana Chicano Studies presentation by Desirae Diaz. She is a first year student at Northern Arizona University in the psychology department. The title of the panel was Voices Unheard: Accent Discrimination Against Chicanos in the United States.

This recording is from the 2024 National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies held in April 2024 in San Francisco. The three presenters are Brinley Carrillo, Demi Garcia and Violette Valencia. I have broken their presentation in to three separate podcasts to make it easier to listen. The abstract for the presentation is below.

Three years after the passing of Cesar Chavez in 1994, the United Farm workers under the direction of their new president Arturo Rodriguez began organizing Strawberry Workers in Watsonville. The Watsonville Strawberry Campaign followed the same organizing model the UFW had implemented during the grape campaigns of the 1960s-1980s. Taking on the Watsonville grower establishment through worker strikes and demonstrations This panel will talk about the power dynamic between the growers, the UFW and the national community. Strikers and union members were treated poorly simply protesting and demanding their collective bargaining rights. The workers fighting in this campaign were known to be some of the most socially and economically exploited in the country. Workers in Watsonville were fighting for a wage of $4.25 an hour and basic human necessities such as drinking water and clean toilets in the fields. This campaign was the biggest one for the UFW since the 1970s when it came to organizing farm labor. In addition, strawberry workers endured workplace conditions that made them even more susceptible to injuries, including no health insurance, which is especially serious when considering the amount of pesticides the workers were exposed to, and the health issues that arose from exposure. Through interviews with public action organizers from several different states working for the United Farm Workers on the Strawberry Campaign as well as the President of the UFW at the time Arturo Rodriguez we will explore the perspective of those who were directly involved in the community organizing campaign and the reasoning behind their participation. What they saw as organizers across the country and what contributions they believe the Strawberry Campaign made to bettering conditions for workers in Watsonville.

This recording is from the 2024 National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies held in April 2024 in San Francisco. The three presenters are Brinley Carrillo, Demi Garcia and Violette Valencia. I have broken their presentation in to three separate podcasts to make it easier to listen. The abstract for the presentation is below.

Three years after the passing of Cesar Chavez in 1994, the United Farm workers under the direction of their new president Arturo Rodriguez began organizing Strawberry Workers in Watsonville. The Watsonville Strawberry Campaign followed the same organizing model the UFW had implemented during the grape campaigns of the 1960s-1980s. Taking on the Watsonville grower establishment through worker strikes and demonstrations This panel will talk about the power dynamic between the growers, the UFW and the national community. Strikers and union members were treated poorly simply protesting and demanding their collective bargaining rights. The workers fighting in this campaign were known to be some of the most socially and economically exploited in the country. Workers in Watsonville were fighting for a wage of $4.25 an hour and basic human necessities such as drinking water and clean toilets in the fields. This campaign was the biggest one for the UFW since the 1970s when it came to organizing farm labor. In addition, strawberry workers endured workplace conditions that made them even more susceptible to injuries, including no health insurance, which is especially serious when considering the amount of pesticides the workers were exposed to, and the health issues that arose from exposure. Through interviews with public action organizers from several different states working for the United Farm Workers on the Strawberry Campaign as well as the President of the UFW at the time Arturo Rodriguez we will explore the perspective of those who were directly involved in the community organizing campaign and the reasoning behind their participation. What they saw as organizers across the country and what contributions they believe the Strawberry Campaign made to bettering conditions for workers in Watsonville.

This recording is from the 2024 National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies held in April 2024 in San Francisco. The three presenters are Brinley Carrillo, Demi Garcia and Violette Valencia. I have broken their presentation in to three separate podcasts to make it easier to listen. The abstract for the presentation is below.

Three years after the passing of Cesar Chavez in 1994, the United Farm workers under the direction of their new president Arturo Rodriguez began organizing Strawberry Workers in Watsonville. The Watsonville Strawberry Campaign followed the same organizing model the UFW had implemented during the grape campaigns of the 1960s-1980s. Taking on the Watsonville grower establishment through worker strikes and demonstrations This panel will talk about the power dynamic between the growers, the UFW and the national community. Strikers and union members were treated poorly simply protesting and demanding their collective bargaining rights. The workers fighting in this campaign were known to be some of the most socially and economically exploited in the country. Workers in Watsonville were fighting for a wage of $4.25 an hour and basic human necessities such as drinking water and clean toilets in the fields. This campaign was the biggest one for the UFW since the 1970s when it came to organizing farm labor. In addition, strawberry workers endured workplace conditions that made them even more susceptible to injuries, including no health insurance, which is especially serious when considering the amount of pesticides the workers were exposed to, and the health issues that arose from exposure. Through interviews with public action organizers from several different states working for the United Farm Workers on the Strawberry Campaign as well as the President of the UFW at the time Arturo Rodriguez we will explore the perspective of those who were directly involved in the community organizing campaign and the reasoning behind their participation. What they saw as organizers across the country and what contributions they believe the Strawberry Campaign made to bettering conditions for workers in Watsonville.

Short piece from Dr. Ernesto on the need for claiming political power in a settler election year and beyond.

This episode of The Reality Dysfunction Podcast talks with three young emerging scholars at Northern Arizona University. These three women will be presenting at the 2024 NACCS conference in San Francisco on the Public Action aspect of the Watsonville Strawberry Campaign in the late 1990s.

In this episode we talk about how to build power as colonized people within settler colonial society.

This short episode I talk about the idea of existence as resistance within a settler colonial political world. This one is a little different. It's just me.

Join Ernesto Ayala is the Vice Chair for the Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida. Join him as he checks in weekly to talk about the Partido, organizing, activism and growing up in the Movement.

 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction we talk with Mark Anthony Torres a 3 decade Chicano Michigan activist about his new book, his clothing line and his run for congress.

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction we talk with Dr. Vanessa Bustamante the Vice Chair of El Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida about her life and activism on behalf of the Xicana/o/x community. About growing up a first generation Xicana in Southern Califas, the educational struggles on her way to a Ph.D., and why she is proud to call herself a chola.

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction we talk with Veronica Garcia the Texas state director for the Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida. We talk about plans for Raza Unida to expand across the country and in the great state of Texas.

In this episode of The Reality Dysfuncton we interview Enrique Cardiel a long time Raza Unida Party activist and community organizer in Alburquerque, NM., he recently ran for a state rep position in that state. We talk about his campaign, and the state of Xicana/o/x politics in the United States.

 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction I talk with Chicago based poet Carlos Cumpian who has been writing and publishing poetry from the Windy City for the last 40 years. During our conversation we talk about his latest book Human Cicada and the importance of Xicana/o/x expression. 

 

ORDER THE BOOK HERE

 

Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish discuss the Kristen Williams pamphet "Whither Anarchism" and how anarchist politics, particularly preformative politics have moved into the Xicana/o/x movement mainstream.

 

  

This segment of The Reality Dysfunction is a conversation with Somos en Escritos editors Scott Duncan and Jenny  Irizary and the forthcoming book El Porvenir, Ya! Joining us in the conversation two of the authors Rosa Martha Villareal who is recently retired as an Adjunct Professor at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, California, and the author of several novels including Doctor Magdalena, The Stillness of Love and Exile, and Chronicles of Air and Dreams. She writes a periodic column, Tertulian’s Corner, for Somos en escrito. Also Ernesto Hogan who is the author of High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues, and Cortez on Jupiter. Those novels, along with his short fiction have won him the reputation of being the Father of Chicano Science Fiction. His mother’s maiden name is Garcia, he was born in East L.A. His work has appeared in Amazing Stories, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and other magazines and anthologies.

El Porvenir, Ya! Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl: A Chicano Science Fiction Anthology.  ​Established and upcoming Mexican American writers of Science-Fiction and Fantasy come together in one place to offer visions of raza futures and indigenous otherworlds. Included works by Martin Hill Ortiz, Carmen Baca, Frank Lechuga, Lizz Huerta, Kathleen Alcalá, Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita, Pedro Iniguez, Rosa Martha Villarreal, R. Ch. Garcia, Nicholas Belardes, Ricardo Tavarez, Ernest Hogan, Michelle Robles Wallace, Scott Russell Duncan, Rios de La Luz, and Mario Acevedo.  

This is one exciting conversation by media professionals from around the country. A review of the most relevant stories and issues of 2021 affecting our community. 

 

Presenters:

Elena Herrada is a Detroit community activist leader, an advocate on issues of immigration, public education, national and international human rights and Director of the Oral History project of Fronteras Norterias organization. She was a member of the Detroit Public Schools Board of Education in Michigan, representing District 2.  Herrada ran for election for an at-large seat of the Detroit Public Schools Board of Education in Michigan.

 

Dr. Jose Flores is cofounder of the Hispanic Center for Western Michigan, the Hispanic Festival, The Community Voice/La Voz Magazine, and La Familia Grocery/Convenience Store.His community activism helped bring needed interpreters to the emergency services units in police/fire/medical care units of Grand Rapids, and he was a chief advocate for providing court interpreters for persons unable to fully understand English. As a community advocate, he led efforts to improve U.S. Decennial Census counts, engage youth in summer employment opportuni ties, and worked on committees to reduce drop-out rates among minority youth.

 

Maria Emilia Martin is an award-winning independent multi-media journalist who currently directs the GraciasVida Center for Media, a nonprofit organization based in Austin, TX and La Antigua, Guatemala devoted to the practice of independent journalism in the public interest (www.graciasvida.org). She is an award-winning public radio journalist for over three decades, Martin developed ground­ breaking programs and series for public radio, including NPR's Latino USA, and Despues de las Guerras: Central America After the Wars and reports regularly for NPR and other media outlets.

 

Miguel Barrientos is the General Manager of El Concilio Hispano Media Group, a Latino Media Agency in Southern Nevada through which he produces a daily Latino Talk Radio and News program, Publisher of Nevada Hispanic Magazine and prepare to produce News and Community programs on local Latino TV and social media from Las Vegas. He has been at the forefront with many great community leaders in Las Vegas, fighting for immigration reform, Civil rights and helping increase Hispanic Voters at the polls.

The failure of immigration policy is a two party failure. How can the Xicana/o/x community stop failing along with them?  

In this segment of The Reality Dysfunction, Juan Carlos Vega and Alex Lozada take over the mic to talk with Memory Activist, Julián de Mayo about his incredible work documenting the AIDS crisis in the late 80s and early 90s, and specifically the work and stories of the Latina/o Caucus of ACT-UP New York. Julián explains the history of a not so inclusive movement and the efforts to record what has been mostly until now a forgotten chapter of the fight against AIDS. ACT-UP stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power and in order to have Spanish-speaking, Latinx, Latin American, trans, and other non-white voices, the ACT-UP Latina/o Caucus of New York emerged. We explore the relevance and importance that organizing and personal narratives from over 40 years ago bring to not just the current and persistent AIDS crisis among people of color in inner cities across the country but to the discussion on how to reduce health disparities among Latinx and other vulnerable populations.    

Related Resources & Articles:

• [ES]tatus: the Latino/a Caucus of ACT UP New York Exhibit video     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5RnPIKGs5o&ab_channel=JuliandeMayo
• Latinos ACT UP: Transnational AIDS Activism in the 1990s: https://nacla.org/article/latinos-act-transnational-aids-activism-1990s 
• Article with photos: https://www.latinxproject.nyu.edu/intervenxions/silenciomuerte-an-interview-with-julian-de-mayo-on-the-legacy-of-act-ups-latina/o-caucus
• Conversation between Latina/o Caucus member Alfredo Gonzalez and Dr. Jorge Pérez Ávila on Cuba's HIV sanatoriums for NACLA: https://nacla.org/news/2017/11/29/cuba%E2%80%99s-hiv-sanatoriums-prisons-or-public-health-tool 
• Julián’s Soundcloud with some interviews: https://soundcloud.com/julian-de-mayo 
• For more information, contact: demayo.j@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @j_deMayo 

Soe and Owahee join The Reality Dysfunction Podcast as regulars with the Anonymously Famous series. Powerful stories to be told.

This week on The Reality Dysfunction, Dr. Ernesto and the crew talk about and remember Xicano super star Jesus "Chuy" Negrete. This LEGEND of the Xicano movement returned to the ancestors this month.  We wanted to take a moment and pay tribute to the man who brought our songs and history to us for over 4 decades. 

 

 CHUY NEGRETE PRESENTE!

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto and crew talk about their vaccines, how and when will the Xicano Latino community go back to work, work expectations, what they plan on doing this summer, and how issues of pay have been impacted by the past year. 

This segment of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto talks with Jose Oliva of the HEAL Food Alliance based in Chicago, Il. Jose came to the United States, with his parents as a young man, in the 1980s fleeing governmental oppression in his home country of Guatemala. The work he is doing alongside workers in the food industry is vital not just to fairness and equity but to environmental sustainability an often overlooked aspect of workers rights. For more information about HEAL click the link below. 

 

https://healfoodalliance.org/

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto speaks with Chair Pro Tem of the La Raza Unida Party Ernesto Ayala and James Ortega a Raza Unida member about the weekly study group, why it is a requirement for membership, and how important it is to develop the organic intellectual side of the Xicana/o/x movement. 

 

Click on the link below to get more information about the weekly study group.  

https://form.jotform.com/202060962074045

 

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is Professor of American Culture, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and received his BA from Harvard (1991) and his MA and Ph.D. from Columbia (1999). He is author of Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora (2009), Keywords for Latina/o Studies and of several books of fiction. His most recent book Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance (University of Michigan Press, 2021) is part of the Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance series. Larry performs in drag as Lola von Miramar since 2010, and has appeared in several episodes of the YouTube series Cooking with Drag Queens.  He is the former director of the Latina/o Studies Program at University of Michigan, his grandmother is originally from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, and he goes by Larry.

Today, we will discuss why Latinx/o/a, Puerto Rican, and Xicano Studies, as well as Queer and LGBTQ Studies are key to US culture and society, his futuros projects as author, artist, and activist, and Larry's new appointment (starting in July 2021) as Chair of the Department of American Culture at UofM-and why this is important in the fight to maintain and nurture Ethnic Studies across the USA.

https://lsa.umich.edu/rll/people/faculty/lawrlafo.html

https://lsa.umich.edu/ac/news-events/all-news/search-news/prof--lawrence-la-fountain-stokes-appointed-as-american-culture-.html    

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lawrlafo/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_La_Fountain-Stokes

https://www.press.umich.edu/11314788/translocas (30% discount code: UMS21)

https://www.press.umich.edu/flyers/9780472074273.pdf

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction we trashed the political, and just talked about clothes, belt buckles, health and tattoos. In case anyone was wondering this is what we say to each other before the tape starts rolling. 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week we're back with a conversation on media, Latina reporters and how important it is to fight for responsible brown voices in our mass media. 

On March 27 of this year Lizarraga published a piece about her two year's working as a reporter at Denver's Channel 9 (an NBS affiliate) . The opinion piece, which unfortunately is more likely the rule to the exception starts like this, "It was during my second week as a new reporter in Denver that I remember first feeling concerned about discrimination in my newsroom." In this episode Dr. Ernesto and Alex Lozada talk with Lori about her experiences at Channel 9 and what has happened since then. You can read Lizarraga's opinion piece at the link below. 

https://www.westword.com/news/9news-latina-reporter-kusa-media-discrimination-diversity-11925702

 

Update on this situation

"The fallout continues from former 9News reporter Lori Lizarraga's essay detailing the exit of three Latinx reporters from the station in a year — including her. Now, following a federal filing from a major investor in TEGNA, 9News's parent company, alleging "a broad pattern of bias and racially-insensitive behavior" at its outlets, TEGNA has issued guidance to news directors telling them to stop using the term "illegal immigrants" in their reporting."

https://www.westword.com/news/9news-denver-tegna-illegal-immigrants-latinx-bias-update-11946253

 

 

In this segment of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto talks with Mexica internet sensation Kurly Tlapoyawa and Dr. Ruben Arellano about their new podcast Tales from Aztlantis where they talk about their own experiences within the contemporary Mexica movement, and the need to question "tradition." 

They're smart, they're skeptical, they know what they are talking about, and they are down for their people. Please listen in to this very interesting conversation and definitely check out Tales from Aztlantis. 

 

Greetings Dysfunctionals, we're back with a special episode of The Reality Dysfunction. Today we have the first every Aztlan Report, a state of the Xicana/o/x union presentation from Xicana/o/x organizations around the country. This recording was made on March 31, 2021, an originally ran live on Facebook. This presentation was sponsored by Mexicanos 2070, Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida, La Mesa Brown Berets, Union del Barrio, Centro Community Service Organization/Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Servicios de la Raza and other community organizations. This presentation brought organizations throughout Aztlan and the diaspora together to report on the state of the nation, the state of resistance and as a call for unity. 

Speakers in order of appearance: 

Tonatzin Alfaro Maiz - Moderator

Dr. Vanessa Bustamante (5:36) - La Raza Unida Party

Maria Zavala Paredes (8:54) - La Raza Unida Party

Rafael Avitia (16:10) - La Mesa Brown Berets

Scott Russel Duncan Fernandez (21:05) - Mexicanos 2070

Ernesto Mireles (24:01) - Mexicanos 2070 

Matt Sedillo (26:52) - Poet

Marisol Marquez (33:20) - Centro Community Service Organization/Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Lupe Carrasco Cardona (38:46) - Union Del Barrio/ Ethnic Studies

Patrick McKenna (50:10) - Barrio Hollywood, Tucson

Rudy Gonzalez (56:41)- Servicios de la Raza

Tanya Villalobos (1:01:00) - LRUP Youth Representative

Vanessa Mazon (1:08:04) - Poet

Ernesto Ayala (1:11:27) - La Raza Unida Party Chair Pro Tem