Författare: xikano_2

We have a very nice snippet of a side of Aztlán we seldom get to hear. Yes, there are countless of stories about how we came to be in Aztlán but very seldom is there any picture or specific location that pin points the odyssey. A fellow conciudadano of mine, Omar Pimienta, he of the Bookleggger collection has done it again, here he presents us with a new version of how things really are.

The old classic one from the Booklegger Manifesto:

The bookleggers manifesto:
Border scholars Javier Durán and Juan Carlos Ramí­rez-Pimienta have theorized the notion of “educated” Mexicans residing in the United States, Mexicans who have emigrated to the United States as well as to U.S education during their formative years and who are referred to as “Wet Minds”. The natives of the Mexican northern border states, many of whom have been pushed abroad by centralist education, cross the border on a daily basis. Since this phenomenon of the “Commuter minds” first occurred, the US immigration officers have been on the lookout for books as incriminating evidence for the crime of getting educated.

Many imprudent prospective “Commuter Minds” get caught and their rights to cross the border are taken away.

Our job is, as Capone once stated, to supply a demand.

We are the bookleggers.

Octavio Castellanos
Omar Pimienta
Clavo: Juan Laguana

Been sort of following the fuss that a candid outburst by Jessica Alba has created.

I first read it here and then occasionally peek here for any further reactions to it. I don’t think Jessica Alba realizes how much rooted racism is there in her candid declaration that she ain’t no’mo Mexican. I don’t think that she even realizes the extent of ethnic depletion she’s been through. She fails to understand that a choice by her father, to repress anything Mexican because they are ’Americans’ burst out into a third generation still untreated. She must of still suffered along the way ’cause of the color of her skin. She inevitably fails to understand that just because a snake sheds its skin it doesn’t necessarily cease to be a snake.

As if Mexicans weren’t Americans. As if American meant WASP English speaking only. She ought to listen to my concuidadano J. Carlos Frey instead. He says that on immigration we have been told about it the wrong way, in essence, he argues that we are not immigrants. Heck, I’ll buy that any old day.

Sorry Jessica, not even  Pilatus got away with trying to wash himself from the problem and I see that not even becoming invisible nor the shield shields you away from esa sangre nuestra.

And ps, it isn’t mexicans the ones churnig out loads of kids,  heck, I say we are lacking in the dept. The US has a population over three times the size of México and in the US it is the white people that are the majority, not mexicans. White people tend to be nuclear and hence seem like they are less, we mexicans just tend to prefer family bonds and ties so we tend to look big but in fact are fewer than gringo nuclear peeps.

While denankius can trace its origin to mockery of the imitation of saying de nada with an Anglo pronunciation thus producing the lexeme denankius its ramifications are yet to be explored.

Denankius occurs because we southwestern peeps try to do a reduplication, a rhyme if you will. tenkius, denankius.

Denankius arises as a silly imitation to try to be anglo-speaking as well though only to signal that the speakers is not an anglo-speaker. From a phonological perspective this is highly possible because the slide from a fricative to a velar is not hard at all.

Also notice how easy it is to apply certain anglo grammar rules to new espanglish words, de nada, two words become as a compound once the transformation has occurred.

A closer research for the post of the day provides interesting results:

Denankius in google

Post originally appeared, though under different circumstances in Xicano hasta las madres.

Can barely move a finger without causing a tsunami of sweat in me. Profusely alltsí¥. I suppose its to do with the mexican gene thang. Had I been in good ol’Califas this would not be so notorious. After all, one is by default a shadow seeker. We seek the fresh of the darkness. Either that or an air conditioned milieu. Acá is another story, as soon as the sun hits the Swedish Highlands n’ombre, am sweating like I have my own personal shower head above me. This tends to cause all sorts of conmotion from the non-using-deodorant-swedes. The same people who are blissfully unawares that their armpits reek, no, make that, stench, frown upon the beeds of sweat rolling down  in my face.

I can’t stand it. Once I start sweating it is a machine with a slow shutdown process. Or my body kicks in in Calido Forno mode. Who knows. I just can’t seem to make it stop. Luckily for me here in Sweden this sort of mild heat, ’cause I suppose we are nowhere near the temperatures of Death Valley, is a passing phenomena, so far eitherway.

I used to think that we mexicoons had an appetite for salt due to just the sweat common to us all Californios. I used to argue, with no credible evidence at hand to support my bullshit that we ate salt like cotton sugar because we sweated salt pits hence an excuse for the salty buds and the need to replenish said salts

Here in Sweden there is no salt culture, in fact, most of their foods tend to lack the old conservative spice. When I so happen to forget my place in this ancient bastion of protestantism, I often ask for some salt because my paladar somehow lures me to imagine that salt is common and is just but a matter of asking for it. What I get instead is a weird look as if I was asking for the God’s ambrosia.

– Why, pardon me sir, we don’t usually receive said request, why, we are in fact stunned at the fact, that someone would indeed ask for salt. 

So yeah, it’s hot today.

With the English Only debate raging across the states of the US and a personal conclusion along the linguistic lines of learning a new language there is much to be said regards the topic at hand.

English Only is one of those distracting issues which political Republicans in the dual political establishment of Washington tend to chew at every now and then to draw attention away from the electorate. Nothing like a thorny and contentious issue to give beleaguered leaders a fresh breath of air. I personally don’t understand how in the world a language can save identity or strengthen it when language, and I speak from experience, is nothing more than a communications tool best manipulated by people who know languages and not by so-called nativists and monolinguals who are too lazy to even bother to research their language beyond the charms of the dialectal aspects that make up a given population. And I suppose that English Only proponents might find the English language the most natural language for the US but alas! by applying said thinking they are exacting a price on the Americas still fresh out from colonial rule. Forget the most natural languages of America, those spoken by natives of the land.

The most curious thing of the English Only gang is that they want to do their bidding in a democratic fashion by squashing all forms of attempt to communicate with the government in none other language than English hence creating a so unamerican institution such as a hierarchy between those who know and those who don’t know and their meddlesome middlemen otherwise known as translators. Which is ironic in some fashion because that would mean that the democratic principle of one man one vote would in effect exclude said votes inasmuch as voting in America is a federal institution who, if there will be such a mandate to implement, create a transloacracy peddling interpretations at the best price. I can now see the interests group market drooling that a new cadre of power peddlers are creating their own niche and the commissions they will exact to them for stomping on their grounds. This may sound dirty but it seems that those proposing their own agenda to fulfill their need of belonging at the expense of others are willing to throw the baby along with the water.

Then again these days it is not so much about democratic ideas but of extreme principles and dire consequences isn’t it? We must heed the cry of the leaders that decry the sky is falling. It has happened before and it will happen again, so there. Embolden the bilinguals of America to take a stand, they ought and we ought to raise our voice once and for all to this silly notion that America the Great only speaks English, caca de toro sayeth I.

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Well, I finally realized the futility of it all. Learning a third language has cost me my dignity, my self esteem and countless hours of intense and embarrassing pain that still manages to kick in a pang or two as we speak. The excruciating pain I tell you. O-uch¹⁰.

To put it simply it has not been worth it. I suppose that I could of chosen a more lenient language variant other than the Swedish one but I ended up with this one due to family and unlike friends well one can’t choose that either. Please, allow me to expound.

What has made me to come to such a drastic decision, and some have said superfluous and ludicrous at some point during the past 2 weeks where I have ventilated said dangerous and precarious period in my life, well ten years of trying to master the Swedish language, that’s what, I have retorted randomly in minor tones as well as exaggerated ones and at times, I do confess, with a tad of irritation in my voice which has thrown some of my acquaintances off guard, no doubt partly due to some intoxicating spirits. And some impatience of mine to thwart off the masses appeal of learning a third language so positive in society. There has not been any positives in acquiring a new language as of far. At least not in the everyday if you will.

Learning Swedish has been a gateway to many treasures, yes, one cannot deny the fact of that yet on the other hand it has also been a constant source of irritation on one account. I am not sufficiently proficient at it to make my point come across. There, I said it, am not a good Swedish speaker. So learning a third language does bring its limitations along with it and that is that one must be ready to surrender the I of one’s constitution and let it be thrown to the hungry and savage beasts of ignorance to be had for brunch and leftovers. Either that or I am a jinxed motherfuck who has been lotted nothing but unkind and unfriendly sentients on this earth of ours all whilst I try to communicate with the so-called earthlings on this far fetched patch of mostly frozen dirt. Yes, I am reduced to nil every time my mouth opens to communicate in Swedish. This has been hard to endure because I have sacrificed personal development at the expense of trying to be understood, and I pray feverishly most of the times for it, halfways.

Swedish people will not meet you halfway when learning a new language. They will neither try to correct you nor they will try to finish your thoughts thereby creating a bridge for a common understanding. The pro’s an con’s of this attitude I have not weighted with earnest and I only mention it here because I have a grudge at it. I am most certain there is a positive in their attitude towards Swedish language learners yet I fail to grasp the purpose in it. This attitude as only left me rueful at best.

But the important thing here about my firm, unwavering adherence to the judgment upon my third language learning is that it limits me as a person in the everyday. Speaking Swedish means a certain death for me as a person because I cannot fully express myself. I can at most present a half cooked notion of my full potential and pray it is welcomed with open arms yet that seldom happens.

I like the swenglish version of the word time. They write it the way I titled this post, tajm. It occurred to me that I place a somewhat sentimental value to it inasmuch as it reminds me of the Spanglish word taimar, which means to tame, because tajm happens to have nearly the same phonological properties as taimar, excluding the -ar off course. Hence the association.

Though these days am far from being able to accomplish said feat. I am, you see, at an awkward position in my life and I feel time more like a sharp arrowhead on its way to pin me down like a dead insect on a wall. Though that only bespeaks half the story inasmuch that I cannot fight the propulsion of time setting its rushing intentions to penetrate the living matter that constitutes my ens.

I think pinned down would be utmost appropriate to describe the rush to beat the incoming arrowhead with its dead certain bull’s eye accuracy. Though one must admit the futility in it all, I am not denying the fact that I posses the knowledge to outsmart the trajectory of the flint. I have at my disposal a number of strategic mental solutions to beat the inevitable and in the end smile at the fact that even though I dodged the course set before me I will at most end up only moderately bruised bi it and yet succeed at any rate albeit my way.

I have always been unable to deal with success. Now am not boasting about the kind of success that one often associates success with but rather those minor successes that make the very fabric of ordinary life.

I recall that I once became some sort of an unintended hero to my fellow classmates. I then attended a middle high school in Tijuana. The name of the school was Secundaria Para Trabajadores Federal número 42. It was a source of great pride for me to attend that school because it lay in a corner of great importance for me and the city. It was in the Lázaro Cardenas grounds, a piece of dirt dear to us tijuanenses. I don’t exactly recall the lesson at the time but I recall more the people and the act I unsuspectingly became a part of in a web of events I did not fathom as much back then. I had spitted from a second floor and my spit had landed on our teacher’s head. Without much hesitation we all rushed into the classroom and pretended nothing had happened. That however, did not hinder the teacher from finding out exactly who it was who had perpetrated the deed. I seem to have been expulsed for a day and when I returned the following day I was received with a standing ovation that shook my senses and rendered me unable to deal with the acclaim. I then proceeded to ignore the acclaim and much to my own surprise thought myself above the acclaim and started to belittle those applauding me by simple going to my seat!

It just seems that I sour the moment near success and I suppose that is what ails me timewise these days.

Have had a weird headache today. Someone told me it was because thunder weather was in the air. I never realized that one could be influenced by the weather in such a fashion. I suppose I never thought about how the weather might affect the body. It reminds me a little about the crazy notion in México that pregnant women have to wear a safety pin somewhere in their garments when the moon is out. Now I never paid much attention to this type of relations to weather conditions, until today. What if that is true?

I was, am ready to believe that for an awkward reason if you will. Am I becoming more gullible as the years go by? Here in Sweden they tend to fear the thunder and yes there is such a thing as thunder weather, at least here in the Swedish Highlands anyway. People scamper like silly ninnies whenever the roar of the old Gods are heard above one. Like I said, I have lived pretty much the rest of my life not associating weather and corporal ailments like the one today but somehow I need and explanation for my headache and that seems to suit it well. I usually have all kinds of aches but am so dum that I just ignore them and never really seek an explanation as to why, I nurse them, they go away and that is what usually goes by with me and pain, until today I suppose.

I suspect another reason though. This weird association is somewhat flattering to my ego because in a weird way it makes me part of the milieu, Sweden, a part of something. Oh well.

Ready made blogs seem to make it easier for a lot of bloggers. Gone are the days when the blog masses seemed to spend as much on the blog as they spent writing on their blog. I suppose there was a collective short circuit and many just couldn’t deal with the symbiosis of both being a sort of techi and a writer. I should know what am talking about. I still deal with strange blog phenomena.

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Scheweden is receiving nice like sirocco winds of a sort. Ja! For this corner of the world anything above the freezing level is a hot summer day. So everything is falling in place like any other season, that is if we are not suddenly attacked by martians for being such the sneaky voyeurs always spying on them or a terrible dislocation of the earth’s poles sending day and night to different dimensions of sorts. Flowers bloomed, are blooming, the neighbor smiles more often and I fight the lawn and a pile of guilt about time pressure to finish a 7000 hour ago project today rattles menacingly by the second. Either way, I expect that the normal june rains will make their entrance any day now.

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Have kept most to myself these days.

Elections will be held today in the mexican state of Yucatán. I shall briefly discuss some issues of pertinence and what I believe are issues of significance to mexican politics as a whole.

Normally state elections in the highly centralized Tenochtitlán don’t get much attention but these elections are being used as a barometer for the credibility status of beleaguered president, Felipe Calderón. The current cynicism that prevails in the masses is already giving out the outcome to the duo of the PRI and PAN otherwise known as PRIAN since many don’t see any difference between the two latter political parties.

The Felipe Calderón camp is betting, of course, for a continuation of the PAN and current thinking is that the PAN has negotiated the favorable outcome in Yucatán in exchange for a less and minor victory in the next state elections of the aztec federation which are to be held in Baja California in August of the present year at hand.

The problems are not little because in Yucatán the forces there are controlled by the nefarious personality of Don Diego Fernández de Cevallos. This politician casts a very dark shadow steeped in the most conservative of mexican politics that it has to give. He is often portrayed in political cartoons as an old Conquistador because he likes a strange kind of power which dates back to master and servant relations in México. He seems to prefer a weak mexican state because his political trajectory has been one to favor big business and old rich mexican families which traditionally dislike all sorts of government interference in their daily affairs. Ever since the so called alternancia,, that is, the transition of powers in México, and before that in the Salinas government, he has been an important power broker in mexican politics and hence it would be most unlikely that he would let his native land fall to his bitter and staunchest enemies, the left. Having accumulated so much power over the years it almost seems impossible that he’d not use that power to influence the outcome of the elections and that to his favor. So the governorship of the most secessionist state of México, will most likely continue to be held in the hands of the PAN although it is going to be disputed to add a pinch of credibility to the elections.

Of course, the PAN is also not keen to be to seen as a continuation of the perfect dictatorship as the Peruvian writer Vargas Llosa once called the PRI so this year we also have the novelty that for the first time in México’s political history independent candidates are being allowed to partake in the kerfuffle of mexican politics. However, it is unlikely the PAN is ready to let go of Yucatán since they firmly believe most people still believe they are democratic and the huge oil interest that abound in the yucatan peninsula, which happen to be of interest to those who trickle down the Potomac, lie underneath the struggle for power in that state.

This puts the Calderón posse in a bind because it is also unlikely they will want to give up the cradle of their symbolic democracy movement which happens to be Baja California. But if anything is true of the PAN these days is that ideology means nothing to them. I say this not lightly because current criticism of the PAN is that they have forgotten their political roots in exchange for a status quo that endangers the very institutions of the mexican nation. They are in fact prolonging a politic ideology that prefers a weak state, one that easily subyugates to the whims of the West wing.

Yucatán then is a good barometer not just for democracy in México but also as a thermometer which can tell us how hot things are to get the next coming days. Remember, México is undergoing dramatic changes as we speak even though one wouldn’t hear it from the major media outlets of the world.

Somehow all of my permalinks got extremely fucked up and I had to go under the hood of this contraption to figure out just what in heavens tarnation went awry. I quickly came to the conclusion that it was eons if not eras since I was under there. I had to get the curiosity trinket to get me interested all over again in the php, html and other jargon that induces behavior I desire in the blog. Alas! I failed to get the old drive in me to figure out what was wrong and decided best to just change through a lame form what I wanted to see not as it was before but what was available to my knowledge base which was emptier than a jug at a hillbilly whiskey contest. So a lot of the permalinks out there that redirect to certain pages in the blog are in effect only redirecting to the blog main index giving the reader the awful task of doing the search for desired document by hand if you will. I just hope the reader has more stamina and success to search said desired documents than me trying to understand blog behavior.

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On other unrelated news I finally changed some of the songs in the radio blog on the sidebar. Enough with the techno industrial ding a dong and onto the Xicano stuff, I’m on an Aztlán ese! mood. Though I frankly fail to grasp if the radio is seen in the US (my main source of readership) since I get the impression that broadband is limited in the US. In Sweden broadband is the norm rather than the exception. I get this impression mostly out of the Agonistas which post at the Agonist and who have created a niche on the internet situation in the US albeit somewhat shallow though enough for my attention retention span which has a breadth of a whopping 0.34 miliseconds capacity.