La Plaza Central

Here‘s a story you don’t see every day.  Theresa Barrientos of south Omaha received her citizenship after 87 years.  She has been a permanent U.S. resident for 50 years.  She raised 15 children and has helped raise more than 200 grandchildren.  I can see why she was a little too busy to fill out the paperwork.

Barrientos recently had a stroke, and wanted to become a U.S. citizen so she could be buried here in Nebraska with her family.  So her granddaughter filed the paper work, Barrientos aced the civics test, and yesterday she took the pledge as a U.S. citizen.  It’s nice to see the matriarch of a prominent Latino family in Omaha finally accomplish her dream.

This article is my last word on Cinco de Mayo.  I thought I’d include it, because it mentions several interesting facts.  The article talks about Mexican culture’s dominance in the Latino community in the United States.  Holidays like yesterday have no significance for nearly half of all Hispanics living in the States.  Yet many Latinos must combat the stereotype that because they’re Latino, they’re Mexican.

On one hand, there’s some reason behind the perception.  There are an estimated 11 million Mexican-born immigrants in the states, which is nearly as many as all other immigrants from Latin American countries.  The next highest total is El Salvador with around 1 million.  But at the same time, every country has their respective customs, traditions, histories, national identities and even their own version of Spanish.  (Be careful where you say bicho (bug) in Central America.)  Could Radio Lobo please just once play something besides música durangense?

And despite these differences, issues like immigration reform and social injustice bring the whole Latino together as a single community, with alliances across the board.  Interesting dynamics going on there.

The President jokingly referred to today’s holiday as “Cinco de Cuatro” yesterday as he welcomed guests to the White House for a Cinco de Mayo celebración.  I’m guessing that he meant to say “Cuatro de Mayo”, yesterday’s date.  We’ll work on that bilingual thing when there’s more time…

The Journal Star recently covered our collaborative effort with the Haydon Art Center and artist, Claudia Alvarez , previously mentioned in this blog post.  It’s a very nice article.

Source: www.ballonmaniacs.com

Here is an interesting article published in the Omaha World-Herald last week about the Mexican celebration of Cinco de Mayo.  It is a national holiday, but not for the reasons that many people believe.  It’s NOT Mexico’s independence day (September 16, 1810), but rather it commemorates an important battle where Mexicans defended Mexico City from the French.  From the article…

“Cinco de Mayo is about unity, the fight and struggle. The date commemorates an important battle won by the Mexican army – a group more like a bunch of brave farmers than a militia.

In 1862, the French wanted to take over Mexico City. They were stopped in Puebla, a small town on the outskirts of the city. The French had muskets, while the peasants carried rusty pitchforks and machetes. They were outnumbered six to one, but the peasants never gave up.”

Also of note is that more people of Mexican heritage living in the United States celebrate Cinco de Mayo than Mexicans in Mexico.

I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile, because I didn’t want to do it until May was upon us.  And now that it is, I want to say that May is Latino Images in Film Month on Turner Classic Movies.   All this month, every Tuesday and Thursday evening, TCM will be showing films that focus on Hollywood’s treatment of Latinos.  They run the gamut from a silent movie made in 1910 to the western drama Lonestar from 1996.  Be sure to check out the website for a movie schedule and trailers for several of the films.

As someone who’s experience with Latino films is primarily old black and white Mario Moreno Cantínflas movies, I’ll be interested to see movies with other stars like Edward James Olmos, Jennifer Lopez and Ricardo Montalban.