Sin Documentos

"Dejame atravesar el viento sin documentos, Que lo hare por el tiempo que tuvimos. . ."

The song, Sin Documentos, originally released by Los Rodriguez in 2002, has recently become my favorite song by Julieta Venegas. In fact, when I heard it on her new album, Lîmon y Sal, I had no idea it was someone elses!

The substitution of the guitar by her famous accordion, genius! But the REAL point of my story is this: The song has now been "Guitar-Heroed."

Two weeks ago, on a trip to one of the many weddings in Hermosillo, we went out to a bar and saw that they were having a Guitar Hero contest. I thought, huh, maybe they have a new Spanish version? Nope. My GH fanatic-boyfriend had to play "Freya" to hundreds of people who barely knew the lyrics.

Alex playing at Gato Pollo Live House in Hermosillo, Sonora.

Then, last week, he called me so excited about "the new Spanish song on the game." When I heard what song it was, I was confused. . . "There's no guitar in that song. . ." but also quite surprised that the people Harmonix, the makers of the game, acknowledged that many many Spanish speaking people actually play GH.

Well, kudos to them. I'm sure fans everywhere can appreciate the music, no matter what language it's in or if the guitar is replaced by an accordion.

Here's a video of someone else playing the song on Guitar Hero, courtesy of "machineofadream" on You Tube:

Alley Cats

Shoot me now, I went to Los Angeles for a journalism conference this weekend and I FORGOT my CAMERA.

Have no fear, I'm loading this post with a bunch of links so you can kind of to retrace my steps.

Back to my story:
After a long night at the Millennium Biltmore in downtown L.A, I decided to wake up at what seemed like dawn and take a walk outside (I don't really recommend this for young ladies who are alone and don't know where they're going). Per my own recommendation, I recruited an other University of Arizona student, Evan Pellegrino, to go with me.

And we're off. For being on completely different levels, me on a mission, he just trying to survive his hangover, we made pretty good time to the Fashion District. There it was, Santee Alley. If you've ever seen downtown Nogales, this is way more crazy and culture shock-ish (take the tour and you might get what I mean).

I was pretty oblivious to this until I saw Evan's face, cigarette almost falling off his bottom lip and his eyes just staring at a purple suit with a $49.99 price tag on it. I swerved in and out of the "stores" looking for gifts for my sisters, but he just calmly waited outside and peered into the shops like a nervous boy who doesn't want to touch anything.

I used my bartering skills and ended up with more things than I could carry. With his help, we stopped by a hot dog vendor, bought pretty much everything but hotdogs, and went on our merry way.

Here's a blog I found with nice pictures that look like what I would have taken pictures of.

Dia de Los Muertos

It's almost here! The 2nd of November is a lot closer than many of you might think, so get excited.

Why am I making a big deal about this? Well, on my trip to Hermosillo, Sonora this weekend, I noticed my aunt had a pile of supplies by the door. A broom, some candles, a framed photograph of my grandparents and little palo fierro figurines that my grandfather loooved.

So you're thinking, "Ok, I get it, Dalina's crazy. She's talking about a day that's 3 weeks away and observes that her family gathers odd things."

Well, yeah, but there's more. The supplies my Tia Ana had by the door are actually going to accompany her on Nov. 2nd, better known as Día de Los Muertos. She'll pick up a pan de muerto on her way to the cemetery, where she'll sit and pray for a couple of hours and clean my grandparents' graves, just as she does every year.

When my sisters and I were younger and happened to be in town for this occasion, we'd sit there, bored and kind of upset that we would have to clean. Then we'd all go home and eat the bread. As far as I remember, it was kind of yucky. It looks wonderful, but seeing as it is made for the dead, and they no longer have taste buds, it doesn't have to taste so good.

Living in Nogales, we didn't follow up with the tradition, no family in town=no graves to clean.

Fast-forward about a decade and I'm in college. I have family in Tucson and graves to visit, but never really followed the tradition and it had lost all meaning. People around me ask about the "holiday" and invite me to the huge procession on Fourth Ave. Not really interested.

Then my grandfather died. Last year, I spent most of my summer in a daze. Suddenly, it was November and my aunt invited me to the procession. I still have the prayer form. It's waaay different than what I experienced in Hermosillo, but I hear it's similar to the smaller towns in Mexico, where this is a bigger deal.

Here are some pictures of my experience:

Photos by Dalina Castellanos

My Tia Janette and her husband Sean getting ready for the procession.

One of the many colorful floats during the procession

A mini-float

Part of the procession

Preguuuuntame...

Una pregunta.
What year are we living in?
Last I checked, it was late 2007. But somehow I feel that things are going backwards. You see, raised in a border town, I never gave much thought to the color of anyone's skin or what language they spoke, much less if they had health insurance or how far they went in school.
What we learn from our past is supposed to shape how we live in the present and how we'll create the future. So didn't we learn anything?

Last week, this article was printed in the Tucson Citizen's Family Plus section. A Tucson couple, who already had two children, tried in-vitro fertilization to have just one more child. They ended up with four.

During a brief interview with the section's editor, Gabrielle Fimbres, the issues of writing a story about multiple births were raised.
The story idea had been in deliberation for weeks before editors at the Citizen decided it would be "a slice of life" story showing how the family was preparing their home for the quads.
The article states that the woman conducted the interview in Spanish, and suddenly a wave of comments about how this "illegal" woman is using these unborn children to be her "anchor babies."
Now I doubt this woman would have let the press release her name and photographs if she were illegal. Also, the article explains her reasoning for keeping all four children and why she suddenly can't afford them.
In May of 2005, Fimbres herself wrote a story about a family who already had two children and wanted to add one more to the clan (sounding familiar?) They ended up with three boys.
"The only difference is that they have blond hair and blue eyes," said Fimbres.
She also said the only comments that were left for "The Barker Bunch" were those of congratulations.

Ethical concerns can be raised about why the doctors choose to implant so many and why the parents decide not to reduce the number of embryos, the taxpayers who foot the hospital bill... and so on and so forth. But why all the negativity?

Even a Citizen columnist had something to say. "I hate to say it, but this is a seriously shoddy piece of journalism on the part of the Tucson Citzen," she writes about the recent article. (I won't mention her misspelling of Citizen) Lovely.

The woman's daughter did a very good job in her response to all of the comments and did it in a very positive way.

I'm not taking sides, I really am not. I believe (almost) anyone has a right to their opinion. Those excluded: silly people who don't do background research and blurt out the first negative comment that comes to mind.

Now, please turn your thoughts to this column, written by Gustavo Arellano, titled "Ask a Mexican," stating:

"Got a spicy question about Mexicans? Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net. Letters will be edited for clarity, cabrones—unless you’re a racist pendejo."

The "spicy" comments that the Citizen and the Arizona Daily Star receive daily about border issues and Mexicans could easily be diminished and peace restored if only people did their research and thought with an open mind.

Isn't that what we're working for?