Free and Priceless Issue 13 | Fall 2006 - University

Issue 13 | Fall 2006
Free and Priceless
Fall 2006
Thrash-holds
ISSUE 13
feminism : fem- -niz- m
e
e
By Iris Helen Turpaud Barnes
—
n.
a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and all oppression
the big
You are expected to speak a language not your own. You are expected
to say your name with foreign sounds. Some one
chooses
every
timeRoss. shiny
Cover:
Illustration
by Kat
Broadly speaking, her work explores intimacy. Awkward, playful, humerous thread. Somber
impossibility.
Multipletime
works; they
the space ofcartels
the page,en
books,
squishy soft sculpture, large architectural organic sculpture. Among other
amarillo
they throw something away. Someone moves
on each
venues, her work was recently screened at the Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart in Stuttgart Germany. Kat Ross received her MFA from Art Center
anunciando www.shebinds.com
leave. Someone speaks a word every time anCollege
openof silence
has Contact
beenInfo: [email protected],
Design in 2006.
el tifosi hooligan
made for it.
who
11
damber hollibaugh —jessica hoffmann
who hill
cadáveres
myth of the sleeping giants — aura bogado who will come?
contenedores 4
19
martha rosler — mitra ebadolah
corpses
17
rubbish, I say rubbish — luz angelica vasquez
closer
count down
than dan
lingua mortis
mors
there´s this gran espectáculo
moritura
of the dark suns
betting fuerte
every damn latin course
9
sex
spilling into the drainage
linewith sassy — jackie joice
25
nice girls eat trash — violent vickie
every
26
CHRISTINE PETIT
mientras pretenden
latin
10
homeless and redevelopment —fabiola sandoval
iluminar
romance
17
katrina disposables — sheana ochoa
the garbage bin
15
teen pregnancy — nina packenbush
---------------------------------------------------14
trash pickers — wendy carrillo
where the flies
24it, youband
— liz
ohanesian
shine more than
Take it an d leave
love fatigue
it an d you
hate
it. I speak it and it
27 me vacant
—and
vera
zakharov
the coke bottle
absorbs me, it turns
into dust
ashes
burning when all is said
salvage — kim haines
but less than
but not done. 15
27
you are expected to speak — helen turpaud it´s little tiny
23
columbia fumigation — laura hauther
white letters
Get rid of your senses.
Special
DESI GNER................................
DESI GN CONSULTANT...............
CONTRI BUTI NG EDI TORS...........
Ruth Blandon
Jessica Hoffmann
Christine Petit
Violent Vickie
U-SU Graffix
Hector Catalan
On the Cover
25
11 thing to do with this issue when you are done — jennifer ashley
Frederick Smith
I rina Contreras
Sheana Ochoa
Jennifer Ashley
Stephanie Abraham
Las, los , el, la, lo, les , lesbi ana. Language swarms in indefinition when
gender isn`t stuck like jelly to every object, feeling, madness and living
being in the universe: I cannot but chose speaking of feminine and
masculine in relation to every thing there exists and what doesn´t.
the humming bird has sung
duke elingtong´s last
-----------------------------------------------------------the wall tumbles down
as the buildings blown
and a piece of glass
of interlagos
(some argentinian drink)
grows evident
behind catastrophy
In Every Issue
buggy
PUBLI SHER.............................
EDI TOR I N CHI EF.....................
ASSI STANT EDI TOR...................
COPY EDI TOR...........................
FOUNDI NG EDI TOR...................
2
from the heart of the editor
6
inspiring loudmouths: julieta martinez — crystal irby
----------------------------------------------------know your feminist faculty: : dr. rita ledesma —
frederick smith
------------------------------------------------------------7 al language,
dear jeri: abut
h ealth
column
Spanish was a coloni
face to
a new colonialism of
f-word
— sabrina
alimahomed
cling to momies nightgown
electhronical s-words, mythe
choice
renders
the blades
wasted and rusted,
the eloudmouthlist
and split
to become thrash8and garbag
recycled en mi voz Latina. The best way
9
the womisen’s
resource center
calendar
and grind this tooth
to destroy it´s colonial
meaning
to denounce
the colonial
useof
ofevents
WRC
English, and to tear it to pieces, to kick it and spit it as useless, until
espanish
it melts into the ground and serves as the thrash compacted to build
The cementeries.
Women’s Resource Center ( WRC) is part of the Cross Cultural Centers at California State University, Los Angeles. Its mission
houses and parks, and even
is to encourage student learning as well as foster an inclusive
campus
environment that challenges racism, sexism, heterosexism and other
ask
for silence:
forms of oppression.
a commitment
increasing
I stumble through my deflected
English With
leftovers
of yearstogone
by, cross-cultural awareness, we offer a wide variety of programs and services that explore
both
the shared
andspoiled
unique experiences,
historiesand
and heritages
of our
diverse
community.
contact
theargentinian
WRC at (323)
343-3370
Iris Helen
Turpaud
Barnes
was bornPlease
in 1976,
the only
child
of my or
unable to rebuild out of
abashed
and
words unspoken
University-Student
Union,
5151
State
University
Drive, Los Angeles,
Calif., 90032.
northamerican
mother and my peruvian father. At present a High School
those spoiled due to repetition.
There´s no
return
from
the
waste land,
teacher, I´v e been working in an editorial initiativ e in Bahía Blanca, called “El
and the misspelling I r ecognize every time I tak e a second longer to
Calamar.” My first poetry book is a handmade one, entitled “Datos del
think of a word is only but the disorder in the garbage bin.
The views expressed in LOUDmouthdo not necessarily reflect those of California
State University, Los Angeles, the University-Student Union, or their students,
faculty, staff or administrators. And, because feminism is not a monolithic ideology,
dan runs way behond
there may be as many viewpoints expressed here as there are feminists. Opinions are
those of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of LOUDmouth
.
LOUDmouth
29
Check
LOUDmouthon
the
atAconcagua
paisaje.” out
As a lover
of mountain hiking I´ll make
a tryweb
with Cerro
next January. I´ll see if a can write a few lines up there too.
www.calstatela.edu/usu/loudmouth.
Des i gned
by
U- SU
Gr af f i x.
Question:
Waste, litter, trashiness, being treated like trash, and trash drum kits … These were all things that ran through our heads as we
pondered what a trash issue could look like. Often it is a seemingly endless array of images and words that cannot be accomplished
in thirty pages. There is the part of the process that is fun beyond words; the planning, picking and deciding what should be included
and what is missing. And, then of course there are the parts that are heavy; that weave in and out of our personal lives while we are
creating the issue that are like little obstacles and roadblocks. Even amongst the beginnings of this issue, I found myself marveling
at the interconnected paths of the macro and micro of trash. There is much to be said about the physical nature and the literal aspects
of garbage. But, often the heaviness of people being treated like trash began to take an enormous amount of precedence. With the
March 25th and May 1st marches in the country, two local minutemen and minutemen counter protests, and the growing and horrific
conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine/Israel it is difficult to ignore how lives can almost seem as though they are effortlessly
discarded while one is valued so greatly.
At this same time, a number of different contributors experienced losses firsthand. It seemed like everyday someone lost a
family member, loved one, a neighbor, friend or acquaintance. Alongside all of these events, the death of a stranger that lived near
Golden Gate Avenue in my own neighborhood pains me still. El Circo Loco, as he was lovingly called danced up and down Sunset Blvd.
in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. He literally never stopped dancing, as it almost became a form of transportation carrying him
to his destinations with his impeccable costumes detailed with bright and elaborate shiny nic nacs and things. He held a small
boombox to his ear as though he was serenading our city and often whistled into the wee hours of the night. Usually even residents
in the area rarely complained because it would have been quite difficult to not be overpowered by his cheerful gait, serious dancing
expressions and bad-ass moves. The place where his body was found was often adorned with his favorite stuffed animals and things.
Surrounded by ”trash,” El Circo Loco or Antonio Diaz as he was known to his family in Mexico made the street glow with his 99cent
glitter, joy and promise. I never spoke to Antonio about any kind of specific agenda I had but I danced with him when I had the
chance and always screamed and honked in my old Volvo when I saw him. Often, he signified the end of my night, whether a good
or bad one and sometimes the beginning of one. For some reason, I do believe we shared some of the same desires for our world
viewed through the lens of waste and discarding. I think that Antonio wanted to be happy and to share his gift with others either
if he felt angry inside. We make what we sow, we create what we can as resourcefully as we can possibly be. If we have nothing, and
we have to dig through waste (whether literally or in pessimistic selves) to find it, then we can. The rumor is that Antonio came
from a wealthy family, but for reasons unknown and assumed he came to find himself on Sunset Blvd. During our first brainstorm,
one contributor remarked that trash to her seemed to be a myth. Granted, we were deep in conversation, but I think of that now as
I r emember El Circo Loco.
In this issue, contributors investigate the number of ways in which trash plays a part in our lives. I am pleased to bring you
I eat frozen yogurt every day. It's a trashy indulgence because it's
I should get dumped in the trash for drinking coca-cola everyday
another piece by Liz Ohanesian about the disposable nature of technology and how it plays a part in the way we listen to music.
saying “What I really want is to eat massive amounts of ice cream
and for having a disneyland passport: tacit patronage of two
Fabiola Sandoval looks at the consequences of a Downtown Los Angeles Renaissance in which the homeless are literally swept away,
every day, preferably for every meal!”
murderous corporations in the world ...
and Helen Turpaud lends poetic verse to the implications of language ownership. Laura Hauther lends important information about
sign me Betty, age 55 (more lies).
Ricardo Carranza, 30.
the trashing of the Columbian Rainforest for the drug war, while Nina Packenbush looks at the treatment of young mothers in the
nation. Finally, we have an arti cle about local trash pickers form Wendy Carrillo and so much more! I feel like we could have put a
Cheetohs and donuts. TV. I watch only when my husband is out
I fucking listen to old guy rock on the radio, for crissakes. I guess
book together on the variety of ideas and wealth of information that these ladies collectively share. Putting this issue together has
about real emergency rooms and pet crises.
you can say its my alternative to “alternative.”
been rough, but it’s given me an amazing opportunity to learn so much about all the knowledge that we possess and are capable of
Wendy, 55 big ones.
Camryn, 28.
putting together in solid form if merely given the opportunity. It’s funny when I think that I became a part of this lil’ magazine by
seeing the Get Loud With Us box below. I never had any inkling that my life would change as much as it has because of these amazing
The Brangelina thing in the tabloids . Just can't get enough of her
I hav e a gr oss fish tank that I'm not sure if my fish are still alive.
women that I get to work with, be friends with, and share ideas with. I wasn’t in such a good place when I sent that email at all.
chocolate box family planning.
Sometimes I'll pee on a girl if she’s in the mood.
Looking at pieces like Violent Vickie’s and Christine Petit’s, I know how important it is to talk about how we often devalue ourselves.
Cara, 44.
Moco, ageless.
The positive aspects of being a feminist and the supposed camaraderie we share is supposed to outweigh the negative, but it honestly
takes much work that we cannot do alone.
Satisfying and insatiable desire of reading the lives of apolitical
I really like that song with Nelly and Justin Timberlake. Please
There are a number of things I am preparing for in my time as editor in chief and in the transition to the next editor here at
bloggers that are mostly white. Indulging in the American waydon’t tell anyone.
LOUDmouth. One is that I wan t to make certain the editorial process and our collective ownership is visible. Sometimes, I think we
successful and hyper individualistic ala sex and the city in NYC.
Nate, 26.
make the mistake of thinking it is, and I want to be sure to express that for myself, our magazine is a tool of something much deeper
Fabi, 25.
that we are trying to express. I have a commitment with myself if nothing else towards a better world and social change. If that is
I stopped smoking y ears ago, but from time to time, when the urge
confusing, let me rephrase: I have a commitment towards a world in which there isn’t such a black and white/uneven distribution of
strikes, I'll find someone's butt in the alley so I don't buy a whole
Lottery tickets and high thread count sheets
wealth, power, food, and education. Of course, this is just the beginning of my analysis and in the midst of a battle that we may
pack and start up again. The three or four hits is a terrifically
Bridget, I'm 26.
never truly win. But, in that time, in that process there is a shared experience that we can transmit like a virus. To me, LOUDmouth
trashy indulgence.
is a virus; it is one that is striking women one by one in random place in our city, country and globe. Particularly, for the women
Julia, 38.
Even though the majority of the characters are super skinny,
brought into the process I cannot imagine a way that we will not continue to pass this on. But, finally in the words of the mighty
femmey, super rich, and not realistic representations of lesbians,
KRS-1, I d o also promote “edutainment,” and I certainly hope you have as good a time reading this as we did making it! As Jennifer
I like to watch the L word.
Mickey Avalon. Songs of his prostitution, vapid privileged L.A.
Ashleigh notes, don’t toss it, share it with a friend afterwards. And you, yea you … send us an email and get fuckin’ loud with us.
J.C.
Girls, and the size of his member.
Wendi (Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless)
My trashy indulgence is that I LOVE “America's Next Top Model.”
I've watched every episode of every season since the show's
An annual wax of the ass. {You know? gotta deeep clean every once
Editor in Chief
inception. I e ven tape it when I can't be home to w atch it.
in awhile .}
Holly
P.P.
W hat
e
c
n
e
g
l
u
d
tr ashy i n
d
e
m
a
h
s
a
ar e y ou
?
t
i
m
d
a
o
t
Get LOUD with us!
Myspace.
I'm a total addict.
LOUDmouthis
always looking for new writers, editors, illustrators, photographers and other fine folk to join our team.
Jess
Send submissions and/or letter s of inter est to [email protected]. Letters to the editors are also welcome.
LOUDmouth 30
LOUDmouth
2
ON THE MYTH
OF SLEEPING
GIANTS
By Aura Bogado
May Day Afternoon March on Wilshire Blvd. Photos by Andrew Burridge.
“Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in
the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again.”
Chinua Achebe
I
n March and April of 1966, Cesar Chavez and a group of National
Farm Workers Association strikers walked 340 miles from Delano,
California to Sacramento to raise awareness for the workers’
struggle. The pilgrimage and boycott that followed forced the
first union contract between farm workers and a grower in the
nation's history.
It's exactly 40 years later, and Nelson Motto and about a dozen of his
compañeros have been running through the United States as part of
the Run for Peace and Dignity since March 4, stopping at day labor
centers around the nation, with hopes to make it to New York by the
second week of May. Motto works with the Institute of Popular
Education of Southern California and decided to participate in the Run,
sponsored by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network for a myriad
of reasons, including the anti-immigrant House Bill. While it's
impossible to guess what Congress will ultimately decide, the 12
people running, along with the millions of people marching has
certainly already had an effect.
And although “experts,” politicians and media on the left, right and
center might have us all believe that a man named Sensenbrenner
awakened a sleeping giant by sponsoring HR4437, a simple look at
decades of immigrant ri ghts organizing might just yield the truth:
LOUDmouth
3
March 25, 2006 and the weeks of marches, vigils and school walkouts
that have followed illustrate an already deeply connected community
— not one that was somehow awakened overnight. Instead of a
sleeping giant awakened, it's more likely that the giant immigrant
workforce never has time to fall asleep to begin with. The immigrant
community has been too busy working double and triple shifts
harvesting crops, tending gardens, washing dishes, building homes,
and taking care of other people's children to sleep. When not working
for other people, the struggle to survive becomes a daily effort: if you
are documented, count how many times a day you use your state ID to
complete a transaction from cashing a check, to driving a car, to
signing your children up for school — and you will start to appreciate
the advantage of being a documented person in this segregated
system. Over the years, undocumented immigrants and their supporters
have produced complex, creative networks to endure in a country that
simultaneously benefits from, exploits and criminalizes their labor. It
is this extensive network that is taking to the streets. Younger
generations, that have not been asleep either, have also used the
networks available to them (including digital ones) and are enjoying
the opportunity to be heard as well.
So who's really been asleep?
A dozen years ago, California voters were about to vote on Proposition
187, which mandated that local police inform what was then the
Immigration and Naturalization Service of people suspected of
violating immigration law; it also stipulated that no undocumented
immigrant be entitled to any public benefits —
including elementary, junior and high school
education. About 100,000 immigrant rights
supporters took to the streets to protest against the
measure, and high school-students around the state
walked out of their classrooms.
Proposition 187 passed that year, with nearly 60% of
voters approving it. But before it was ever signed
into law by then-Governor Pete Wilson, it was
contested in court. In 1998, a US District Court
found nearly all parts of the law unconstitutional,
and that it overstepped the bounds of state
authority. That same year, then-Governor Gray Davis
decided not to appeal the court's decision. Maybe the
sound of 100,000 people protesting against the
proposition left a ring in his ear.
Now, the same students that walked out in 1994 have
built coalitions and bases of support for students who are walking out
today. Now, the same protestors who flooded the streets of downtown
LA a dozen years ago grabbed some friends along the way in past few
years, and showed up ten-fold on March 25 (2006).
Doesn't sound like a sleeping giant to me.
Even more recently, organizers in Southern California and in Orange
County in particular, have faced the anti-immigrant vigilante
Minutemen and their supporters head-on: nearly one year ago in
Garden Grove, while Teresa Dang was protesting against Minutemen
Project founder Jim Gilchrist's speaking engagement, she was run over
by Hal Netkin. Netkin was never charged, but Dang's home was
ransacked and she was somehow charged with stealing a police
flashlight. Dang was found innocent, but the police department's
coercion and the District Attorney's decision to charge Dang on
dubious evidence is seen as a way to intimidate would-be
demonstrators. In Costa Mesa a few months ago, Coyotl Tezcatlipoca
was beaten and arrested by police officers who forcibly removed him
from a City Council meeting as he was addressing the Council and the
Mayor, who has proposed that local police officers enforce federal
immigration law. As a result, just a month ago, the ACLU filed a lawsuit
against the City of Costa Mesa for violating Tezcatlipoca's first
amendment right.
So I keep wondering, who's really been asleep?
The connections between US foreign policy and the continuing
immigrant rights organizing seems obvious as well: Zapatistas,
including Subcomandante Marcos, are touring Mexico hearing from
migrants throughout the country affected by free trade policies that
have forced them to cross to this side to find work; and in communities
across the US, The Other Campaign has pushed recent immigrants to
consider the value of their own voices in public discourse. Latin
American immigrants on this side of the border read about the
constant struggles and victories against imperialism throughout Latin
America – examples of what can be attained through working for
collective dreams.
Locally, nationally, and trans-nationally, the giant has been too active
to ever sleep: state lobbyists have worked to allow states to grant
driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants; migrant workers and
their supporters have organized week-long vigils demanding human
rights; r ecent immigrants have been at the forefront of labor
movements like Justice for Janitors; groups like the Garment Worker's
Center continue the fight against sweatshops; dozens of day labor
centers have opened throughout the country to guarantee fair working
conditions for workers; immigrant students have fasted for weeks
urging Congress to pass the DREAM Act; after the Coalition of
Immokalee Worker's success against Taco Bell, the Student/Farmworker
Alliance is growing as more and more young people join the new,
nationwide boycott against McDonald's; women's
groups on both sides of the border continue to demand
justice for the women of Juarez; and in cultural centers
around the country, Chicanos and recent immigrants
have begun the a very serious dialogue as the Zapatista's
Other Campaign inches closer to the border cities of
Juarez and Tijuana to meet with and hear from them.
Sometimes the struggle is quiet at work; sometimes it
is loud on the streets; there are relative successes
along with relative failures — but it has never been
asleep.
When I was an undocumented child new to this
country, just learning to speak, read and write in this
new language, I learned about Rosa Parks. That is, I
thought I learned about Rosa Parks — how the law
changed one day because an African-American woman
was just too tired one day to go the back of the bus.
More than a decade would pass before I learned the real story: that
several people had refused to move to the back of the bus before her;
that Parks joined the NAACP 11 years before the infamous incident;
that she attended the Highlander School just months before; and (most
importantly) that she had the support of a massive, networked
community with a deep-rooted history. The more I think about it, the
more familiar it sounds.
The immigrant community has not been asleep at all — it might
instead, be the “experts,” politicians, and the media (and those who
pay so much attention to them), that have been awakened to the fact
that vast portions of the United States are made up of immigrants who
will mobilize when threatened.
Hopefully history will get it right this time.
Aura Bogado is a producer at Pacifica’s KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and is the
host of Free Speech Radio News, a daily, half-hour independent newscast. She
can be reached at [email protected]. This piece first appeared on Z Net in
April 2006.
UPDATE!
Since Ms. Bogado wrote her piece, it would suffice to say that a little
and a lot has happened. On May Day of this year, millions of people in
over 200 cities boycotted work, school and business as usual in favor of
taking it to the streets. Many would say that it was one of the most, if
not the most vital day that the civil rights movement has ever seen.
In Washington, it remains an unsolved dilemma to say the least. In May,
Bush called for the deployment of the National Guard to the border and
on July 25 th still fin ds the house and senate unresolved in their
decisions and yet to agree on a way to secure citizenship and “secure”
the borders. With an estimated 12 million immigrants already in the
workforce, and the GOP ranks flailing amongst the country’s documented
working Latinos; the Republican party is facing the inevitable: that the
problem most likely will not be solved by election time next year.
Meanwhile, even Jerome Corsi of the Minutemen has found it in him to
criticize Bush saying that he has left the borders wide open. There have
been several recent attacks on folks involved in Minutemen
counterprotests in both New York and Los Angeles.
It is estimated that since May 26 th, nearly 2200 immigrants have
been literally swept and/or arrested by US Immigration and Customs
Enforcement as part of their “Operation Return to Sender.” Immigration
has said that these sweeps are really aimed at child molesters and gang
members yet there are countless charges of people being taken away for
crossing over a second and third time. This far exceeds the sweeps of
April, which had over 1100 immigrants arrested and/or deported as well.
On July 28th, th e National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy
Conference met at the American University in Washington D.C, where 80
different organizations and collectives were represented. The conference
marks the continuation of a legacy in which working class peoples are
not just marching, but organizing and preparing for the future.
LOUDmouth
4
INSPIRING
KNOW YOUR
loudmouths
feminist faculty
By Crystal Irby
By Cocacolachola
By Frederick Smith
julieta martinez
TF
rita ledesma
R
his past
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ita Ledesma is an
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in mass
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take
to
in the department
Santa
Monica,
medical
records detailing a woman’s
the fight
streets
in
immigration
of
social
work at California
for peace of mind in the form of prescription rx’s from her
protests.
the nation,
State University, Los Angeles.
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and a bitchin’
tape collection with live Black Flag recordings …
youngWhat people
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do all theseput
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government
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had access
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while
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decisions
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billion
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of food
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were globe’s
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Julieta
around the areas of grief,
there isn’t any reason why one should be wading
Martinez
is part
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youth we need food. And, that is JUST food.
bereavement, and loss.
through
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have
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put
Additionally, she is the
What is dumpstering you ask? Quite simply, dumpster divers
downsearch
their pencils,
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of
director of the PALS
for the rise
food,
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desk andliterally
marchdives
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peer-mentoring program.
into the dumpster as the name might suggest.
equality.
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eta’s
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Photo by Sheana Ochoa.
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fromher
major
labels like
Donna KarenSchool
towalkouts
do night in
scavenging
a grocery
chain.
A reminder
to people
to without
graduateever
highstepping
school. Julieta
soona discovered
opportunities
placed
her Joe’s,
on the
right Foods,
track and
service
requirement
mentors and
mall and stillshe said
and
Calvin Klein
foot into
thatthat
do scavenge
at grocery
stores: Most
Trader
Whole
this was
an avenue
of social
learningfor
and
anmuseum
opportunity
to completing
her their
undergraduate,
UCLA
looking
somewhat
respectable
my
jobs.to make her
Vons all lock
dumpsters master’s
now. Youand
maydoctoral
still findwork
a fewatthat
don’t
voice heard. She
debuted
in
YQue’s
production,
“I
Choose
Grey
YQue?”
in
social
welfare.
She
is
proud
that
she
completed
this
work
with
There is a m ajor misconception that all of us dumpster out of
but beware! You may be prosecuted if caught and there areher
always
a story
written by
Julieta and
thethe
other
high school
the of it little boys
at her
feet.trash
Her work
at Cal
State L.A.
andsaid,
in the
community
economic
necessity.
Quite
contrary,
many members
enjoy the of
thrill
rumors
about
being
bleached.
This
bring
gloves and a
group,while
which
covered
such
issues
as
racism,
military
in
sch
ools,
at
large
is
professional
and
personal
as
she
grew
up
witnessing
the
believing that the abundant waste should be available to the
friend. Better safe than sick!
homophobia
and gangresorting
violence.toAfter
teaming
up with Often
activist/artist
challenges and successes faced by American Indian and Latino families
masses without
more
consumerism.
this way of
Jerry Quickley,
showtowent
from freegan,
McArthurwhich
Park Community
Center tolike in her3.community.
In aaddition
to studying
the communities
thinking isthe
linked
the word
I do not particularly
Always keep
dumpster
cleaner than
you found it!of interest
Remember,
the airwaves.
Thetoplay
was
and
aired
on KPFK
— a pretty big
research,
she
is one
actively
involved
in them,
to as
or use, but
each
herrecorded
own! What
I do
believe
that conceptually
alignsto her
that wants
to visit
it on a contributing
regular basis and
you
aren’t the
only
accomplishment
for
a
revolutionary
not
old
enough
to
cast
a
vote.
the
well-being
and
development
of
the
people
who
live
there.
Some
with the term is that we should look for alternative ways than the
more and more stores choose to lock their dumpsters, it is vital to
Julieta’s
nextofstop
was onparticipation
Mayor Antonio
lawn ineconomy.
a protest Most
of theremember
recipientsto
of be
herrespectful
volunteertotime
the Southern
California
norm
standard
inVillaraigosa’s
the conventional
the include
place, people
that work
there, and
Center,
the
El
Nido
Family
Centers,
Bievenidos
Family
Services
to save
the
South
Central
Farm.
She
says
working
in
the
community
has
Indian
dumpster divers believe in community, sharing (skill), and concern for
other divers. Most employees don’t want to have to report
you. They
empowered
her to educate
people,
Pat Brown
Institute
at Cal
State for
L.A.them.
The work with
giventhy
herneighbor
pride and
as opposed
to competition,
the idea
that especially
only the eliteand the
are doing
their job.
Don’t make
it difficult
immigdeserve
rants onorganic
issues affecting
their
lives. “The government looks at us
the American In dian community, which numbers close to
foods and
greed.
as criminals. Another
We are not
criminals.
We camelivelihood
here for a that
better
life.may
We make50,000
to the
data, isSee
close
to herthat
heart.
draw
is the potential
one
4. according
Pay attention
to2000
signsU.S.
andCensus
holidays!
a store
says it’s
camefrom
here to
work.
We
want
a
better
future.”
Julieta
is
continuing
her
“If
you’re
Indian,
you’re
born
into
loss,”
Ledesma
dumpstering. Many dumpster to support their businesses, going out of business? Yup, perfect place to dive. Most likely, they
work passions,
with the or
South
Central
Farmers
a participant
in theirbegins
theatrein theshared
in sell
a 2005
L.A. and
Timesit may
Magazine
article.
the Mid
h obbies.
For
myself,asmuch
of my artwork
won’t
everything
just end
up in“We’re
the trash.
group.garbag
She is
also
helping
create
an
immigration-based
theatre
piece
survivors
of
people
who
were
conquered
and
colonized.
…
What
I’m from
e with the idea of what has been discarded and why. Some
December? Mid May? Likely to score couches, fridges, and more
with French
Benefits,
a queerInactivist
organization.
Julieta
is proof
that
interested
in where
is how
do people
survive
and thrive?
compani
es like Geeks
The Street
collect and
reuse
old computers
colleges
students
with $$$
are dumping
momI’m
andtrying
dad’s funds
all of without
today’s youth
blinded
by bling likeon
thethe
media
have
people they
understand
they go
on.”February? Hold on to those
using are
anynot
of the
old information
hardwould
drive at
all. For to help
because
didn’thow
prepare.
Late
us believe.
care
aboutgleaning,
and are taking
a stand
issues
Since joining
the faculty
at Cal
L.A., itLedesma
has been
many They
others,
besides
foraging
mealson
is an
age in
oldthis
term as
Day stuff
that didn’t
sellState
and save
for next year.
One year,
Valentine’s
do
we
country.
Anyone
searching
for
the
answer
to
the
question
“How
credited
with
developing
and
expanding
the
Master
of
Social
Work
well. Many books were produced in the early 70’s about the idea of
I saved Christmas cards for my family for a whole year.
change
the world?”
shouldraids
lookfor
at food,
Julieta.
With f amilyand
support,
school
foraging
or leading
rummaging,
searching
for foodprogram, updating and improving the admissions-review process for the
program
and securing
external
resources
and
students
encouragement,
andMost
artistic
enthusiasm,
she
is an writer
example
of how
to
Pollen,
of the
Omnivore’s
in urban areas.
recently,
Michael
5. Network,
network,
network!
No, Ifor
amthe
notschool
talking
about
usinginyour
socialdamn
work.blackberry
Additionally,
wasnumbers.
one of 10
recipients
of share
the 2006
nurture
consciousness
and transform
the
stage
to
Dilemma
has chronicled
a returnittointo
theaction.
idea ofFrom
having
the
individual’s
to getshe
phone
If you
have tips,
them and
L.A.will
Distinguished
Women
Awards.
Ledesma
works
to inspire
the streets,
Julieta in
Martinez
inspirational
hand present
makingisa an
meal.
For years, LOUDmouth!
hikes have been led throughCal State
others
share with you.
This isn’t
a contest.
Make
friends
with that
a newStarf*ucks
generation
of students
to think
critically
aboutwith
social
Santa Monica mountains, Granada Hills and Aroyo Seco in Los Angeles
employee
and they
might more
just share
free coffee
you.
Crystal Irby wakes up too early and goes to bed too late in order to meet
justice,
gender
and
communities
and
people
who
are
tossed
aside
by
about the wild herbs and plants that grow and are sustaining. You are
artistic deadlines . F or comments, questions, or dialogue contact her at
thinking.
definitely encouraged to do your own research, ask friends, and try it“mainstream”
6. Timing.
Late nights and early mornings are the best. Obviously,
[email protected].
out safely! Following are some tips on how to get started safely for the
ladies you don’t wanna be alone at late night so definitely take
Frederick Smith works with feminist faculty daily at Cal State L.A. and can be
dumpster novice. Long live Trash!
comrades. Both these times provide the least amount of confrontation
reached at www.fr edericksmith.net.
from angry and underpaid workers, guards, and other hostile situations.
Tips on divin’, gleaning, and digging for treasures!
Also, bins/streets etc. are at their fullest. Sadly, evictions are known
for the first week to be sought out of each month. This means, if you
1. Be discr eet and use pr oper judgment when divin’. As a diver you
search dumpsters and street corners around the 8th or 9th, they are
will be subject to various injuries as you would crossing a street. Use
usually plentiful.
the same caution; look both ways, ar e you wearing the right clothing,
and do you have the proper tools to do such a dive?
7. Safe divin!
LOUDmouth 5
LOUDmouth
25
Jeri
Dear
THE F-WORD
HEALTH
Jeri Landon, R.N., C., MPH
what feminism means to me
By Paloma Parfrey
I
Questions for Jeri? Send them to
loudmouthzine@wildmail.
Q
: Dear Jeri: I liv e in a neighborhood that is very industrial
with a lot of street corners being used as dump sites
for the community. I have asthma, and my youngest child
has already begun showing signs of asthma as well. We
cannot aff ord to move. What would you suggest to protect myself
and my family?
Signed,
Not sure.
A
: Dear Not sure:
The most important issue is your health and the health of
your child. Asthma is a serious lung disease that can be
life-threatening if not treated properly. Hopefully, you are under the
care of a doctor and have medications available in the event of an
asthma attack.
Asthma can run in f amilies. Children who have siblings or
parents with asthma are more likely to develop the illness themselves.
Symptoms of asthma can be triggered by things in the environment.
Some children are sensitive to pet hair, dust, cigarette smoke, or other
substances in the outdoors. I t is important to keep your child away
from the things that increase asthma symptoms.
If your child is wh eezing or having problems breathing, please
consult a physician. Children need medical care to keep their asthma
from getting worse. If you don’t have health insurance, California has
several programs that provide affordable or free medical care for
children including Medi-Cal and Healthy Families Program.
Industrial companies in your neighborhood may be releasing toxic
chemicals and pollution that can affect people with asthma or other
respiratory conditions. You can get a free pollution report about your
area at www.scorecard.org Use this information to take action — send
letters to polluting companies, contact your elected officials or educate
others to get involved in cleaning up your streets. You can also notify
the California Environmental Protection Agency at 916-323-2514 or
online at www.dtsc.ca.gov/database/CalEPA_Complaint/index.cfm.
The Student Health Center is located on the main walkway across from
Biological Sciences and adjacent to the Center for Career Planning and
Placement. For more information, call (323) 343-3300 or go online to
www.calstatela.edu/univ/hlth_ctr. Services for women and men include
diagnosis, treatment and referrals for a wide range of health conditions;
family-planning counseling and prescribing; STD testing and treatment;
HIV testing; and chir opractic, dental and optometry clinics . Pap smears
for cancer scr eening are available for women. Outpatient care is
available Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday,
8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
could describe to you in detail
the unlivable state of Bessie Jr.,
my airstream trailer prior to the
intense month of hard labor that
transformed her into my room. But
this ain’t no Home Depot commercial.
I believe you Loudmouths might want
to know more about the paradoxal yet
well-balanced measures this lifestyle
brings. How it has changed me. And at
the same time has brought me back to
my roots of feminism and childhood. Photo by Irina Contreras.
Feminism is owning your own walls, meaning the reformation
that co-exists as a cycle of struggle, empowerment, inspiration, and
personal emancipation. If the meaning is equality among the sexes,
then the gendered classist ideal of a woman as a ‘nester’ is torn down
by the nomadic duality of my self-owned mobile home. I say duality,
because my trailer operates as a r oom parked at a communal household,
and yet carries no permanence.
I would say there are many mainstream gender stereotypes I’ve
negated in the process of living in the little silver bullet. The journey
of restoration itself was extreme in a way. Organizing my friends’ talents
and learning carpentry tools was liberating to say the least. The idea
that as a 24-year old cr azy chick artist I could actu ally own where I
sleep was in itself mind blowing. Maybe I can’t own the land that it’s
parked on? Alone. Maybe I can’t change sexist classist ownership laws?
Alone. But it’s a start an d the premise of the purchase was to live
co-operatively anyhow.
People are shocked that I’ve grown up in Los Angeles. Maybe it’s
because I tell them I grew up in a commune ‘till I was 12, or live with
a butt-load of friends via airstream, or have been singing in bands since
I was 13 or m aybe it’s that the stereotype of “strong” woman that
always seems foreign to certain people in some way? But I’m here
thriving, hoping to help the flux of radicalism in a car-infested rent
culture. I wasn’t ever taught that paying a landlord was evil. I knew it!
I lived it even at 6 m onths old I knew that you could live fruitfully off
upper class hand-me-downs, “trash,” days-old food, clothes, beds, toys
etc. Fuck ownership laws! Fuck sexist safety! Shit! At least I have a
humble amount of space that allows me to roam. I can find purity; I
can carry on my parents’ late will to live righteously and not roll into
the apartment game of credit card hell. I still go bald. I still wear
overalls. My inner child is laughing when I play in the dirt planting
food, n ot when I’m tied down giving money to the man. In that way I
see how I’ve created my own walls — not just the planks of tin
mounted — but the risk and independence that hold together and
create shelter for the open window of my ideals. My life is trash recycled
and renewed.
Paloma Parfrey is most known for her singing/screaming in bands as
The Sharp Ease and The Grown-Ups. She is a board member of the non-profit
Trade City; with whom she has taught poetry workshops, acted, directed a play,
and performed in many happenings and performance art. Others know her as
the vegan tamale girl at The Smell.
“The F-Word” is a regular LOUDmouth column in which Southern
Californians of all stripes weigh in on what feminism means to them.
E-mail [email protected] to share your thoughts.
LOUDmouth
6
The Body Ecology Diet by Donna Gates (Body Ecology, 1996)
— Feeling like trash? If you suffer from yeast infections,
athlete’s foot, PMS, headaches, depression, skin rashes, low
sex-drive, food allergies, cancer, or more, then the Body
Ecology Diet may be for you. Gates really motivates you to take
care of yourself with yummy recipes and guidelines for diet and
cleansing that will help you to restore and maintain your
“inner ecosystem.” (VV)
Garbage Scout (http://garbagescout.com) — You know that
gorgeous couch sitting out on the corner that's just too big for
your apartment and someone else decided was trash? Don't you
wish someone would just take it? Grab your your camera phone
and email a picture of it or any other possibly useful discarded
item on public streets to GarbageScout and it'll be posted on a
city map for others to browse. Currently only available in Los
Angeles, New York, San Francisco, or Philadelphia. (LAV)
Found (www.f oundmagazine.com) — What can I say? I’m
nosy as hell. That’s why Found — a magazine dedicated to
found stuff (letters, to-do lists, photos, etc.) — is so great.
The finds range from funny to deeply sad and sometimes
disturbing. In Found II (a book o f chalk full o f finds), for
example, a San Francisco P.D. report in which a cop describes
striking an anti-war protestor “twice in zone one” is found on
a page preceding a love letter to (it seems) a dog. (CP)
Dorothy Allison (www.dorothyallison.net) — Called one of
the greatest writers of her generation, Dorothy Allison burst
onto the literary scene with her debut, Bastard Out of Carolina,
in 1992. Born and raised in South Carolina, Allison writes with
authority and great detail the struggle and pain of growing up
poor, a woman, and with small-town social expectations passed
from generation to generation. Bastard is the story of a “white
trash bastard” and her mental and physical abuse in a town
where “being legitimate” matters. In her follow-up book of
short stories, Trash, th e main character describes herself as a
“cross-eyed, working-class lesbian addicted to violence,
language, and hope.” (FS)
Crystal Wilkinson (www.crystalwilkinson.com) — Exploring
the African American side of the Appalachian diaspora, which
she nicknamed “Afrilachian” is Crystal Wilkinson, whose
critically-acclaimed novels and short story collections,
Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street, have made an
impact on the literary scene. She describes herself as a country
girl who takes great pride in her Appalachian roots. In
Blackberries,the eighteen stories follow black, rural women in
Kentucky who struggle with poverty, raising families, looking
for love, and the spoken and unspoken rules of race and
ethnicity in the South. Water Street follows the fictional
and interconnected lives of middle class black people in
rural Kentucky. (FS)
Drinking, A Lo ve Story by Caroline Knapp (Dial Press, 1997)
— Embarking on her career as a journalist, Knapp finds herself
in a dysfunctional affair with getting trashed. Knapp obliterates
everything she needs to survive from her livelihood to her
dignity before finding the strength to end the relationship.
This memoir tells a compelling story with truth and pathos to
the depths of which Aristotle would’ve approved. (SO)
LOUDmouth
7
The Body Ecology Diet
FoundMagazine
Dorothy Allison
Crystal Wilkinson
Thomas Hirschhorn
C.B.E.
Watts Towers
Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales by Norman M. Klein
(Otis Books, 2004) Klein — author of The History of Forgetting
which offered a look at how we throw out community —
Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine — in favor of “industry,” has
written a new book with Freud’s real-life visit to Coney Island
as a symbol to explore how much tradition, like community, is
thrown away in order to make room for entertainment culture.
Klein’s argument that the human spirit is in fact disposable,
easily replaced by consumerism, rings true to Angelinos as we
witness the disneyfication of Los Angeles from 3rd and Fairfax
to Echo Park. (SO)
Thomas Hirschhorn is a Swiss artist known today for his
installations created from mostly commonplace materials
such as foil, duct tape, cardboard and spray paint. While some
of these works offer the public sphere as a place to
build monuments for intellectual/left-leaning figures like
Deleuze and Guattari; a favorite of mine utilizes scrap
material to build a makeshift tunnel from the Whitechapel
Gallery to Freedom Press, an an archist collective.
Hirschhorn has stated that he is interested in using
“wastefulness as a weapon or a tool.” Check out this interview
at: h ttp://www.ganahl.info/ganahlhirschhorn.html. (IC)
No Trespassing by Anders Corr. (South End Press 1999) — Quite
simply, Corr’s account of international housing and land
struggles and (gasp!) successes fills a gap in reference to this
topic. While each section may remain rather short for some, he
does a masterful job drawing rather disparate struggles that tie
into a greater whole. Furthermore, he links himself as a past
isolated activist with the intent of a personal growth and
linkage to a struggle that he has literally thrown himself into
the depths of by refusing to carry a passport and thus being
deported. There is hardly any way that you were able to learn
about the infamous Chiquita takeover in Honduras or the Co-op
City rent strike of 1975 in the Bronx in any history class. (IC)
Communities for a Better Environment (http://www.cbecal.org)
is an environmental and health and justice nonprofit
organization dedicated to the development of sustainability of
toxin-free neighborhoods. Organizers work directly to equip
residents with the ability to inform and respond to hazards in
the community through activism, research, and legal aid. One
of my favorite projects is the Fenceline Monitoring Program, a
light based emissions tracker. With the aid of the Youth Action
Committee, n eighborhoods in Southeast Los Angeles can
monitor multiple gas emissions. (IC)
Nuestro Pueblo/Watts Towers — In 1921, Sabado Rodia
began building this system of 17 different structures made
from rebar and rods that he bent himself with the aid of the
nearby traintracks. He continued to build and climb up his
sculpture until 1954, when a fire occurred in his home next
door. The real beauty of this city’s treasure though is the
community and its people. Home to an incredibly rich history
of struggle, plight and success Watts isn’t like anywhere else
in Los Angeles. Visit this sight for yourself: 1765 East 107 th
St., Los Angeles
THE WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTER
AT CAL STATE L.A.
Calendar of Events
FALL 2006
China's Lost Girls
Thursday, October 5 at 6:15 p.m.
Cross Cultural Centers, King Hall D140
To curb its exploding population, China limits most families to one child,
which leads to thousands of childrenending up in orphanages. This
documentary explores the cultural, social, and economic factors causing
this phenomenon.
Compiled by Irina Contreras and Jackie Joice
Sassy Tease
The internet radio show Sex With Sassyis not for the easily offended.
The hostess of the show calls herself Sassy Tease and is in the business
of “marketing trashy behavior.” Because of Sassy’s unfettered sexuality
and her propensity to leave no dildos unturned, Sassy decided to
market “trashy behavior.” As a result of her marketing idea, the radio
talk show “Sex With Sassy” was unveiled and airs on Saturdays from
9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sassy has the support of her extended family,
significant other, and is happy doing what she loves. Does this mean
that we should all put on our best lingerie and high heels and apply
for a dancing position at the next gentlemen’s club? No, not at all.
For more information about Sex With Sassy, visit sexwithsassy.com.
Darcey Leonard
Hailing from Newburyport, Massachussets, Miss Darcey Leonard rocks
the stage and mic as a burlesque and cabaret performer, promoter, and
go-go dancer. She currently co-organizes Club Screwball, L.A.’s own
vaudeville for the kids. Check her out.
Chica Boom
Destroying the gringo empire by day, and taking off more than
her sombrero by night is how this xicana rolls. From being crowned
Ms. Gay Latina to performing with the Burlyq’s, the first all queer
burlesque troop in the states, Tex Mex Burlesque, and acting as a
member of the National Steering Committee of INCITE (Radical Women
of Color Against Violence); we wonder how this mujer
gets any sueno. This lady works fiercely to radically
impose her identity and strength on the
stereotype of the weak and submissive
mestiza. She is surely bringing a sexual
and cultural hybridism to the
marketing of sex, burlesque, critical
theory, and performance. Watch for
her dirty mexicana wifey act. Visit her
virtually on her myspace page at
http://www.myspace.com/chicaboom.
Simone de la Ghetto
Simone de la Ghetto is the artistic director of the
Harlem Shake Burlesque, the only african American burlesque troop.
Changing the world one shake at a time, she also takes part in WET, a
lesbian cabaret night that features stripping, drag king and queen
performances as well as poetry and music. See what she is up to at
harlemburlesuqueshake.com.
Michelle’s XXX
Michelle hosts pretty much the only all ladies, for the ladies, put on
by ladies (security guards are all ladies or bois) that I can think
of in Los Angeles. Hosted currently in a variety of different
Hollywood nightclubs, track them down by logging onto
http://www.soulfultouchent.com/id2.htm. A bit pricey, but you can
also email Ms. Michelle to get complimentary tickets for you and your
friends. And, when I say ladies, I mean ladies. I have watched guys get
thrown out of the line for not taking this seriously. What happens?
MC’ing, b-girls, poledancers, and group shows entertain away. It could
be a difficult watch for some, but for others a different view.
National Coming Out Day Information Fair
Wednesday, October 11 from 12 noon – 2 p.m.
King Hall Walkway
In recognition of National Coming Out Day, local community organizations
and Cal State L.A.'s Queer Connection student organization will share
information and resources for and about the lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, downe, questioning and straight-ally community.
The Last Abortion Clinic
Thursday, October 12 at 6:15 p.m.
Cross Cultural Centers, KH D140
This documentary investigates the steady decline in the number of
healthcare professionals performing abortions, and focuses on local
political battles in states and cities where very few clinics perform the
controversial procedure.
Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspor a
Monday, October 16 at 6:15 p.m.
University Book store, 1 st floor, Golden Eagle Building
Martin Manalansan, professor, writer, and anthropologist, shares from his
a lively ethnography
book, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora,
of the global and transnational dimensions of gay identity as lived by
Filipino immigrants in New York City.
Chicana Lives and Criminal Justice: Voices from El Barrio
Wednesday, October 25 at 6:30 p.m.
Golden Eagle Ballr oom, 3 rd floor, Golden Eagle Ballr oom
Chicana women are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice
system, whether they are serving time or have family members who are.
Juanita Díaz-Cotto, author of Chicana Lives discusses the roots and causes
behind the growth of Chicana women and their families behind bars, and
gives voice to the struggles these women and their families face in and out
the system.
WRC 30-Year Anniversary:
The Status of Women at Cal State L.A.
Thursday, November 9 from 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. (symposium) and
5 – 7 p.m. (reception/reunion of past WRC volunteers)
Golden Eagle Ballroom, 3 rd floor, Golden Eagle Ballroom
A small group of concerned women started the Cal State L.A. Women's
Resource Center in 1976, as a place to discuss issues o f concern to women
and the LGBT community. In honor of the WRC's 30th anniversary, this
half-day symposium brings students, staff, and faculty to discuss their
research and experiences around the past, present, and future status of
women at Cal State L.A.
For more information or assistance with accommodating a
disability, please call the Cross Cultural Centers at (323) 343-5001.
China’s Lost Girls10|5
Global Divas10|16
11|9
LOUDmouth
8
RevitalizingtheCity:
Text and Images by Fabiola Sandoval
L
Uprooting the
Poor and
Working Class
laws by failing to make sensible maintenance, locking tenants out of
ike numerous cities across the nation, Los Angeles is
their buildings, turning off utilities — all illegal actions.
experiencing major change in its landscape and demographics.
Just two miles south of downtown Los Angeles is a neighboring
Having been involved the previous three years with the Los
community named South Park and the Figueroa Corridor, which
Angeles Community Action Network has given me a closer look at the
surrounds the Staples Center, USC and a number of other museums and
battles facing current residents of this neighborhood. LA CAN is a
group in downtown engaged in the empowerment of the community; historic landmarks. Taking a visit to view the block of Jefferson and
Figueroa is to see that this upsurge in multi-dwelling housing projects
like housing advocacy and civil rights with mostly low income African
is for students, tourism and professionals. City developers have
American homeless individuals. Also, as a resident I am affected by
made priority to attract new members to the community, yet these
skyrocketing rents while I converse with working class and low income
housing projects and amenities are way above the reach for most
individuals in surrounding cities. Reading the paper and working
current residents.
around this issue, I am aware of the increasing gentrification and
South Park is home to
catch phrase “hipsterism”
70% of mostly immigrant
facing our city.
Latino families who are at 50%
The
Community
median income. In the Figueroa
Redevelopment Agency (CRA)
Corridor,
85%
of
the
works
to
promote
the
community's 200,000 residents
development and rehabilitation
rent their apartments, mostly
of economic enterprises. In
from absentee landlords.
creating a modern, efficient and
Strategic Actions for a Just
balanced urban environment for
Economy is an economic justice
people, it aims to include
STAPLES Center, Los Angeles
and popular education center
around-the-clock activities and
Signs of increased loft real estate
which also coordinates the
in downtown L.A.
uses, such as recreation, sports,
Figueroa Corridor Coalition for
entertainment and affordable
Economic Justice( FCCEJ). SAJE is working in a displacement free zone
housing. The discrepancy lies in the fact that the majority of Central City
in the immediate Figueroa Corridor community in light of current
East residents are extremely low income and homeless individuals. Thus
development, hot lands and has successfully organized tenant leaders.
their economic status is not accounted for in qualifying within the
In addition, FCCEJ won a major negotiation with the Staples Center
mentioned affordable housing index.
when it was created in 2001 that guaranteed jobs and training for local
No doubt that gentrification is sweeping the city. Both large
residents as well as funds for affordable housing.
and medium scale developers with the city’s support are adapting
To note in coordination with the changes is an upsurge in
empty office buildings, warehouses and factories to high-end loft
dwelling, condominium conversions, hotels and commercial use. Young police, parking enforcement, security blue, purple, and red shirts bike
riders, the Business Improvement District (BID) team who all have a
hipsters and urban professionals who can afford the amenities of living
strong presence in the city. They ensure the changing reality by citing
here remind one of colonists but are notably the central “customer.”
quality of life offenses, like ticketing vendors, drug users, traffic
They do so at the cost of removing low income residents and changing
violations, encampments, street sitting, and public urination
the landscape of downtown without even sometimes realizing it. A
(specifically in downtown skid row where bathroom facilities are few to
former low-income residential hotel, El Dorado has been converted to
none) to rid the streets of crime, fear and the not so pretty. Civil Rights
lofts. The El Dorado was one of 5,000 affordable units that were lost
violations have been reported in Central City East by a team called BID
last year alone in Los Angeles. Conversions like the Higgins and The
Watch coordinated by LA CAN but these concerns have not generated
Frontier, are two examples of projects adding to the changing face of
media attention.
Los Angeles. Developers and city agencies have a vision for downtown
Revitalization efforts push many out while enforcement
but unfortunately the vision fails to take positive notice of the many
increases the pressure. A policy at home mirroring international
current residents that are working class, low income and homeless
migration — yet in this case is local coerced migration.
people of color.
The redevelopment should not displace our current
In th e midst of downtown change, the opportunities can be
marginalized members of our communities to make room for fancy
sought to create a mixed income area. Standards need to be set to
projects, th e cleaning up of our cities, larger investments and higher
have a conscious mix of race/class/gender dynamics as a priority in the
income earners. Revitalization can mean cultural/economic
foundation of development. Housing should be guaranteed first for
comprehensive to our communities like mixed income housing,
current residents, while others should be welcomed but not the main
sustainable development and eco-friendly friendly construction.
aspect of the overall vision. Long term housing development for
individuals that are in need of rehabilitation and mental health service
Fabiola works in a small non-profit housing developer for lowneeds to be an option for homeless individuals. Most cannot afford this
new standard that the redevelopment agency has provided regardless income families. She's also passionate about all around creative
forms of resistance and cross movement building. Send her a note
of whether or not it is the safe and habitable city center they claim it
at [email protected]
to be. In its place, a growing eclectic city culture center has fabricated
community without serving the needs of the people that already
inhabit the city center. Many landlords have aligned their goals in
creating a tight community by simply selling their properties at a much
higher price. Thus, these landlords have detoured renter-protection
LOUDmouth
9
sometimes it flies:
talking with amber hollibaugh
By Jessica Ho ffmann
A
mber Hollibaugh has identified herself variously (and
mostly all at once) as a sex radical, poor white trash, (ex-)
sex worker, writer, high-femme dyke, biracial, incest
survivor, organizer …
She has worked as a United Farm Workers organizer and
director of the first lesbian-focused HIV/AIDS project. She boldly
spoke out for sexual freedom during the feminist “sex wars” of the
1980s; successfully organized for gay rights in rural, working-class
California communities during the rise of the New Right; and
presently works in New York as a senior strategist at the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force.
The 20 years’ worth of essays and interviews collected in her
book, My Dangerous Desires(Duke, 2000), reveal Hollibaugh’s
unflinching commitment to connecting issues and people. It’s a
commitment informed by her own multifaceted identity and fueled
by a deep reservoir of hope. When we spoke recently, her frequent
and full laughter communicated to me as well as her words the
conditions under which a reservoir, rather than stagnating, buoys,
glistens, sustains.
JH: Let’s start with how you got into activism.
AH: I g ot involved in the ’60s. The demonstrations in the South were
exploding, the work that the civil-rights movement had been doing
for 20 years began to take shape, and there was, year after year,
more activism and resistance around racism.
The crossover for me is that my father is a person of color, a
full-blooded Romany Gypsy. I’m biracial, and I identify as white. (If
you ever see a picture of me, it’s pretty obvious why.) But my father
did not look like and was not a white person. So I have skin
privilege, but the family that I come from was torn by endless racism
of people thinking that my father couldn’t be my father, or that we
were a dangerous family to have in a public space, or him being fired
from his jobs because he just would not back down around racism. I
had grown up extraordinarily poor, and part of why we were poor was
that my father was consistently undercut, betrayed and used as a
worker of color. So, we moved a lot, we lived in trailers …
The other piece is that, ironically, I was sent in my last year of high
school to a ruling-class institution that had a scholarship program
for who they considered “high-IQ low achievers” [laughs], which
pretty well described me.
LOUDmouth
10
My mother had found the name of the school in a doctor’s office
waiting-room magazine [that listed] schools for children of the elite.
She wrote to every one to find out if they had a scholarship program
because she could see that I was headed down the wrong path
[laughs]: I had already had 17 boyfriends that were in the Hell’s
Angels [laughs].
If you ever wanna learn about class, fly from Bakersfield, California,
which is Hoboville in Grapes of Wrath, directly to Lugana,
Switzerland, and live in a castle. You will figure out class very
quickly. [laughs] It was a school for boys and girls of the ruling class
who were rebellious, so they were smart and kind of contentious —
but they were all gonna end up at Harvard. And I was in my last year
of high school and had never read a good book, so it was really
difficult. My history teacher was a second-generation Lebanese
immigrant, and I went to him because I knew I was flunking out. He
said, “You’re not flunking out because you’re stupid; you’re flunking
out because you were never meant to be here.” And then he gave me
the Communist Manifesto.
It was riveting because it made an argument that said that your failure
wasn’t personal, that class is a system, and you fit within a certain
structure. It wasn’t like you had good parents or bad parents or parents
that worked hard or slugged off; you were structured into a certain
kind of economic hierarchy, and you were not meant to leave it. I was
stunned. It was the first time I understood what had happened to my
parents. It really gave me impetus to pay attention to things like the
civil-rights movement, because I was now thinking politically in a way
that — had I been in Bak ersfield, ri ding motorcycles, I don’t know
what I would have done — but I suddenly was in a ruling-class school,
with no money, being treated like a piece of shit because I looked like
poor white trash. I had bleached-blond hair. In a ruling-class school,
nobody bleached their hair. I was learning class at an accelerated
speed, and I was learning class politics.
When I came back to the United States, the Freedom Summers were
happening, and I went. I was 16 years old and had long blond hair,
walking around rural Mississippi, which was dangerous for everyone,
so I didn’t last long in the South. But that was how I became an
activist. An d it tr ansformed my life.
You’ve written about how being involved in social-justice
movements both opened up your sense of hope and possibilities
and also alienated and frustr ated you with hierarchies of
knowledge, or privileging certain class experiences, or —
I spent my life in d ebating ideas, teaching myself the things that
people are pushed from learning. I think people really don’t have
access to the information that would give them a worldview. They
have a huge amount of hot air and fluff, but not the real, tangible
knowledge of how a system works. I was in a movement where that’s
what we did — get in study groups and study economics or study
sexism. That was an amazing opportunity for someone that came
from a place where people had no future.
That is what poverty does. It shrinks your possibilities into tinier and
tinier, the most minute series of options: Should I eat today or
should I tak e the bus? Should I buy this pi ece of clothing and not
go to a movie for a month? The options of poverty are always bad
choices, where one choice undercuts another because there’s never
enough. Joining the movement, while it didn’t give me economic
security, it gave me a place to live outside of those desperate
circumstances. Suddenly I had a way to not care about being poor.
But it’s not as though there wasn’t extraordinary intellectual elitism
even within the Left or women’s liberation. Movements were often
embedded in groups of people that came from privilege, and they
brought their attitudes with them; even if they ideologically argued
against class privilege, they had the arrogance of their own class
background to make that argument through.
LOUDmouth
11
And you’ve pointed out how that limits movements, talking a lot
about how the white-middle-class culture of lots of the dominant
voices in feminism affected feminist discussions.
You ever notice that when people in the feminist movement are
talking about sexism, their endless reference is a construction
worker? It’s not as if they don’t then run in with other examples, but
the examples that are most prevalent are class or race examples. And
that made me insane because while everybody admitted, you know,
the old story of the difference between a middle-class drunk and a
working-class drunk is who could hide it, that that’s the reality of
oppression — that middle-class men could hide what they did in a
way that, often, working-class men could not, that class made them
vulnerable at the same point that they were also sexist — the
women’s movement refused to try and have an analysis of how they
were talking about why things happened and who did them.
So am I gonna talk about domestic violence if the joke is about
drunk truck drivers beating up on their wives, but never a
conversation about college professors? No, I’m not. I’m not gonna
contribute to a class betrayal of my family that makes it possible for
people to avoid a very different kind of argument about class
protection. And that meant that people like myself, Dorothy Allison,
Jewelle Gomez … instead of being able to talk frankly about the
difficult and painful circumstances that we had come from, had to
defend our communities against the implied class and race politics
of an un-thought-out feminism.
So much of your work is about doing that deeper thinking to
connect issues other s fr ame as separ ate. I’m thinking of your
recent work about getting the lesbian movement to really look
at HIV/AIDS and the labor mo vement to r eally look at se xuality .
If you look at the demographic map of who’s most at risk for HIV for
women, and you overlay that with a map of who’s the core group of
the new organizing attempts by the labor movement — the working
poor — they’re identical. And that made me nuts, because I’d go to
the labor movement and say, “You’ve gotta train people around HIV,”
and they’d say, “Oh, the people that we work with aren’t healthcare
workers who are gonna get needle sticks in the hospital.” It was like,
get over yourself; these are people who are having unprotected sex
or shooting drugs or whose brothers are selling drugs. Would you
please get real about who in the hell you’re organizing?
It always shocked me that the women’s movement didn’t take up HIV,
that a disease about class and sex was completely avoided by a
movement that supposedly believed in advocating for women that
were the most vulnerable — and it still hasn’t done anything
particularly significant. And concurrently, the labor movement has
been terrified of dealing with the stigma attached to HIV in the
workplace and workers who are HIV-positive not because they were
victims that got a needle stick but because they come from the
communities that are most at risk. It’s like, Do you get this? Do you
understand that the people that we’re losing are the people that
you’re trying to organize, and if you refuse to talk about it they have
no source of information? The government’s not gonna do anything.
The LGBT movement is generally too middle-class to have access to
that group of people. You’re the only ones that have an in besides
the churches, and the churches ain’t talkin’.
You seem to be always having these tough conversations, where
you’re coming up against walls of resistance even within the
movements you’re a part of, yet you keep at it. How have you
sustained your energy through decades of activism?
You have to try and figure out what are the things that most propel
you. For me, it’s that I want no one to ever again face the things
that I had to face to grow up, [the things that I watched] the people
that I love f ace. That’s not acceptable to me that human beings
should have to face those kinds of bitter, impossible choices, and
end up with all their brilliance being contained in a beer can and a
mobile home.
I’m not sorry about where I came from, but I don’t want anybody else
to have to be there, because when people have lives that are
stripped of possibility, it is very hard to have any hope. My parents
had resilience and resistance, but they didn’t have much hope … .
They could abstractly hope I did better, married someone, whatever
it was that would at least allow me not to sink further, but what
would they imagine? You can’t imagine a path out of a world that
has no map.
This to me is at the heart of your work around sex — when other
feminists have tried to narrow the conversation, you’ve pushed
instead to open it up, saying we need to explore sexuality more,
create our own maps.
The women’s-liberation movement started as a much more radical
movement. Large parts of it came out of the Left. It was a response
to the sexism of the Left, but it came out of the Left, and that meant
it came out of a world view. And then, it was like, Look what’s
happening to women, and sexuality ended up becoming, quickly, a
conversation about absence and lack and vulnerability. And all those
things are true. I’ve often said, Andrea Dworkin didn’t make anything
up. It’s as bad as she said it is. Women are not treated well, and
often pay a terrible price for desire, either because they don’t get to
have it, or because they have it and they get punished for it.
But the question of what women’s liberation’s response to that
absence and that danger should be is the question that I think got
answered badly. That sexuality matters, that women have a right to
desire, that we need to learn it and then be safe enough to act on
it, whatever it might be — that to me was the point, not to become
more and more embittered and kind of professionally victimized.
“If you go to a Critical Resistance conference,
half the people there are queer. They’re not
organizing as gay people around prison
reform, they’re just queer and they’re doing
prison work in their communities and they’re
kids of color, and they may or may not be
sleeping with people of the same gender.”
We should have been claiming even more profoundly the right of
women to imagine themselves as sexual beings and sexual directors.
Trying to fi gure out how to be your own sexual actor, and how to
determine and understand your own erotic drive — that is not an
easy thing, especially in a sex-hating culture. Doing so much work
around sexuality for so long, I’m not frightened because women have
such dangerous ideas; I’m frightened because they don’t, because
most women say to me, “I don’t have a sexual imagination.”
So one of the reasons that I’ve always felt like things like porn were
important was because where do you learn sex? I s [porn]
misogynist? Is it r acist? Violent? Often, sure. But if you’re not in the
world of sex, you don’t think sex. You’ve got to have access to
images and possibilities, experiments, to figure out some of the
possible. You don’t know by yourself that something can happen to
get you to a whole other place.
You’ve said the work you’re doing now at the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force is not work you ever envisioned yourself
doing. Can you talk about that?
I’m doing a lot o f work on aging. There are about 3 million LGBT
people now that are 65 or over, and it’s gonna double by 2030.
There’s no infrastructure in the queer community to manage the kind
of circumstances, needs, and services [that will be required] for older
LGBT people. There’s no — even — discussion around getting older.
In the women’s movement, it’s never discussed. Gloria Steinem can
say, “This is what 60 looks like.” But if you’re terrified of getting old
because of all the things that you fear it may make you vulnerable
to, that doesn’t really answer it. It’s not a bad thing to say, but it
doesn’t really say how you’re gonna be a woman when you’re
dependent and have no husband, or have no good retirement plan
and don’t want to be put in a nursing home where they’re gonna try
and control your body. That scares the shit out of me.
So, in ways that I never expected, I’ve started to do aging work, a
lot because as a femme in the lesbian movement I never knew older
femmes that I could talk to about their aging or my own. And I think
it terrified me from the time I was in my late 20s or early 30s
because I knew as a working-class woman that the thing I had
depended on all my life was my ability for my body to be healthy,
and if that faltered, I couldn’t imagine what I would have left.
And I think it’s really terrifying about sexuality. You don’t wear the
negligee when you’re 60 the same way that you do when you’re 25.
And you may still want to wear the negligee. What do you do with
an erotic identity that you can’t fulfill in the same way any longer
but you still believe in an erotic identity? This is not an easy thing
to answer, and it’s not a conversation in the queer world, it’s not a
conversation amongst femmes, and so I’m doing the work around
policy and things like that, but I’m also r eally trying to think it
through because I want for younger women to have a place to talk
about it so it’s not secret, and so we can begin to engage in a
conversation about being able to be who we are, in all the different
permutations that might mean, as we age.
What do you see in social-justice movements today in terms of
how far they’ve come — or haven’t — in being open to having
these conversations that link different issues, explore the
previously une xplored places …?
I think what’s creating an unpredictable possibility for the future is
that the movements now that are organizing around labor,
environmental racism, and things like that are pulling on a younger
generation that has been very impacted by the radical movements of
the ’60s and ’70s. They are the gender outlaws, they have a different
understanding of the world, and they are in those places. That is who
the AFL-CIO is hiring to organize home-healthcare workers. If you go
to a Critical Resistance conference, half the people there are queer.
They’re not organizing as gay people around prison reform, they’re
just queer and they’re doing prison work in their communities and
they’re kids of color, and they may or may not be sleeping with
people of the same gender. In every movement every time I turn
around, the configuration of gender, class and race has really been
opened up in ways that it was not 30 years ago. That’s thrilling.
Movements never know what they will open up. The environmental
movement never saw itself as doing environmental-racism work, but
the communities that were being impacted in very particular and
obvious ways were communities of color. And that engendered a
whole conversation that has built a wing of the environmental
movement that’s really remarkable. The best and most unpredictable
part of social-justice work is that you start something and you have
no idea where it will go. You could never have predicted at the
beginning of women’s liberation a trans-justice movement, that the
questioning of gender in the context of biological women’s bodies
would have led to a movement that’s completely transforming the
entire category of gender. You know, you open doors, and then you
don’t control it. It goes on its own, and sometimes it flies.
Jessica is happy to report that she finds herself getting more radical every
day. Push her further with your rad ideas: [email protected].
LOUDmouth
12
By Wendy Carrillo
T
here is a moment in my gleefulness
of arriving home from a night out
that I notice a woman going
through my neighbor’s trash, humming an
tune from the old country, and I think to
myself, oh great! I’ve forgotten to take out
the trash. Again. I go up the stairs, change
and come back down. She smiles at me
politely and I smile back. She waits till I
take the bin out, and go upstairs. I peek
out my window and I see her slowly lift up
the top of trash bin, and begin to take
items out.
There are certain moments in all of
our lives when reality hits us as hard and
as fast as a collision on the Santa Monica
FWY. One Friday morning, at 2:30 a.m.,
that collision hit me. I think of the nearly
$100 that I blew on Sangria and Martini’s DUMPSTERING
and a heavy feeling begins to fill the pit of
my stomach. Guilt caused by social
consciousness that lets me know, like a
slap in the face, on how privileged I really
am. I think maybe, I need to put that
privilege to good use. Easier said than done
though. It took a lot of nerve for me to
actually approach her. In all my schooling, in all my activism, the
humility that exists in people trying to survive can be over powering.
But her smile was warm and inviting and so one day, I said good
morning and took a walk with a woman that lives in the shadows of
our world.
Her name is Sandra Rodriguez*. Sandra is a mother of four
children, the eldest Rosalia* 13, followed by Yasmin* 11, Carlos* 3 and
Paquito* who is only 3 months old. I’ve seen Sandra walk the hills of
my East LA neighborhood many times before, but I’ve never really seen
her. I’ve seen her go through trash
bins, pi cking out our useless and
discarded recyclable goods. I’ve
seen her cart full of empty soda
cans, litter bottles, milk gallons,
bleach bottles and every different
brand
of
drinking
water
imaginable.
Sandra
wears
industrial working gloves, and a
red checkered rag over her face.
She tells me that the smells are
putrid and make her feel
nauseated, but she does it
because she needs the extra
money for the infant formula for her only U.S. born child. Sandra and
her husband declined the government assistance they were offered in
the hospital. “We came here to work, not to ask for charity,” she tells
me proudly.
As she began telling me her story, I wondered if Sandra knew
how people looked at her. The glances of pity and inconvenience all
rolled into one single fleeting look from a passer by. I ask Sandra if her
husband works as hard as she does. I trek very lightly because she is
timid and seems to think I mi ght ask her legal status. With the recent
marches regarding immigrant rights in the United States, it can be a
very touchy subject. Sandra tells me that her husband Roberto*, is a
street vendor. He stands on corners peddling sun kissed oranges or
intoxicatingly beautiful flowers throughout the day, on any given Los
Angeles street. When he is not doing that, he may be roofing or
washing dishes in a r estaurant. The $1,200 rent for their 2 bedroom
home with a small yard needs to be paid on time, every month. “It’s
hard work,” she tells me, “trying to make an honest living in this land.”
She sighs and looks over the horizon, where the sun is quickly
drawing near, that polite faint grin appears on her face again, the more
she talks to me, the less time she will have. It is dawn and the city
trash trucks will pass in a few hours. There are
twenty more trash bins she needs to go through
before she heads to the next block and finally
takes her collection to a local recycling center,
about a three mile’s walk from where she
stands now. In California alone, the Department
of Conservation has established well over 2,100
certified recycling centers that accept plastic,
glass, aluminum, steel and paper. Consumers in
California pay a California Redemption Value —
CRV, on all eligible recyclable goods, since
2004 it’s at .04¢ for containers less than 8oz
and .08¢ for containers 24oz and greater. Last
year alone, California recycled approximately
60% of 20.2 billion carbonated and noncarbonated drinks in aluminum, glass, plastic
and bi-metal containers. Not only did California
save on natural resources, extend the life of
landfills and conserved more energy, but the
California Recycling Program has also been
nationally renowned for its success in getting
its people to recycle more.
I look at Sandra’s grocery cart, full of
plastics and aluminum cans and wonder if she
AT .04 CRV is aware of the contribution she is giving our
state and our environment. I wonder if Sandra
really is someone that is takin g away “American jobs.” It doesn’t seem
very likely to me. While the Minuteman’s anti-immigrant ideology refers
to immigrants crossing the U.S. borders as borderline terrorist who only
want advantage of the welfare system and increasing everyone’s taxes,
the 2000 Census Report indicates
that the majority of people on
welfare are in actuality white
Americans. It seems Sandra, like
many more people within urban
Los Angeles communities are
keeping this state clean an d
green friendly without ever
getting
any
kind
of
acknowledgement.
Sandra tells me that today, because she has collected more
plastic than usual, she hopes to make at least $40. At .04¢ every
bottle, that’s a lot of cans and bottles. I ask her how long she has been
at it, and how many blocks she has walked. She looks away for a
moment, wipes her forehead and tells me she does this for about 5
hours, every Friday before the sun rises. She tells me that its a little
harder since the baby was born, sometimes she tells her oldest
daughter, Rosalia, to care for him and her siblings while she goes to
work. On other times, she brings her daughter with her. It’s a very
different Bring Your Daughter to Work Day than most Americans are
used too.
I think about a time when I was 13 years old. I think about the
boy I had a crush on, th e walk-man that made me cool, and my High
Top LA Gears. I remember getting on a bus and helping my mother
vacuum the homes of rich folk on the other side of town. No one in my
neighborhood ever saw me. I can’t say the same for Rosalia, who picks
through the trash of her neighbors, as they look on and pretend to not
see her. She holds her head up high and is graced with her mother’s
patient smile. Rosalia just got accepted to Bravo Medical High school,
a local high school for gifted children. Much like many immigrants,
Sandra and Roberto seek the American dream and a better life for their
children. For Sandra and her family, that dream is found at the bottom
of a county trash bin, at .04¢ a bottle.
dreams
LOUDmouth
13
Wendy Carrillo is a writer from East Los Angeles and is part of “Soul Rebel
Radio” on KPFK 90.7fm ~ www.myspace.com/theworldaccordingtowendy
a choice to
By Nina Packenbush
bear
the katrina disposables
The fact remains: Every threat to the fabric of this country — from
poverty to crime to homelessness — is connected to out-of-wedlock
teen pregnancy.
— Jonathon Alter, Newsweek, December 12, 1994
A
s a teenage mother or a pregnant teen you literally cannot
step outside of the house without hearing or reading that you
are worthless, trash. The Right and the Left alike proclaim
teenage childbearing as one of the top threats to this country’s
economy. Teenage pregnancy is directly responsible for poverty, crime,
substance abuse, lack of education, the breakup of the family and just
about any other social ill that you can name. Unwed teenage mothers
are single-handedly destroying this country. Please note the use of the
words “unwed” and “mothers.”
The fact is that in the 1950s, teen-pregnancy rates were much
higher than they are today, but we hail that era as a time of innocence
and strong family units. Why didn’t we worry about teenage mothers
causing the demise of our great democracy then? The reason is clear;
at the time when this country faced the highest teen pregnancy rates
the majority of girls chose marriage. That is not the case any longer
and the Right and Left alike frown upon households ran by single
mothers. In the 1950s only 15 percent of pregnant girls did not get
married; today 75 percent choose not to marry. Despite this change in
demographics, the powers that be are still not fond of single mothers.
If you look closely at th e rhetoric you will find that
the underlying message is one of woman-blaming, specifically
single-mother blaming. The causes of early childbearing are numerous,
but clearly teenagers who have been raped or abused experience higher
rates of pregnancy. Men averaging age 27 assaulted the majority of
these girls. 1 In turn, accor ding to U.S. Public Health Service reports,
71 percent of all teen age mothers have adult male partners over
age 20. Men over age 20 cause five times more births among
junior-high-aged girls than do boys their own age and 2.5 times more
births among high-school girls than do high-school boys. There is a
direct connection between abuse and teen pregnancy.
In addition, 60 percent of teenage mothers lived in poverty at
the time of the pregnancy, and one-third of them dropped out of high
2
The majority of teenage mothers
school before becoming pregnant.
come from a background of poverty and/or abuse. These issues must
be addressed if we are to see a r eal decline in teenage childbearing.
We must also realize that early childbearing does not doom
mother and child to a life of hopelessness. Recent studies show that
teenage mothers are more self sufficient and earn higher wages than
women of similar socio-economic backgrounds who delayed
childbearing. Having a child actually motivated them and thus caused
the teenage mothers to have more financial success by the age of 34
than their age-mates who delayed childbearing.3
Nobody can argue that teenage pregnancy should be
encouraged, but if we look critically at the facts we will see that teen
pregnancy does not cause poverty, school failure, drug abuse, physical
and/or sexual abuse or crime, but rather that those factors are huge
contributors to teen pregnancy. We must look critically at the facts and
stand by our younger sisters. We must understand that “pro-choice”
means just that — choice, the choice to have a child or to have an
abortion. We must understand that when politicians rail against teen
parents, they are, in reality, attacking single mothers.
Study after study shows that the biggest factor in a teenage
mother’s ability to go on to create a healthy and happy life for herself
and her child is by having an adult who believes in her. Let each of us
be that adult. Please don’t be yet another harmful voice in the ear of
a scared teenager. I was that scared teenager at one time, and my
daughter is that teenager now … but she is not scared. She is
empowered, and after her birth control failed, she made the choice to
become a mother at the age of 16. She will be a successful and
fantastic mother. She knows her worth. All teenage mothers deserve to
know that they matter. As feminists we must make it our responsibility
to make sure that every teenage girl, pregnant or not, knows this. The
next time you see a pregnant teenager or a teenager struggling with a
fussing toddler, smile or offer a kind word or a helping hand. Get
involved with your local teens; donate money, time or baby clothes to
a teen mother organization in your community; volunteer at your local
pro-choice contraceptive clinic.
Girls like me have raised presidents. We've raised messiahs and
musicians, writers and settlers. Girls like me won't compromise and we
won't fail.
—Allison Crews
Nina Packebush is a radical, feminist, single, dyke mom of three kids and a
38-y ear-old gr andma of one. She and her daughter have started the Vera
Allison T een Mom Project to provide practical and emotional support to young
mamas. She can be reached at [email protected].
Promoting support for teen mothers in feminism.
There are growing opportunities to support the young mothers
amongst up in our communities. We are happy to provide a short
but comprehensive list of organizations, collectives, and young
mami’s we think rule!
http://www.mamitamala.com/ (Contributor Maegan’s website for
revolutionary motherhood)
http://www.vera-allisonteenmomproject.blogspot.com
(a comprehensive list of resources and advice)
http://www.breast-friends .org/ (great info on breast feeding)
Soraya Medina (financial wellness and literacy coordinator at artscorpsla.org
or log onto youtube.com to hear info about this local mami’s work)
http://www.girlmom.com/ (an online support group for
teen moms)
http://www.imperfectparent.com (a site d evoted to the real dealings of
everyday life f or the admittedly imperfect parent)
1
Plannedparenthood.org
Poverty Research News, Winter, 1999, Vol 111, No 1
3
V. Joseph Hotz, UCLA and RAND Susan William MrElroy and Seth Sander, Carnegie
Mellon University
2
http://www.aracelisilva.com (website for local mother, artist and 33/13
collective member)
LOUDmouth
14
By Luz Angélica Vázquez
W
e often don't realize just how many pre-packaged products
we use in our everyday lives and often we ignore the fact
that everything that we put on our bodies must go
somewhere at some point. Processing and shipping these products
creates a lot of waste and then of course we usually end up throwing
the bottles, plasti c wraps, and cardboard boxes away. While the U.S.
only recycles 28 percent of its waste, we usually end up throwing the
bottles, plastic wraps, and cardboard boxes away. I consider myself a
bit of an environmentalist, but I admittedly don't recycle. My
apartment building provides us with a huge dumpster, but not any
recycling bins, so I put my glass, plastic, and aluminum cans and
bottles into plastic or paper grocery bags next to the dumpster to be
taken away by one of the guys or gals strolling my street with a
shopping cart full of the stuff.
I thought I'd record the waste I generate in a week, but as I began my
research, I realized within my first day just how much trash I create in
my morning routine.
Wednesday, May 17, 8:30 a.m.: Woke up, peed, wiped myself(1) , and
flushed(2) the toilet paper down. I showered(3) using bar soap(4) , face
wash(5) , shampoo(6) , and conditioner(7) . Toweled off and stepped into my
polyester and rubber sandals. I dried my ears with cotton swabs(8) ,
toned my face with a cotton round(9) dabbed with tea tree oil(10) ,
applied sunscreen lotion(11) , brushed and styled my hair with hair
spray(12) , brushed my teeth(13, 14) , and applied some deodorant(15) .
1. T oilet paper: Chlorine bleached, vir gin paper(paper which has no
recycled content) on a paperboard roll (possibly recycled) and
individually sealed in #4 LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene) plastic and
then sealed again with the other 35 rolls in a #4 plastic bag. Bleaching
paper releases organochlorines and dioxins as well as up to 1,000
different toxic compounds into our environment which don't readily
break down. Toilet paper does not disintegrate; instead it ends up
getting screened out at the treatment plant and sent to the landfill.
LDPE is made from oil.
When I had a better paying job, I bought 100% recycled paper that
was bleached with non-toxic hydrogen peroxide, but I now must resort
to buying in bulk from Costco because it's cheaper.
2. Water per flush: 1.6 gallons, which is the average for an
ultra-low-flush toilet. I try n ot to flush th e toilet every time I pee,
LOUDmouth
15
thus conserving more water, but if you’d like to do your part and don’t
like the idea of stagnant urine in your toilet, you can place a weighted
plastic jug full of water in the tank or contact your local water
company about rebates for installing low-flush toilets in your home.
The LADWP has a $100 rebate program and also offers free low-flush
toilets to all of its customers!
3. Shower water use: 37.5 gallons. I'm in the shower for about 15
minutes a day and have a low-flow showerhead, which uses about 2.5
gallons per minute. I have started to turn off the water when I'm
soaping up and turn it back on to rin se off because I d on't need the
water on the whole time.
4. Soap: Individually shrink-wrapped, closed off with a sticker, and
sold as a set of twelve in a plasti c box. No indication of whether or not
it can be r ecycled. Vegetable based ingredients,except for Tetrasodium
Etidronate (little research exists on it, however, the Swedish Society
for Nature Conservation gives it low points for its negative effects on
the environment), Pentasodium Pentetate(little research exists on it),
and Tetrasodium EDTAwhich biodegrades very slowly and when it does
degrade, it binds with non-biodegradable, toxic, heavy metals such as
mercury, lead, or cadmium. May contain colorants including Green 5,
Yellow 10 and Blue 1. Artificial colors can be made from petroleum or
coal and as such do not degrade in the environment and are toxic to
fish and mammals. I go through a bar of soap a month. I've thought
about making my own, but I never got around to it.
5. Face Wash: All plant based ingredients in a #1 PETE (Polyethylene
Terephthalate) recyclable,plastic dispenser. PETE is a thermoplastic resin
of the polyester family. The 8oz container lasts me about 3 months.
6. Shampoo: All plant based ingredientsin a #2 HDPE (High-Density
Polyethylene) recyclable, plastic bottle. HDPE is made from petroleum.
The 16oz container lasts about 3 months.
7. Conditioner: All plant based ingredientsin a #2 HDPE recyclable,
plastic bottle. The 8oz container lasts about 1 month.
8. Cotton Swabs: Small, bleached, paperboard stickswith bleached
cotton on either end sold as a set o f 1,000 in a plastic bagwhich does
not indicate recyclability. Hydrogen peroxideis the most common
bleaching method for cotton and degrades into water and oxygen,
though chlorine bleaching is still commonly used.
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9. Cotton rounds: 100 count, 100% cottonin a plastic bagsold as an
8 pack in a cardboard bo
x, shrink wrapped in plastic. I g o through a
bag about every three months. A smarter alternative would be to use
a face cloth and wash it, but I thought about this after I bought 800
cotton rounds. Doh!
10. Tea Tree Oil: Packaged in a small glass bottlewith a plastic topand
three stickers. The 1oz container lasts about 2.5 months, but I also use
it for household cleaning as a disinfectant and mold killer instead of
more traditional, toxic cleaners. Use one teaspoon of essential oil to 2
cups of water in a spray bottle.
11. Sunscr een Lotion: All plant based ingredients
, except for the
chemicals octinoxate and oxybenzone, which are both suspected
endocrine disruptors and end up in waterways when you shower or
swim in the ocean. They may have negative developmental and
reproductive effects on fish and wildlife. The 4oz container lasts about
3 months.
12. Hair Spr ay: Recyclable aluminum container with a plastic top,
plastic spray nozzle, and plastic straw. Contains dimethyl etherwhich
can be made from natural gas, coal, or biomass (organic non-fossil
material). I rarely use this because I hate styling my hair, so I've had
it for more than a year now.
13. Pr eserve Toothbrush: Handle is made of #5 PP (Polypropylene)
plastic from post-consumer and pre-consumer recycled plastics and is
packaged in a reusable brush canister made from recycled materials.
The company offers postage-paid envelopes so that used toothbrushes
can be sent back to them for recycling. The PP handle and
nylon bristlesare recycled together and turned into plastic lumber. I
replace my toothbrush every 3 months or so or when the bristles
become really worn.
14. Toothpaste: Mineraland plant based ingredientsin a recycled and
recyclable aluminum tubewith a plastic cap. Sold in a recycled and
recyclable paperboard bo
x. This will last about 2.5 m onths.
15. Deodorant: All plant based ingredientsin #6 PE (Polystyrene)
plastic with three stickers. This will last about 3 months.
I make it a point to buy only natural, biodegradable, recyclable
products and conserve water at all times, but I could still cut back on
all the packaging by using an all-purpose, liquid soap with tea tree oil
like Dr. Br onner’s. Consolidation is key: All-One!
Luz ([email protected]) believes it is vital for everyone to reduce
their ecological f ootprint if our earth is to surviv e. She'd lik e her 2 yr . old
nephew to be able to enjoy it, too.
LOUDmouth
16
By Sheana Ochoa
O
ne year later, Katrina survivors are scattered across the
nation, still without jobs, medical care or a place to call
home. They have been forgotten and disposed of while
Washington’s contractors rebuild and profit from their loss. Many
people are still asking how this happened. How did the superpower of
the world ignore the needs of its own citizens? Ineptitude? Ignorance?
Or simply a predetermined and deliberate choice to discard the lives of
people viewed as too insignificant to save?
A year before Hurricane Katrina hit, a fictional simulation
predicted a levee breach would flood New Orleans, leaving 100,000
people to fend for themselves. In 2004, the Bush Administration
developed a National Response Plan, which was supposed to design a
strategy for responding to a natural disaster or terrorist attack. A year
later, measures have still not been taken to respond to the next,
inevitable cataclysm.
After the storm struck in the early morning hours of Monday,
Aug. 29, 2005, and the levees were breached, the city began flooding.
As early as Monday afternoon, officials had verified that the levees had
indeed broken and were notifying the White House. Still no action was
taken. Despite years of forewarnings, the New Orleans police was
ill-prepared: They had three small boats and no food, water or fuel to
supply rescue workers. The fire department had previously requested
supplies in the form of inflatable boats and food, but none were
provided. On Monday evening, those left behind went to bed in a city
that would be underwater by morning.
Mayor Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city, but
he later testified that no such evacuation was carried out. On Tuesday
morning while President Bush was in San Diego talking to soldiers with
the knowledge the levees had been breached, thousands of people
were evacuated to the Superdome and the convention center where
there was still no clear plan of action. Evacuees would have to wait
two or more days before food and water were available.
One NPR correspondent reported the conditions in New Orleans
were on the magnitude of those he had witnessed covering the war in
Grenada and the tsunami in Indonesia. The reporter described a group
of men pushing a speedboat from house to house looking for survivors.
Friends and neighbors waded the flood waters pushing a fuel-less boat
— ironic as oil is th e one thing this government does not treat as
trash, its value so high that human lives are traded for its safe harbor.
Volumes could be written on the stories of how, in response to the
government’s failure to act, ordinary people ended up coming, and
continue to come, to the rescue of the survivors. The situation is no
different from those in developing countries where government
actually lacks the resources to respond to crisis, but in the United
States? International Medical Corps, who has been providing worldwide
LOUDmouth
17
humanitarian relief for over 20 years, released a statement revealing
their observations six months after Katrina’s landfall in which there
was no comparable difference in conditions between displaced people
in countries where they work — Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan — and those
of the more than two million displaced people in the Gulf Coast.
Americans are forced to fend for themselves for the basic necessities
of safety, f ood, sh elter and healthcare.
Healthcare was already an issue in the Gulf Coast region for its
uninsured and underinsured residents. Dozens of non-profit health
the katrina disposables
clinics whose facilities were damaged by Katrina are trying to meet the
needs of tens of thousands of patients. If we can’t even expect the
government to assist in the event of a national crisis, what does that
say about its ability to r ecognize how assistance should be executed?
One of the most unsettling consequences of the failure to
respond to Katrina was the lawless conditions in the evacuation
centers of the Superdome and the convention center. Nine months
after the storm, a survivor, Teddy Hall joined nine other survivors
documenting their stories on Pacifica Radio. Hall was rescued from his
house by a department of wildlife and fisheries helicopter. He was
dropped off on the interstate a couple miles away. He then spent nine
days without food or water on the interstate before being evacuated
to the Superdome. Conditions were scant better, as food dropped off
was not partitioned in an organized way. The first-come-first-served
hierarchy and violent atmosphere of desperation
pervaded. Hall reflected on his experience as a
paraplegic seeing corpses floating among the refuge
of the flood and hearing women’s screams of abuse
in the blacked-out surroundings of the Superdome.
His helplessness is symbolic of the government’s —
crippled and unable even if willing (which it is not)
to provide for the safety of its citizens.
The real question is not how this happened in
America, but why the needs of these people continue
to be unmet. The answer: The majority of the people
still affected have never had the resources to begin
with. They are low-income working class, largely
made up of women and children of color. Women
comprise over half of the population in America, 30
percent of whom are women of color. Poverty, lack of
power and resources have disproportionately
affected women throughout our history, leaving
them the most vulnerable in the wake of calamity.
These women have become the throw-outs of the
Katrina crisis. They don’t fit into the social décor,
and like the IKEA lamp and last year’s cell phone,
they are discarded.
With the government failing to step forward,
Katrina survivors have found the most relief through
disaster-relief organizations such as Ms. Foundation,
the Red Cross, USA Freedom Corps, the Salvation
Army, church organizations, non-profit and privatesector donations — h umanitarian efforts across the
country that cannot stand by and watch the
survivors’ rights being thrown away. Katrina was not
a natural disaster; it was and continues to be a deliberate disregard for
the lives and value of the afflicted people — not days, but years in the
making. The storm is over, not the lives of those who survived. The
government’s message is loud and clear. It is up to us ordinary citizens
to salvage the lives from the wreckage.
Sheana keeps writing e ven though she can’t wrap her head around the fact that
Bush hasn’t been impeached. You can learn more about her at
www.sheanaochoa.com
There are many areas to choose from when deciding who/how to help. Visit
these websites to make an intelligent contribution: networkforgood.org and
charitynavigator.org. (both o ffer efficienc y/peer ratings).
LOUDmouth
18
Digging
Through
a Culture of
Mitra Ebadolahi talks with
Martha Rosler
Throwaways...
L
ast summer, during a visit to London’s Institute of
Contemporary Arts, I stumbled upon an unusual exhibition.
Used clothing, old records, discarded toys and unwanted books
cluttered the downstairs gallery. The items, along with a cash box and
attendant stationed in the center of the room, constituted the
“London Garage Sale” — a reincarnation of Martha Rosler’s
groundbreaking and thought-provoking installation piece, which had
first been “exhibited” as guerrilla art in Calif ornia in the late 1970s.
For the past 30 years, Rosler has challenged and redefined
what constitutes “art,” combining her works with incisive critiques of
American consumerism, gender stereotypes and U.S. foreign policy. Her
current projects include the Martha Rosler Library,a collaboration with
E-Flux which includes some 8,000 volumes from Rosler’s home and
studio. Recently, Rosler paused to chat with me about trash, her 1982
televised reading and deconstruction ofVogue Magazine,and the War
on Terror.
ME: In an interview published by the ICA as part of the “London
Garage Sale,” y ou refer to the “culture of the throwaway.” What are
some of the defining characteristics of this culture? How does
this culture interact with, reinforce or conflict with other
present-day norms?
MR: The throwaway is part and parcel of a consumer culture. It requires
a certain amount of disposable income, of course, and a whole lot of
pro-shopping propaganda.
During the ICA show, at least two women journalists asked me
if I di dn’t think shopping was in women’s genes, or nature, or
something along those lines. The first one was a young interviewer
from the Guardian newspaper — working, I think, not for the art
section but rather the women’s section. I think I offended her by
saying that this [idea] was propaganda for a culture still in fairly early
stages of consumerization. But I realized that the U.S. had gone
through this phase quite a bit earlier and no longer needed
to float theories of why shopping is “in the blood” of this or that
gender or group.
[Here,] fashion’s cycles of change are rotating ever faster, as
the routes of information transmission multiply and speed up.
Information glut [plus] the low price of clothing (thanks to cheap
sweatshop labor) means that most people feel moved to change their
wardrobes every year, disposing of last year’s fashions. Images of
accessorized people, male and female, sell everything from hair
coloring to cosmetic surgery, on the one hand, to cell phones and MP3
players, on the other, to younger and younger people.
Is the “culture of the throwaway” a purely American phenomenon,
or something which can also be found elsewhere? I am thinking in
particular o f str eet childr en in India and Br azil, who cr eate
handbags and other items f or tourists to b uy using scraps of cloth
and other “trash.” How has this reality affected your artwork?
LOUDmouth
19
Generally, the global South has not yet been able to join the consumer
universe. This has not prevented the “taste culture” of the developed
world from long ago penetrating almost every corner of the globe, of
course — particularly in urban areas. [Still,] the vast majority of [the
South’s] population remains mired in poverty. The huge volumes of
trash generated in the advanced economies often are transported to
disposal sites in the impoverished world sectors. Very poor people
scavenge for objects and materials, especially discarded manufactured
goods that can be resold or salvaged, or, as in your question,
refashioned as new, in this case presumably with a folkloric halo.
This is regardless of the fact that the children, who are making
these items, especially if they are doing so in organized workshops, are
often virtual slaves, working extremely long hours and reaping
astonishingly little profit. This is a situation that I have addressed in
my own work only tangentially, but in the late 1970s I did a work, now
lost, called “Multinational Clothes,” that essentially consisted of the
labels showing where each piece of clothing was made, most of them
in “ exotic” Asian locales. Today we are very used to such labeling, but
then it was new. The labels were accompanied by texts on the
exploitation of the women making the clothing.
Garage Sale,1973. Courtesey of the artist.
In light of your “Garage Sale” installations and the other works of
art which you have created focusing on the commodity and the
“bargain,” what do you think of the proliferation of web sites like
eBay, where people can engage in a “ cyber sale” of the unwanted,
used, or r edundant items cluttering their own lives (particularly
since these bargain websites are beloved for providing
middle-class consumers access to “luxury” or “brand name” items
at discount prices)? And how, in your view, do American garage
sales differ from, say, more institutionalized forms of “bargain
hunting” and second-hand shopping, such as that embodied by
London’s street markets, or by shopping at the Salvation Army?
Garage sales are a domestication and amateurization of professionally
managed flea markets and used-goods dealers. They counter the
long-distance shipment and mass processing of household goods that
the professional organizations engage in. They also involve the sale of
single, idiosyncratic collections. eBay is, I assume, cruised by the
casual shoppers and increasingly by the pros, and I am guessing that
ordinary people putting their unwanted goods up for sale are a minor
element. (I wouldn’t know, having forsworn even looking at eBay for
the past 5 years.)
Garage sales are, however, a relatively new wrinkle on the
American postwar landscape. They foster a type of neighbor-toneighbor social interaction and incidentally allow for an inadvertent
form of portraiture through taste. Different social circles come together
in each other’s intermediate spaces — neither public nor wholly
private. Unity forms around a monetary exchange [for] goods [that] are
known or presumed to be discarded personal items — a recuperation
of cash from trash.
One of the things that interested me was the way garage
sales seem for many suburban families to have also supplanted the
charity donations that predominate in cities and towns. The garage
sale by now is [a] respectable, mildly anarchic form of incidental
entrepreneurialism, rather than a communal acknowledgment of shared
responsibility for people who are struggling or in need.
How do “tr ashy” f orms of media culture (e.g., “trashy” magazines,
talk sho ws, tabloids, street advertisements and the like) influence
your art? Why are these media forms noteworthy?
The lowest forms of culture often produce unpoliced narratives or
hyper-inflated forms of the official versions. They often amount to the
same kind of burlesques of the “official story” that I like to do, ones
that suck the gravity right out of it, rendering it an object of ridicule
and scorn, even if I don’t work in precisely the same way they do.
Why do you reincarnate and reproduce old pieces like “Garage
Sale,” or y our photomontage series “Bringing the W ar Home” (in
which images of American soldiers were pasted into photographs
of upscale living rooms and the like during the Vietnam War)?
There are various reasons for revisiting forms I have used earlier. The
Garage Sale is an interesting case in point because I did not dream of
reinstituting this work, but in th e course of the preparation for my
retrospective of 1998 to 2001, called Positions in the Life World,
curators at several of the museums were avid to include a version of
the Garage Sale. As the work progressed from venue to venue — the
work was quite different at each of them — the prominence of the
Garage Sale grew, until the New Museum, in New York, one of the last
two sites, devoted all of its basement gallery to it.
The point is that sh opping had so gained in legitimacy as an
art-world “sexy subject” that in a way this work was no longer seen as
a challenge to the institution of the museum. However, there is in
these Garage Saleiterations always a videotape with a fairly loud audio
track playing throughout the show/sale, and it interrogates the whole
social i dea of the Garage Sale (“Why not give it all away?”) and brings
up the concept of commodity fetishism; so the show never quite
fit into the new models. It still obviously called into question the
nature of the art object itself an d the institutions that present or sell
[these objects].
In an other vein, in relation to work about war, I recently
decided to return to modes and forms I used — primarily
photomontages — during the mid-’60s to mid-’70s, against the war in
Vietnam. I did this to make a point, a couple of points, in fact. I
wanted urgently to call attention to the way in which the present
administration in Washington has led us into an illegal conflict that in
so many ways mirrors that in the ‘60s — not least in its wholesale
attacks on a people, destruction of its institutions, and occupation of
its land, but also in our in ability to anticipate the costs to ourselves
of such military adventurism. By using similar forms to those I used
then, primarily photomontages, I hoped to evoke echoes of that
conflict as well as agitating against the present one. [I also wanted]
to point out that the site of war and our lives here at home are both
parts of our world, for which we must claim responsibility.
And on a lesser note, I wanted to return the photomontage to
its political uses, working against the “canonization” and
depoliticization these works of mine have undergone the further we get
from the events of that era. I am in favor of dusting off the forms of
the recent past, in part, also, because the “clothes” of the recent past
bear the ghosts of the unfinished conflicts of their era.
Speaking of ghosts of the recent past — these days, it seems as
though history has become the most disposable commodity. There
is so much ignorance about, for example, how the Taliban came to
power in Afghanistan (through CIA funding and support), or how
Saddam Hussein came to dominate Iraq (also with U.S. aid). What
role does art have to play in this new, post-9/11 reality? How has
this climate affected your work?
A consumer culture, not to mention a mediatized, culture, is bound to
jettison history, for what, after all, can history teach in a technology
and fashion-driven culture? Consumerism is always looking to the
young and impressionable and thus to the next generation. Art,
nonetheless, has always provided a narrative of history, both as a view
of the present and retrospectively. Whether anyone is paying attention
is another question, but it is clear that at present, political ferment is
full of imagery that surely qualifies as art.
When I realized the U.S. was going to wage aggressive war, I
got together with other New York artists who wanted to engage in
activism. We called ourselves Artists Against the War, and we have
worked on several projects in public spaces and on the streets. I have
done a number of works in various media that highlight the brute
militarism that has overtaken us.
The Bush Administration has been extremely careful not to release
photographs of war casualties during the campaigns in Afghanistan
and in Iraq. As an artist, a photographer and a photography critic,
what are your thoughts on this f orm of censorship?
I am not a war photojournalist, but the costs of these wars are
everywhere to be seen, at home from the ravaged Mississippi and
Louisiana coasts to the urban and rural poor, the 17,000 wounded
soldiers, the ravaged families, the emptied treasury with a gigantic
burden of debt levied on our children and grandchildren …. and in
Ir aq, the results not only of war but of a dozen years of sanctions
[which] have rendered the population far poorer, civil society
devastated, the infrastructure ruined, and the world-historical cultural
“patrimony” stolen and destroyed.
Is it time f or a r eprise of Martha Rosler Reads Vogue? Or, as Monty
Python would say, do these developments call for something
“completely different?” If so, what?
[In 2003,] the curator Elvan Zabunyan gave a talk in Paris during a
show of my work that she had organized, in which she chose some of
the magazine ads in the Vogue video and matched them with
virtually identical ones from current fashion magazines. The audience
was packed with young women, and one of them asked, “How did we
lose so badly?” My answer was that we haven’t lost yet. Of course, the
times always call for “something different,” as well as “more of the
same,” but the really important thing is for younger generations to do
this work.
Mitra Ebadolahi is a law student at NYU, where she is specializing in
international human rights. She is spending this summer living and working in
Johannesburg, South Africa. In her spare (?!?) time, she enjoys writing articles
for various publications, visiting the MoMA, avoiding shopping malls and
dreaming of a legalese-free life. She can be reached at
mightymousemitra@y ahoo.com
LOUDmouth
20
SALVAGE
Stories from the Dumpster
By Kim Haines
O
ne time, behind the new Ralph's supermarket, we found cases
of Lunchables in the clean, blue dumpsters. The dumpsters
had their own enclosure, with eight-foot concrete walls and
big iron gates, chained together with heavy duty locks. Once we
climbed inside, we could sit, hidden in the shadows, the cool wall at
our backs. We ate very little expired ham, but the cheese and M&Ms
and fruit drinks and crackers were delectable. I must have eaten six
packages in one sitting, stuffing my backpack with a dozen more.
My search was focused on survival. Warmth. Food. Money. Or anything
I could sell: jeans, CDs, college textbooks. I was always surprised at
how much porn we'd find in the dumpsters. Magazines, videos, whole
collections of sex toys. He'd always be delighted, but I was looking for
something else. And I'd find it. CDs, cassettes, brand-new clothes and
especially blue jeans. Anything I could sell.
“You selling these?” She looked at me, eyebrows raised.
I nodded, tried to look casual. “Yeah, they don't fit anymore.”
She shook her head, her eyes shifting outside where my boyfriend
waited on his bike. She bought and sold jeans out of her tailor shop
in the middle of the mini-mall. We stood out with our dirty
backpacks and unwashed hair. She handed me some money. “I don’t
like him around here,” she said, pointing her chin towards the window.
“Don’t come back.”
Don’t come back.That’s what they’d tell me when I’d beg from the
restaurants. But I didn’t do that very often. I hid from them —
the public.
The dumpsters provided for me. Even when I didn’t find anything
useful, I always f ound a story. I could tell when people had moved.
How old their children were. What kind of music they didn’t want to
listen to. Sometimes, I knew when there had been a breakup. Torn up
photographs and broken picture frames. I’d put the pieces of the
photos together sometimes, looking into the eyes of these strangers.
After Christmas, old TVs and VCRs were piled in the dumpsters.
Old headphones. Broken toys. Always boxes from the new gifts. We’d
look carefully through the wrapping paper, hoping to find an
accidentally tossed gift certificate. Or money. Sometimes I'd find
plastic bags full of pennies. And when I tore up the kitchen trash bags,
there were often coins at the bottom. I couldn't believe people would
throw away money. But we’d rarely keep the nickels or pennies, covered
in rancid slime.
That smell permeated my soul, my sense of survival. That smell.
Diapers, cat litter, dog shit. Dead animals. Rotten turkey carcasses.
There’s a certain smell when meat has been sitting in a warm plastic
bag for a week. Sometimes I’d have to go to a new dumpster after
coming across one of those bags.
It was always dangerous. I worried about hepatitis, food poisoning,
infections. Nearly every night I’d find hypodermic needles, broken
glass, li ght bulbs crushed in our frenzy to tear through the garbage
before security rolled by.
LOUDmouth
21
I lingered at one dumpster too long. I had lost my pen. This pen — a
gray Cross pen with a blue medium ballpoint filler — k ept me
connected to the page, the place where I put my spirit for safekeeping.
Writing on scraps of paper, stashing lines of poetry into my backpack.
The pen fell out of my pocket as I hoisted myself over the side of the
dumpster. I jumped in, which was not my favorite thing to do, but the
more I looked, the more lost the pen — and I — became. Under the
yellow lights, the garbage all turned the same muddled tone. In my
panic, my vision clouded over, and the shapes of garbage became
indistinguishable from any other.
“Are you OK?” A man called to me from his apartment balcony, where
he stood in a dark blue robe, unshaven, rumpled hair. A plastic tricycle
at his feet. “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”
“Um, no. I'm OK. I, uh, I just lost my pen.” It sounded stupid. It
sounded like a lie. It was three in the morning. I stood there, greasy
hair and pretty face, a hundred skinny pounds, looking as disconnected
from civilization as I felt.
It wasn't that I didn't want to eat. But my boyfriend called the shots.
And he wouldn’t like me talking to anybody that might call the cops
— which, in his min d, was everybody.
I walked away, to the next apartment complex, leaving my pen behind.
“Maybe I’ll find it tomorrow,” I thought. But I never went back to that
dumpster. I felt that I had lost something more than my pen. I had
lost my invisibility, and I knew that I couldn’t stay on the streets.
The man that rolled out of bed to offer me food — he could see my
story. H e looked past my tough and dirty exterior, and saw the girl
that needed help. But I didn't want anyone to help me. I wanted
to help myself.
I found survival in what others discarded, the remains of their stories.
Once I got off the streets, I learned to find my pen in the stories I can't
throw away.
Kim is a mother, writer and student who wants to write by the river in
unreproachable heat. But today , she is wrapped in Northern California fog.
Send her sun at [email protected].
P
a
t
h
o
f
DESTRUCTION
How America’s Drug War is
Destroying the Amazonian
Rainforest
By Laura Hauther
T
here are vast tracts of sparsely populated land throughout the
Colombian southwest. A mix of mountain ranges and dense,
fertile rainforest winds its way through huge swaths of South
America. Scattered throughout the emerald-green rainforest of
southern Colombia are hidden fields of coca, poppies and marijuana.
Small farmers in these remote areas cultivate the crops sometimes at
gunpoint, sometimes just to feed their family. These crops are huge
money earners for both Colombia’s left-wing rebel groups — the FARC
and the ELN — and for right-wing paramilitaries. This insurgent war
has been going on for over 40 years, funded mainly by the drug trade.
The right-wing paramilitary formed in 1997 to counter the rebels, but
they also started producing drugs to fund their operation despite
alleged ties to the Colombian military.
Ninety percent of the coke found on our streets comes from
Colombia. Colombia is su ch an important supplier of cocaine and
heroin that Colombian president Pastrana and then-president
Clinton developed Plan Colombia in 1999 as part of the “War on
Drugs.” The plan sent millions of dollars in aid, mostly for the military
and aerial fumigation of drug crops. The fumigation program has now
been going on for more than seven years against objections and
protests of farmers, the Colombian government’s human-rights
ombudsman, the Comptroller General, and six governors of the states
— or “departments” as they’re called in Colombia — where fumigation
is common.
Thirteen tribes from the area formed The Organization of
Indigenous Peoples of the Putomayo Zone (OZIP). OZIP, along with 128
Indigenous Governing Councils from 58 different indigenous groups,
launched a protest in 2002 asking the government of Colombia and the
international community to put a stop to aerial spraying, which is
turning the countryside into a wasteland. They raised concerns about
the effects the spray has on their health, the environment and their
crops and insisted that the program endangers not only their livelihood
but their whole way of life.
Scientists and environmentalists also fear the destruction of
the rainforest. As the spraying program became more widespread,
aggressive insurgents moved their drug crops deeper into the
rainforest, even using national parklands to hide their operations.
The Amazonian rainforest is one of the most biologically
diverse areas in the world. One-third of its plant species are unique to
the area. The delicate balance of this ecosystem is already threatened
by deforestation due to population growth, but the spraying and drug
trade exacerbate the problem. The crop dusters are supposed to fly at
low altitudes to accurately target the herbicide on only drug crops, but
insurgents, determined to protect their main source of income, shoot
at the planes, forcing them to fly at higher altitudes which results in
the spray spreading to villages, food crops and the rainforest.
There is direct damage to the plant life, and those plants are
part of an in terdependent environment. Large barren areas mean
habitat loss for an unknown number of animal species. David Olson,
director of the conservation-science program at the World Wildlife Fund
said in an Inter Press Service article, that small species like frogs and
insect species are vulnerable to glyphosate, the chemical used in the
herbicide spray, as are aquatic ecosystems. “From a bio-diversity
perspective,” Olson said, “defoliating and poisoning vast areas of
Colombian rain forest is like dynamiting the Taj Mahal, a global jewel
of humanity’s cultural heritage.”
The herbicide is a version of Monsanto’s Roundup made for
export. In 2002 the U.S. State Department released a required safety
report. This report acknowledged that the type of glyphosate product
was changed in 2002 based on the EPA recommendation to address
“acute eye toxicity.” Sci entists and environmental groups responded to
the report, pointing out problems in the findings like incomplete
studies on environmental impacts and human health that couldn’t be
included in the report. An Environmental Protection Agency analysis
also found the report inadequate.
Lisa Haugaard, executive director of the Latin America Working
Group, claims the report shows the United States is not giving the
small farmers ways to make a living other than growing coca or
poppies, as required by the approved Colombian aid package.
“Aerial spraying, whether through drift, accident or intention,
is destroying the food crops of f armers who have agreed to eradicate
drug crops and, even worse, of farmers and indigenous communities
who are innocent of drug production. Of 1,000 claims filed by
Colombian farmers for damages, 800 were dismissed sight unseen”
according to Haugaard. This policy has created a cycle of campesinos
continually clearing rainforest land for farming and coca or poppy
cultivation. When the fields are discovered and sprayed, farmers have
little choice but to move on and clear more pristine rainforest, leaving
behind useless, poisoned land.
The end result is thousands of acres of damaged farmland and
rainforest that cannot ever be repaired or revitalized. A report issued
by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy this April
showed despite record levels of aerial spraying, 160,000 acres of coca
were cultivated. That’s more than when the eradication plan started in
1999 and the highest since 2002. Adam Isaacson, a senior policy
associate at the Center for International Policy, said in an DCRNet
interview, “Six years and $4.7 billion after Plan Colombia began, and
its utility has been absolutely zero. … That’s because we haven’t
provided these farmers with any options except to move, clear land and
grow coca elsewhere.”
The longer the government of the United States refuses to
change course in this failed war on drugs the more damage will be
done to one of the world’s most diverse natural habitats. Now that the
government’s own reports prove this approach is worse than ineffective
— trashing one of the world’s precious natural resources while doing
nothing to stop the drug trade — maybe this outdated drug-war tactic
will finally come to an end.
Laura is a fr eelance writer and social w orker living in L.A County.
LOUDmouth
22
By Liz Ohanesian
L
ast year, as th e weather
grew warmer and the
parties grew more
packed, it was all about M.I.A.
Remember her? The Londonbased artist Maya Arulpragasm who
turned to rhymes and beats after
seeing Peaches open for Elastica? The girl who
danced around in outfits that reminded you of what Neneh Cherry
donned 15 years prior as she spouted out politically charged lyrics
based, at least in part, on her turbulent upbringing in war-torn Sri
Lanka and the council estates of London? A year ago, we probably had
this story memorized, having read it first on the MP3 blogs that
provided her then-unreleased music. By the time summer had ended,
we had skimmed through stories in virtually every print publication
that had crossed a newsstand. The hype helped M.I.A. sell out gigs in
major cities and probably put copies of her album in the hands of a lot
of club DJs who might have otherwise ignored anything that was
kinda-sorta hip hop. However, within months, accolades were replaced
by simple indifference and M.I.A. dropped off the hype radar before
most of us could understand the difference between Tamils and
Sinhalese. It wasn’t just her music that disappeared, but also M.I.A.’s
messages about poverty, war and international politics.
I t seems that we are going through band fatigue, that so much
music is so quickly changing hands that we just cannot think of those
beats that drive us to dancing fits and those lyrics that ever-so-slightly
change our outlook of the world as anything more than disposable.
Many people will argue that the Internet has democratized
music. Artists can upload tunes, sell merchandise and promote shows
without a large record-label team behind them. Bands can gain fans
across the world when it isn’t feasible for them to tour anywhere
outside of California. There is no denying that numerous musicians
have greatly benefited from the widespread Internet developments of
the past few years, some to previously unfathomable success. However,
there is a flipside to this situation: For bands, it can mean achieving
LOUDmouth
23
some semblance of recognition before their songs have been perfected.
It can also mean falling into the hype-pit before the group has logged
in the countless weeks of touring previously required in order to
develop the sort of following that will exist long after the major label
deal disappears and the press has turned its attention elsewhere.
For fans, the effects of high-speed hype differ.
You download a song and, if you don’t like it, you can move it
to the trash. If you downloaded it for free, it’s no problem. If you
actually paid money for the MP3, you’re more or less screwed since the
trade-in counter at the local record store probably won’t take a
burned iTunes mix. Still, it cost you less money than a CD, nor is there
any eye-catching artwork or lyric sheet to ever make you think that
maybe you should give this song a second chance. We no
longer know what it’s like to run to the record
store on a Tuesday afternoon to pick up
our favorite band’s CD, let alone wake
up at 6 a.m. to stand in line for
concert tickets.
Then there is the matter
of music press. All it takes is
one influential blog to lay
some praise on a stilldeveloping band and, within
days, you’re likely to find
several hundred similar posts
proclaiming that said group has
earned the title of New Favorite
Band. Maybe a few days after that,
you will read some rare perfect-score
review on Pitchfork, which will lead to articles in
the next round of music magazines to hit the
stands. In th e time that elapses between Internet
hype and a magazine’s street date, New Favorite
Band has become Old News and even you,
who thought you were converted to New
Favorite Band, ar e so tir ed of glossing
over re-hashed stories that you don’t
even bother to flip through the magazine
at the stand, let alone take it home and
read the article ten times before cutting out
the photos to tape to your wall.
Internet hype also means that people are now
well-versed in the repertoire of barely emerging artists before
club DJs can get so much as a test pressing. Chances are that even the
most astute DJs feel as clueless as a fr eshman entering the college
radio station for the first time inside the nightclub. The folks around
you let loose a barrage of obscure band monikers that are “totally
going to be The Next Big Thing,” and you just stand there and nod
because you aren’t really sure if you should care on account of the fact
that this song might be deemed “played out” by next week.
We are treating bands like the fad accessories of our
junior-high years. We can’t live without them one week and toss them
in the trash seven days later. In the process, we have forgotten what
it’s like to truly be a fan.
Liz Ohanesian is editor o f The Rockit, an L.A. based music ne wspaper. Her work
has also appear ed in Razorcake, Outburn, Punk Planet and PopMatters.com
4
By Jennifer Ashley
Waste generated by the commercial printing industry releases a number
of toxins to our environment and produces plenty of wastepaper to
clog landfills. Everything from inks, aluminum and silver plates, stop
baths, paper, coating and binding materials and chemicals used to
both clean and operate the machinery eventually end up polluting the
earth. With its large scale and the processes and materials it requires,
the printing industry seems inherently wasteful and environmentally
unfriendly. Indeed, according to www.americanprinter.com, only 95
percent of the printing industry’s paper becomes product — the
remaining 5 percent immediately becomes wastepaper, and this is a
number that has recently come down from 8 or 9 percent. For every
magazine, book, catalog, etc., rolls of paper feet in diameter are set
on presses, test runs are made, and multiple dumpsters are filled with
these test prints before anything usable is printed. On the bright side,
printing technology is evolving to reduce chemical and paper waste,
and Americans are recycling more and more newsprint. And so you can
do your part, here are a few ideas to get started with … 5
1
3
1. Pass it on to a friend;
2. Donate it to a school, library, dental office, center,
or other book/magazine collection;
4
3. Using a vinegar/water or lemon juice/water solution,
wipe down your windows;
4. Compost it;
5. Papier-mâché it!
6. Use it as packing material to send a surprise to
a faraway friend; or
7. Use it as gift wrap;
7
8. Make a newsprint collage with it;
9. Make fish-tank marble magnets with it;
10. Remove melted wax from your carpet;
11. Make patterns for your sewing and clothing-reconstruction
projects.
Jennifer’s latest re-use projects have involved making new garments out of old
ones and je welry out o f thr owaways. Ask her how they’re going:
[email protected].
4
Other than bringing it directly to a recycling center, which would be preferable to
tossing it.
5
For statistics related to paper waste, see
http://www.metroregion.org/article.cfm?articleid=5574.
6
Buy some aquarium or planter marbles with one flat side. Find bite-sized text or
images that appeal to you in the pages of LM. Using the marbles as a pattern,
trace a circle around the image/text, and cut it out. Using a bit of craft glue,
sandwich the circle of paper between a heavy-ish magnet and the marble. Thanks
to www.diynet.com and a whole host of other diy sites for this idea.
7
Place a page of LM over the wax spill. Using a warm (not hot) iron, slowly pass
over the paper until the wax has been absorbed by the paper.
8
For tips and/or to get started, try
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=25199.0,
http://www.ohmystars.net/craft/index.htm and
http://community.livejournal.com/t_shirt_surgery.
LOUDmouth
24
By Cocacolachola
F
urniture from Ikea and the thrift shop,
a bazillion yummy berries and tofurky from
Santa Monica, medical records detailing a woman’s
fight for peace of mind in the form of prescription rx’s from her
doctor and a bitchin’ tape collection with live Black Flag recordings …
What do all these things have in common? They are all things I have
had access to from the garbage on the street.
With the Environmental Protection Agency stating that 96
billion pounds of food are wasted each making up for 12 percent of the
globe’s overall waste, there isn’t any reason why one should be wading
through the aisles everytime we need food. And, that is JUST food.
What is dumpstering you ask? Quite simply, dumpster divers
search for the food, goods, furniture, and much much more. Not
everyone literally dives into the dumpster as the name might suggest.
Some might use a pole with a h ook on the end to get inside the
dumpser or might just “glean” through fields, streets and alleys.
Gleaning, an age old term specifically refers to those that gather grain
left behind by the tools of early industrialization. In my rapidly
changing neighborhood of Elysian/Echo Park, many just leave
unwanted items at the corners in bags or without signs. I have been
lucky enough to find “work clothes” from major labels like Donna Karen
and Calvin Klein without ever stepping foot into a mall and still
looking somewhat respectable for my museum jobs.
There is a m ajor misconception that all of us dumpster out of
economic necessity. Quite the contrary, many enjoy the thrill of it
while believing that the abundant waste should be available to the
masses without resorting to more consumerism. Often this way of
thinking is linked to the word freegan, which I do not particularly like
or use, but to each her own! What I do believe that conceptually aligns
with the term is that we should look for alternative ways than the
norm of standard participation in the conventional economy. Most
dumpster divers believe in community, sharing (skill), and concern for
thy neighbor as opposed to competition, the idea that only the elite
deserve organic foods and greed.
Another draw is the potential livelihood that one may make
from dumpstering. Many dumpster to support their businesses,
passions, or h obbies. For myself, much of my artwork begins in the
garbage with the idea of what has been discarded and why. Some
companies like Geeks In The Street collect and reuse old computers
without using any of the old information on the hard drive at all. For
many others, besides gleaning, foraging meals is an age old term as
well. Many books were produced in the early 70’s about the idea of
foraging or leading raids for food, rummaging, and searching for food
in urban areas. Most recently, Michael Pollen, writer of the Omnivore’s
Dilemma has chronicled a return to the idea of having the individual’s
hand present in making a meal. For years, hikes have been led through
Santa Monica mountains, Granada Hills and Aroyo Seco in Los Angeles
about the wild herbs and plants that grow and are sustaining. You are
definitely encouraged to do your own research, ask friends, and try it
out safely! Following are some tips on how to get started safely for the
dumpster novice. Long live Trash!
Tips on divin’, gleaning, and digging for treasures!
1. Be discr eet and use pr oper judgment when divin’. As a diver you
will be subject to various injuries as you would crossing a street. Use
the same caution; look both ways, ar e you wearing the right clothing,
and do you have the proper tools to do such a dive?
LOUDmouth
25
2. The main tool to hav e is a light though I am o ften sans . In th e
past, I used a hand-free headlamp which I unfortunately dropped in
expired meat and left behind. A flashlight will do if you are planning
to do night scavenging at a grocery store chain. A reminder to people
that do scavenge at grocery stores: Most Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and
Vons all lock their dumpsters now. You may still find a few that don’t
but beware! You may be prosecuted if caught and there are always
rumors about trash being bleached. This said, bring gloves and a
friend. Better safe than sick!
3. Always keep a dumpster cleaner than you found it! Remember,
you aren’t the only one that wants to visit it on a regular basis and as
more and more stores choose to lock their dumpsters, it is vital to
remember to be respectful to the place, people that work there, and
other divers. Most employees don’t want to have to report you. They
are doing their job. Don’t make it difficult for them.
4. Pay attention to signs and holidays! See a store that says it’s
going out of business? Yup, perfect place to dive. Most likely, they
won’t sell everything and it may just end up in the trash. Mid
December? Mid May? Likely to score couches, fridges, and more from
colleges where students with $$$ are dumping mom and dad’s funds
because they didn’t prepare. Late February? Hold on to those
Valentine’s Day stuff that didn’t sell and save it for next year. One year,
I saved Christmas cards for my family for a whole year.
5. Network, network, network! No, I am not talking about using your
damn blackberry to get phone numbers. If you have tips, share them and
others will share with you. This isn’t a contest. Make friends with that
Starf*ucks employee and they might just share free coffee with you.
6. Timing. Late nights and early mornings are the best. Obviously,
ladies you don’t wanna be alone at late night so definitely take
comrades. Both these times provide the least amount of confrontation
from angry and underpaid workers, guards, and other hostile situations.
Also, bins/streets etc. are at their fullest. Sadly, evictions are known
for the first week to be sought out of each month. This means, if you
search dumpsters and street corners around the 8th or 9th, they are
usually plentiful.
7. Safe divin!
By Violent Vickie
L
ately I have been having a lot of experiences with men
crossing my boundaries. A few weeks ago I was substitute
teaching a special-education class when one of the teacher’s
aides told me that I look young. I suggested that it might be because
I do yoga. He asked if I could put my legs up over my head. I hesitated
for a second because that question sounded a bit fishy, but, giving him
the benefit of the doubt, I responded with the truth: that I could, in
fact, put my legs over my head. He chuckled, and I immediately
regretted answering his question. With a big nasty grin on his face he
snidely admitted that he’d like it if I were his wife. My cheeks must
have been flushed after that because he instantly apologized. I
politely said it was OK and tried to avoid the discomfort of the
situation by looking in the other direction even though we were sitting
right across from each other and there were people among us.
At the same school, a few days later, I went for a walk during
my break and went into a small retail store looking for some jeans.
Right away, a male salesperson who looked about 20 darted up to me
with 21 questions about what I was looking for. He found me some
straight-legged low-rise jeans in my size so I was happy, albeit a bit
weirded out by his excessive helpfulness. As I tried on the jeans,
Helpful Sales Boy did not leave my side. He stayed right next to the
fitting room awaiting my fashion show. He asked to see how they fit
so I opened the shutter doors. Steadily, he observed the fit of the jeans
for a second and then came into the fitting room and stuck his finger
between the jeans and my body without warning to “see if they fit.” I
jumped nervously, but still, I did not say anything, once again trying
to convince myself that he was just trying to be helpful. He asked if I
wanted a smaller size, and I said yes although I really just wanted to
GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE.
I ended up telling him that it was inappropriate that he put his
finger in the jeans. I said it nicely, like a nice girl. He said he was just
trying to see if th ey fit. I bough t the pants. As I was leaving, I told
Helpful Sales Boy, again, in fr ont of the dude who cashed me out, who
might have been his manager, that I thought it was inappropriate that
he touched me. Neither of them seemed to care.
I’ve realized since that I was treating myself disrespectfully.
Because I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt by not
automatically assuming that they were being sleazy, I sacrificed
myself, my dignity. I did not act as assertively as I wish I had, so later,
when I was rethinking the events, I beat myself up.
Recently I have been attempting a different way of interacting
with people where I am open and friendly with everyone who crosses
my path. As a woman, I find this difficult because many men take this
as an opportunity to cross my boundaries. It saddens me to think that
I have to maintain some sort of defense when I am around strangers.
Where do you draw the line between openness/friendliness and being
taken advantage of?
Violent Vickie is currently contemplating what it means to be spiritual in a
sexist w orld. Email her y our thoughts on the subject at [email protected]
By Irina Contreras
Hilla Futterman
On February 21, 2006, we lost a great artist and botanist who
dedicated her life to teaching a three week course on how to prepare
meals from urban nature. For thirty years, Futterman taught Angelenos
how to make unique meals like dandelion and thistle salads all coming
from the seemingly endless weeds of Los Angeles’ own concrete jungle.
Upon talking to her old students, I was told how she used to read
poems while holding up the “hated” weeds that people thought were
destroying their gardens. Former student and artist Alison Goldberg
told me how she once called Futterman at home for tips and of her
great generosity at being contacted at home. Futterman thought of her
abilities as a teacher to utilize sight in people. She noted that she
could have used any medium, but that she had decided that foraging
worked best.
Urban Rangers (http://www.thorn01.com/urban_rangers/)
One great workshop that Urban Ranger Emily Scott has hosted teaches
Los Angeles people to pay attention to the freeway landscape.
Participants learn about who manages these edgy green spaces, while
figuring out how these plants grow in response to changing conditions
and which ones can be used for food and medicine.
Carol Tanzi (goddessofgarbage.com)
Tanzi is an award winning interior designer that finds all or most of her
tools in the trashbin. Check out her tips archive where she turns old
cocacola bins into shelves! Tanzi dishes out the real news on what a
pack rat is capable of.
Relay Project (http://www.therelayproject.com/index.php)
The Relay Project is a magazine that you listen to full and ripe with
found street sounds, interviews and rants that are all now but
forgotten, and other dug up materials. Rebecca Gates and Lucy Raven
have stated that they are interested in providing a nexus for the
listener to meet the contributor, for the community to become the
heard and the herder etc. We at LOUDmouth are rooting and nodding
in approval. Check them out.
The Free Association (http://thefreeassociation.tribe.net/)
Artist and activist Maria Hernandez is in the business of forming
relationships. This may in fact be even what her business cards say.
From silkscreening to Women’s Work (a bi-monthly women’s art circle)
to creating assignments for her friends to looking to advertise found
housing and potential housing, Ms. Hernandez wants to expose the
illusionary nature of the material world. The Free Association’s
assignment’s read like the fortunes you wished you would have gotten
instead of those dumb lotto numbers: give your name a new meaning
or limitations can be quite transformative, maybe even liberating! Are
among my favorites.
LOUDmouth
26
T
here’s been a lot of hype around the drinking habits of girls
lately. Last year the American Medical Association reported
that teenage girls were more likely to obtain alcohol than
their male counterparts, and that the incidence of drinking is rising
faster for girls than for boys. Fueled by these reports, the mainstream
media has taken it upon themselves to save these poor girls — or to
at least show what they look like when they’re really, really trashed.
In March I caught an episode of ABC’s “20/20” that did just
that. Focusing on the drinking problems of young women, “20/20” ran
footage that one right-wing journalist likened to cleaner portions of
“Girls Gone Wild.” Elizabeth Vargas, the show’s co-host, introduced the
segment saying, “Alcohol abuse is traditionally a young man's sport,
but not anymore. You're about to see staggering video of girls
staggering in the street, binge drinking and paying the consequences
for girls’ night out.”
And while I’m not buying the hype or ignoring the fact that
today’s teens are drinking at much lower rates than they were when
rates of underage drinking peaked in 1979, I am a big sister who
knows what it means to be trashed, or, as Koren Zailckas titled her
memoir of alcohol abuse, Smashed. Which is why I passed this book
along to my then-senior-in-high-school sister Maggie when she asked
for something to read on her way back home from visiting me over
spring break. I had hoped the book would spark some sort of
conversation about the partying that I had thought she had been
doing. I wanted to talk to her about it without denying that I drank a
little in high school and, at points, a lot more in college.
But communication is hardly my family’s strong point. I fear
that if it weren’t for the Internet and, occasionally, text messaging, I
would have no clue what they’re up to. MySpace has been particularly
illuminating when it comes to the lives of my younger sisters, the first
LOUDmouth
27
three people on my “Top 8.” But it’s also confusing without context.
When Maggie wrote “it happens” in an online survey where you are
supposed to write the first thin g that comes to your mind and the
prompt was “sex,” for example, I was left wondering what to make of
it. It was also via a MySpace message that Maggie told me that she
really liked the book Smashed. Great, I thought, maybe I can get her
to do an interview with me on it for LOUDmouth. Maybe talking about
this in the context of the book will be easier than a conversation
focused on her per se ...
Maggie agreed (over MySpace) to the interview but we didn’t
do it until I went home for her graduation a month later. I kept putting
the conversation off, but on my last night there we finally sat down to
talk.
Maggie: Christine, no!
...
Christine: So, you told me that you liked the book Smashed. What did
you like about it?
M: I t was ... I d unno. It was real.
C: I t was real? What do you mean by that?
M: [Whines.] I don’t know.
C: Could you relate to it?
M: Yeah.
C: Or have you seen it in —
M: — other people? Yeah.
...
C: I’m thinking about ... I’ll just get your take on certain parts. What
do you think of her take on girls drinking as something that has to do
with something that’s internal to them — like they’re trying to cover
something up or feel more comfortable?
M: It makes sense. I guess a lot of girls do, do it like
how she described it. I don’t personally, but I
understand how people do, and I see that.
C: I remember one of the scenes at the beginning, the first time that
she drinks. She’s just laying there looking at this boy and talking to
him. She said normally she’d never feel comfortable but after having a
drink, she did. And I was just thinking about it because I was just
talking to a few women the other day who don’t like to interact that
much in public. And so we were asking each other, well, when are times
that you feel comfortable and —
M: — when they drink.
C: When they’re drinking ... uh-huh. So, I was just thinking there’s
been a lot of emphasis lately on girls and drinking. People are saying
that girls are binge drinking more than guys are.
M: I d on’t know. I see it as just something to do. But that’s not
obviously how other people take it or why other people do it.
C: Well, I think this is just one person’s experience. It obviously
became a huge problem for her, so she said, “I personally cannot
drink.” But that doesn’t mean that all alcohol or every time you drink
it’s bad. Some of the things that came up for me when I was reading
the book was just like her experiences getting drunk and really not
knowing what happened to her.
M: That’d be bad.
C: Do you know anyone that’s happened to?
M: Well, yeah. .... N ot me.
C: How do you take care of yourself? Or how do you and your friends
take care of yourselves when you party?
M: I don’t know. I’m usually the designated driver. So, when [my
friends are] too drunk and they say they aren’t, you just can’t take no
for an answer.
C: I think that’s h ow it works a lot, like, girls are looking out for each
other. I mean that’s my biggest fear as a big sister ... that something
would happen to you or any of the girls ... . Sometimes it’s hard talking
about it ... . With you I feel lik e I’m always kind of tiptoeing around
like, so ... .
M: Yeah. I don’t like to talk.
C: I know. But hopefully, I mean, I know this is not just about
drinking. But hopefully you know that I’m here for you.
M: Yeah. I know that. Even if I don’t like to talk. I know.
...
C: And also, you know, so I see the stuff that
you put on MySpace, and I’m like, How much of it is what’s going on?
M: I don’t really write a whole lot on MySpace anymore anyway.
C: But I remember seeing things like the note from your friend that
said, “We’re in the same house, but I think you’re busy right now,” or
your headline “smoked out in the back of a van.”
M: That’s a song.
C: I figured. [Actually I had no clue.] Or the naked — not the naked
picture — the towel picture. When you were giving me a heart attack.
M: The towel picture. [Laughs.] That was all girls there.
C: So, it’s hard to tell. I just thought it would be good to talk to
someone who is just starting out with the drinking and the partying
and all that stuff. ‘Cause I’ve been d oing that for a long time. So, my
big thing was I didn’t wanna be a D.A.R.E. commercial or something.
... I th ought [the book] was good because it told it from her
perspective.
M: It was. It was really good.
...
C: All right, we can stop and do something fun now.
Epilogue: Reading through this interview, it seem s obvious just how
much we were both holding back. I see places where I wanted to say
more or take the conversation further, but I didn’t both out of fear of
Maggie writing me off as uncool (i.e., not a friend or ally) and not
wanting to make her uncomfortable. I also see Maggie distancing
herself from the subject matter and from me. But considering that we
come from a family of dysfunctional/non-communicators, I think we’re
getting there (or closer to wherever “there” is).
After the intervie w Christine ([email protected]) had a har d time
resisting the ur ge to ask Maggie if she wanted to go get some 40s and drink
them outside the junior high school.
LOUDmouth
28
Thrash-holds
By Iris Helen Turpaud Barnes
You are expected to speak a language not your own. You are expected
to say your name with foreign sounds. Some one chooses every time
they throw something away. Someone moves on each time they
leave. Someone speaks a word every time an open silence has been
made for it.
cadáveres
contenedores
corpses
count down
lingua mortis
mors
moritura
every damn latin course
spilling into the drainage line
every
latin
romance
the big
shiny
cartels en amarillo
anunciando
el tifosi hooligan
who
who hill
who will come?
closer
than dan
there´s this gran espectáculo
of the dark suns
betting fuerte
mientras pretenden
iluminar
the garbage bin
---------------------------------------------------Take it an d leave it, you love it an d you hate it. I speak it and it
absorbs me, it turns me into dust and ashes burning when all is said
but not done.
Get rid of your senses.
Las, los , el, la, lo, les , lesbi ana. Language swarms in indefinition when
gender isn`t stuck like jelly to every object, feeling, madness and living
being in the universe: I cannot but chose speaking of feminine and
masculine in relation to every thing there exists and what doesn´t.
the humming bird has sung
duke elingtong´s last
buggy
where the flies
shine more than
the coke bottle
but less than
it´s little tiny
white letters
-----------------------------------------------------------the wall tumbles down
as the buildings blown
and a piece of glass
of interlagos
(some argentinian drink)
grows evident
behind catastrophy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Spanish was a colonial language, but face to a new colonialism of
electhronical s-words, my choice renders the blades wasted and rusted,
to become thrash and garbage recycled en mi voz Latina. The best way
to destroy it´s colonial meaning is to denounce the colonial use of
English, and to tear it to pieces, to kick it and spit it as useless, until
it melts into the ground and serves as the thrash compacted to build
houses and parks, and even cementeries.
cling to momies nightgown
and split
and grind this tooth
espanish
ask for silence:
I stumble through my deflected English leftovers of years gone by,
unable to rebuild out of abashed and spoiled words unspoken and
those spoiled due to repetition. There´s no return from the waste land,
and the misspelling I r ecognize every time I tak e a second longer to
think of a word is only but the disorder in the garbage bin.
dan runs way behond
LOUDmouth
29
Iris Helen Turpaud Barnes was born in 1976, the only argentinian child of my
northamerican mother and my peruvian father. At present a High School
teacher, I´v e been working in an editorial initiativ e in Bahía Blanca, called “El
Calamar.” My first poetry book is a handmade one, entitled “Datos del
paisaje.” As a lover of mountain hiking I´ll make a try with Cerro Aconcagua
next January. I´ll see if a can write a few lines up there too.
Question:
Waste, litter, trashiness, being treated like trash, and trash drum kits … These were all things that ran through our heads as we
pondered what a trash issue could look like. Often it is a seemingly endless array of images and words that cannot be accomplished
in thirty pages. There is the part of the process that is fun beyond words; the planning, picking and deciding what should be included
and what is missing. And, then of course there are the parts that are heavy; that weave in and out of our personal lives while we are
creating the issue that are like little obstacles and roadblocks. Even amongst the beginnings of this issue, I found myself marveling
at the interconnected paths of the macro and micro of trash. There is much to be said about the physical nature and the literal aspects
of garbage. But, often the heaviness of people being treated like trash began to take an enormous amount of precedence. With the
March 25th and May 1st marches in the country, two local minutemen and minutemen counter protests, and the growing and horrific
conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine/Israel it is difficult to ignore how lives can almost seem as though they are effortlessly
discarded while one is valued so greatly.
At this same time, a number of different contributors experienced losses firsthand. It seemed like everyday someone lost a
family member, loved one, a neighbor, friend or acquaintance. Alongside all of these events, the death of a stranger that lived near
Golden Gate Avenue in my own neighborhood pains me still. El Circo Loco, as he was lovingly called danced up and down Sunset Blvd.
in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. He literally never stopped dancing, as it almost became a form of transportation carrying him
to his destinations with his impeccable costumes detailed with bright and elaborate shiny nic nacs and things. He held a small
boombox to his ear as though he was serenading our city and often whistled into the wee hours of the night. Usually even residents
in the area rarely complained because it would have been quite difficult to not be overpowered by his cheerful gait, serious dancing
expressions and bad-ass moves. The place where his body was found was often adorned with his favorite stuffed animals and things.
Surrounded by ”trash,” El Circo Loco or Antonio Diaz as he was known to his family in Mexico made the street glow with his 99cent
glitter, joy and promise. I never spoke to Antonio about any kind of specific agenda I had but I danced with him when I had the
chance and always screamed and honked in my old Volvo when I saw him. Often, he signified the end of my night, whether a good
or bad one and sometimes the beginning of one. For some reason, I do believe we shared some of the same desires for our world
viewed through the lens of waste and discarding. I think that Antonio wanted to be happy and to share his gift with others either
if he felt angry inside. We make what we sow, we create what we can as resourcefully as we can possibly be. If we have nothing, and
we have to dig through waste (whether literally or in pessimistic selves) to find it, then we can. The rumor is that Antonio came
from a wealthy family, but for reasons unknown and assumed he came to find himself on Sunset Blvd. During our first brainstorm,
one contributor remarked that trash to her seemed to be a myth. Granted, we were deep in conversation, but I think of that now as
I r emember El Circo Loco.
In this issue, contributors investigate the number of ways in which trash plays a part in our lives. I am pleased to bring you
another
pieceyogurt
by Liz every
Ohanesian
about
the disposable
of it's
technology Iand
howget
it plays
a part
wayfor
wedrinking
listen tococa-cola
music. everyday
I eat frozen
day. It's
a trashy
indulgencenature
because
should
dumped
in in
thethe
trash
Fabiola
lookswant
at theisconsequences
a Downtown
Angeles Renaissance
in whicha the
homelesspassport:
are literally
swept
away, of two
sayingSandoval
“What I really
to eat massiveof
amounts
of ice Los
cream
and for having
disneyland
tacit
patronage
and
Helen
Turpaud
lends
poetic
verse
to
the
implications
of
language
ownership.
Laura
Hauther
lends
important
information
about
every day, preferably for every meal!”
murderous corporations in the world ...
in the Carranza, 30.
the trashing of the Columbian Rainforest
drug
while Nina
sign for
me the
Betty,
agewar,
55 (more
lies). Packenbush looks at the treatment of young mothersRicardo
nation. Finally, we have an arti cle about local trash pickers form Wendy Carrillo and so much more! I feel like we could have put a
book
together
ondonuts.
the variety
ideas only
and wealth
of information
collectively
Putting
thisthe
issue
together
has I guess
Cheetohs
and
TV. Iofwatch
when my
husband isthat
out these ladies
I fucking
listen toshare.
old guy
rock on
radio,
for crissakes.
been
rough,
but
it’s
given
me
an
amazing
opportunity
to
learn
so
much
about
all
the
knowledge
that
we
possess
and
are
capable
of
about real emergency rooms and pet crises.
you can say its my alternative to “alternative.”
putting together in solid form if merely given the opportunity.
It’sones.
funny when I think that I became a part of this lil’ magazine by
Wendy, 55 big
Camryn, 28.
seeing the Get Loud With Us box below. I never had any inkling that my life would change as much as it has because of these amazing
to work
with,
be friends
with,
andget
share
ideasofwith.
in such
good
I sent
at all.
women
that I get thing
The Brangelina
in the
tabloids
. Just
can't
enough
her I wasn’t
I hav
e a graoss
fishplace
tank when
that I'm
not that
sure email
if my fish
are still alive.
Looking
at
pieces
like
Violent
Vickie’s
and
Christine
Petit’s,
I
know
how
important
it
is
to
talk
about
how
we
often
devalue
ourselves.
chocolate box family planning.
Sometimes I'll pee on a girl if she’s in the mood.
The positive aspects of being a feminist and the supposed camaraderie
Cara, 44.we share is supposed to outweigh the negative, but it honestlyMoco, ageless.
takes much work that we cannot do alone.
Thereand
are insatiable
a number desire
of things
am preparing
forof
in apolitical
my time as editor in
chief and
thesong
transition
the and
nextJustin
editor Timberlake.
here at
Satisfying
of Ireading
the lives
I really
like in
that
with to
Nelly
Please
LOUDm
outh.
One
is
that
I
wan
t
to
make
certain
the
editorial
process
and
our
collective
ownership
is
visible.
Sometimes,
I
think
we
bloggers that are mostly white. Indulging in the American waydon’t tell anyone.
surecity
to express
make
the mistake
of thinking
it is, and Iala
want
be the
successful
and hyper
individualistic
sexto
and
in NYC. that for myself, our magazine is a tool of something much deeper
Nate, 26.
that we are trying to express. I have a commitment with myselfFabi,
if nothing
else towards a better world and social change. If that is
25.
confusing, let me rephrase: I have a commitment towards a world in which there
isn’t such
a black
andago,
white/uneven
distribution
of the urge
but from time
to time, when
I stopped
smoking
y ears
wealth,
power,
food,
and
education.
Of
course,
this
is
just
the
beginning
of
my
analysis
and
in
the
midst
of
a
battle
that
we
may
strikes, I'll find someone's butt in the alley so I don't buy a whole
Lottery tickets and high thread count sheets
never truly win. But, in that time, in that process there isBridget,
a shared
experience
that we
transmit
like aThe
virus.
To me,
LOUDmouth
pack
andcan
start
up again.
three
or four
hits is a terrifically
I'm
26.
city, country
and
globe.
Particularly,
for
the women
is a virus; it is one that is striking women one by one in random place in ourtrashy
indulgence.
brought
into thethe
process
I cannot
imagine
a way that
willskinny,
not continue to pass this on. But, finally in the words of the mighty
Julia, 38.
Even though
majority
of the
characters
are we
super
KRS-1,
I
d
o
also
promote
“edutainment,”
and
I
certainly
hope
you
have as good a time reading this as we did making it! As Jennifer
femmey, super rich, and not realistic representations of lesbians,
Ashleigh
it, share it with a friend afterwards. And you, yea you
… send
us anSongs
email and
getprostitution,
fuckin’ loud vapid
with us.
I like tonotes,
watchdon’t
the Ltoss
word.
Mickey
Avalon.
of his
privileged L.A.
W hat
e
c
n
e
g
l
u
d
tr ashy i n
d
e
m
a
h
s
a
u
ar e y o
?
t
i
m
d
a
o
t
J.C.
My trashy indulgence is that I LOVE “America's Next Top Model.”
I've watched every episode of every season since the show's
inception. I e ven tape it when I can't be home to w atch it.
Holly
Get LOUD with us!
Girls, and the size of his member.
Wendi (Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless)
in Chief
An annual wax of the ass. Editor
{You know?
gotta deeep clean every once
in awhile .}
P.P.
LOUDmouthis always looking for new writers, editors, illustrators, photographers and other fine folk to join our team.
Myspace. I'm a total addict.
Send submissions and/or letter s of inter est to [email protected].
Letters to the editors are also welcome.
Jess
LOUDmouth
2
LOUDmouth
30
www.calstatela.edu/usu/loudmouth
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