Si eres de Columbus, a lo mejor piensas que no tienes acento en inglés. ¿Los de Cleveland? Claro que tienen. ¿Y los de Cincinnati? Sin duda. Pero ¿los de Columbus? Lee el artículo a continuación para aprender más sobre los rasgos del acento de Columbus. (Spoiler alert: ¡todos tenemos acento!)
LatinUS Theater, Cleveland Ohio
Take a trip to Cleveland, Ohio, and you’ll find LatinUS Theater, Ohio’s first independent Latino theater. According to the theater’s own mission statement, LatinUS Theater seeks to “create and produce passionate, professional and world class theater in an artistic environment to develop artists from our Latino/Hispanic community in Ohio”. Their philosophy, translated into practice, means performing Spanish-language theater for audiences in Northeastern Ohio, such as works by dramaturg Ariel Dorfman. Read more about the theater’s upcoming performances here.
Libros para el viaje
Author, bookstore owner, and New Mexico native Denise Chávez is sharing her love for books. Not only does she share her love for books with her customers, she also shares it with the migrants who pass through a respite center near her bookstore, which also serves as a community center and art gallery. Her project, entitled Libros para el viaje, grew out of Chávez’ desire to help migrants on their journey through the power of literature, providing them with Spanish-language books, as well as bilingual editions of poetry collections and Spanish-English dictionaries. Since its foundation in 2019, bookstores from all over the country have contributed to Chavez’ mission.
Renata Flores, la música, el quechua, y la protesta
Con sólo 18 años, Renata Flores ha emprendido un gran proyecto: revitalizar el quechua entre los jóvenes peruanos que, según ella, ya no lo hablan. Con un estilo que mezcla el pop y el trap, esta cantante demuestra que el quechua es una lengua no sólo de sus antepasados, sino de las generaciones del presente y del futuro también.
Podría decirse que el uso del quechua ya de por sí es un acto de protesta. Pero también lo son las letras de sus canciones. Por ejemplo, en su canción “Qam hina” (“Cómo tú”) Flores crítica la falta de acceso a la educación, cosa que sigue siendo un obstáculo para los niños de las zonas rurales de su país.
Aquí dejamos otros artículos más sobre esta joven cantante.
¿Qué Pasa, Ohio State? Autumn, 2019, Volume 29, No. 1
Check out the most recent issue of ¿Qué Pasa, Ohio State?
“Complaint of El Río Grande” by Richard Blanco
“You named me big river, drew me—blue,
thick to divide, to say: spic and Yankee,
to say: wetback and gringo. You split me
in two—half of me us, the rest them. But
I wasn’t meant to drown children, hear
mothers’ cries, never meant to be your
geography: a line, a border, a murderer.”
–“Complaint of El Río Grande“, by Richard Blanco, a poem too beautiful not to share with OhioHabla followers.
This poem comes from Blanco’s How to Love a Country, a collection of poems that explore topics such as immigration, violence, racism, and LGBTQ experiences.
To learn more about the author, listen to the On Being episode in which he is interviewed.
“El sueño americano”: The janitor who photographs migrants’ belongings
From 2003 to 2014, part-time janitor and photographer Tom Kiefer worked at the U.S. Customs & Border Protection facility in southern Arizona. During his shifts, he noticed that items belonging to migrants who came through that facility were confiscated, and later, typically tossed into the trash. He couldn’t help but retrieve them. And then he began to photograph them. His powerful work is now on display at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. You can read more about the photographer and his project here.
Radical Latinx Groups: United in a mission to build community spaces
Throughout the U.S., Latinx groups are playing a fundamental role in women’s empowerment in many ways: through health initiatives for indigenous women, rock camps where young girls can learn to play instruments, and programs to encourage artistic and literary production among Latinx women and girls, to name a few. Teen Vogue has compiled a list of 12 of these radical Latinx organizations. Their projects and purposes vary, but they all share a common mission: “to improve, nurture, and support the lives of Latinx women and women of color, trans women, non-binary people, and LGBTQ+ communites around the country.”
#PoderQuince: Quinceañeras who rock the vote
How did you celebrate your 15th birthday? With a voter-registration booth at your party? A new generation of quinceañeras are working to increase voter registration for Latinx voters in Texas. By partnering with Jolt, an organization that seeks to promote political engagement among Latinos in the US. One of their initiatives, Poder Quince/Quince Power, involves working with quinceañeras to register and inform potential voters. Participating quinceañeras receive a free photobooth for their party and a “PoderQuince” Spanchat filter, in exchange for bringingJolt staff into their fiestas to answer questions and register voters. Read more about these smart young women who are doing their part to increase voter turnout in our elections.
Pío de Jesus Pico: Los Angeles’ Complex and Diverse History
How much do you know about the history of Los Angeles? What about the African contributions to Los Angeles? One individual in particular, Pío de Jesus Pico, was especially influential in the history of this major US city. In fact, his family’s surname is present all over Los Angeles today. Read more about Pio Pico, one of the most interesting figures in California’s history–who lived on land that, in his lifetime alone, was ruled by Spain, Mexico, and the US–in this fascinating article.