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August, 2005

  1. Mexohio II

    August 22, 2005 by elenamary

      [Anyone know of any Latinos (particularly Chicano) blogeros from Ohio? Other than of course me and Cincysundevil.]

    Weekly update on the Mexico-Ohio Connection.

    US-Mexico Stakes Grow Even Higher
    New York Times – United States
    “…will square off Sept. 3 in Columbus, Ohio, in perhaps the most meaningful match between them since the 2002 World Cup.”

    Canadian arrested on Amtrak train in Ohio
    CBC News – Canada
    … Police said Sloan had two Canadian passports, birth certificates and Social Security cards with different names, a Mexican identification card

    Immigration experts, by default
    By Dan Moffett
    Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
    “…In Fremont, Ohio, pickle farmers put out a desperate call for cucumber pickers. A shortage of migrant workers threatens to ruin this year’s crop…”

    Category Latinos, Ohio | Tags: , | No Comments

  2. Unification

    August 22, 2005 by elenamary

    I am all about diversity but sometimes unification can be great.
    I got a request this morning to join Hi5, it is the same thing as Friendster, Myspace, Orkut, all of which I am a member of. Yet, different groups of my friends belong to all of them. For example my Mexican and Caribbean friends belong to Hi5, my hipster friends belong to Myspace, the Brazilians have taken over Orkut and Friendster seems to be slowly dying as people seem to lose interest. These pages are great in that I can find out what is going on in town tonight, or who is having a party, or email a large group of people at once. However, they suck in that I have to check four or five sites to keep up, they suck in that people edit their profiles so I am forced to listen to crappy music, people looking to fornicate are constantly sending unwanted solicitations. The pros could totally outweigh the cons if somehow I could log into one page and all my contacts were listed in one place.

    Same goes for ICQ, mIRC, AIM, Y!, and MSN chat services. I’ve used Trillian in the past and it kept crashing but I may give it another chance. Trillian is one program that signs you on to all of the above chat programs. This way I can talk to my German friends who use ICQ, my Mexican friends who use MSN, my Gringo friends who use AIM and the people-who-rarely-sign-on-but-if-they-do use Y!.

    Can’t we all get along and choose one chat program and one “social networking” page?

    Category personal | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Aquí

    August 18, 2005 by elenamary

    Antes mi blog se llamaba“ Ni de aquí, Ni de allá” y ahora se llama “De aquí y de allá”. Antes yo me pensaba una mujer quien no era, solamente de un lugar. Luego me define como una mujer de dos lugares y hoy creo que ahora me voy a definir diferente.

    Hoy estuve leyendo el blog de Botanas-Art, Culture & Other Rants y leí que habrá un exhibición de arte Chicana y Mexicana en Chicago, el cual se llamara “Lo Nuestro – De aquí y de allá…”

    Al leer el titulo del exhibición me pregunte ¿Cuando vamos a decir que aquí y allá es el mismo lugar?

    No estoy diciendo que ya lo es o que si será. Por ejemplo como Mexicana del sur de México a veces siento que no tengo nada en común con los Mexicanos que viven en el Norte. A veces siento que no tengo nada en común con Mexicanos quienes comen tortillas de harina (una tortilla se hace de Maíz…según yo).

    Pero si me preguntas si Tamaulipas es parte de México tanto como Chiapas, te diré que sí. Creo que diré que sí porque la gente se defina como Mexicana, pero mas que eso no hay mucho que tienen en común. Es mas, lo importante es el sentido de sentir Mexicano no de serlo pregunto ¿ser Mexicano que significa? Y si yo estoy de acuerdo de que la gente de Tamaulipas son mexicanos, ¿por que la gente de Tejas no son mexicanos? Y pregunto a mis lectores cuando va ser que no diremos “aquí y allá” sino qué “aquí”.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Vigil for Cindy Sheehan

    August 17, 2005 by elenamary

    Around the country people are gathering to hold vigil for Cindy Sheehan.

    Vigil for Cindy Seehan

    Cindy Sheehan is the mother of a 24 year-old young man who died in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan has set up outside of President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch. Bush will be their the next four weeks completing his five week vacation. Cindy Sheehan has stated that she will stay outside of Bush’s ranch until he is willing to speak with her:

    ” ‘I want to ask the president, why did he kill my son?’ Sheehan told reporters. ‘He said my son died in a noble cause, and I want to ask him what that noble cause is.’ ” (CNN)

    I am sure many of you have heard about Cindy Sheehan but the reason I am mentioning it is because I am shocked at how widespread her cause has become, including here in Ohio. A friend of mine is hosting a candleight vigil and when looking at the event website, I found that there are MANY vigils tonight right near my home.

    Within 50 miles of my home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, there are thirteen (13) registered candle light vigils. That isn’t 13 people saying “Yeah, I support Cindy” that is groups of people leaving their homes at an organized time and date (7:30pm tonight) and showing they support Cindy Sheehan. If this is how people feel in central, Ohio. What is it like in the rest of the country?

    Category Latinos, Ohio | Tags: , | No Comments

  5. Cheetos

    August 16, 2005 by elenamary




    Reina Elenamary

    Originally uploaded by elenamary.

    I don’t usually like to buy food from the vending machine but I was hungry at work and the only thing left in my food drawer were Dum-Dums and peanut butter…and I am allergic to peanut butter. The other thing is that you folks out on the west coast probably take for granted the fact that you can get everything with chili, while here in Ohio people find tomatoes to be too spicy (I am exaggerating).

    So, I am blankly staring at the vending machine, disgusted by my options and wondering why is it that the Cheetos don’t come with a little packet of salsa valentina and why the Cheetos don’t already come with chili spices like they do in Mexico, when I remember a childhood friend—“Cheetos”. I don’t know his real name and I swear everyone in his family called him “Cheetos” as well. He was a couple years older than me, taller than the rest of us, lanky and with a head that was too big for his body. I meet him in the small rural Mexican town where I was baptized, queen of the village and later would set up an English school. I also loved going to this town to play soccer with the boys, use slingshots to shoot down mangos, and ride burros to the river in order to bring back water for their families (the town doesn’t have running water). I remember at the age of 14, I declared that I was going to move to this town and spend all day sitting under the mango trees reading and eating mangos.

    I ended up moving back to the states and from the age of 14 until a few weeks ago, I never saw Cheetos. We completely lost contact. However, he did come by our house in the city. Our house was in the “city” that is we lived in an area with electricity, running water, and telephones. He came one day, when I was probably 16 or 17. I was laying in my bedroom reading when the doorbell ring but I hadn’t bothered to get up. Some time passed and then I overheard my mother saying to my aunt “He is from Tecalpulco. He said his name is Cheetos. Cheetos?! Said that he knew Elenamary. He said that he had made something with his life and has joined the police. Like that means anything. And then he asked for me to allow him to marry Elenamary. Do I look like I am going to let my daughter marry some man just because he joined the police? He’s crazy. I told him to go away, that he couldn’t marry her.”
    I found the whole thing amusing.

    My mom has had to deal with suitors at the door, multiple times now. I had a boyfriend who once when he came to serenade me (he serenaded me multiple times) my mother dumped a kitchen pot full of cold water on him and told him that he sounded like a cat in pain.
    I saw Cheetos a few weeks ago. He was in the “city” guarding the town hall. I smiled at him as I walked by and he smiled and winked. Uncomfortable, from the wink I kept on walking and wondered if unlike me he knew when we were children that our friendship wouldn’t last.

    Category Latinos, Ohio | Tags: , | No Comments

  6. Mexohio

    August 15, 2005 by elenamary

    [The Ohio-Mexico connection every Monday]

    Ohio minority population less than 20 percent
    Columbus Business First – Columbus,OH,USA
    Out of Ohio’s total population of 11.5 million, 83.32 percent, or 9.5 million, of residents are white. Another 12.58 percent, or 1.4 million, are black and 2.2 percent, or 252,269, are Hispanic. Asians comprise 1.64 percent, or 187,784 residents; 0.67 percent, or 76,709, are American Indian and native Alaskans; and 0.07 percent, or 7,856, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.

    Arena Calls 20 Players for U.S. vs. Trinidad World Cup Qualifier on Aug. 17
    US Soccer.com – Chicago,IL,USA
    After Hartford, the USA’s next qualifier is a marquee matchup with Mexico on Sept. 3 in Columbus, Ohio. A sold-out crowd at Crew Stadium will witness the teams’ first meeting in qualifying on U.S. soil since the U.S. downed the Mexicans 2-0 on Feb. 28, 2001, in the very same venue.


    Deaths mounting on Mexico’s border security watch
    By SERGIO CHAPA; The Brownsville Herald
    Mexican and Latin American Cultures professor Ignacio Corona with Ohio State University said police in Mexico seem to be outgunned and outsmarted. Drug dealers, he said, are able to track each other’s movements and then strike with deadly precision at homes or in public without getting arrested.
    “The intelligence service is not there,” Corona said of police investigations. “Rivals can find each other, but the police cannot.”
    Corona said crime rates when compared to filed arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sentencing are also discouraging. “Mexico is a country where crime seemingly pays off,” he said.
    [This prof is awesome I had him for a latino lit class]

    En Ohio, violación genera resentimiento contra los hispanos
    DAN SEWELL Associated Press
    HAMILTON, Ohio, EEUU – Esta ciudad sobre la rivera del río Ohio ha sido una cuna de crecimiento hispano en un estado que curiosamente está muy por debajo del resto en cuanto a población de latinos. En la década de los 90 la población hispana de Hamilton se quintuplicó. Se calcula que en la actualidad hay 4.000 hispanos entre los 61.000 residentes … entre la comunidad se despertó un sentimiento de repulsión hacia los hispanos luego de la violación de una niña blanca de 9 años. Supuestamente, un hispano, que logró huir de la ciudad, cometió el delito.
    Al día siguiente, la casa donde el hombre se alojaba fue pintorreada por energúmenos. Y unas horas después la casa fue devorada por las llamas. El episodio se ha visto acompañado de agrias confrontaciones, insultos y amenazas contra los hispanos.
    Desde el incidente han comenzado a transitar por las calles hombres con cubrealmohadas con agujeros para los ojos y luego militantes del Ku Klux Klan con capuchas y túnicas distribuyeron panfletos este mes. Han arreciado rumores de agresiones y golpizas.

    Category Latinos, Ohio | Tags: , | No Comments

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