The Reality Dysfunction - Unscripted/Unsilenced

The Ballad of Emiliano Zapata - Tucson Freedom Summer July 2012

This is a recording of Leif Khan aka the Desert Rat signing his original The Ballad of Emiliano Zapata at an open mic session during Tucson Freedom Summer in 2012. We hope you enjoy it. 

Cancel the Rent, Forget the Debt Organizers Speak Up

This segment of The Reality Dysfunction is hosted by Juan Carlos Vega. He and the crew talk with organizers Shakeara Mingo and Julian Zepeda from the Cancel the Rent DC and Forget the Debt Phoenix and the role their respective campaigns are playing in trying to bring relief to covid weary communities. 

 

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Musica

Revolution has come - Rebel Diaz

This is for La Raza - Kid Frost 

Ernesto Mireles presents at Palo Alto College in San Antonio - Hispanice Heritage Month.

This special segment of The Reality Dysfunction presents Dr. Ernesto Mireles speaking at the San Antonio Palo Alto College's Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 2020, with Dr. Lori B. Rodriguez the director of the Chicano Studies program. Their conversation centers on Dr. Mireles' book Insurgent Aztlan: the liberating power of cultural resistance. 

If you haven't got your copy of Insurgent Aztlan yet, contact me directly at ernesto.mireles@prescott.edu to purchase. 

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2020 Hispanic Heritage Month Event Author Talk/Plática with Ernesto Todd Mireles Insurgent Aztlán: The Liberating Power of Cultural Resistance (2020 International Latino Book Award - Nonfiction: Best Political/Current Affairs) Webinar link: https://alamo.zoom.us/s/93966667325 Wednesday, September 30, 2020 10:30 – 11:30 am

 

Music:

Revolution has come - Rebel Diaz

This is for La Raza - Kid Frost

To secede or not to secede, that is the question.

Once again The Reality Dysfunction takes on an often overlooked aspect of this election. The noise around post election violence is becoming more and more strident everyday but what does that really mean for the Xicano/Latino community. Its to the point words like civil war are being thrown around like it may be an inevitability. Recent the questions was posted by Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez if white supremacist declare a civil war and secede from the United States will POC follow their example? (you can read his article here) It's a provocative subject and one that deserves consideration within the realm of Xicano politics. Included here are jpegs of a letter that is being passed around in the Prescott, AZ., area from the leader of the local milita. Read the messages below. 

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Music:

Kid Frost "This if for La Raza"

Rebel Diaz "Which side are you on" 

Xicano Institute for Teaching and Organizing

In this special segment of The Reality Dysfunction we are posting a recent discussion that took place with MeXicanos 2070. This discussion centered on the Xicano Insitute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO) and it's emergence from the Tucson Mexican American Studies struggle. How is XITO carrying on the legacy of the MAS struggle in the teacher training work it is doing across the country? 

Juvenile Life without Parole: Efren Paredes and the fight for his life

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction we talk to Efren Paredes Jr, who at age 15 was convicted of a murder he did not commit.  He has been incarcerated for the past 31 year.  He battled tirelessly to overturn the Juvenile Life Without Parole Laws in the country, which changed in 2012.  After battling the Berrien County prosecutor for 10 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that youth should not be sentenced to life without parole Efren will finally be entering the court room next week on Oct. 5 for his last chance to appeal to the Berrien County court to stop pursuing a sentence of life and give him a term of years.  Which would make him eligible for parole immediately after the resentencing hearing.  In effect he has been held in the MDOC system without a legal sentence for 10years, on top of already having served 21 years for a crime he did not committee. 

 

Sign the petition to free Efren Paredes Jr.

Jennifer Allen Aroz: CHISPA and how Xicano/Latino communities are joining the fight for environmental justice.

In this episode the dysfunctional crew talks to Jennifer Allen Aroz, League of Conservation Voter's (LCV) senior vice president of community engagement who founded Chispa in 2014.

Chispa is the community organizing/engagment arm of LCV that is staffed by Xicana/o/x and Latina/o/x organizers in barrios and cities across the country creating community based committees that are addressing environmental justices issues. 

 

Here is a link to learn more about Chispa and the work they are doing across the country. https://www.lcv.org/chispa/

Dr. Yomaira Figueroa on Afro Latino Identity and Radical Community Archiving - Part 2

In this second part the Dysfunctionals finish their conversation with Michigan State University professor Dr. Yomaira Figueroa. This converstation got so interesting it went long and we had to break it into two parts. Listen to the first part here. Below is a link to Dr. Figueroa's website. 

And as always mad respect to The Fugees.

http://www.yomairafigueroa.com/

Guantanamera by The Fugees

Dr. Yomaira Figueroa on Afro Latino Identity and Radical Community Archiving - Part 1

This week the Dysfunctionals talk with Michigan State University professor Dr. Yomaira Figueroa. This converstation got so interesting it went long and we had to break it into two parts. Listen to the first part here. Below is a link to Dr. Figueroa's website. 

And as always mad respect to The Fugees.

 

http://www.yomairafigueroa.com/

Guantanamera by The Fugees

Turning out the BIPOC vote in battleground states

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction, the dysfunctionals talk with Pete Vargas the Resturant Organizing Center Michigan director who is raising money and moblizing Black and Brown organizers to help defeat Donald Trump in the fall. 

Dr. Carlos Aleman - Building Political Power and Networks in the Deep South

This week on The Reality Dysfunction the dysfunctionals are talking with Dr. Carlos Aleman the deputy director of Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama a non-profit organization, created in 1999, which aims to improve the quality of life for Latinos living in Alabama. In addition to these duties Dr. Aleman recently ran for Homewood, Al., city council and won with a resounding 58% of the vote. It is important to note that Homewood is 80 percent white. A truly impressive win. 

RNC - The Cucuy is gonna get ya!

The week the Dysfunctionals take on the Republican National Convention and it ain't pretty. 

How we see - the DNC.

This week the dysfunctionals take on the Democratic National Convention and it's underwhelming Xicano/Latino presence. It's a free ranging conversation but important as we come to grips with our political presence in this country. 

“Developing our Bench” field notes from a winning electoral campaign.

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction, our dysfunctional gang talks with three term state of Michigan House representative Vanessa Guerra. Representative Guerra, (D-95^th district) won the August 4, primary against four time incumbent Saginaw County Clerk Michael Hanley. Guerra won by a landslide 6000 votes in largely rural county in which Mexicans make up eight percent of the population. The gang has many questions for Guerra and she has lots of advice for young people (and old) about running for office and how and when to get involved.

In addition to Rep. Guerra our usual dysfunctional crew of Alexandra Lozada (NY), Juan Carlos Vega (Washington DC), Rainer Delgado (MI), Daniel Soza (MI), Francisco Lopez, (CA), Carlos Hernandez (TX) and Ernesto Mireles (AZ). Also joining us for the podcast are Maria Zavala Paredes, Carolina Sanchez and Cecilia Olvera.

Sports Mascots part 2 -

Greetings Dysfunctionals in the second part of our conversation on sports mascots the crew is speaking with Karen Schaumann-Beltran, Maria Zavala Paredes, and Monica Washington Padula the leader of a successful 6-year campaign in Paw Paw, Michigan, to rid the local high school of their racist Redskin’s mascot. Their stories are gripping and will give all of us real insight into how a successful anti mascot campaign is conducted and the personal price the people organizing the campaign pay.

 

The cast of dysfunctional regulars appears, Alexandra Lozada, Daniel Soza, Francisco Lopez, Rainer Delgado, Juan Carlos Vega and myself Ernesto Todd Mireles.

 

This is the link to the article referenced several times in the podcast.

Hispanic activist want Chicano Studies classes censored

Sports Mascots Part1

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction the crew takes on the issue of sports mascots and the deeply ingrained anti-indigenous nature of so called "respect" in the naming of sports teams. 

 

The 1930s Repatriado: The Mass Deportation of People of Mexican Ancestry

This episode of The Reality Dysfunction is a special presentation of Mexicanos 2070. The description for the talk is below. 

 

Mexicanos2070 will host Elena Herrada, a Detroit activist to talk about the issue of the repatriation of Mexicans after the Great Depression.

 

The U.S. used the Mexican community as a convenient scapegoat from the economic devastation of the Depression. No other immigrant groups were being targeted for repatriation. By enacting laws depriving Mexicans of employment, mandating restrictive immigration policies and supporting deportation at the federal, state and local level, Americans became reassured in their endeavors of a more open job market. Due to these conditions in the U.S.

 

The reason that this topic holds importance among the other aspects of Latino history is that it is something that the U.S. has chosen to forget. The vitality of this topic also poses the idea that something like this could happen again regarding the future of Mexican immigrants in the United States. It is the goal of Repatriation history to reveal the dynamic relationship of our past with modern day.  

 

The video featured at the beginning of the podcast can be watched here.

National Level Politics - Getting past ourselves to create political power.

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction we talk about national politics and how we can get past our own egos, drop the fingerwagging (name shaming), identity boxes and what it will take to build a politcal persona in the Xicano/Latino community across the country. 

Why can't 50 million "Latinos" force an immigration amnesty?

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction your panel discusses immigration, someof the recent successes and the importance of getting involved and a little bit on why we cant get this amnesty done.

Space + Time = Will: Insurgent Aztlan and National Liberation

Dr. Ernesto Todd Mireles (host of The Reality Dysfunction) discusses his recently published book Insurgent Aztlan: The liberating power of cultural resistance. Dr. Mireles currently works at Prescott College as faculty in the Social Justice Community Organizing Master’s program. He is closing in on three decades as an organizer.

 

As Xicanos navigate the first two decades of the 21st century, the Xicano Movement has arrived at a critical crossroads in terms of national identification. The process of indigenization that began in the 1990s is reaching a critical moment in the political development of the Xicanada. As a national community we are faced with grim political, economic and cultural decisions founded in the assertion the Xicano Movement is dead. Nationally, Xicanos must reflect on whether that description is accurate and means an actual political and cultural end or the evolution of the movement to an elevated level of resistance that could encompasses larger sections of Mexican Americans than ever before.

 

This session of Mexicanos 2070 webinar was recorded on June 18, 2020.