Exploring the idea of not being 'Latino enough,' a recap of the Telluride Film Festival, can Stephen Colbert be himself on the "Late Show"?
Are you 'Latino enough'? How (not) speaking Spanish creates Latino identity questions
At a New York kindergarten in the 1980s, a little girl was held back from recess. Her offense did not stem from refusing to share snacks, or not resting at nap time. She was punished for talking — with an accent.
"They [her teachers] said I couldn’t pronounce English correctly," said Michelle Moreno, who is now 30. "They called my parents in and said, 'Don't teach her Spanish, she doesn't need to learn it.'"
It was a decision that would come to affect Moreno's identity years later.
Fitting in with American culture is one thing. But the pressure to stay a "true" Latino — speaking fluent Spanish being the main criteria — has seemingly created a rift among Latinos in America as generations go on. This rift, lately, has manifested itself in the idea of not being "Latino enough." It's something actress Gina Rodriguez of "Jane the Virgin" had to address recently.
This struggle, while nothing new, is perhaps best summed up by Abraham Quintanilla, played by Edward James Olmos, in "Selena."
Watch: Being a Mexican-American is exhausting
"Group identity is really important," said Lauren Carris, who is an expert in language and identity with a special focus on Latinos and Latinas in California, and current interim assistant dean at California State University, Northridge. "There's always an interesting hierarchy and a process of marginalization: Who's in, who's out, who has access to lots of different things. And in order to categorize people, in order to kind of fit people into a space, identity and identification is a huge piece of that."
It's an identity conflict Moreno and Juan Carlos Salas, 29, are no strangers to. Both Moreno and Salas shared their experiences as sources in KPCC's Public Insight Network.
Salas is an L.A. native who speaks Spanish, "mostly by force," he said. Growing up, he acted as the bridge between his Spanish-speaking parents and the rest of their English-speaking environment. Even though Salas can check Spanish off the "Latino enough" list, to some people, he still doesn't cut it.
A couple of years ago, Salas said he was accused of being something he had never heard before: White washed. The issue? Salas is a fan of Frank Sinatra, the U.S. National Soccer Team and other American culture offerings.
"I didn't get angry, I got more confused because I had to actually go home and look it up to see what they were talking about. And when I figured it out, it just made me scratch my head and say, 'Where does this come from?'"
Moreno is a former Southern California resident who was raised in New York. Her father is from the Dominican Republic and her mother is from El Salvador. Moreno says as a result of her language incident in kindergarten, she's had more than her share of experiences of not feeling Latina enough — most of them coming from her extended family.
"When I do try to speak Spanish around my family and say, 'You know what? I'm going to give this a good college try, I can learn this,' I'm met with, 'You're not pronouncing that right, that's not how it sounds,'" she said.
Carris says these experiences can stem from a twisted narrative where language is an indicator of authenticity among groups of people.
"On the one hand it is the first identifier for being foreign, and not being 'authentic' American, per say," she said. "But it's very interestingly used in this context to kind of flip that narrative and empower individuals that are often criticized or marginalized to then use that as a marginalization tool for others."
Carris says moving away from feeling shame is key for Latinos. She also thinks open discussion is crucial.
"I don't think that, especially in the United States, and probably around the world, we really have the tools and the right approach to be able to talk about this without getting super emotional," she said. "It shouldn't be one of shaming, but really recognizing the complexity and inviting a richer dialogue."
Salas, Moreno and Carris all agree on one thing: At the end of the day, you are who you are.
"Whatever I identify with, is how I identify. I don’t need to justify it, I don't need to explain it," said Moreno. "I don't speak Spanish, but I guess I'm just tired of apologizing for it."
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled Lauren Carris' last name.
Tuesday Reviewsday: New music from Patty Griffin, Luciana Souza and PHASES
If you love music, but don't have the time to keep up with what's new, you should listen to Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our critics join our hosts in the studio to talk about what you should be listening to, in one short segment. This week, music journalist
Artist: Patty Griffin
Album: "Servant of Love"
Songs: "Everything’s Changed," "Good and Gone"
Summary: This is the sound of a broken heart: A guitar strummed in a clipped, unchanging two-chord pattern, an mbira tinkling along with it, at times barely audible and a voice, somber and subdued, as if in a darkened room with no one else around.
This is the sound of Patti Griffin’s "Everything’s Changed," arguably the emotional center of her new album "Servant of Love": Devastating, brutal, perfect. Though calling it a "center" may be inappropriate. Little on this album is centered. There’s a disorientation inherent in what, we must assume, is her musical account of her breakup with Robert Plant, with whom she worked in his Band of Joy project and shared a house and life in her hometown of Austin for a few years.
Now, two things to keep straight: This is not an answer album to Plant’s "Lullaby and … the Ceaseless Roar," one of the most impressive works of 2014. In that, the ex-Zepper sang of endings and leavings and of returning home to England amid a bracing mix of African-tinged psychedelic folk and blues. It was hard not to see it as being about the split. And it was hard not to wonder how Griffin would respond.
Well, she doesn’t respond. Rather, she makes her own statement, her own internalizing of the process, her own dissection of her experience, to the point that you might wonder if she even heard his album. Perhaps she did not.
And the other thing: Despite the tone of "Everything Changes," this is not bleak. Well, it is. But it isn’t. It’s both. It’s many things, many of them contradictions, as one feels when grieving, as she was here. At times she’s stuck in dark despair, at times she’s fought her way out into the light. At times she’s bent on revenge, at times ready to — well, not forgive or forget, but to come out on top, on her own terms.
In the opening title song, she sings of being taken over by love’s ecstasy — possessed by it and betrayed by it. It’s just a plunked piano, a bowed bass drone, a trumpet that could have been taken straight from a noir film score. And over it, a voice rising from suppressed, resigned and clearly pained to a howl at once anguished and resolute. against that spare, sketchy sonic wall of just piano, noir-esque trumpet and bowed bass.
Then in the next song, "Gunpowder," over scratchy guitars, pointedly unsteady drums and that trumpet again, this time more cajoling or even mocking, she sings of it all blowing up to nothing, of taking merciless revenge:
You will never see my face
And then my kids will own this place
And then my kids will own yours too
If you were me, wouldn’t you?
And after that is "Good and Gone," kicking off with her wanting to "make sure he’s good and dead," the music building around a drone like a bad thought that you can’t get out of your head. This is no elegy, rather it’s a personalized take on the murder-ballad motif that is a core of American folk music.
And that’s what this is. American folk music, on its most personal, primal level. And at its most gripping.
Artist: Luciana Souza
Album: "Speaking in Tongues"
Songs: "At the Fair," "Filhos de Gandhi"
Summary: "Speaking in Tongues" is right. For most of the album Souza, a Brazilian-born singer based in Los Angeles with a very wide-ranging and impressive track record spanning jazz, bossa nova and other styles, sings in no language, at least no recognizable language — just what seems to be wordless sounds. Only two songs, coming at what on vinyl would be each side’s end, have lyrics, both from Leonard Cohen with somber music by Souza. But it’s the other material that really stands out here, her voice freed from concrete meanings to dart and fly into territories words can’t touch, as a great instrumentalist flies.
She’s not the only one "speaking," as it were. "Tongues" is a full-out conversation with two other lead musicians, guitarist Lionel Loueke and harmonica player Gregoire Maret, as well as with the rhythm section of bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Kendrick Scott, each a formidable artist in his own right and each contributing to the writing on this album. Together they evoke the classic Brazilian jazz-fusion of the ‘70s and ‘80s of such artists as Airto, Flora Purim, Hermeto Pascoal, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Egberto Gismonti and even the poppier Sergio Mendes, but move beyond into their own fresh territories.
Loueke, born and raised in Benin and trained in Paris and at Berklee College of Music, has shown himself one of the most inventive and dexterous guitarists in jazz today working alongside such luminaries as Herbie Hancock and Terence Blanchard, his touch at once delicate and powerful. The Swiss-born Maret may be the real revelation here, his bright, fleet chromatic runs often doubling Souza’s voice, or at other times darting around her, the pair like two swallows at play.
It’s in two Souza compositions that finds this interplay at its most exhilarating and delightful: opener "At the Fair" and "Filhos de Gandhi." The former establishes the wide field on which these considerable talents get to work, while the latter, Portuguese for "Sons of Gandhi," is a tribute to the colorful Northeast Brazilian carnival parade society that grew out of a 1948 dockworkers strike inspired by the nonviolent tactics of the Indian leader. Little in the way of words. Plenty in the way of meaning.
Artist: PHASES
Album: "For Life"
Songs: "Cooler," "I’m In Love With My Life"
Summary: Remember the early ‘80s? Ever catch yourself wishing for something new that matched the DIY electro-pop of the Human League and Thompson Twins with the breezy spirit of early Madonna? Well, here it is anyway — with a better singer, but the same kind of feeling, and made by four musicians who certainly don’t remember the early ‘80s themselves, or just barely at best, as they were barely sentient, or in the case of singer Z Berg still a few years away from being born.
Maybe because of that, Los Angeles’ PHASES plays it with affection and without irony, which is why it works so well, both on the very era-specific, plunky synth tracks a la the opening "Silhouette" and on the higher-pop-aiming tour-de-force "Cooler," with a little taunt at someone Berg thought was, well, cooler. No question this is an accomplished quartet, Berg (formerly of the Like) joined by Alex Greenwald (from Phantom Planet), Jason Beosel (Rilo Kiley) and Michael Runion (the Elected). The four of them were previously 4/5 of the group JJAMZ, with a more contemporary sound on a solid 2012 album, but given its origins at a Hollywood karaoke night, perhaps it was inevitable that it would morph into something more like this.
One key is that while Berg is a fine singer, she never overshoots her mark, never negates the having-fun spirit here. There’s an authenticity to this that transcends nostalgia exercise — and yes, it’s kind of funny using the term authenticity with something modeled on music marked by artificiality. But that is the case, a project that really is just for fun. Nothing wrong with fun, right? As they sing in "I’m In Love With My Life," "feeling good ain’t going out of style."
The must-see films that debuted at Telluride
The 42nd Annual Telluride Film Festival just wrapped up in the mountains of Colorado.
It's a BIG deal for the movie world because, well, six of the last seven Oscar winners for best picture? They've have had either their North American or world premiere at the fest.
John Horn, host of SCPR's The Frame, was there all weekend and recaps the best films to watch for.
Coverage round-up of Telluride by The Frame
- Telluride Film Fest: Danny Boyle says 'Steve Jobs' is a father-daughter story
- Telluride Film Fest: Rooney Mara in 'Carol'
- Telluride Film Fest: Michael Keaton, director Tom McCarthy and screenwriter Josh Singer for 'Spotlight'
- Telluride Film Fest: Meryl Streep says women's rights are universal
The Brood: Why parents are choosing the homeschool option
Last week on The Brood, we brought you an investigative story about the Home School Legal Defense Association (or HSLDA), a small but powerful advocacy group that's been fighting against regulations for homeschools.
The group's practices have raised serious concerns— that the lack of regulations can hide abuse or cases where kids aren't being taught at all. But some homeschool advocates say that more regulations aren't the answer.
So why do parents choose to homeschool their kids?
The reasons can vary widely. Parents may be looking for a more rigorous curriculum for their kids, a slower pace for a child with developmental disabilities, or (especially here in Southern California) a less rigid schedule for a child actor.
Pam Sorooshian, homeschooling advocate and member of the Board of Directors of the HomeSchool Association of California, says "there are as many different types of homeschooling as there are children because really the whole point is that it's idiosyncratic."
In some families, homeschooling may mean that kids sit around the table and mom or dad is the teacher.
"In my family," Sorooshian says, "it was much more relaxed than that. It wasn't an academic kind of approach, it was much more parents being facilitators of setting an environment up where children could really explore and discover and learn. We supported the kinds of interests they had."
Families who pursue homeschooling or even just consider it, Sorooshian says, really don't fit one particular description.
"It's very different for every family," Sorooshian says. "That is the amazing thing about homeschooling is that you individualize it for each family, each child, and it changes over time."
To hear the full interview with Pam Sorooshian, click the link above.
Added pressure, longer commutes as higher ed increasingly relies on adjunct faculty
This month, students across the nation are headed back to school for another year and many of them will be taught by adjunct faculty.
A recently launched publication called Adjunct Commuter Weekly seeks to document the often hidden life of adjunct professors – a life that can be fulfilling and rewarding, but also full of challenges.
Dushko Petrovich is the magazine's publisher and Kim Bisheff is an adjunct professor at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. They joined the show to tell more.
To listen to the full interview, click the blue audio player above