Assignment #6

Los Tigres del Norte

As we gear up for our trip to San Diego and Tijuana, we will spend our last DeCal talking about the musical culture of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly narcocorridos as "an everyday form of resistance and symbolic emulations of power for Mexican American youth" (cited from Guadalupe Manriquez, a participant from spring '10).

Your two readings are:
1. Immigration Blues: Onward and Upward with the Arts, by Alec Wilkinson
2. Immigrant Songs

Your assignment is to share a song that is relevant to the readings and/or exemplifies the kind of music discussed in the articles. For example, you could find a YouTube version of "Contrabando y Traicion" and play a 1-2 minute snippet for the class. (Please be prepared to provide a brief translation if your song is in Spanish.) The goal of this assignment is to find a song that represents the border, either because it's from that region (like norteno music) or speaks directly/indirectly to an issue related to the U.S.-Mexico border. Please use the "Immigrant Songs" article to help you in this process, as there are several songs and artists listed at the bottom.

In your comment, please post 1-2 paragraphs in response to the articles, as well as list the song that you will be sharing with the class. Questions to think about:
-How familiar are you with narocorridos?
-If you have listened to them before, what types of themes are portrayed in these songs?
-If you have not, what was a take-away point for you from the article?

8 days!

Assignment #5

This week we are excited to welcome a guest speaker, Garrett Brown from the Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network. As taken from their website, here is a description of the organization:

The Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network is a volunteer network of 400 occupational health and safety professionals who have placed their names on a resource list to provide information, technical assistance and on-site instruction regarding workplace hazards in the 3,000 "maquiladora" (foreign-owned assembly) plants along the U.S.-Mexico border. Our goal has always been to build the capacity of workers and their organizations to understand occupational health and safety issues and to be able to speak and act in their own name to protect their health and to exercise their rights. Our activities have included providing information and trainings to workers, plant-wide health and safety committees, and to community, human rights and professional associations; technical assistance to workers filing complaints under international trade agreements; and technical information for grassroots organizations monitoring the performance of transnational corporations and government health and safety agencies in the global economy.

By talking with Garrett, we will continue our discussion of the role of womyn in maquiladoras and how we can move toward achieving social and environmental justice in exploited systems of labor. To prepare for class, please read these two pieces:

1. Environmental Justice Case Study
2. NAFTA's 10 Year Failure to Protect Mexican Workers' Health and Safety

In your blog response, please list at least 2 questions that you would like to ask Garrett after watching Maquilapolis last week and engaging with this week's reading. Your questions can relate to his work, anything that was unclear from the film, or new trains of thought that the articles led you to.

2 more DeCals!! Get excited!!