News
Podcast with Yours Truly and Maria de Leon, Executive Director of NALAC
Posted Wednesday July 23, 2008
Please listen to this podcast with Laura Varela and Maria De Leon, Executive Director for the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture for Hispanic MPR.com.
My latest project raulrsalinas and the Poetry of Liberation was a recipient of the NALAC Fund for the Arts in 2007 and I am an alumni of the 2006 NALAC Leadership Institute.
Yesterday at Resistencia
Posted Wednesday July 23, 2008
I’m sure many of you know that el maestro raulrsalinas passed away earlier this year. He was a mentor to many young Chicanos and people in general, who dedicated their lives to truth and justice. I’ve been developing a documentary with raul about his life’s work. So you can imagine how saddened I was when he passed. Along with raul, the documentary team consists of some great people who have been there 100%. Rene Valdez has been a solid foundation for Red Salmon Arts, the non-profit arm of Resistencia Bookstore, and an amazing liason between the project and all things raul. My heart went out to Rene, as well as raul’s family; but raul was like a father to Rene. I have a large list of Humanities proffessor’s if you go to the project site you’ll get the big picture. They have all been so amazing and are so valuable to this project. Dr. Louis Mendoza and Dr. Alan Gomez are really the ones who have been in the trenches with raul; they have also been actively involved in the research and development of this film. Anne Lewis will be co-producing and editing on this project too; she has been a great advisor and solid when it came to making sure we filmed raul at every possible chance.
So yesterday Louis was in town to organize rauls archives that are at Resistencia, half are already in the Special Collections Library at Stanford University. It was Emmet Campos, who is the project archivist, Louis, Rene and I. Going through boxes and boxes of papers, articles, photos, media, and art. What an amazing life raul has led. There were pictures of him at the founding of the Centro de la Raza in Seattle, at the of the trail of Self Determination, at the Leanoard Peltier trial when he was co-director of the LP Deffence Committee, in Geneva with the Indiginous Rights Council, one of the first Flor Y Cantos in Califas in the early ’70s, in Nicaragua, in Puerto Rico, etc. He has worked for human rights and dignity for all, when examining his solidarity work; I will list that another time because I could go on forever. I am so excited to tell this story of transformation and action for justice and truth for all people.
raul, we remember you ese.
Finally Blogging about the Germany Residency!!
Posted Tuesday April 8, 2008
We are back from Germany and very happy with the installations and the turn out. We are so grateful to Vaago Weiland for the invitation and all the help and support while we were there. The community of Korschenbroich and Monchengladbach-Rheydt was very kind and interested in Day of the Dead as well as the altars. We lectured at the Hochschule Neiderrhein, whose cultural pedagogy department had a whole semester dedicated to death, mourning and remembrance. The project was led by the professor Mona Meis who invited us to lecture and help the students with their altar projects. The main one was dedicated to the hundreds of missing children in the European Union. We also lectured at the intergenerational Faust Academy, as well as two high schools. The first altar was a traditional altar dedicated to priests, nuns and WWII soldiers of the San Andreas Church in Korschenbroich and was raised the Tower Room. This was a purely traditional altar, with no contemporary elements, we brought some items from !home but most of the food and flowers and altar offering were found in the community of Korschenbroich. The second altar installation was called Fortress Europe: The Human Cost. 
This was a multimedia altar and the whole room of the gallery at Kulturbahnof was used. Here is the description:
Fortress Europe: The Human Cost
A multimedia altar by Laura Varela and Guillermina Zabala
This altar is dedicated to immigrants and political refugees who have drowned, suffocated and been beaten to death in their quest for a better life. As borders are made more impermeable in and around European countries, people are forced to take more and more dangerous routes. These deaths are attributed to border militarization, asylum laws, detention policies, deportations and carrier sanctions.
These individuals are victims of a global economy that oppresses the workers of third world countries and forces them to migrate to industrialized nations.
Similarly, in the United States, hundreds of Latin American immigrants have perished crossing the US-Mexico border due to the unjust immigration policies. These “free-market” economic treaties enrich multinational corporations by exploiting human labor in all many parts of the world. The altar Fortress Europe: The Human Cost honors the lives of those individuals who have left their homeland and sacrificed their lives in route to Europe.
Specials thanks to Vaago Weiland, Gisela Willems-Liening, Derya Uestebe, Paul Klatt, Fritz Wiebel and Dr. Angela Wilms-Adrians.
During our stay in Rehyt/Monchengladbach Germany, we were so busy with the shows/installations and lectures, but we did manage to get away to Barcelona for a few days. I was amazed by the amount of Latin Americans there. At one restaurant I saw this young man that looked just like a person I went to high school with, he was from Ecuador, and it shows me that we Xicanos and all indigenous people from the America’s are all related. 
I was also pleased to see that the Catalonians have the same view of the Spanish conquest as us, as they themselves feel that Catalonia is still occupied by the Spanish. They have their own language and are very much tied to the land.
raúlrsalinas and the Poetry of Liberation receives NFA 2008
Posted Tuesday April 8, 2008
I am so pleased to announce that the raulsalinas documentary was selected to receive funds from the NALAC Fund for the Arts 2007-2008.
Arte Latina: Roar
Posted Tuesday April 8, 2008
I will be participating in an exhibit of Latina work at Blue Star opening on April 3 called Arte Latina: Roar.