Ep. 33: MERENDIANDO with José Torres-Tama
June 10, 2020
“All I’m doing is pointing out the obvious – and that’s avant-garde in a country that dares not to look at itself and its own atrocities in the mirror.” – José Torres-Tama
In this episode we dive into the responsibility of the artist, laptop activism, solidarity between Latinx, Undocumented, and Black people, and the urgency to continue creating and sharing new work during these pandemic times, including the latest releases in José’s series of Video Cortaditos and Picante Performance Poems on YouTube.
José Torres-Tama is a writer, poet, journalist, renegade scholar, educator, visual and performance artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. He explores the effects of mass media on race relations, the underbelly of the “North American Dream” mythology, and the anti-immigrant hysteria currently gripping the United States of Amnesia, “which seduces you to embrace forgetting”.
Show Notes:
- The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, a historic and highly respected home for poetry, slam, music and theatre in New York.
- Poets José mentions: Keith Roach, Lois Griffth, Sarah Jones and Willie Perdomo
- This Taco Truck Kills Fascists, an award winning documentary on the Taco Truck Theatre
- The Taco Truck Theater, a “theater on wheels ensemble performance challenging the anti-immigrant hysteria & driven by a live music sound-bed. All with tacos for sale.”
- Black Lives Matter, a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes
- Spirit McIntyre (Spirit/They/Them), an artist collaborator in the Taco Truck Theatre
- El Sol Lotería playing card and José’s “happy hat”
- José’s solo show (that’s been touring for 10 years!), Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers
- New Orleans & The World: 1718-2018 Tricentennial Anthology, book published by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities that culturally deported and brutally disappeared Latin Americans and our undocumented immigrants that contributed to the reconstruction post-Katrina from their 2018 Tricentennial anthology
- Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist
- VIDEO CORTADITOS & Picante Performance Poems, José’s video series on YouTube
- Voces Unidas LA, Louisiana Immigrant’s Rights Coalition that advocates for immigration policy reform and provides direct support to individuals in and out of ICE detention camps in Louisiana and beyond.
- Ta-Nehisi Coates and his book Between the World and Me
- The murder of Amadou Diallo by NY police
- James Baldwin, Black American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist
- José’s book recommendations, and this week’s Meriendas for the Brain: The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Zapata’s Disciple: Essays by Martín Espada, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Bitácora Del Cruce by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Franz Kafka
We want to acknowledge the historical moment we find ourselves in, and the long history of activism and labour from Black and Indigenous communities in their fight for justice. We are committed to continuing this conversation with this podcast and examining our own racism and biases as Latinx artists as we continue this project.
Here are some links to support the local pro-Black and Indigenous initiatives:
All Merendiando episodes are in Spanglish. New episodes of Radio Aluna Theatre are released every Wednesday. Follow and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and wherever else you get your podcasts.
Radio Aluna Teatro is produced by Aluna Theatre with support from the Metcalf Foundation, The Laidlaw Foundation, The Canada Council for the Arts, and The Ontario Arts Council.
Aluna Theatre is Beatriz Pizano & Trevor Schwellnus, with Sue Balint & Gia Nahmens; Radio Aluna Theatre is produced by Camila Diaz-Varela and Monica Garrido.
For more about Aluna Theatre, visit us at alunatheatre.ca, follow @alunatheatre on twitter or instagram, or ‘like’ us on facebook.