Hidalgo's Research

Thursday, December 13, 2012

POC as Costumes

Recently, famed tennis star Caroline Wozniacki appeared on a tennis court with the bra and shorts stuffed to make herself look curvy. It is said that she did it to impersonate another famed tennis star Serena Williams, particularly her natural curves. Many people were amused by this stint. Others, call it being racist. Word on the street is that it's not the first time female tennis players mocked Williams' figure by doing similar things.

UN's Ban launches bid to stamp out cholera in Haiti

Reblogged from Repeating Islands:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a $2.2 billion initiative on Tuesday to stamp out cholera over the next decade in impoverished Haiti, where an epidemic has killed thousands of people and been blamed on U.N. peacekeepers, Reuters reports.

Cholera has killed some 7,750 Haitians and sickened almost 620,000 since October 2010.

An independent panel appointed by Ban to study the epidemic issued a May 2011 report that did not determine conclusively how the cholera was introduced to Haiti.

Ricky Martin at the U.N.: On Stigma, Fear and the Dangers of Homophobia

Reblogged from Repeating Islands:

Recently (December 11, 2012), Puerto Rican superstar Ricky Martin proclaimed at a U.N. conference on homophobia that he wishes he could come out again so he could tell people struggling with their identities that “it’s just beautiful – you find love.” Martin said that “for many years, I lived in fear … because I was hating myself, because I grew up listening to a very crooked concept: `You’re gay.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Letter: Response to ‘Weekly column promotes ignorance’ – CollegiateTimes.com

Letter: Response to ‘Weekly column promotes ignorance’ – CollegiateTimes.com.

My letter to the editor.

I meant to be clear that satire and comedy are indispensable for sustaining a fair society, but as a laugh could help level power, it could also help in the opposite direction if steered toward marginalized people.

The original article, which attempted to produce laughs out of Puerto Rico‘s latest plebiscite, had the title of “Puerto Rico, America’s ugly stepchild” before the editors changed it on the online version.

Danny Mota’s response last week came from his heart, and as such is a good example of the effect this type of bad taste “satire” produces in others.

Both of our reactions did not attempt to address the issue of Puerto Rico’s status. Instead, it was about how “funny” can become “sour” when not meant for constructive criticism.

But perhaps we were not clear enough in saying that not all laughs are made the same. Our reactions to the article are not because hypersensitivity, but because we have seen where this path leads to.

Filed under: Media, Unites States

Monday, December 10, 2012

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution – Simon Schama – Google Books

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution – Simon Schama – Google Books.

Schama, a well-known art historian, jumped ships to write a highly evocative and detailed history that should be central to the Black Atlantic. He did so after his popular work on A History of Britain, which should have given him the research background he needed to have written this work. It is arguably a history that only a British scholar could have written, and thus, a much needed one against the blinding American patriotic narrative. We should expect that his critics are not a few–we will get to that later, and mostly from the United States’ side.

I regret not having read it before.

In a way, this is a “British Atlantic History” done in reverse to what has been happening from the United States shores, which has emphasized the position of the former British North American colonies (i.e., 13 colonies) within the broader context of the English-speaking Atlantic. Schama, instead, raises the voices of those who has been writing about Blacks outside of the traditional U.S. patriotic paradigm by showing, more evocative than most, how for Blacks the rhetoric of freedom was clearer from the British than from the U.S. Patriots’ side. In doing so, he is able to help revise U.S. Black History.

Filed under: Abolitionism, Atlantic World, Caribbean, Colonialism, Historiographical Research, Imperialism, Slavery Tagged: Slavery

Dominican Republic Pledges to Cut Emissions by 25%

Reblogged from Repeating Islands:

Dominican Republic stated its commitment at the UN Summit on Climate Change in Doha to cut its emissions by 25% before 2030, calling it “an ambitious goal” for a developing country. It is also the third country in Latin America to approve a carbon tax.

In a news conference held the last day of the UN Summit on Climate Change, Dominican delegation chief Omar Ramirez said his country will reduce its emissions of 3.6 tons per capita per year, with a population of 10 million, to 2.8 tons by 2030.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Using tragedy to promote dependency

I wrote the post below in response to an attempt to use Camacho’s death for partisan purposes. The original post I read appeared in the otherwise admirable blog “Repeating Islands.” But it had first come from Time.com, written by Tim Padgett

“I am surprised to see such a partisan and pro-colonial (and ahistorical) post in this blog. The pro-statehood movement on the island has been on an evangelical-like impetus that ignores the facts for the “positive” vision.

The main reason Puerto Rico, as well as much of Latin America, has sunk into what it seems as social disarray (as seen in the surge of violence) is in fact because of its colonial status and the neo-liberal policies affecting the entire region. Adding Puerto Rico to the integral political structure of the colonial master (statehood) would not only miss the goal of producing a solution to the problems affecting the region, but it would simply be impossible.

Understanding the nature of nation-building and nationalism would help explain why the U.S. would find it impossible to assimilate the island as an equal. There are plenty of historical examples that would also highlight the foolishness of this idea. France in the Caribbean is perhaps the most salient one, where the colonial territories have been integral and full members of the French political apparatus (unlike Puerto Rico’s “commonwealth” status, which by the way, it reads radically different in the Spanish version).

And yet, the French “Overseas Departments” have not been nor will be in the same social or political level as the rest of France. They are rather dependencies “well treated,” or better yet, “people hanging from the borders of the more progressive nation that is France” (which happens to thrive at the historical expenses of their colonial possessions). No wonder the French have not accepted them as real social equals.

The U.S. seems farther behind the French in admitting this possibility with Puerto Rico–even less of accepting Puerto Ricans as full members of their society (in the continental U.S., they are considered “immigrants” in the process of becoming “Whites” as the Irish and Italians once were, if they are willing to shed away most of their cultural traits and join the “melting-pot”). So, there are enough evidences showing the final destination of the “statehood” pipe-dream.

Puerto Rico has a long history of reactionary and pro-colonial support, and this post seems to follow in such a tradition (this thought also relates to plantation owners in Cuba who sought union with the U.S., and discredited Dominican caudillos who wanted the U.S. to re-colonize their country in the 19th Century).

Yet, there are also traditions of more genuinely native and more creative lines of thinking that put a premium on emancipation, collaboration and fair equality rather than on pernicious social hierarchies. I suggest that we tap on these latter traditions, improve on them and rethink our future more brightly than joining a cause of futile begging for acceptance.”