Translating the Eastside: Embodied Translation in Helena María Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came with Them

MELUS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72
Author(s):  
Desirée A Martín
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
East Los Angeles ◽  
Painful Condition ◽  
Systemic Pressure ◽  
Reference Space ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The Face ◽  
Central Mode

Abstract “Translating the Eastside: Embodied Translation in Helena María Viramontes’s Their Dogs Came With Them” argues that translation—specifically embodied translation—is the central mode through which Chicanx bodies confront the painful condition of inhabiting the fragmented spaces and temporalities that simultaneously construct and exclude them. In Dogs, translation is above all a process of carrying across, transferring, expressing and contesting meaning from one place to another through the physicality of the body. Embodied translation does not solely carry across meaning across texts or languages, but is itself a source of new knowledge, including insofar as it refuses to transfer meaning through the body. However, embodied translation is only transformative as much as it disrupts the direct translation imposed by the state which contains and regulates Chicanx bodies. Rather than straightforwardly carrying meaning across, embodied translation foregrounds excess and lack, seemingly producing too much or not enough translation to produce and transfer meaning. Excessive modes of embodied translation, such as repetition or recycling, and those that indicate a lack, such as silence or muteness, are practices of dissent that continually reference space and temporality while calling other kinds of translation into question. As such, embodied translation stands as an excessive, persistent site of resistance that places systemic pressure on dominant institutions, marked through the intersection between bodies, space and temporality. In the process, embodied translation calls both the present and presence of Chicanx peoples into being in the face of their erasure in spaces like East Los Angeles.

The face of sport in the Polish State Police in the interwar period

2019 ◽  
Vol Special Issue ◽  
pp. 93-104
Author(s):  
Marcin Nowak
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
The State ◽  
The Body ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
Sports Clubs ◽  
Sports Organizations ◽  
State Police ◽  
The Face ◽  
Sports Skills

Sport has accompanied mankind since ancient times. It is thanks to sport that we are healthier and can enjoy life. The smallest sporting effort causes the body to produce endorphins that make us feel happy. Not without significance is the fact that sport, but in its professional dimension, prepares people who practice it to a great effort. In the face of threats, unforeseen events, people who practice sports can find their way around the situation and take appropriate actions. Therefore, just as police officers face difficult service in the present day, police officers had to face up to the challenges posed in the interwar period. In 1918 Poland regained its independence, and the authorities were responsible for ensuring the security of the country. Therefore, on 24 July 1919, the State Police was established by law. Due to the nature of the tasks performed, the police officers were required to be physically fit. In order to meet this challenge, pro-sports organizations were established, which by their actions were to raise the level of sports skills of both the society and the officers. The factor which was to motivate uniformed officers to work on their physical fitness was the introduction of the National Police Sports Competitions, which were nationwide in scope. Undoubtedly, this form of competition, as well as mobilization, led to the fact that on the basis of Police Sports Clubs, physical culture in the State Police significantly developed. The article presents the face of sport in the interwar period in the Polish State Police, its development and influence on the officers themselves, as well as its further importance in the history of sport in Poland.

Misfit medicine and queer geographies: The diverse economy and politics of cannabis in carceral Los Angeles

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1180-1197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chlala
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
The Body ◽  
Queer Women ◽  
Social Movement Unionism ◽  
Diverse Economies ◽  
Asian And Pacific Islander ◽  
Aids Crisis ◽  
The Face ◽  
Diverse Economy ◽  
Affective Relations

Fundamentally shaped by queer and trans activism and labor, Los Angeles’ cannabis markets offer an opportunity to understand how “diverse economies,” as defined by Gibson-Graham, are dynamic, contingent political projects that require contending with power and difference. With data from nearly four years of ethnographic observation and 70-plus interviews, I analyze how numerous Black, Latinx, Native, and Asian and Pacific Islander queer women and transgender economic actors in cannabis have developed labor relations, collective institutional forms, and reciprocal exchange to make cannabis dispensaries a space of care and solidarity. Starting with AIDS crisis-era medical marijuana activism, queer economic actors have built affective relations at the scale of the body with patients, owners, and each other in ways that transcend profit imperatives and bridge across difference. More recently, in the face of economic exclusion and the pervasive gendered division of intimate labor, queer and trans workers of color have turned to the body as a scaffolding for collective action across scales. Drawing from resurgent social movement unionism in the region, they have led intersectional campaigns to protect more-than-capitalist elements of the industry and challenge the carceral state’s drug war. Bridging feminist economic and political geography allows insight to the spatially and temporally contingent nature of diverse, queer economies and their embedding in broader relations of racial, carceral, and homonormative capitalism. At the same time, such an approach centering the active politics of diverse economies surfaces the potentialities for multi-scalar movements to develop and sustain alternatives to capitalism.

What Can We Learn from Cool Cats? Chillante Pedagogy, Gary Soto, and the Chato Series

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-174
Author(s):  
Elena Avilés
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
East Los Angeles ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
The Face

In the face of ongoing stereotypes about barrio subjects, Gary Soto offers a decolonial and counter-narrative about cool cats from East Los Angeles that amplifies notions of intersectional identities and notions of gender roles. This chapter offers an analysis of Chato’s Kitchen (1995), Chato and the Party Animals (2000), and Chato goes Crusin’ (2005) through a decolonial and intersectional lens, bringing to the forefront stories, images, and representations of non-choloos as outliers of barrio communities. The representation of Chicano subjects as non-cholos while being cool cats manifests intersectional identities that teach children about the diversity of barrio life, especially for young brown boys.

Questions on the role of biofilms for the adaptation of microorganisms to unfavorable environmental factors by the example of P. aeruginosa

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-383
Author(s):  
Vasily N. Afonyushkin ◽  
N. A. Donchenko ◽  
Ju. N. Kozlova ◽  
N. A. Davidova ◽  
V. Yu. Koptev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antibiotic Resistance ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Barrier Function ◽  
Infectious Agent ◽  
Antagonistic Activity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Pathogenic Potential ◽  
The Face

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a widely represented species of bacteria possessing of a pathogenic potential. This infectious agent is causing wound infections, fibrotic cystitis, fibrosing pneumonia, bacterial sepsis, etc. The microorganism is highly resistant to antiseptics, disinfectants, immune system responses of the body. The responses of a quorum sense of this kind of bacteria ensure the inclusion of many pathogenicity factors. The analysis of the scientific literature made it possible to formulate four questions concerning the role of biofilms for the adaptation of P. aeruginosa to adverse environmental factors: Is another person appears to be predominantly of a source an etiological agent or the source of P. aeruginosa infection in the environment? Does the formation of biofilms influence on the antibiotic resistance? How the antagonistic activity of microorganisms is realized in biofilm form? What is the main function of biofilms in the functioning of bacteria? A hypothesis has been put forward the effect of biofilms on the increase of antibiotic resistance of bacteria and, in particular, P. aeruginosa to be secondary in charcter. It is more likely a biofilmboth to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and provide topical competition in the face of food scarcity. In connection with the incompatibility of the molecular radii of most antibiotics and pores in biofilm, biofilm is doubtful to be capable of performing a barrier function for protecting against antibiotics. However, with respect to antibodies and immunocompetent cells, the barrier function is beyond doubt. The biofilm is more likely to fulfill the function of storing nutrients and providing topical competition in conditions of scarcity of food resources.

Lifting the Veil

2014 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
Scott Pittman
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
State Government ◽  
The State ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Red Scare ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Hiring And Firing ◽  
And Control ◽  
California Schools

The story of anti-communism in California schools is a tale well and often told. But few scholars have appreciated the important role played by private surveillance networks. This article examines how privately funded and run investigations shaped the state government’s pursuit of leftist educators. The previously-secret papers of Major General Ralph H. Van Deman, which were opened to researchers at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., only a few years ago, show that the general operated a private spy network out of San Diego and fed information to military, federal, and state government agencies. Moreover, he taught the state government’s chief anti-communist bureaucrat, Richard E. Combs, how to recruit informants and monitor and control subversives. The case of the suspicious death of one University of California, Los Angeles student – a student that the anti-communists claimed had been “scared to death” by the Reds – shows the extent of the collaboration between Combs and Van Deman. It further illustrates how they conspired to promote fear of communism, influence hiring and firing of University of California faculty, and punish those educators who did not support their project. Although it was rarely successful, Combs’ and Van Deman’s coordinated campaign reveals a story of public-private anticommunist collaboration in California that has been largely forgotten. Because Van Deman’s files are now finally open to researchers, Californians can gain a much more complete understanding of their state bureaucracy’s role in the Red Scare purges of California educators.

Este lugar sí importa

2016 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 52-74
Author(s):  
Laura Dominguez
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Historic Preservation ◽  
East Los Angeles ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Cultural Importance ◽  
Communities Of Color

The evolution and construction of cultural identity and memory in unincorporated East Los Angeles, both in scholarship and the popular imagination, establishes a critical framework for understanding changing relationships between communities of color and the broader historic preservation movement. East Los Angeles embodies slowly shifting paradigms within the historic preservation movement that compel practitioners and advocates to contend with the meaning of seemingly ordinary places that have tremendous cultural importance within their communities.

Unification and Its Discontents

2016 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-16
Author(s):  
Brian Kovalesky
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School District ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
The State ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
City Schools

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the height of protests and actions by civil rights activists around de facto school segregation in the Los Angeles area, the residents of a group of small cities just southeast of the City of Los Angeles fought to break away from the Los Angeles City Schools and create a new, independent school district—one that would help preserve racially segregated schools in the area. The “Four Cities” coalition was comprised of residents of the majority white, working-class cities of Vernon, Maywood, Huntington Park, and Bell—all of which had joined the Los Angeles City Schools in the 1920s and 1930s rather than continue to operate local districts. The coalition later expanded to include residents of the cities of South Gate, Cudahy, and some unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, although Vernon was eventually excluded. The Four Cities coalition petitioned for the new district in response to a planned merger of the Los Angeles City Schools—until this time comprised of separate elementary and high school districts—into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The coalition's strategy was to utilize a provision of the district unification process that allowed citizens to petition for reconfiguration or redrawing of boundaries. Unification was encouraged by the California State Board of Education and legislature in order to combine the administrative functions of separate primary and secondary school districts—the dominant model up to this time—to better serve the state's rapidly growing population of children and their educational needs, and was being deliberated in communities across the state and throughout Los Angeles County. The debates at the time over school district unification in the Greater Los Angeles area, like the one over the Four Cities proposal, were inextricably tied to larger issues, such as taxation, control of community institutions, the size and role of state and county government, and racial segregation. At the same time that civil rights activists in the area and the state government alike were articulating a vision of public schools that was more inclusive and demanded larger-scale, consolidated administration, the unification process reveals an often-overlooked grassroots activism among residents of the majority white, working-class cities surrounding Los Angeles that put forward a vision of exclusionary, smaller-scale school districts based on notions of local control and what they termed “community identity.”

Twenty-Five Years after Sa-I-Gu: Multiracial Politics in Times of Crisis

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Chang ◽  
Daniel Martinez HoSang ◽  
Soya Jung ◽  
Chandan Reddy ◽  
Alex Tom
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The State ◽  
Racial Capitalism

We chose to frame this conversation in terms of crisis: not only the state of permanent crisis created by racial capitalism and settler colonialism but also specific flashpoints like Sa-I-Gu [the Korean term for the April 1992 uprising in Los Angeles after the acquittal of the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating]. We want to look at the conditions surrounding these flashpoints and the responses to them that then shaped race consciousness and politics subsequently. Today we have no shortage of crisis, no shortage of flashpoints. And yet there is hope. Perhaps more than at any other time in my lifetime, there are opportunities to shift mass culture, at the very least to popularize and normalize a slightly more critical consciousness. So now I want to turn to my friends here to talk about crisis and multiracial politics. We’ll start with Sa-I-Gu and work forward to this moment and also to future possibilities.

Yu.F. Samarin’s Model of the National State: Between Archaic and Modern

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 149-155
Author(s):  
Alexey B. Panchenko
Keyword(s):  
Rural Community ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
The State ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
National State ◽  
Basic Model ◽  
The Face ◽  
Identical Position ◽  
Ethnocultural Community ◽  
Communicative Space

Yu. F. Samarin’s works are traditionally viewed through the prism of his affiliation with Slavophilism. His view of the state is opposed to the idea of the complex empire based on unequal interaction of the central power with the elite of national districts. At the same time it was important for Samarin to see the nation not as an ethnocultural community, but as classless community of equal citizens, who were in identical position in the face of the emperor. Samarin’s attitude to religion and nationality had pragmatic character and were understood as means for the creation of the uniform communicative space inside the state. This position for the most part conformed with the framework of the national state basic model, however there still existed one fundamental difference. Samarin considered not an individual, but the rural community that owned the land, to be the basic unit of the national state. As the result the model of national state was viewed as the synthesis of modernistic (classlessness, pragmatism, equality) and archaic (communality) features.

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