Follow Up of the Day: Following East Haven mayor Joseph Maturo’s insensitive comments toward the Latino community, a local branch of the Reform Immigration for America organization made sure he got his just tacos.
“I might have tacos when I go home” the mayor told a reporter when asked what he plans to do for the Latino community in light of four local police officers being arrested by the feds for racial profiling.
The activist group Junta for Progressive Action decided to give the mayor what he wanted, and launched a campaign promising to send Maturo a taco for every text they received.
500 tacos have been delivered thus far.
“The town of East Haven has received an abundance of tacos as a result of the campaign initiated by the group ‘Reform Immigration for America,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “Recognizing that there are many in need in our state, we have arranged for all of the tacos to be donated to local soup kitchens and pantries, including the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven.”
The mayor previously apologized for his remark, blaming it on fatigue from a long workday. He insists he has no plans to resign at this time.
An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiderwebs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before. (Courtesy: National Geographic)
I don’t see anything bad about being stereotyped as a Latin woman. We are yellers, we’re pretty, we’re sexy, and we’re scandalous. I am not scared of the stereotypes.
Oh look, it’s a good thing I am typing this instead of, you know, actually YELLING at Newsweak.
Here is the thing: I can understand Sofia Vergara’s words, where she is coming from. Have I “used” the Latina stereotype to my advantage ever in social situations? Yes, probably. I mean, nobody is free from the social context where interactions take place. However, no amount of “making fun of our stereotypes” is ever going to fix stuff like this (from the article):
It’s a quality that DeGeneres poked fun of recently in a behind-the-scenes video for their first Cover Girl shoot, calling Vergara’s accent “phony” and claiming “to be sick of” Vergara’s struggles with the English language.
I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve had to smile politely while people made fun of my accent. We will only be truly free to embrace these stereotypes when we don’t have to deal with reactions like that. Meanwhile, no, I resent the fact that Newsweak implies we should all “exploit” it to our advantage.
It should also be noted that while everyone thinks it’s funny on the show, outside of that it becomes something to judge and ridicule. The Latino/Latina stereotype of having an accent eventually becomes “Learn English” and “Why Don’t You Go Back to Mexico (because we are all from Mexico). I cannot recall the amount of times I heard someone say “Why don’t they just learn English” or “I can’t understand them with that accent”. The so-called funny accent often leads to words of hate and anger.
After plenty of rumors, haggling by developers, banks, it was announced last week that the Palm Beach Mall will finally be demolished to make way for new outlet stores in 2013.
It opened up as a shoppers playground in 1967 and I spent many a teenage night there with friends doing laps on the terrazzo floor and sucking down Orange Julius. It went through some uglification (remodeling) in the 1980’s and again in 2000, but that didn’t stop it from falling victim to urban decay. Competition from City Place with its sanitized Italian piazza vibe was the final nail in the coffin.
If you enjoy the slight discomfort or fascination with images of retail death as much as I do, check out out happypalms Flickr stream or my PB Mall set on Flickr.
Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics. So together, let’s take some steps to fix that. Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress; I will sign it tomorrow.
![thedailywhat:
Follow Up of the Day: Following East Haven mayor Joseph Maturo’s insensitive comments toward the Latino community, a local branch of the Reform Immigration for America organization made sure he got his just tacos.
“I might have tacos when I go home” the mayor told a reporter when asked what he plans to do for the Latino community in light of four local police officers being arrested by the feds for racial profiling.
The activist group Junta for Progressive Action decided to give the mayor what he wanted, and launched a campaign promising to send Maturo a taco for every text they received.
500 tacos have been delivered thus far.
“The town of East Haven has received an abundance of tacos as a result of the campaign initiated by the group ‘Reform Immigration for America,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “Recognizing that there are many in need in our state, we have arranged for all of the tacos to be donated to local soup kitchens and pantries, including the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven.”
The mayor previously apologized for his remark, blaming it on fatigue from a long workday. He insists he has no plans to resign at this time.
[cnn / wpix / photo: ri4a.]](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lygsttnO091qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
