"The majority of DJs up there didn't look like me. I, myself, always wanted to DJ and collected records, but never saw that platform out there. I knew girls out there that collected records and mentioned they wanted to DJ. "We're underappreciated and underestimated, whether as a performer, working in the industry, or a DJ. "I often found that women, in the music conversation overall, we're shut out," she says. She doesn't portend a technical prowess – "skill-sharing" is one of the unwritten tenets of the group – but when she arrived in Austin following college in San Antonio, Saenz started the group as a means to bond over music with other women.īeyond a collective that spins its heritage as enjoyment, CVC doesn’t shy away from its curating as a politically tinged protection mechanism. Born and raised in Edinburg, club founder Claudia Saenz grew up listening to Norteño and conjunto, and gravitated toward cumbias. Support group and think tank as much a DJ crew, the hive-minded endeavor began in Austin three years ago next month. Torres-Castro belongs to the founding Austin chapter of the Chulita Vinyl Club, self-described as an "all-girl, all-vinyl club for self-identifying womxn of color in the context of providing a space for empowerment and togetherness." The collective has spawned chapters in San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley, and northern and southern California, spinning yé-yé pop, oi! and other various punk subgenres, indie-pop, numerous black and brown soul movements, New Wave, twee, Tejano/Chicano oldies, and even lowrider "souldies." Inside that one song, there's a whole history of things, whether it's the musical stylings or the story the singer's telling." "It means playing music that hasn't made the digital jump and sharing private moments in a performance space. "The vinyl could be a record belonging to a family member that maybe passed away and we get to share with folks," explains Camila Torres-Castro, also known as DJ Cienfuegos. I sat down to discuss the issue with Marco Cervantes, director of the Mexican American Studies Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Lilliana Saldaña, Associate Professor in Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the UTSA College of Education and Human Development.Vinyl six-pack: (l-r) Si Mon Cecilia Emmett, Jess Giron, Natalia Rocafuerte, Jennifer Rother, Sara Zavaleta, Shavone Otero (Photos by Shelley Hiam) Here in Texas, though, educators are working to teach public school students about Hispanics’ often-overlooked role in shaping American history. In 2010, a group of Republican state lawmakers there argued that the classes created resentments towards other races, and even in some cases, promoted the overthrow of the U.S. District Court judge is expected to rule soon on the constitutionality of Arizona’s ban on teaching Mexican American studies in public schools. When history is taught, shouldn’t all of it be taught? That’s a question being debated in Texas and Arizona. Teaching Mexican American Studies In Schools Two North Texas artists are working to beautify the image many people have about life on the Texas/Mexico border.An Austin bar shuts down a Latino DJ group for playing Latin music.The importance of including accurate Mexican-American history in school curriculums.
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