Month: October 2021

“Sin Nombre is set as a border crossing social-political thriller. The stories of Sayra, a teenager living in Honduras and hungering for a brighter future, and teen gang members Smiley and Casper, for whom the Mara Salvatrucha is nearly their entire universe, become interlaced on the train to the US border, a journey that will determine the future of their lives.”

-Production Notes, Sundance Catalog

ASYNCHRONOUS BLOG POST (Deadline 11/2 before the class)

Instructions:

1. Rent and watch the film Sin Nombre (Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2009)

2. In the comment section down below answer ONE of the following prompts (2oo-words minimum).

OPTION ONE

Give your interpretation of the film title: Sin Nombre (Nameless). Think about the gangs’ naming practices and ethics as well as the experiences of migrants. Refer to plot elements, specific scenes, and/or characters.

OPTION TWO

How does the film contextualize migration to the US from Central America? Refer to plot elements, specific scenes, and/or characters.

OPTION THREE

In filmmaking, a long take is a continuous shot with a duration much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera movement (handheld or with a steady-cam) and elaborate blocking are often elements in long takes.

Why do you think the director and his crew decided to film the above-posted sequence as a long take? Which character’s point of view is highlighted by filming this scene as a long take? How does this long take make you feel as an audience member?

OPTION FOUR

Respectfully interact with ONE of your classmates’ responses. Do you agree with their arguments and interpretations? Do you disagree? What other observations about Sin Nombre do you want to bring to the discussion?

Entry Question

Is your neighborhood gentrifying? What signs have you identified that make you think that way? Do these signs resemble the ones presented by Vampires Vs. the Bronx?

Stages of Gentrification

Forget ‘The Bronx Is Burning.’ These Days, The Bronx Is Gentrifying

Oral/slide presentations

Hassan,Tazbiul

King,Briana

Lopez,Jacqueline

Group Discussion- Reading and Discussing Ed Morales’s The Latinx Urban Space and Identity

.Barrios (Pages 250-251)

How Vampires Vs. The Bronx illustrates the clashes between the barrio’s cultural memory and the actions of developers?

.Gentrification (Page 252)

What evidence do the characters of the film encounter that make them certain that they will not be included in the re-building of the Bronx? Why do they think that if they disappear nobody will notice?

.Afro-Latinidad and Urban Resistance (Pages 264; 267-268)

Vampires Vs. The Bronx is a comedy-horror hybrid that pokes fun at the extinction and displacement many diasporic communities of color are facing right now in major cities by corporate forces. It follows a group of teenagers of Caribbean descent who are forced to protect their neighborhood in the Bronx when a group of vampires/gentrifiers invades.

ASYNCHRONOUS ASSIGNMENT (Deadline: 10/12 before the class)

Instructions:

1. Watch the film Vampires Vs. The Bronx (Osmany Rodriguez, 2020) on Netflix

2. In the comment section down below answer ONE of the following prompts (2oo-words minimum).

OPTION ONE

An allegory is a narrative in which a character, place, or event is used to deliver a broader socio-political message about real-world issues and occurrences. Discuss the allegory of corporate gentrifiers as vampires.

Refer to specific characters, scenes, and/or the plot.

OPTION TWO

How the movie proposes a trans-Caribbean unity to “save the neighborhood” and protect the needs of the Bronx residents.

OPTION THREE

Analyze how Vampires vs the Bronx flip common horror mise en scene elements (make-up; wardrobe; special effects; lighting; props) to highlight the contrasting presence of gentrifiers and as comedy tools.

OPTION FOUR

Respectfully interact with ONE of your classmates’ responses. Do you agree with their arguments and interpretations? Do you disagree? What other observations about Vampires Vs The Bronx do you want to bring into the discussion?

Entry Question

What topics from the films and critical texts we have discussed during the first half of the semester would you like to see included in the midterm? Would you like to propose a question?

When Does Resistance Begin? Queer Immigrant and U.S-Born Latino Youth, Identity and the Infrapolitics of the Street

In her essay, associate professor, urban ethnographer, and educational researcher, Cindy Cruz examines the small and deliberate practices of queer youth toward their caseworkers, security guards, and each other. She proposes that observing these practices aids to expand the notion of resistance. She recognizes resistance when youth refuse the logic of domination and share knowledge in ways that suggest new kinds of socialities. She argues that these new socialities have the possibility to become spaces where queer youth can practice new sensibilities and ways of being as they negotiate through the often hostile worlds they traverse. (289-90)

Overlapping Keywords

.Resistance- it happens when youth say no to the alternatives they are offered in worlds where they are brutalized and oppressed or to the narratives that emerge within these oppressive spaces. Queer Latino youth might resist using the smallest of gestures. (291)

.Resistant socialities- off-stage (non-institutional) practices of queer Latinx youth; breathing spaces, however tight, for youth to reclaim energy, regroup, and create safe space; small deviation from the logic of oppression. (292)

.Hidden transcript- the space of rest and leisure, a place to gossip about your caseworkers, teachers, and the ever-present security guards in Spanish, Spanglish, or English. It is also a place for youth to exchange valuable information about how institutions, organizations, worksites, schools, and youth centers, work (297)

Oral Presentations on Gun Hill Road and “When Does Resistance Begin?”

Gil,Debora

Grechka,Inna V

Hart I,Elise Hope

Group Discussion

Think of all the different spaces Vanessa, the young trans woman presented in Gun Hill Road, “traverse.” How do these spaces differentiate? In which ones she feels safe? In which spaces she engages in resistance?

Conclusion

The socialities of resistance that youth develop for survival are vital spaces where the potential to learn new ways of negotiating these hostile worlds can also become places to learn multiple sensibilities and new ways of engaging their world(s) that offer liberatory possibilities. When queer Latino street youth move away or refuse to continue to engage with abusive partners, share technology and vital digital information with each other or question the pedagogy of research, I argue that it is here that resistance begins. (317)

Instead of staying silent, invisible, passive, youth talk back, share knowledge, and practice ways of knowing and being that have the potential for other kinds of emancipatory praxis. (318)

Recommended Interview