FROM NATIONAL LATINO POLICY INSTITUTE

Here They Go Again!
Coors and the Puerto Rican Parade
The NiLP Network on Latino Issues (May 25, 2013)

From “EMBORICUATE” to this. I think the target of the PR community’s wrath on this matter should be the Nat PR Day Parade’s board, not Coors or their marketing agent! DEMAND they pull the advertising! Recall the product! Take the board president to task for allowing the selling out our people & culture! Challenge this year ‘s parade theme, which is HEALTH, not getting drunk!
—Ephraim Cruz in May 23, 2013 Facebook posting

A very Americanized Puerto Rican asked me why I was so upset about the parade board of directors making a deal with Coors to place the Puerto Rican flag on its beer can as a promotion. I said that flag symbolizes our nation, our ancestors ,our history, our dignity. No one has the right to grant permission to Coors to place our flag on their promotion. Our parade has become more interested in money than in cultural pride. It’s time to take back our parade . . . now!
—Ramon Jimenez on May 24, 2013 in his Facebook page

It seems like the leadership of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, to be held on June 9th in NYC, just can’t help themselves! As you can see (—>), they have cut some sort of deal with the MillerCoors company to not only be the official beer of the parade but to display their logo, and the Puerto Rican flag, on cans of their Coors Light beer. As Ephraim Cruz, Ramon Jimenez and others have pointed out, this is unacceptable, but instead of criticizing Coors the cry is going out on the need to hold the Board of Directors of the Parade accountable themselves!

What makes this even more egregious is this year’s parade theme is: Salud — Celebrating Your Health. Among Latinos, Puerto Ricans have the highest rate of alcohol dependence and the highest rate of the need for acohol use treatment, according to the National Institutes of Health. So, in this case, they must be using “salud” as drinkers do,”¡Salud!” and not as a public health message.

You may recall that in 2011, MillerCoors had to discontinue its ‘Emborícuate’ Coors Light Puerto Rican Day Parade advertising campaign after widespread community criticism. This campaign had been running for three years straight until those in social media raised issue as a call by Coors for Puerto Ricans to get drunk on their product. In fact, back in 1984, Coors had signed an unholy agreement with six leading national Latino organizations in which they agreed to getting larger grants from the company if they increased the amount of Coors beer consumed by the Latino community, an agreement that was scrapped after strong criticism by the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy (IPR) (as NiLP was called then) and other community leaders.

So it is surprising to many in the Puerto Rican community that the Parade leadership would allow the Puerto Rican flag to be displayed this year on a beer can. Are they willing to allow the perception that in exchange for money or donated product that they would allow unhealthy messages to their community? The Board and many other volunteers of the Parade work hard every year to pull off this unique and high profile event, why would they want to tarnish their efforts in this way?

Critics have called on the Puerto Rican community to contact the leadership of the Parade to let them know how you feel about this. Besides telling them to junk these beer cans, does the issue of the need for a broader leadership of the Parade need to be raised as well, given this history? According to their website, these are the members of the National Puerto Rican Parade Board of Directors and staff:

Carlos Velazquez, Official Business & Marketing Agent
Galos@galoscorp.com

Madelyn Lugo, Chairperson
nprdpin@aol.com

Melissa R. Quesada, Vice Chairperson
mquesada@nprdpinc.org

Trinity A. Padilla, Executive Secretary
tpadilla@nprdpinc.org

Shirley Cox, Treasurer
scox@nprdpinc.org

Luis Rivera, General Coordinator
No Email Available

Rafael E. Dominguez, Director of External Affairs
rdominguez@nprdpinc.org

María Román Dumén, Honorary Member
mroman@nprdpinc.org

“Emboricuate”, a word innocuous enough and even flattering: That a major American company would recognize the economic clout of New York’s oldest Latino community. It was Puerto Ricans who shaped the Latino market of the Northeast for close to a century. But “emboricuate” is not as innocuous or as flattering as one might at first think since that major American company is Miller Coors, a beer brewery with a strong market presence in Puerto Rico and among New York Latinos. In fact, the word is targetting all Latinos to become Puerto Rican — for a day, or a week, or ideally for their lives at least in their drinking habits.

Now what might that be?

B&W
Two Photographers: Maximo Colon, Elisa Perea

May 17 – June 8, 2013

Opening Reception: Friday, May 17, 6pm – 8pm

Artist Talk: Saturday, June 1, 3pm
Gallery Hours: Friday, Saturday, 3pm – 6pm
and by appointment

MediaNoche
1355 Park Avenue, Corner Store — Entrance on 102nd Street
New York City

www.medianoche.us
info@medianoche.us
646.228.7950

The world occurs in color, not black and white. B&W photography was a technical necessity or limitation before it became an aesthetic or stylistic choice with its own signifiers. At the advent of black and white photography, specifically B&W celluloid photography, it must have been startling to see the world along a continuum of black and white tones, as a scale of beautifully interpretive shades of gray.

B&W: Two Photographers, provides a view of what photography was for the Pentax generation of yesterday and what it still is and can be for today’s generation. Medianoche presents the past and present work of Maximo Colon and Elisa Perea in order to drive home a point: Celluloid photography is alive and well. While digital photography dominates as an economic medium for graphical manipulation, celluloid maintains a strong presence in artistic practice.

Four decades of work, beginning in the sixties, cycles through a video wall, drawing from the exhaustive collection of photographs by Maximo Colon who has devoted half a century of his life exploring themes relevant to Latinos here and there: Their politics, their children, and their music. Latino icons such as Lolita Lebron and Salvador Allende are juxtaposed with children at play in Spanish Harlem or Jimmy Bosch in concert.

In contrast to these works and speaking softly to their documentary feel, are the “retro” photographs of Elisa Perea. While her contemporaries are seduced by the immediacy and ease of the digital, Perea remains true to celluloid. Everyday places and things are rendered with an ethereal, otherworldly softness. Even the most hard-edged among them, reveal another world order– that of the artist’s gentle and at times quirky gaze.

For Curator Judith Escalona, “B&W may have been a technological necessity at the time of its birth, but here, at MediaNoche, in the present, it asserts itself as celluloid photography’s indisputable domain.”

The photographs do not hang as prints on walls but play in real time on flat screens and CRT monitors, a cause for further reflection about the nature of photography and the impact technology continues to have on its processes of creation and display.

PHOTOGRAPHER BIOS
Maximo Rafael Colon was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. His photographs have appeared in numerous books, journals, and documentary films, and capture the struggles of disenfranchised communities. Recent exhibitions include New York Photo Festival 2011, and the upcoming?Devoción, May 2013. Maximo studied photography at the School of Visual Arts. www.maximorafaelcolon.com

Elisa Perea-Hernández was born in Nogales, Mexico. She works in film and video. Elisa’s documentary Nogales Aqui Es… was sponsored by the National Council for Culture and the Arts in Mexico and presented in several film festivals in Mexico, the U.S. and Spain. In 2011 Elisa was selected for the DIN A4 art project in Malaga, Spain. She studied at the University of Sonora, Hermosillo Sonora, Mexico, and currently resides in New York City. www.norteada.com

ABOUT MEDIANOCHE
MediaNoche is the place where art, technology and community converge. We offer artists working in new media exhibition space and residencies in order to provoke a dialogue that blurs all lines of marginality and alterity. Unique among art and technology groups, MediaNoche is directly linked to the oldest Latino community of New York City, Spanish Harlem, and has showcased a roster of local and international new media artists.

MediaNoche is a project of PRdream.com and is supported in part with funding from the New York State Council of the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and private donors. Special thanks: Hugh Mandeville, Kenneth Bowler, Christopher Dascher, Joann Arroyo, Maria Catoni, Allistar Peters, Gus Rosado and Operation Fightback, Inc.

Friend us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MediaNoche.us

B&W Continue reading “B&W: Two Photographers” at MediaNoche →

Posted February 11th, 2013 by rafael
February 11, 2013

The Honorable Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama:

As the premier non-profit non-partisan Hispanic organization representing the voice of the Puerto Rican community, the National Puerto Rican Coalition, Inc. (NPRC) is gravely concerned with the lack of meaningful progress of the Administration in addressing key concerns among the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico.

We understand that you and others in the Administration are aware of the toxic legacy left by the U.S. Navy in Vieques and the alarmingly high rates of cancer and other serious illnesses suffered by Viequenses as a result of the Navy’s military activities with toxins and chemicals ranging from depleted uranium and napalm. As a presidential candidate you wrote to then Governor of Puerto Rico Aníbal Acevedo Vilá on February 12, 2008 that “We will closely monitor the health of the people of Vieques and promote appropriate remedies to health conditions caused by military activities conducted by the U.S. Navy on Vieques.”

That pledge was made five years ago. As you enter your second term and as we are about to celebrate the tenth year anniversary of the U.S. Navy’s departure from Vieques, that pledge remains unfulfilled. The people of Vieques can no longer wait for those appropriate remedies.

Congressional hearings and scientific studies have shed light on the health crisis in Vieques and the neglect the federal government has so far shown with regard to this crisis. Your Administration needs to act now so that the situation that affects the lives and health of thousands of Viequenses is not further exacerbated. And in so doing, the concomitant situation of environmental and ecological damage left by the military in Vieques must also be addressed fully and adequately now. We hope that we move beyond task forces recommending the creation of other task forces to recommend consideration of possible recommendations, etc. The time for action is now and the solutions are clear.

The harm to the health and well-being of the people of Vieques as a result of over six decades of military exercises and bombings by the U.S. Navy with everything from depleted uranium to napalm is well documented. Numerous tests and studies show the disproportionately high rates of serious illnesses such as cancer, lupus, diabetes, and heart diseases among the people of Vieques. Little has been done to address this health crisis in one of Puerto Rico’s poorest municipalities. Many Viequenses live in abject poverty, with 73 percent of the residents living be low the Federal poverty level. The median household income is $5,900, and Vieques has an unemployment rate of 22 percent. The people of Vieques have a 30% higher rate of cancer, a 95% higher rate of cirrhosis of the liver, a 381% higher rate of hypertension, and a 41% higher rate of diabetes than those living on the main island of Puerto Rico.

The disparity between the serious and widespread medical situation among Viequenses and the deficiencies in their health care system and health care facilities is simply staggering. Viequenses have to travel to the main Island for treatment for serious and expensive conditions such as cancer. Many simply cannot afford their treatment or give up due to the onerous obstacles they face. The federal government in general -and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in particular- should assist in remedying this situation. One of many steps HHS should consider is having the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) get actively involved in Vieques, particularly since its mandate is to act as the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.

We are aware that the Administration has convened a “Vieques Sustainability Task Force”, a collaboration of federal, Commonwealth, and local government recommended in a March 2011 report by the “President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico”. We are glad that there are federal government officials discussing Vieques. However, many Viequenses and their allies, including the NPRC, remain concerned about the slow progress made by the task force concerning the health situation among Viequenses and the clean-up and remediation of the island, among others. For instance, the stated task force objectives of assisting Puerto Rico’s Department of Health in exploring options and exploring the feasibility of a “section 330” health center application, do not suffice and are not the kind of direct and comprehensive solution that the people of Vieques deserve. Medical facilities remain inadequate and serious health problems remain untreated. The task force recommendations fall way short of the “appropriate remedies” you promised five years ago.

Aside from helping improve the existing facilities and help build new ones, your Administration should provide resources in Vieques as soon as possible to help with diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. In addressing the health crisis among Viequenses and providing the necessary resources for full and prompt clean up and decontamination of the island, your Administration would finally be not just fulfilling a long overdue pledge, but would finally provide relief to the U.S. citizens of Vieques, who have borne too heavy a burden for too long.

Sincerely,

Rafael A. Fantauzzi
President & CEO
National Puerto Rican Coalition

Cc:
Honorable Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary
Department of Health Human Services

Honorable Lisa Jackson
Administrator
Environmental Protection Agency

Ms. Judith A. Enck
Regional Administrator – Region 2
Environmental Protection Agency

Honorable Alejandro Garcia Padilla
Governor of Puerto Rico

Honorable Eduardo Bhatia
President, Senate of Puerto Rico

Honorable Jaime Perelló
President, House of Representatives for Puerto Rico

Honorable Pedro Pierluisi
Resident Commisioner, Puerto Rico

Mr. Juan Eugenio Hernández Mayoral
Director, Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA)

Cecilia Muñoz
Director, The White House Domestic Policy Council

Mr. Hector Sanchez
Chair, National Hispanic Leadership Agenda