Pitbull, Chente, Shakira and Juanga: ask to immortalize these songs in the Library of Congress

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1. The topic to highlight: Chente and Pitbull, among the nominees for the National Registry

Only about twenty of the 600 titles in the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry are by Latino musicians.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) is trying to change that.

Big

Picture: Latinos in the US have little presence in the media industries, be it movies, literature or journalism.

Joaquin Castro, Rep. D-Texas and a member of the CHC, has lobbied for years to improve representation.

News Push

: The CHC nominated 33 songs and albums for the 2023 registration on Monday, in a list advanced to Axios Latino.

• The list includes

  Eternal Love

  by Juan Gabriel;

  Hips don't lie

  by Shakira;

  The King

  of Vicente Fernández;

  Merry Christmas

  by José Feliciano and the self-titled album by Rage Against the Machine (whose vocalist, Zach de la Rocha, is of Mexican descent).

• It was crafted with input from social media and elsewhere, and the final version focused on artists not on the record.

Details

: Every year since 2002, the Librarian of Congress and the National Recording Preservation Board select 25 titles that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and at least 10 years old for inclusion.

They do it for recordings and songs as well as for movies.

Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios

• Because of the requirement that titles be at least a decade old, the current registry reflects a time when "Latinos were not given commercial opportunities," said preservation board director of programs Steve Leggett.

• Leggett advocates for CHC nominations to be considered despite the 2023 deadline having passed, he told Axios Latino.

• "The industry has given more opportunities to Latinos, especially since 1990. Now that those more recent years are becoming eligible for registration, we will be able to add a greater percentage of Hispanic recordings and various other artists," Leggett said.

In His Own Words

: Joaquin Castro says that curating the list of nominations was fun but also a challenge because great Latin music abounds.

• "I want the contributions of our musicians to be recognized and celebrated as they deserve, because they have left a mark in the United States," Castro told Axios Latino.

What's Next

: The National Recording Preservation Board will meet next week to discuss submissions, with additions to the 2023 registry to be announced in March or April.

2. Trump and white Hispanic nationalism

Several Republicans this week condemned former President Donald Trump for having dinner with Ye (formerly Kanye West) and far-right Nick Fuentes.

Why it matters

: Trump's event with Fuentes, who is of Mexican-American descent, has revived outrage over the former president's conciliatory tone with extremist figures like those who stormed the Capitol last year.

Trump has just announced that he will run again as a presidential candidate in 2024.

• Sources have questioned the existence of the Holocaust, a historical event in which six million Jewish, LGBTQ, black and disabled people were killed during World War II.

  Fuentes is part of a small but increasingly visible number of far-right troublemakers with Hispanic backgrounds.

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Current situation

: Trump had dinner and talked with Fuentes and with Ye (an artist denounced for several anti-Semitic comments) at his

in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on Tuesday, November 22.

• Fuentes has not responded to repeated attempts to contact him for comment, but in a video posted Friday he confirmed the reports about the dinner, adding: "I don't think [Trump] knew it was

  me

  ... let's put it that way."

News Impulse

: Former Vice President Mike Pence this week became the most prominent Republican to condemn the dinner.

He told NewsNation that his former boss should apologize.

3. Shaping

Black Panther 's Mesoamerica

The man who oversaw the Mesoamerican elements in the latest installment of the Black Panther saga hopes the film will inspire more people to immerse themselves in these indigenous cultures that marked the history of the hemisphere.

Namely

:

introduces Namor, a character introduced decades ago in the comics, with a reformulated history and versed in the Mayan and Aztec civilizations.

Namor, in his 1939 version, was the ruler of Atlantis;

in

he rules Talokan and they also call him Kukulcan.

He is played by the Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta Mejía.

Big Picture

: The indigenous history of the American continent, not to mention that of the Native American peoples, is absent from most school curricula in the United States.

• Even in the nations of the hemisphere that do teach what pre-colonial Mesoamerican and South American cultures were like, there is little recognition of the current struggles and contributions of the indigenous communities descended from those civilizations.

Details

: Gerardo Aldana y Villalobos, an author and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was in charge of making sure that Namor's rethought background was historically accurate.

A costume display from "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" at Disneyland California.

Aldana advised on outfits designed for Namor, Namora and AttumaChristian Thompson/Disneyland Resort via Getty Images

• Aldana tells Axios Latino that she worked with the team before there was even a script, helping to create a backstory for any details that were going to appear on the screen.

• He suggested the name Talokan for the underwater kingdom, wrote Maya glyphs that tell the story of Namor for the sets, and made sure the costume choices fit what a community derived from the Yucatec Maya would wear.

• Aldana says that it was exciting to work with a Hollywood team that was looking to faithfully portray a theme that he feels has been spoiled in other movies or in series that underestimate the Mayans by falsely claiming that they were helped by aliens for their constructions.

Notable:

Director Ryan Coogler even invited Aldana to play a small role in one of the film's opening scenes, where she appears alongside Queen Ramona (Angela Bassett).

In his own words

: Aldana says that having a blockbuster that respectfully and faithfully shows aspects of indigenous cultures can be an educational tool.

• "My hope is that people see that there is so much more to learn and appreciate," she says.

  "Maybe we can inspire a whole new generation of young people to see Mesoamerica in a different light...and that blows my mind."

[To read more about Aldana's work, click here]

4. A 'disc jockey' continues the tradition

Old School DJ

, who identifies as Chicana, grew up listening to Art Laboe's radio show.

She will now host the show, following Laboe's death in October.

Why it matters

: The percentage of radio

in the United States who are Latino is declining, according to data from Zippia.com, an employment website.

•  Only 14% are Latino.

  And of the total, only 36% are women, of any racial or ethnic origin.

Radio DJs Art Laboe and Rebeca LunaCourtesy of Dart Entertainment

The Latest

: Production house Dart Entertainment announced shortly after Laboe's death that

, whose real name is Rebecca Luna, would continue the radio show, which airs on 14 stations in California and Arizona.

• The Art Laboe Connection Show

  allows listeners to call or email to make dedications to their loved ones;

  Often those who ask for greetings want to remind someone in prison or who lives far away that they are on their minds.

  Laboe has also won over loyal radio listeners in his eight decades on the air by being among the first to host live desegregated gigs featuring R&B and rock music.

• Luna, who also chairs the Desert Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Palm Desert, California, co-hosted Laboe starting in the pandemic.

  Now she will be in charge.

In her own words

: Luna said that initial callers were not as comfortable as they were with Laboe.

• "But it didn't take long for them to become fans of Old School Becky Lu

  on her own merit," she tells Axios Latino. For Luna, the figure of Becky Lu can help give more Latinas a voice.

5. Summary of key news in Latin America and the Caribbean

1. The regime and the Venezuelan opposition

agreed this weekend to establish a UN-backed reserve fund, from assets currently frozen, for education and public health programs in the crisis-stricken country.

• They resumed negotiations in Mexico City more than a year after they were suspended.

• The UN has said that its humanitarian plan for Venezuela, which would now include managing the fund, requires raising $762 million.

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2. The organizers of a strike in Santa Cruz, Bolivia,

ended their strike after a month, after Congress enacted a law to formalize an upcoming census.

• Protesters had been calling for the census to be conducted this year to account for population growth and budget redistribution needs.

• The president, Luis Arce, instead had said that perhaps the census will be carried out within two years.

  With the new law of Congress, the count already has a fixed date for March 2024.

6. An electric ride through Central America

A caravan of electric vehicles traveled from Guatemala to Panama this month to show the value of those greener cars.

Planet Earth: They create a route to cross Central America in an electric car

Nov 20, 202201:20

Details

: A Costa Rican environmental group, backed by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, organized the caravan to demonstrate that electric vehicles can be used for long trips in the region, which they say would significantly reduce emissions.

• The organizers also wanted to promote having charging stations and tax incentives to buy electric vehicles.

• Electric cars are not yet widely available in Latin America due to high costs and infrastructure.

Thank you for following Axios Latino!

We will be back on Thursday.

 Do you want to read any of the previous editions?

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