'Hey, pa, you were pachuco': Hispanic styles resurface in popularity

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1. The topic to be highlighted: Algorithms to find the disappeared

Researchers in Mexico are developing an artificial intelligence program to identify patterns and clues beyond the reach of humans in the search for missing persons.

Why It Matters

: More than 108,000 people have been reported missing in Mexico since 1964, according to official counts.

One third of cases have been reported in the last four years.

How it works

: The Angelus program is being developed by the National Search Commission (CNB), a decentralized government institute established in 2018.

• Angelus can process thousands of case files, testimony, and press releases to help resolve cold cases.

• Use diagrams to find links between missing persons, survivors, possible perpetrators, and places people may have been before and after they went missing.

The program is being used

in its early days to find hundreds of people who were forcibly disappeared during Mexico's so-called “dirty war” (approximately 1964-1990).

• At that time, Mexican authorities during the Government of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) kidnapped, tortured, and in some cases murdered university students and professors they believed to be "insurgents."

• Authorities kept huge files detailing who they were following, when they were arrested or where they were tortured.

The Intrigue

: Although still in its early stages, Angelus has already helped investigators find 61 survivors of one of the largest black sites, Military Camp no.

1. The CNB invited those survivors in September for a reconnaissance visit, using their memories to refine their search.

Protest in 2018 by people whose friends were missing in GuadalajaraUlises Ruiz/AFP via Getty Images

In their own words

: "These people have been missing for more years than I have been in the world, and we are not the first to try [to find them]," researcher Javier Yankelevich, 34, who heads the team, told Axios Latino. multidisciplinary team behind Angelus.

"But we are the first to put technological tools of this nature at the service of this mission," he adds.

• It is "the kind of response that is needed," he believes, and thus "we can achieve the results that people are waiting for."

Further:

Yankelevich says the plan is for Angelus and his code to be released next year.

With this, the program would be accessible and adaptable in other places that continue to search for people who were also systematically disappeared by security forces or paramilitaries.

• Yankelevich says that groups in Guatemala and Chile have already contacted the commission for information on Angelus.

What to watch

for: Future versions of Angelus could be worked on to help more recent missing persons cases when they are also due to systematic patterns, such as those of immigrants being abused by organized crime groups in similar ways or on the same routes.

2. A typically Latino style is reborn

Short-sleeved one-button shirts nicknamed "Charlie Brown," khaki pants with unique prints, and pachuco hats are Hispanic style items that are gaining new converts through Latino-owned businesses leveraging social media to promote streetwear. .

Why it matters

: The styles of

,

and

, which in their day

criticized in the US as clothing worn only by working-class Mexican-Americans, they are now becoming global pop phenomena.

More details

: In recent years, videos on the Instagram and Tik Tok networks about Mexican-American fashion have proliferated.

• Latinos and Latinas model their clothes to the sound of classic songs, Chicano hip-hop or reciting lines from well-known Latino movies like

  Sangre por sangre

  .

• Those videos have boosted fashion brands like Pachuco Supply Co.;

  F.B. County;

  Lux Rosa, and Garcia Signature Hats.

Background

: Pachucos is the name given to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans with a classic style of Los Angeles and San Antonio (Texas) in the 1940s, with so-called

(baggy dress pants and long-tailed coats ).

Pachucos with 'zoot suits' in Los AngelesRichard Vogel / AP

• The

  lowrider

  style , of tank tops and floppy hats, emerged with the Chicano protest movement in the 1970s. The

  cholo style,

  with details such as white leggings worn over pants and oversized button-down shirts,

  It became popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

Between the lines

: For years, politicians and police officers called those styles gang-like instead of recognizing them as a form of cultural expression, said Alexandro José Gradilla, a professor of Chicano studies at California State University.

• "The shirts with the Virgin of Guadalupe, the huge chola hoop earrings... this is style. This is us. And it's not criminal and we have the right to wear everything with pride," Gradilla told Axios Latino.

• He added that Generation X Chicanos (born between 1969 and 1984) are fueling the style's renaissance because they have more disposable income and don't fear being judged for their clothes.

Yes, but:

Unlike the clothing of its day, today's versions are not cheap.

A custom-made pachuco hat starts at $550.

• Gilbert Marquez Jr., a hatter for the Pachuco Supply Company in Los Angeles, says it's because the quality is so much better.

  "Every hat we make is a work of art," he says.

3. In photos: nativity scenes and

ad hoc births

Nowadays when many people in Latin America, Europe and the United States put up Christmas decorations they include a manger.

Increasingly, those figurines that tell the story of the birth of Jesus have decorations with indigenous and African influences.

Nativity scene made in Ocumicho, Michoacán, in the typical neighborhood of the region by the artisan Tomasa Rafael Julián.

Includes local details such as cacti and magueyes. Courtesy of Fonart México

• For example, artisans in Mexico use materials woven on looms like those used to make traditional clothing.

  Or they develop the images including local flora and fauna.

4. A film with Edward James Olmos enters the list of preserved classics

Twenty-five films will be added to the National Registry of the Library of Congress to preserve important works of art.

• Among them is

  The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

  , about a Texan who doesn't speak English and is falsely accused of stealing a horse.

News Impulse

: The list also includes Disney's animated version of

the romantic comedy

the 1976

adaptation of

and the 1951 version of

with the latter, Puerto Rican José Ferrer was the first Hispanic to win an Oscar for best actor).

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

More Details

: Each year, the Library of Congress chooses films to preserve because they are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

• About 6,800 titles were nominated this year, Steve Leggett, director of programming for the preservation board, told Axios Latino.

  A good part of the nominations are made by the general public.

• Leggett told Axios Latino that

  The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

  , starring Edward James Olmos, "was very much a key film in the Chicano movement of the 1980s."

Yes, but

: Only 7% of titles entered into the registry through 2021, around 60 films, have been films directed by filmmakers who are Black, Latino, Asian, or of Indigenous descent.

• The list of titles by various directors includes

  Real Women Have Curves

  by Colombian Patricia Cardoso;

  the

  Selena

  movie (directed by Gregory Nava);

  La bamba

  (by Luis Valdez), and

  Stand and Deliver

  (Ramón Menéndez).

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

1. Peru will be in a state of emergency

for 30 days, decreed the Government, which announced a massive mobilization of the armed forces in the face of protests against the president and Congress.

• Seven people have died in the protests that began last week, after Pedro Castillo was removed from office by Congress when he attempted a "Government by decree."

The Government of Peru declares a state of emergency throughout the country for 30 days

Dec 15, 202201:38

2. Colombia and Ecuador

to coordinate security operations to combat drug trafficking on the border.

• Drug-related crimes have increased over the last year, especially in Ecuador.

Pachanga Thursday

Randy Cordova, a former journalist for The Arizona Republic, has just turned three years since he was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Of those three years, he has had CT scans without metastases for two in a row.

Courtesy of Maura Cordova.

Background Graphics: Shoshana Gordon/Axios

• To celebrate that he is stable, his family just threw him a party this weekend.

• Our reader, Maura Cordova (Randy's wife) tells us, "This disease takes a lot out of you, but it's important how Randy has exceeded all expectations."

  Congratulations Randy!

  We hope your health continues to improve.

Thank you for following Axios Latino!

We'll be back on Tuesday.

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