IN RESIDENCE @ APEXART WITHDIEGO TEO

2010-11-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

Uff, only 3 days left in NY.

It really was a good experience.

Very quiet, there were days when I felt that I had not spoken more than 5 words with someone, only things like how much it costs, good morning, sorry.

At first it was really hard for me not speaking English, but time passed and it became very introspective experience, uff.. That a kind of inner dialogue I had reached. It is one of those trips which give you a chance to permit to spend the time on yourself, to argue and fight with yourself, to hate yourself and then to reconcile and to find yourself in the middle of the city just laughing, having fun and the pleasure just of being in NY, feeling what is happening outside of myself .. All these things while I was looking and seeing all kinds of art, tones of art, theater, concerts and people of all kinds. I really think that I was surprised more by some African American hairstyles that by many pictures inside the museums, that kind of things they do in their hair and that a peculiar style they have, they were really enigmatic to me.

The race variety was funny to watch and to listen, people from all around the world with such different styles. I went to many neighborhoods, such as Chinese, Russian, Jewish, Hispanic, And Indian and others, where all the cultures were mixed. I like getting lost myself in the city and seeing everyday things, the way people live their lifes.

One day I went to Junction Blvd subway station, line 7 at Quins, I just went outside and started walking, I was looking find out a little bit more about Mexicans living in NY. And this was the area of mostly Latin people. In my first writing on the blog, I was complaining about the conditions of the compatriot’s life here, and Julia suggested that I could talk about this subject during my Apexart public talk. And as I really had very little information abut this point and didn’t really know what happens to these people, I ´ve decided to go to their place and to see what I could find out there.

Immediately when you get down the subway, you can see the stalls of corncobs, tamales, fruits and juices, and 80% of people are Latin Americans, mostly Mexican, Ecuadorian, Salvadoran, etc.. The Spanish floods the streets and you here the cumbia and the banda music all over around.

Without anything special to do, I just decided to walk by the Roosevelt Avenue, and in a little while I bumped into a street musician named Philip and I started to talk to him. I asked him for certain areas and he made me understand that he had nothing to do, and so he became my guide. He showed me one music studio that let you record your music for very little money, he took me to one community named Make the Road NY that supports and consult to recent arrived emigrants, than we went to see the jornaleros ( day laborers) who were immigrants and they stand in one corner waiting someone to offer the job. Felipe talk to everyone there and everyone was greeting him, apparently he was very popular.

When we entered to one place, and they asked for our names and he answered that his name was Jose. Later I asked him if he was Jose or Felipe and he told me that he had false papers of resident named Jose. Then he told me his story, that he was extorted by the judicial police in Mexico, who had stole a lot of his stuff and as he didn’t want to give them more , they threatened to kill him and that's why he was living here. The 50 years old man, who made me a company in my walk and who talk me the thousand and one stories.. it was a great day and a great deal, but when I went back, I don’t know why, I had a devastating feeling and a bitter flavor of the neighborhood.

coney island was a place I wanted benir, wanted only for the movie of the Gerrard. but I enjoyed seeing the sea.

2010-11-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

treasure hunter on the beach Coney island.

2010-11-09T20:53:00.000-08:00

Mail letting know that I came to NY 14 of october

2010-10-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

Hi, there!!!
uff.. very long day and long trip.
I had no mishaps, everything was easy.
On the plane by my side was seating an old rabbi, who didn´t talk but was smiling all the time,
He was reading a huge book in Hebrew, and text boxes looked like labyrinths , very strange
The policeman in the customs, good fellow, asked me if I was famous as an artist, because the letter was saying that I was recognized
and it was rare that these custmo´s cops could treat you well.
The taxi was expensive, but no problem, the driver was one Pakistani man, very talkative.
It´s raining, but I found a very florian umbrella, it looks funny jahjahjah
Walking a lot in the NY and it looks like in the movies , jahjah.
Evrything is fine, I´m very excited, and I´ve already seen from a distance the building where KingKong climbed up.
This looks pretty good, I'm very close to this place, in very Manhattan.
Then I ate a hot dog, and it disappointed me a lot, because it was a sausage and bread and ketchup and mustard only!
But I ´m looking forward to eat a better one.
It´s expensive, that´s the trouth
I went to the supermarket , first the girl didn´t understand me and sudenly began to talk in spanish, she was from Cuba or something. Now i´m going to have a rest.
THE GOOD THING begins tomorrow morning

I love all of you

first week...

2010-10-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

I had a great week in NY, seeing a lot of things and being treated very kindly by Apexart´s people. Definitely , it´s a great experience and I´m happy for this opportunity.

My plan for today was to visit Chelsea, but I think I'll better stay home, to have some rest and to write in the blog.

Anyways I´ll go there tomorrow, because of Carlos Amorales Openning in the Yvon Lambert, and also becouse I´ll meet there some of my mexican friends .

This week I had already met some Mexican friends who live here.

Definitely I am not the kind of person who just wants to spend his time with people from the same country when goes abroad, but my English does not allow me to talk much with people who don´t speak Spanish here, so, when I see Mexicans, I take this opportunity and talk everything that I couldn´t speak during this week!!!

I met my friends on two occasions, and it was really funny to talk to them and to know their opinions about NY, which are very differents, by the way.

One of them is amazed and really in love with NY, and he says that I should come here to live, because there is everything you need here,

Another friends seems to have more critical points of view. Some of them like living in NY becouse don´t want to live in Mexico anymore, and others enjoy staying in here, but want to return to Mexico. And one firend told me he was confused, trying to understand the being-Mexican-situation.

All of them came here to study, or to residence and they are legal and have very different conditions here, even they make you feel as they were World citizens.

I have the same situation, I mean, everything is good here for me, the city is pretty kind and it treats you friendly as a tourist, it´s very easy to move and access to things.

But I think I would have another idea about it if I would live here and should enter to working life.

What about illegal Mexicans in NY? They are charged with another energy.

I´m worried about this subject, I mean, the classes differences and racism with native and poor people in Mexico is very hard and it´s really painful for me..

Walking on the streats of NY, and in case of recognizing Mexicans , it feels nice when they ask me : “ what part of Mexico are you "Paisano"?

But when people ask me where am I staying, what am I doing here, and

when I answer that I live in Manhattan and I was invited to have an art residency here, their faces change, and I feel, that they guard up, as if they saw me as an American.

This confuses me and it really hurts, seeing them walking on the strats of the city like shadows, with their head down, doing hard work without being recognized, ignored, as if nobody saw them…

Sofia told me she read somewhere some information about the priority of taking on Mexicans, and one restaurant owner replied that Mexicans work hard and do everything you ask without complains and for being illegal they are paid less.

Well, this is not something new, I mean, the situation is well known, but I just cant´stop thinking that these people are slaves, and because of their illegal condition, they seem not to enter into the discussion about equality, human rights and all these things witch take places in all other the world.

By the way, I read the Eduardo Verderame ´s blog, the Apexart´s resident formBrazil, who describes all kind of relationships of the various migrations in the NYcity based on a census. He mentions diferent immigrant communities that have shaped NY, speaks of Afro Latinos in Quins, Bronx and Harlem. But, what caught my attention is that he doesn´t mention to the Central Americans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and other form Latin America

And that´s why I think these people are invisible, and only if you have a look inside of any kitchen of any Restorante you will see them….