Rasquache was very important during the Chicana and Chicano Movement because it communicated ideas regarding politics, race, and the oppression that Chicanas/os faced by the U.S.

Seeing rasquache art gave me an idea of ways that we can be more sustainable. Clothes, for example are like canvases that we can add and layer to make new and exciting clothing! Instead of throwing away a shirt, cut it into pieces and sow it into another shirt! A part of being creative is about being fearless, like these Chicana and Chicano artists, and making something exciting out of the mediocre.

Here is an example of how to make clothes that you are tired off into new art creations!

What if wearing the same dress everyday would give 221 children a chance to be able to attend school? I young woman by the name, Sheena Matheiken commited to wearing the same black dress for 365 days to raise awareness of not just sustainability, but  of children’s education in the less priviledge communities. She wore the same dress for a whole year (Well, her friend made her another so it would not get smelly!)! Not just that, she also pledge that each day, she would have a new outfit to display, unique and original from any prior ones she did before. She would use her vintage accessories, as well as the donations from many different organizations, stylists and designers and even fans!  All of the money she fundraised went to the Akanksha Foundation, a non profit organization that provides education to underpriviledge children living in Indian Slums. Through this project, Sheena was able to raised over $100,000 in donations. She was also awarded Elle Magazine Women of the Year for 2009. If you are curious to see all of Sheena’s unique outfits in a cute video montage, click here. I truly admire Sheena for her enormous commitment and creativity towards confronting a big issue, such as education accessibility for children in India’s slums. Fundraising can look in many beautiful, and fashionable ways.

I want to give a special thanks to Mary, from blog, Joyful Ploys, who recommended I checked out the “Uniform Project,” after reading my “Be Green and Chic and Have a Clothes Swapping Party.“

Thanks to blog, Write Where You Are, I just found out about a creative project called, Global Soap Project, that focuses on saving lives by providing soap to refugee communities. This is a great organization because it demonstrates creativity when it comes to helping others! Washing your hands is one of the best ways to prevent diseases, but many communities do not have access to soap. The other amazing thing about this organization is that they recycle soap! They take hotel bar soaps that have been discarded, cut them up, melt them, and make them into new bars of soap. Hotels discard a lot of soap, almost 2.6 million soap bars in one day! I think this organization has a genius idea of how to reduce this waste and help people that need soap have access to them.

If you would like to explore this organization, you can take a look here. You can volunteer, or donate to their cause. There are also pictures where you can see what they do in action.  For example, they took a donated meat grinder, and use that to help them cut the soap into small pellets so that they can melt them into new bars! Talk about resourceful!

Have you ever noticed that fashion stores are turning into fast food chains? You go into them to get a $5 shirt that will in a month or two end up in the garbage, or the bottom of your closet. Fashionable items have become so cheap so people can stay up to date and seasons without going broke. When you go into those stores, the quality of some of the items are really cheap, like purses that look pretty, but are made with flimsy material that won’t let it last long. Next season, one throws away the clothes, extremely hurting the environment as numerous people also are getting ready for the next season.

So, a conscious person would sell those clothes in e-Bay, donate them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or in one of those clothes recycle boxes. However, there is also another alternative that is fun and can get your friends involved: A clothes swapping party!

Yes, you heard me… have a time where you and your friends bring clothes that are still in  good condition and swap them to give them another life. It should be something that you don’t like or wear anymore, that someone will be excited to try on. However, you want to keep some rules in mind so that it is the most fun experience possible, and you don’t lose any friends.

1. Make appetizers

Food builds solidarity in a group, and it also makes the event more as a party and time to hang out than simply business of getting rid of stuff. Having food gives people energy, more likely to become engaged in this activity. Having wine will also add to the personality in the party as drinking might make people more lighthearted. It is up to you how you would like to host the party, but some delicious treats is a must! Also, have music!

2. Ask people whose style you like, and like yours

As part of swapping, your friends need to bring clothes they don’t wear as well! And it helps when you like each other’s style, or have around the same body shape and sizes.

3. Try having your biggest mirrors around available

Having mirrors helps with the trying out of clothes, and the feeling that one might be shopping ethically as it feels as if one is changing in a dressing room.

4. Be a good sport and be prepared to laugh at your fashion victim clothes

The more dedicated to fashion you are, the more likely that you will have an eccentric piece that will be the target for light-hearted ridiculing. It only adds to the fun of the day!

5. If two people want the same piece, flip a coin.

Don’t try to have a vote from the group, or based on who it looks better. It is day to have fun and not build tension or break friendships.

6. Be confident 

Some of your items that you are trying to get rid off might look better on someone else. Don’t worry about it, clothes are created for the body, not the other way around. And also, this shirt is now going to go into a new home to have a longer life.

7. The item swapped is not yours anymore

This one sounds obvious, but some things that I have experience when people give clothes away, is that the piece is still called, “So and so’s” shirt or bag, or what have you. Please refrain from doing this, maybe during the party, but the day after or weeks after it can be irritating as the new owner is not allowed to feel like the owner.

8. Be surprised to see what others give away

Something that you might not like will be someone else’s new favorite. Don’t judge your giveaways before your friends have a chance to see it and vice versa for your friends.

9. Make sure everything is clean, ironed, and items taken off the pockets.

Also, don’t bring things people usually don’t like to share, like underwear, bras or socks.

10. Don’t take it too seriously

Some people might walk away with things that they do not like as much. The purpose of this is to have fun and spend time with friends, not to get too involved and compare quality that one brought with someone else.( Or you can have price range turns, or piles)

I also found this helpful video on wiki-how!

how-to-host-a-clothing-swap-party

If you don’t like the idea of having a party, there is a great website called SwapStyle where you trade clothes with people all around the world! http://www.swapstyle.com/

Ideas from:

Blanchard, Tamsin. Green is the New Black: How to Change the World with Style. New York: Harper Collins, 2007. (139)

Do you like reading “Shape”magazine, “Health” magazine, or my blog? ( I hope you say yes to my blog!) UCLA has a magazine archive written by UCLA students supervised by health professors from the School of Nursing, and Medicine that is available online to everyone. What I like the best about this magazine are the amazing, colorful pictures! I know… I am a sucker for colorful, detailed photography! I also like how the content of the magazine seeks to answer questions that many people have towards health issues, such as “How to stay healthy while traveling abroad” or “What vegetables are better eaten raw or cooked.” I invite you to check it out here. I recently applied to be one of the writers, so hopefully I get in!

Wish me luck!

Hello Everyone,

You might be wondering why I included this post on this blog that focuses on beauty issues and Chicano and Chicana history. I believe that part of being virtuous is by being aware of history, and how it has affected present day. Like my professor used to say, “A country that has forgotten its history, loses its destiny.” Only when you know more about history can you clearly see where your place is in the world. Additionally, learning about history is extremely important when thinking of what it means to be beautiful, because notions of beauty is extremely racialized and can have political implications. It is of no surprise as why white women’s features are praised by dominant society when you learn about white supremacist history that Europe and the United States has had, and how it has spread all around the world. You might be surprised to know that the use of a deadly pesticide in the Jewish concentration camps was inspired by United States detention camps in El Paso, Texas for undocumented Mexican immigrants. Mexican immigrants were seen as filthy, and as agents of diseases such as typhus to the United States. Therefore, United States immigration agents felt justified when they sprayed deadly chemicals on Mexicans that had the potential to kill them.

Hitler Quote:

“Compared to old Europe, which had lost an infinite amount of its best blood through war and emigration, the American nation appears as a young and racially select people. The American nation itself, motivated by the theories of its own racial researchers, [has] established specific criteria for immigration…making an immigrant’s ability to set foot on American soil dependent on specific racial requirements on the one hand as well as a certain level of physical health of the individual himself.”

-Adolf Hitler, praising the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924*

Hitler is praising the rigorous measures taken to make sure that only fit, and mentally able immigrants stepped foot on United States soil. One of those measures was to spray all immigrants with numerous different deadly chemicals, but the main one was the deadly, Zyklon B.

Zyklon B, a commerical form of hydrocianic acid (HCN) was used on immigrants to sterelize them from any bacteria. It is extremely poisonous and fatal when absorbed through the skin over 50ppm. The use of Zyklon B as a pesticide on the U.S.-Mexican border inspired Dr. Gerhad Peters to mass produce this chemical in Germany to kill “unwanted pests.”  These unwated pests were the Jews during the WWII in the concentration camps. The same gas that were used for undocumented immigrants was being used in higher doses for the Jews! The Germans would use Zyklon B in concentrated doses in the gas chambers to kill millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, communists, and other human “pests.” Even though in the United States it was not used to kill immigrants, it was used to kill lice and other supposed diseases. The delousing camps, concentration camps for Mexican immigrants to get fumigated were made in El Paso, Texas in 1917. These camps would not only spray burning chemicals such as Zyklon B at immigrants, but they would also force men and women to shave their heads, and go through mental tests such as puzzles and “simple addition sums” to make sure the immigrant was not an imbecile or persons with abnormal sex instincts (homosexuals). If the immigrants would show any sign of sadness, numbness, or slowness to answer, they would be considered mentally unfit to come to the United States.

Raul Delgado, who came as a Bracero in 1958, describes how it felt to get deloused by U.S. custom agents at the Eagle Pass Border. The Bracero program was set in place in the United States to bring in much needed labor to work on United States agriculture.

“They put me and other braceros in a room and made us take off our clothes. An immigration agent with a fumigation pump would spray our whole body with insecticide, especially our genitals. Some of us ran away from the spray and began to cough. Some even vomited from the stench of those chemical pesticides being sprayed on us and the agent would laugh at the grimacing faces we would make. He had a mask on, but we didn’t. Supposedly, it was to disinfect us, but I think more than anything, they damaged our health.”**

It would be of no surprise that many immigrants after that test would be saddened, angry, and slow to answer. The  treatment they were receiving, even though the United States was recruiting them for labor, was beyond cruel. It was so inhumane towards immigrants, that even Hitler praised the United States, and implemented this idea for his own concentration camps.

*Gerhard Weinberg, ed. Hitler’s Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, (New York: Enigma Books, 203) p. 109.

** Raul Delgado File, Proyecto Bracero Archives, Centro de Trabajadores Agricolas Fronterizos, El Paso.

Taken From:

Romo, David Dorado. Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juaréz: 1893-1923. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2005. (139-142)

When it comes to beauty, I do not believe in the word “fixing,” but I believe more in the word “enhancing.” That is what make-up is supposed to do: bring out your eyes, your lips, your hair and many other things. “Fix” has such an awful connotation and can make anyone feel bad about themselves. Nevertheless, a lot of beauty industries purposefully make you feel bad in order to make money. Ironically, make-up would be of no use if you did not already have your beautiful and unique self. Below are some tips on how to “enhance” your already beautiful lips.

Thin Lips- Try using light to medium colors as dark colors can make your lips look even thinner. You can also dab a little bit of highlighter on your cupid’s bow (the little v on the top of your upper lip) and a dab in the middle of you lips, to give the illusion that they are fuller. Great highlighters can be a white eyeshadow, or a white lipstick (but just a dab…not white lips!) To make them look even bigger, use your eyeliner, and lightly add a soft line to the bottom of your lower lip to draw the illusion of a shadow, to give once again, an illusion, that you lips are so plump that they cast a shadow! Shadow effects are great for a lot of things, like Keira Knightley’s make-up artist added shadow to her bust to make her boobs look bigger!

Adding Definition to your Lips- Sometimes when I add lipstick, I do not like how both lips look like thick lines (this happens when I add lipstick without a mirror) thus erasing the beauty of shape from my lips. For this, you can use a neutral lip pencil to outline your lips after applying lipstick or gloss.

Lines around the mouth- Did you know that smoking can cause lines around your mouth? For this problem, you will need prescription creams to even out the lines. But for lipstick, it is important to line your lips with a neutral lip pencil, and use a creamy matte on your lips, as glossy super creamy lipstick can creep to the lines of your mouth. The lip pencil helps to hold the lipstick, sort of like a little barrier to keep the lipstick from going into the lines, and making the lines stand out more.

Fade of natural color- As one ages, your natural lip color also starts to fade. However, this one is simple because all you need is  a brighter version lipstick than your natural lip color. Use a lip color that blends into your bottom lip well without turning orange or brown. Great colors are hues of pink, rose, berry or apricot… try not to use brown or beige because they can make your lips look duller.

Uneven Lip Color- Naturally, every women’s upper lip is slightly darker than their lower lip. I think they look beautiful that way, but if you would like for both parts to be the same color, you can do this: Use sheer dark lipstick as a base on your lighter lip, then apply your regular lipstick on both your upper lip and bottom lip. Finish it with a lip pencil.

Lastly, try to find organic and natural lipsticks as you pretty much eat your lipstick. Great brands that provide all natural lipstick are Eve Organics, Honeybee Garden, Primitive, Couler Caramel, Zuzu Lux and many others you can find in this website: http://www.natureofbeauty.com/organic-makeup/. What you buy says a lot to big business on what is important to you as a consumer. Therefore, if you buy natural, other businesses will pay attention to that and put more effort in providing you with all-natural safe cosmetics.

* Ideas take from:

Bobby Brown Living Beauty. New York: Springboard Press, 2007. (74-75)

Hello Everyone,

I stumbled upon this short documentary called, “Weird Nature: 6 Peculiar Potions,” that talks about how animals’ use of natural remedies have taught people a thing or two about about medicine uses as well as the power of chemicals to affect our brains. I thought this was relevant for this blog as it also focuses on the power of organic chemicals found in nature, like coconut oil. It is also really funny as too much of those remedies cause side effects such as hallucination, and drunkeness. My favorite part was the introduction where it shows cats excited to be eating catnip. One could see that catnip give cats a lot of pleasure as they would close their eyes to smell it and purr nonstop! Some of them even drooled and foamed at the mouth. I hope you enjoy watching these videos!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Like many of you already know, your liver is overworked when a person consumes a lot of alcohol, as well as from an overload of fats or sugar. Although drinking affects your liver heavily, your brain, your intestines and your skin also suffer from over consuming alcohol. It can cause premature aging, sagging skin, and gray hairs, leaving you looking well beyond your years!

Your liver is very important because it helps you absorb fats, controls infections, remove bacteria and toxins from your blood, process drugs and alcohol and produces proteins to help with blood clotting. Your liver is valuable, and you only have one!

Too much alcohol or any other type of liver injury can lead to cirrhosis, a condition where the liver has been harmed to the extent that it starts building scar tissue, which in turn, does not allow for the liver to regenerate new healthy cells. Other factors that causes cirrhosis are obesity, and hepatitis C. Your liver is important, and you need to give it love to keep it healthy

Here are a few tips on what to do after a hangover:

1. Drink lots of water: Alcohol leaves you very dehydrated so replenishing your body with water is the way to go!

2. Take a multivitamin: Alcohol depletes you of your vitamins and minerals so you need to stock up on those essential basics the next day. (Remember, price is not a good index of quality for vitamins.)

3. Eat yogurt: Alcohol weakens your intestines, so taking a form of probiotic will help produce a healthy fauna of bacteria that will protect you from intestinal infection.

4. Take a spoonful of Bee Pollen: Bee pollen has B vitamins, antioxidants, and protein which is perfect for what the body craves after a long night drinking.

5. Eat green leafy vegetables: Vegetables will help with providing vitamins and minerals, as well as hydrate you.

6. Take a licorice capsule: Licorice is helpful for aiding a variety of ailments, one of them being liver disorders*.

7. Take milk thistle, panang ginseng, or  dandelion capsules: Aids with detoxing your liver!

8. Avoid processed foods, fats and caffeine: These foods provide toxins with will slow the recovery of your liver.

9. Add some lemons to your life: When life gives you lemons, your liver is happier! Lemons have diluted hydrochloric acid which supports protein digestion**. But unlike the old saying, don’t make lemonade as it is loaded with so much sugar that it defeats its beneficial purpose.

10. Take a light walk: Walking helps with your overall health, and helps fight the depressed and low feelings caused by the depletion of vitamins and minerals from the high alcohol consumption.

11. Mince some garlic: this is a sulfur based compound that gives a helping hand to the active detoxification of the liver. (And it also gets rid of extra estrogen, the hormone that make women moody)***

I added a lot of options for the possibility that you might have a liver-loving item already in your home.

*Dray, Sarah. “How to Recover Your Liver Health.” November 22, 2010. http://virtuousandbeautiful.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

**http://aim4health.com/liver.htm

***http://www.detoxyourbodytoday.com/Foods-Good-For-The-Liver.html