Gómez-Peña editorials

by Adam Nichols and Àngela M. Munguía

Tuesday March 7, 2006

After reading your article on Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s performance (Gómez-Peña performs political satire on campus, leaves things smoking) I was stunned that many of these supposed facts of the event were gained through “word of mouth” as opposed to actual interviews.

Consequentially, neither I, nor Ms. Munguía, nor Mr. Gómez-Peña were interviewed before or after this event. I was very disappointed by the journalist, Roseanne Wells, neglect to mention the hard work of Àngela Munguía: chair of UNIDAD and co-producer of this event. Ms. Munguía spent much of her time and energy since the beginning of this semester working with me on bringing Mr. Gómez-Peña to our campus. I am dismayed by the idea that after so much hard work Ms. Munguía was not recognized for her contribution, despite the fact she was clearly an organizer of the performance, as anyone who actually attended the event could tell from both of us introducing the artist. What worries me most about this article is not the editorializing of the event, but rather the delusion of facts. These issues are part of a larger problem that has arisen for me with this publication. This newspaper does not even attempt to issue the bare facts to its readers, but instead relies on shabby editorializing to make up for careless and substandard journalism. For example, and in a final note: Mr. Gómez-Peña performed on Thursday, February 16th not on a Wednesday, as was written.

Sincerely,
Adam Nichols
Co-producer of El Mexorcist: Facing Down Demons and Raising Hell

To the Editor:

After reading the article “Gómez-Peña performs political satire on campus, leaves things smoking”, I was highly disappointed by the lack of accurate information. Adam Nichols and I spearheaded the event, yet neither one of us was ever interviewed—nor asked to be interviewed—for this article. Although I was disturbed that neither Unidad nor I were mentioned as organizers of the event, I was more concerned with the deficient information provided to any reader who was unable to attend. For example, simple research of Gómez-Peña—or merely asking him—would tell you that he migrated from Mexico, not to New York, but to California. The language in the article suggests that Gómez-Peña was a freak show for the Sarah Lawrence community to gawk at. Sentences such as, “A memorable interaction with individuals in the audience was when he called ‘God Bless’ with the voice of a muezzin calling Muslim worshippers to prayer” are problematic due to the loose comparison made, based on a weak assessment of Gómez-Peña’s performance, to a religious ritual. The language appeared heavily influenced by the idea of there being an “Us” and an “Other”. What furthered this idea was the attitude in which ended the article: “Gómez-Peña himself described the evening most aptly when he said, “The only difference between a madman and a performance artist is a performance artist has an audience, so thank you”. This ending implies that Gómez-Peña is an exotic “Other”, as well as attempting to justify it through quoting his statement, which was made in reference to the first joke noted in the article. As this event was sponsored by Unidad, I find that implication to be ironic considering Gómez-Peña’s performance was brought to campus to help eliminate such generalizations. Generally speaking, the article projects last minute coverage of Gómez-Peña’s visit to SLC. The writer also failed to mention the reception after the performance which allowed students to approach current issues on campus through intimate dialogue with Gómez-Peña, Roberto Sifuentes and SLC community members. The workshop the following day, also left out, engaged students in examining their relationship to themselves and others. The effect he made can be summed up by the frequent, “You changed my life” comment used by students to approach him after the performance. This would have been a better ending to the article than misuse of his self-effacing joke. I hope that in the future the newspaper will attempt to cover such a large event on campus with accurate information and proper consideration.

Sincerely,
Àngela M. Munguía
Chair of Unidad
Co-Producer of El Mexorcist: Facing Down Demons and Raising Hell