ARTS Aurora Guerrero U.S./Mexico

rite what you know.” It’s an age-old dictum

Innovators for aspiring writers— and it applies to fi lm- makers, too. Aurora WGuerrero, a self-defi ned queer Chi- cana, followed that rule to create Mosquita y Mari, a coming-of-age fi lm about a friendship between two Chi- Aurora Guerrero (left) on set while fi lming Mosquita y Mari. The fi lm was shot over 18 cana teenagers that deepens into a ro- days in June 2011. mance. The fi lm, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, is ing about their young loves,” says far away as Japan and Switzerland. also a celebration of identity—cul- Guerrero. “And [it would be] these It airs in select theaters in New York tural as well as sexual. two girls who are evoking those feel- and in August 2012, and Mosquita y Mari’s protagonists are ings [. . .] not so much different than will be broadcast on cable and online Yolanda (Mosquita—“little fly”), a what they experienced.” at the end of this year. Guerrero is al- straight-A student under the careful Guerrero also hoped that LGBT ready developing ideas for new proj- watch of her parents; and Mari, the Latino audiences would see them- ects, including another independent oldest child of an undocumented selves validated by the fi lm—much fi lm and a TV pilot. She says she will family struggling to make ends meet. as Guerrero herself felt when, as an continue to explore themes of immi- The story is set in Los Angeles’ Hun- undergraduate student, she encoun- gration, class and Latino identity gen- tington Park neighborhood, but it tered the work of feminist Chicana erally, but “always [with] a queer algo” draws deeply on Guerrero’s upbring- writers Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe to refl ect the LGBT voice. ing in northern as a child Moraga. “[Their work] broke down all of Mexican immigrants and a mid- these stereotypes of what I thought it dle-school friendship she describes as meant to be queer,” she recalls. “I, in CIVIC “more than just a friendship—it was turn, wanted to put out fi lms showing also my fi rst love.” The importance of characters [whose] identities are inter- Public Lab for cultural identity was instilled in her secting in very real, authentic ways.” from an early age. Guerrero, now 40, Guerrero’s strong community roots Open Technology remembers how her mother would and sense of ethnic identity have and Science march into school and instruct the been crucial to her development as Regional teachers to pronounce her brothers’ a fi lmmaker. After graduating from names José and Alejandro instead of CalArts, she formed the fi lmmaking he advent of Google Maps, Joseph and Alex. collective Womyn Image-Makers Google Earth and other eas- Mosquita y Mari is political as well with three other queer Chicana art- ily accessible satellite imag- as personal. Guerrero, who received ist-activists. Together, they made the ing technology would seem a Master of Fine Arts from the Cali- widely successful Pura Lengua and Vi- to have made most forms of fornia Institute of the Arts (CalArts) ernes Girl. When it came time to raise Tpersonal, small-scale cartography ob- in 1999, wanted to give voice to LGBT, money for Mosquita y Mari in 2011, solete. But outside high-density pop- and undocumented immi- Guerrero again turned to her commu- ulation centers, many of the images grant communities, which “are very nity—this time via Kickstarter, a pop- these services provide are often out marginalized and very much silenced ular crowd-funding platform. During of date or nonexistent. This is espe- by mainstream media,” she says. A a 30-day campaign, she and her team cially a problem in Latin America, love story would dispel the notion raised $82,000, the entire production where unmapped informal commu- that same-sex relationships are un- budget for the fi lm. nities spread out from the edges of natural. “I wanted people who don’t Mosquita y Mari is currently on cites for miles—making it diffi cult for identify as queer [to] watch and all of the fi lm festival circuit, taking Guer- residents to receive land titles and, by

a sudden fi nd themselves reminisc- rero home to and as extension, adequate public services. GUERRERO AURORA OF COURTESY

26 Americas Quarterly SUMMER 2012 AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG

AAQ0312_INNO_LAY09C.inddQ0312_INNO_LAY09C.indd 2626 77/10/12/10/12 11:24:24 PMPM The Public Laboratory for Open nities in Lima, and a different group as experts. According to Liz Barry, Technology and Science (PLOTS)— used his balloon-mapping prototype co-founder and director of the Lab’s an open-source, grassroots data-gath- for environmental monitoring of urban environment unit, the com- ering and research initiative—is now the Gulf Coast following the BP oil munity’s signature tools—balloon putting these communities on the spill in April 2010. The project deliv- and kite mapping, near-infrared and map. Founded in 2010, PLOTS grew ered some of the only images avail- thermal photography, spectrometers, out of Grassroots Mapping, a project able of the damage at the time. As and indoor air quality mapping—are developed by Jeffrey Warren, then a the Grassroots Mapping community all inexpensive and easy to replicate. graduate student at the Massachu- took shape, seven individuals who “The idea is to share what you do and setts Institute of Technology (MIT). had used the technology joined with how you do it with your community,” Warren was invited by Peruvian Warren to found PLOTS. says Barry. The hardware, software NGOs Escuelab and Shuawa Arts Or- Today, Public Lab, as it is called by and data PLOTS generates are pro- ganization to Cantagallo, an infor- members, has regional chapters in duced under a number of open-source mal shantytown built over a landfi ll seven U.S. cities, and a digital net- licenses and anyone can add or edit in Lima. The community was inhab- work of over 200 social scientists, content on the PLOTS website. ited by 100 Shipibo Indigenous fami- engineers, biologists, cartographers, The groups that use Lab tools cover lies who had been unable to win title activists, and community developers a broad spectrum of interests. In 2011, to the land due to lack of evidence across the globe. Together, they de- PLOTS partnered with Fundación Ci- supporting their claims of residency. velop technologies that can be used udadano Inteligente to live-stream With Warren’s instruction, Cantagal- by communities to identify and ad- the student protests in Chile using lo’s residents attached a camera with dress environmental issues like air an iPhone; it also worked with activ- continuous-mode shooting to a he- pollution or water contamination— ists in New York to monitor Brook- lium balloon to take the fi rst clear what the Lab calls “civic science.” In lyn’s polluted Gowanus Canal using overhead photos of the entire settle- 2011, PLOTS received a three-year, near-infrared cameras that revealed ment and delineate its borders. $500-million grant from the Knight plumes of pollution inflow not in- Though Cantagallo did not receive Foundation News Challenge, which cluded in the Environmental Protec- the title, Warren’s successful map- funds innovative uses of technology. tion Agency report when it granted ping led him to undertake similar The information PLOTS produces the Gowanus Canal “Superfund” sta- projects in other informal commu- is accessible to lay persons as well tus in May 2010.

Ready to fl y: Jeffrey Warren and others launch a balloon- kite hybrid in Lima, Peru. COURTESY OF JEFFREY WARREN JEFFREY OF COURTESY

AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG SUMMER 2012 Americas Quarterly 27

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