Americas Quarterly - Spring 2008

and innovations in the hemisphere

those who cannot pay up front can MtV VJ, she engaged her audience in didn’t back down. she declared that
buy their shares through a five-year, social change—sometimes literally pt no longer had room for discussion,
$17-a-month credit plan. fromthekitchen up. onceshe brought and that the party had moved away
the initiative was inspired by alas- a film cre w into her kitchen to show from some of its founding beliefs. that
kan inuit leaders. thanks to a 1971 set- how to resort recyclables, still a new didn’t convince everyone, but she re-
tlement act passed by the U.s. con- idea then. it didn’t take long for son- mained open to criticism.
gress, the inuit community was able inha to realize that she could use her soninha is gearing up for a may-
to establish a corporation to reap oil popularity to facilitate political activ- oral bid for são paulo this year. Under-
and gas royalties—now a billion-dol- ism. Elected to the Câmara Municipal standing the challenge, her goal is to
lar oil business. inuit poverty rates in 2004, she has been using similar attractthose whofeeldistantfromthe
have dropped from 67 percent to 18 means to make politics relevant. process. Will it be enough to propel her
percent in 35 years. Her blog strives to measure politi- to the mayorship? that may not mat-

Edu BarcEllos

Medina’s busy life may become bus- cians’ intentions against results, re- ter; the larger battle is one of translat-ier. His hometown supporters in sara- vealing the double-talk that often lies ing today’s democratic system to the guro are urging him to run for mayor. behind rhetoric. sometimes it is an un- citizens it seeks to represent. so far, he hasn’t committed. comfortable reality check for soninha ^herself. ⁱⁿ ^2007, ^she ^announced ^a ^con-^Soninha ^troversial ^decision ^to ^switch ^parties ^Diqui ^James^from ^the ^pt ⁽^Partido ^dos ^{Trabalhadores}⁾^{Fuerzabruta São} ^Paulo ^City ^Council^where ^she ^had ^been ^a ^member ^sinceM ^the ^age ^of ¹⁴^, ^to ^the ^pps ⁽^Partido ^Popu-ⁿ ^EVEning ^{sp Ent} ^{at any} ^politicians ^cre-^lar ^Socialista^). ^Her ^online ^fans ^reacted ^Fuerzabruta^, ^produced ^{by ate} ^blogs ^to ^further ^their ^heatedly. ⁱⁿ ^some ^regions ^her ^new ^A^43-year-old ^argentine ^for-own careers. But sonia loyalties, they noted, allied her with mer street performer Diqui James, can Francine Marmo, known as Soninha, president lula’s opposition. soninha tire you out. acrobats secured by buna member of são paulo’s city council, gee cords and harnesses leap across a uses hers to educate a genera tion too soninha is billowing mylar sheet, followed by a disillusioned by the political process translating scene in which a plexiglass pool is sus-to get involved. “the more you hate politics for pended over the audience, while per-politics, the closer youshould get,” she the mtV formers swim like mermaids. if that explains. Her weblog reveals the of- generation isn’t breathtaking enough, members ten sordid “behind the scenes” world of the audience soon find themselves of politics in Brazil’s largest city. and becoming part of the show, as they are people have responded. the reaction, invited to dance during the finale. particularly among the youth, has Fuerzabruta’s blend of interactive been positive. circus and theater has established the whole point of her James as one of latin america’s blog is to translate—or, as most successful theatrical entre-she puts it, provide the “sub- preneurs. His journey has been titles” to—a political process as original as his art. He began that often seems as if conducted as a street-theater performer in in a foreign language. it’s a skill Buenos aires with a popular she learned growing up in the avant-garde group called Or- 1970s under the military govern- ganización Negra in the late ment in Brazil. Her mother taught 1980s. Few performers expect her how to understand the subtle to make a living from passing half-truths andinformation around a hat, but James had vacuums of censorship of large dreams—and was deter-the dictatorship. mined to turn his passion into During the 1990s, as an something profitable.