CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Roy Germano
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City/Place:
Brooklyn, NY
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Country:
United States
Life & Work
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Bio:
Roy Germano is a senior research scholar and adjunct associate professor at New York University. He holds in a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago. He made The Other Side of Immigration while collecting survey data in rural Mexico as a National Science Foundation Fellow.
Roy is also an author. His new book is called Outsourcing Welfare: How the Money Immigrants Send Home Contributes to Stability in Developing Countries (Oxford University Press). His research has appeared in a number of scholarly journals, including Migration Studies, Latino Studies, Research & Politics, Perspectives on Politics, the NYU Law Review, Electoral Studies, and others. He has contributed to a variety of media outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Univision, Telemundo, and many others.
His other documentary films include A Mexican Sound and Immigrant America, which was broadcast by Vice News.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
OUTSOURCING WELFARE
Roy Germano's Outsourcing Welfare shows how international migrants have assumed a social welfare burden once reserved for national governments. The hundreds of billions of dollars they send to their home countries each year helps millions of families pay for food, healthcare, housing, and education. This money--known as "remittances"--is three times larger than aid sent by the world's richest countries. It fills an important welfare gap throughout the developing world in an era of austerity and neoliberal globalization. Based on ethnographic research in Mexico and Central American and analyses of survey data from 50 countries in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East. Published in 2018 by Oxford University Press.
An "illuminating book" that "addresses an important but often overlooked consequence of international migration"
- Richard N. Cooper, Foreign Affairs
"In the present political climate, it is difficult not to read Roy Germano's book as a warning. With the rise in nationalistic rhetoric in some wealthy democracies focused on erecting barriers to migration, Outsourcing Welfare points to the serious harm that building walls may cause to people living in poorer states."
- Michael Tyburski, Perspectives on Politics
“A major contribution to the field...the first comprehensive study on the relationship between remittances and political behavior.”
- David Doyle, University of Oxford
“Germano is masterful in making us see immigration ‘from the other side.'”
- Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University
THE OTHER SIDE OF IMMIGRATION
An award-winning documentary by Roy Germano about why millions of Mexicans have immigrated to the U.S. in recent decades and what has happened to the families and communities they left behind. Through an approach that is both subtle and thought-provoking, The Other Side of Immigration provides a perspective on undocumented immigration rarely witnessed by American eyes, challenging audiences to imagine more creative and effective solutions. A 2011 American Library Association Notable Video and invited selection at hundreds of film festivals, museums, universities, and community events.
“The Other Side of Immigration does more than any other work to give people otherwise disparaged as ‘threatening’ and ‘illegal’ a human face and to reveal the devastating personal effects of U.S. immigration and economic policies on our closest neighbors.”
- Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University
“The Other Side of Immigration is an intelligent, thought-provoking, beautiful, and caring look at the costs of policies in Mexico and the United States that lead to illegal immigration by so many. It is an understatement to say that the film has made me think...”
- Liza Finkel, Portland State University
“I recommend The Other Side of Immigration with enthusiasm for a wide range of audiences, including community groups, higher education institutions, public schools, and policy makers.”
- Scott Fletcher, Lewis & Clark College
Clips (more may be added)
We use the mathematics of the small world phenomenon to transform the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all... (Wolfram explains how above)
This Integrated Global Creative Economy uncoils from a sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix...
Great culture is great power. From Brazil.
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
Our Matrix was conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found us (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.comAcross the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Wolfram MathWorld
Ex Terra Brasilis
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Roberto Mendes
Luciano Calazans
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
RÁDIO MATRIX