Talk:Mama Lola

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Karen McCarthy Brown[edit]

I think she is "notable" enough to have her own biographical article here on Wikipedia. She did amazing, original research above and beyond the standard publishing record of the typical academic (which is a requirement on Wiki). Unfortunately, I don't know how to create new pages. :( 69.125.134.86 (talk) 18:43, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I found the page updated in July 2021 for "Mama Lola" succinct and accessible. It seems like earlier versions of the page were written by editors who heavily relied on Karen McCarthy Brown's book. In participating in the editing process, I realized that there are few reasons as to why the initial strategy of relying on the book mislead readers. I noticed and subsequent efforts to clean up the page based on its first versions may unwittingly replicate some problems. The main text of Brown's book is based research on Champagne's life history and daily life from 1978 to 1991. In this "ethnographic spiritual biography" (Brown 2001, xiv), Brown also incorporated "fictionalized short stories" based on stories of Champagne's forebears (Brown 1991, 18). The book is not a strict biography with historical sources. It is a rigorous piece of scholarship with measures Brown took to protect Champagne and her family's privacy. Therefore it is a challenge to do her life justice when taking certain details from the book out of context and putting them into a biography on Wikipedia. There are updates in the 2001 updated and expanded edition preface and afterword and the 2010 revised and expanded edition foreword by Claudine Michel. These updates in the front and back matters of the book and in other publications by Brown deserve close reading to help Wikipedia editors decide what details from the book merit inclusion in this page.

In conserving some of the intimate details included by previous editors and writing more generally, I sought to edit this page to provide more context about Haiti, the Haitian diaspora, and ethnography. I believe that previous versions of the page extracted details from the book in such a way to emphasize Champagne's suffering through adversity over other dimensions of her life. I also found that some moves to shorten the page would conserve sensitive details like Champagne's sex work without providing a grounding in the context at the time. There are certain minor details that Brown provided in the book that I put in a geographic or historical context that may be more helpful to the reader. For example, I referred to the location of Philomise's home on "Avenue [sic] Oswald Durand" (pp75, 180, 237, 239) near the main cemetery in Port-au-Prince (in actuality, Rue Oswald Durand) and "the next town south" of Bizoton (p170) where Mme Rigaud's temple is located as the Bas-Peu-de-Chose neighborhood and Carrefour area respectively. I use the name of the Bas-Peu-de-Chose neighborhood because she maintained connections there until her death. Sometimes I generalized details about secondary figures in Champagne's life to keep the focus of the page on her, e.g. her husband as "owner of a shoemaking business" is changed to "small business owner" because it is his class position that is important rather than his specific trade.

I also edited the page to resolve conflicts around the pseudonyms from the legal names of people disclosed in public events and scholarship years after the first edition. The legal names that have been divulged are Marie Thérèse Alourdes Macena Champagne Lovinski (Mama Lola), her daughter Maggie (whose last name is not "Sanchez"), her granddaughter Marsha ("Betty"), and her biological father Alphonse "Pèpe" Champagne ("Alphonse Margaux"). I believe that Alourdes's mother was not given a pseudonym as she is referred to as Philomise Macena and Macena is Alourdes's official last name through her mother. Other descendants of Champagne are still in pseudonym form such as Jean-Pierre, William, Kumar, and Michael and I keep the pseudonyms that I reference in quotes.

I added citations for Champagne's public appearances at events such as that at the UCLA Fowler Museum, Brooklyn Public Library, and Voodoo Music + Arts Experience in New Orleans (also known as Voodoo Fest). Claudine Michel's scholarship (Michel 2012, 2016) also signals that Champagne favored using her father's last name (Champagne) instead of her ex-husband's name (Lovinski). I therefore replicate this practice in the page by referring to Mama Lola as "Alourdes Champagne" and "Champagne" rather than "Alourdes Lovinski" and "Lovinski".Kokobe1 (talk) 07:11, 11 October 2021 (UTC)-[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Death[edit]

In May 2020, an editor added that Mama Lola had recently died to the article, but this was removed by User:Gyrofrog, who noted that no notice of death had been published in a WP:Reliable Source. Notices of this individual's passing have appeared on various social media platforms, such as Tumblr, but I have not encountered any on websites or other platforms that Wikipedia would consider a Reliable Source. If anyone knows of such sources (perhaps in the local New York City press?) then it would be appreciated if they could add them to this article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:12, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are still no available obituaries for Alourdes Champagne published in newspapers. Since social media like Facebook posts or tweets do not suffice as sufficient documentation, I put a citation from a recently published book that mentioned Champagne's death. There are public events that are celebrating Champagne's memory that are publicized through webpages as well. I provide one such example for a commemoration that happened the year of Champagne's death (at Voodoo Fest, in Kelley 2021) and will try to keep this updated as more public events occur, particularly those that may be accessed on well-established web platforms of scholarly associations and arts and culture organizations.Kokobe1 (talk) 07:15, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are still no available obituaries for Alourdes Champagne but I have been able to add citations inclusive of a Haitian Studies Association conference event in which her daughter and granddaughter participated. I also favor citations for exact dates of her birth year that were published after the book and reviewed by culture workers in the New York Haitian community and New Orleans.Kokobe1 (talk) 01:53, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Script warning, templates with hidden maintenance messages[edit]

As of February 2, 2022, I am trying to find the errors that are not displayed but that are referenced in the preview banner: "Script warning: One or more {_{cite web}_} templates have maintenance messages; messages may be hidden (help). Script warning: One or more {_{cite conference}_} templates have maintenance messages; messages may be hidden (help)." Please note that I added underscores within the curly brackets so I did not generate a missing citation error message. I'd appreciate any advice on how to proceed with this. I do not know CSS.Kokobe1 (talk) 07:21, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Catholicism[edit]

I've removed the "American Roman Catholics" category from this article again after it was reverted. I do not dispute that a person can be both Catholic and practice voudou. The issue is that nowhere is Catholicism mentioned in the article. If this person was Catholic, surely a reference can be provided. --Ellipsis22 (talk) 02:23, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]