Interview with Author Ellen Levine About Authenticity

René Colato Laínez



Ellen Levine is the author of several picture books including I HATE ENGLISH!, HENRY’S FREEDOM BOX, and IF YOUR NAME WAS CHANGED AT ELLIS ISLAND.

What does a picture book need to have in order to be multicultural?

Multiculturalism is by the cleanest definition the recognition of multiple cultures/ethnicities/races in a society. This, to my way of thinking, can only be a good thing: first, it recognizes reality; second, it reminds the dominant culture's institutions to work to reflect that reality.

When the term multiculturalism is invoked here (USA) about a piece of literature, it usually refers to a book centered around a world and characters who are not of the dominant white protestant world, although white protestants can certainly be part of the story. Although I haven't thought a great deal about this, I'd say off the top of my head that such a book generally has a viewpoint character who's not of the dominant culture/ethnicity/ race of the country in which the book is published. I'd be careful how much further I'd go in defining the category.

The problems arise to my way of thinking when rules are set forth and arbitrary standards mandated. Have you looked at Hazel Rochman's book AGAINST BORDERS: PROMOTING BOOKS FOR A MULTICULTURAL WORLD? In her introduction she writes about moving "beyond political correctness" both because it's stifling in itself and because it often provokes a backlash of reactionaries. Usually I myself avoid the term "political correctness" because it is used most often as a weapon by the right wing to stifle discussion. Call something "pc" and we all smile uncomfortably and don't discuss the substantive issues. But I acknowledge there are legitimate issues to discuss -- who can write about what. Actually for me, there's not much discussion when the question is phrased that way.

Can an author write books outside his/ her culture?

My answer is anyone can write anything. And we all reserve the right to critique a work based not on the skin color or ethnic origin of the author, but on the accuracy, power, and beauty of the story.

What do these authors need to do in order to write an authentic multicultural picture book?

Most important, and this applies to whoever writes the book: the same criteria exist that make any book good (or by contrast, unsuccessful or poor)-- no stereotypes and no socio-political-cultural errors. My point is if you think about it, we use these criteria even when we don't call a book "multicultural." To be sure, these criteria do take on meaning contoured in slightly different ways when we talk about nondominant cultures. Prejudice is often deeply embedded in socially-accepted images that are really reflections of the dominant culture's values and not accurate reflections of the culture portrayed. And so we get "lazy" Blacks or "chattering" and "noisy" Hispanics, or "stingy" and "inscrutable" Asians, etc. The reverse danger is that we romanticize or sentimentalize and keep "pure" and make "perfect" our minority protagonists and their stories. Both are to my way of thinking equally unacceptable.

We're often quick to question the motivation of the writer who's not a member of the group depicted if he or she has written of the characters with open eyes, that is, the ugly along with the beautiful. We should demand the same (rounded characters, real stories) of writers who are of the group they're writing about. The imperative is for accuracy, and this applies to fiction or nonfiction. There are many Hispanic, Black, Asian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, etc., sub-societies. No one person ever can speak for all. If writers are of the group they're writing about, then they start out with some bona fides, but they must recognize that notwithstanding their "insiderness," they still can't automatically count on being accurate, i.e., there are too many variations in any large social/ethnic/racial group.

If writers are not of the group they're writing about, they must have explored it deeply enough to reflect and reproduce it with accuracy and understanding. I don't know about the market in general; I tend to think about books one at a time, so I'm not much good to you there.

What inspired you to write I HATE ENGLISH!?

I can tell you a few things about I HATE ENGLISH! I spent several years working first on a television documentary about Chinatown in New York (we covered a little of San Francisco, but were really focused on NYC) and then tutoring Chinese immigrant kids at a Chinese community center. I even served a term on the board of the organization. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours with Chinese immigrant young people, tutoring, counseling, sharing cups of tea and coffee, celebrating triumphs, sharing sadness, etc. When years later I sat down to write I HATE ENGLISH!, I was able to travel back in my mind and heart to those days.

And here's an interesting twist. The publisher decided to run the manuscript by a Chinese-American editor on staff. Her comments, as I told my editor, made little or no sense. And this wasn't surprising. She was born here to upper middle class parents and lived in that world, not the world of Chinatown with its immigrants and first generation kids. And so she didn't know the world I was writing about, even though she was of Asian background and I wasn't.

Another story: a Danish-born American I know (caucasian) wrote a children's book about the Hopi Indians. The first fan letter she got was from a Hopi couple who loved her book and, as they said in their letter, assumed she was Hopi. What she was in fact was a good researcher and writer.

Holy Water, Desert Blood, Alcalá and Arellano

Manuel Ramos



AGUA SANTA/HOLY WATER
PAT MORA
University of Arizona Press, September 2007

The University of Arizona Press has announced that it will make available again Pat Mora's celebration of the spirit of women, Agua Santa/Holy Water. As the New York Times noted when the book was first released (1995), "[These] poems are proudly bilingual, an eloquent answer to purists who refuse to see language as something that lives and changes." Texas Books in Review said that these poems "celebrate women, women who are immediate and eternal, serious and humorous, sacred and profane. But always sensual."




Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Arte Público Press, August 2007

Meanwhile, Arte Público announces that the acclaimed mystery novel about the series of murders of young girls around Ciudad Juárez will be released in paperback later this year. This novel won the 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery and the 2006 International Latino Book Award for Best Mystery Novel. "Gaspar de Alba not only crafts a suspenseful plot but tackles prejudice in many of its ugly forms: against gays, against Hispanics, against the poor. An in-your-face, no-holds barred story full of brutality, graphic violence, and ultimately, redemption." Booklist




PONIATOWSKA TAKES SPANISH-LANGUAGE PRIZE
My bloga comrade Gina Ruiz recently passed on this announcement:
Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska won the biennial Romulo Gallegos literature prize for a Spanish-language novel for El Tren Pasa Primero (The Train Passes First) (Alfaguara, 2005), which the AP says "tells the story of a railroad worker who becomes immersed in the struggle for labor rights in Mexico." The prize honors the best Spanish-language novel. (Among recent winners, Roberto Bolaño took the prize in 1999.)

ALCALÁ AND ARELLANO AT THE TATTERED COVER

Esteemed Chicana writer and gifted storyteller Kathleen Alcalá will discuss and sign her new book The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing (University of Arizona Press) at the Colfax Avenue Tattered Cover Book Store. "This book is a gem. I am blown away by it. Its essays are original - incredibly, refreshingly original. It is not only a personal journey, it is also a historically significant journey for writers, for Chicanas/os, women, men, and all people interested in the power of what connects us all as humans." -Emmy Pérez, author of Solstice.

"Alcalá displays an intellectual curiosity that has led her to think and write creatively about less personal matters. Her essay on the Opata peoples of Mexico is fascinating, and in another essay, she masterfully blends the harrowing experience of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five young children, with the mythic stories of Mexican folklore." - Publishers Weekly
July 10, 2007 7:30 PM

Gustavo Arellano's ¡Ask a Mexican! column won the 2006 Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for the best column in a large circulation weekly. Arellano will read from and sign his new book ¡Ask a Mexican! (Scribner). Arellano explores the clichés of lowriders, busboys, and housekeepers; drunks and scoundrels; heroes and celebrities; and most important, millions upon millions of law-abiding, patriotic American citizens and their undocumented cousins who represent some $600 billion in economic power. July 11, 2007 7:30 PM- Historic LoDo


Believe it or not, that's all I got this week. The blogueros and blogueras have been writing and posting at a hot and heavy pace, all excellent, so you don't want to miss any of the great stuff coming up in the next several days.

Later.

A Flower in Her Heart: Jane Alberdeston Coralin

Jane Alberdeston Coralin is a Puerto Rican poet whose work has been published in literary magazines and poetry anthologies throughout the U.S. and Canada. An alumna of Cave Canem, a writers' organization for poets of African descent, Jane has performed her work in arts events and mentored writer's workshops in schools throughout the East Coast. Her poetry collections, Waters of My Thirst and The AfroTaina Dreams, are still in circulation. She is currently working on a poetry manuscript called Songs of a Daughter's Make Believe. She just completed her doctoral studies in English at Binghamton University in NY.

My blessing in knowing her is I have come in contact with poetry of heartbreaking beauty, but in addition, she is another co-author of Sister Chicas. Her Taina is self aware, whip smart and a deep dreamer, just like Jane herself.

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Describe your odyssey in becoming a writer. How does Latin and female identity influence your work? What would you say are your major influences, both personally and in a literary sense?

It's wonderful how you begin with the word "odyssey"; most of the time it's felt like I've been on Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" crab boat, rolling on the waves wishing for a full net. It's a type of wishing that happens with me too, a wishing for what I think is the right word, the best image, the loud line that will carry the story forward.

I am the cliche: the writer that started way-back, fourteen and pimply and unpopular. I had one friend, also a closet writer. We started writing Harlequinesque romances together. Lots of boys and horses. Only later, at eighteen, depressed and lonely in Long Island, far away from my mami and her Puerto Rico, did I learn to write truly, as in about my life, the things I understood and knew. And I could only get to that point through the vehicle of poetry. But I was a language novice; though I viscerally understood poetry's power, I hadn't yet grasped all the tools, the glorious avenues that poetry drives.

So, again, I floated on the waters, till I arrived in Washington DC and was warmly welcomed by the poetry community. I started reading at a dive called 15 Minutes on 15th Steet NW DC. A long Amtrak train ride waited me at the end of that night, but I knew it was the only way I could get to know people and kill the shy girl within. Monday nights I was there, sipping back Sprites with lime, scratching through wrinkles sheets of poem, waiting to be called on stage. Later, I found my community at It's Your Mug, a poetry cafe in Georgetown on P Street NW in the 90's. Imagine a room so filled with people it was warm in the winter, as if a hearth were burning in the corner. But there was so fire except for the flames coming out of some of the most political and dramatic poetry in the city. And the poets got me - they got my images, they got my song - they appreciated my life living on the fence, on the cusp of self: Americanness, blackness and Puerto Ricanness. I didn't see myself as a prism, but as a broken thing.

This was my new story to tell; not because it was hip or cool in 1995 to Latina in DC. This was my story to tell because I'd come to a point where my Latinaness and Blackness were speaking to each other. Narratives in my family long buried were suddenly crawling their way up and out of me. I heard my grandmother in Julia de Burgos's "Rio Grande de Loiza". Poems from Martin Espada, Marjorie Agosin, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and others were guides for me to move into the cave where the stories hide.


You were an established poet for quite a while before you stated writing fiction? Is the creative process different for you when you work in different genres? How so?

Oh, I was always a fiction writer; I think I stored the fiction away for awhile, boxed it up in cardboard boxes. I was afraid. Fear's so powerful, it struck my down for awhile. The poems were easier to admit were mine. Even that took years. It took for a very long time to say I was a writer, so your question throws me off the fence a bit. I kept poetry and fiction in very different camps: poetry to the far left, fiction over the hill and through the woods. I couldn't imagine their sharing space in my head at the same time. That would have meant I had grown as a writer! We can't have any of that.

Talking about fear, it was excruciating for me to imagine people would care about what I had to say. Shy for most of my life, I used poetry as the vehicle to talk. The poem would say everything I needed it to say and it would also silence what needed silencing. It's still very difficult for me to speak up, to say what I want, what I don't want or feel comfortable with. It's a constant battle for me: performing poetry became a stage where I could practice being heard. When I read a poem (mine or another's), I am amazed by how I feel as if the woman talking were from Mars or Pluto, blue with ice. So, if by established, you mean comfortable, I'd have to say NO. I'm never comfortable. But I'm still working - there's so much I still need to learn and try. I'm always oscillating between jumping off the cliff and never writing again or loving the process so much I'd marry it, as my 11 year old nephew would say.

Part of what keeps me going is the challenge: I become so enamoured of other writers' works: Edwige Danticat, Lucille Clifton, ZZ Packer, Zora Neal Hurston, my fellow artists and friends. Right now I am reading Kiran Desai and it was enough to strike me dumb for a bit. I couldn't think of creating for a couple of weeks. And then... something, as usual, popped in my head, deep in it, like a blooming cereus in the desert night. And then all was/is well. I feel/felt right with the world. Stumbling this practiced way is the only way I have of staying in love with process, thickening with it.

What's coming down the pike? For the past three or so years, I've worked to meld poetry and fiction, to blur the lines. I believe muddling the genres can help you strengthen the muscles for both. For example, in my own work, my dialogue in fiction stopped being stale and my poem-spaces have grown. I tell my students to listen in elevators, on the street, in restaurants. People don't know they way they speak is poetry. I use this exercise myself, fixing my ears to this magic has helped me hone in on my own work and shape it. I listen more to people, especially children. Their sounds and word choices, image constructions are so musical and poem-perfect. Children carry in their little mouths the very best metaphors. They have an intricate relationship with the power of image. They aren't held back by what keeps us, even writers, from say what needs to be said. They aren't full of the flowery language, yet they are such glorious gardens.

What would you describe as your major themes?

Do you have enough room? My poems explored my race and nationality; they interrogated my father and his abandoning my family; they looked at migration and the grasp of one's culture over assimilation. In one of the poems I sent you, "Smoke", I was dealing with the idea of my father's depression, something I had never in my youth or early adulthood even thought to explore. But being able to look back with twenty-thirty sight, I can deconstruct my memories, see my father staring out a lot, having several afternoon drinks till he fell to sleep at night, bark at us though we'd done nothing to inspire ire. His beer-thick fog of unhappiness started to speak up, some fifteen years after he'd left us. It started to speak up in poems, interrupt rooms of poems, move through my writing like a bull in a porcelain shop. I could not ignore its chatter, its rumble. It's this way with most of my work, the stories too. Characters (whether in a stanza or paragraph) just won't leave me alone. The only way I have of shaking them off my back is to pay attention. Close. Jot down what the monsters say when they say it. Then I'm free. Somewhat.

Right now I'm interested in discussing womanist themes and spirituality. The women's voices tapping on my head like clockwork hammers come from the abused, stolen, disregarded. The spiritual element comes from our response, the way we use our stories to protect each other, to protect our children. I've been exploring this in my critical studies, but like everything in my life, the academic has arced into my creative work. And that has awoken memories of my Abuelita's storytelling. Or maybe the stories are the reason behind my academic studies? We all have "talking" memories; if not from an Abuela, then an Abuelo, or a Tia or Uncle or a Madrina sitting the kitchen, the porch, the stoop, or garden. Have you read Judith Ortiz Cofer's memoir Silent Dancing? When I read it, I was convinced she was talking about my Abuela Juanita. I could have leaned in and touched my own grandmother between those pages. I don't have many pictures in my head from when I was young. I wish I'd listen more, listened closer. A lot of what's inside my throbbing cerebrum is part photo-memory, adopted copies of those yellowing Kodak snapshots. One is clear: I was twelve and on my first period and it was my grandmother, sitting queen-like in the dining room, telling me how to stay away from boys. All that story wrapped up in her own carefully detailed narrative and the threads of a Bible story, full of suspense and worry, a story to scare the adventure out of a girl. I can see her now, her honey-glow skin, gold rimmed glasses, a black woman with a roman nose - the only thing she had left of her mother who died roasting coffee beans in a ramshackle house in Anasco, Puerto Rico.

Though for the past two years I fought against the confessional or personal narrative in my poems and looked at the universal, I have learned from the literary great Audre Lorde that those dichotomies come together beautifully in the end. I don't fight the onslaught anymore. And there is an onslaught: I have the good fortune to have my mother with me; she, the last repository of all the lost tales, and I are working to piece my grandparents' stories together. Why? I want my nephew to have this history, a history which has been part of my construction and is part of his.

Is there a particular spiritual practice that informs your work? If so, can your share its importance?

I don't generally speak about my spiritual choices, but I will say that my writing is a spiritual process. Years ago, in Mexico City, I became friends with a devotee of a Hindu guru named Satya Sai Baba. My friend made annual pilgrimages to Calcutta and then returned from her retreats full of stories. Her eyes would glass over as she talked about lingams and divine ash and the Ganges sitting behind her in the sun like a forever ribbon of silvery skin. Her breath even smelled of incense, her hands at her heart as she spoke. She was contagious. I could not go to India but I had India in her. And felt God in that exchange. This is to say that I do my best to find God in everything and that I attempt to take, not only into my work, but into my everyday.

It's not so easy; I fail often, so I meditate. I have always been struck by how the creative experience is so closely related to meditation. If I am doing it right and am immersed soulfully in the act of creating, whether it be a drawing, a poem, or a story, I lose the busy, noisy, encumbered world around me. It is as if the walls fall away. And yet, I also become full of the world: the world that suffers, that is joyous, that breathes and dies. I feel open to energies not readily available in the hustle of a normal day. I am raw and vulnerable, but not vulnerable to danger, but open to love, immeasurable. I struggle to maintain that level of "meditation" when I write, even when I am uninspired. Inspiration is everywhere. I remind my students of this, while reminding myself.

I feel most animal when I write or draw. It is not art at that moment, not full of the pretense and arrogance that divides the creation from the world. In that moment, there's something metal in my mouth and I am full of air, as if I were a helium balloon. That is the texture of the experience. It is harder to explain the emotion behind it. Can I say I feel connected to the Divine?

What would you describe as your core strengths as a writer....where would you like to see yourself grow?

I enjoy the way I fall in love with the playfulness of language. My grandmother died when I was twenty-one. I had pretty much grown up with her, so when she died, I lost a limb, a living and loving part of my life. I had a hard time understanding that loss and stopped taking care of myself, grew angry with the world. But while sunk deep into depression, eating potato chips and watching soaps all day, I did write. Cringing angry poems crouching in the dark. Horror stories full of dead people. I experimented with electricity, making words into lightning rods burning up the page. It was the most creative period of my life -- so far. My mother worried - I must have looked a little scary; so she enrolled me back in college. I was exceedingly proud of the first paper I wrote for my composition class. My professor was cute. People talked to me. Life was getting better. Then -- my essay slipped from my teacher's hands into mine, like a grenade, a fat shame bomb. He'd written in red screaming pen, wide across the page like a banner: TOO FLOWERY. I was crushed. My writing life, my life, was over. I dragged myself to his office, blubbering, eyes swollen, embarrassed. Luckily, he wasn't there. It took two classtimes for me to summon up the courage to tell him what I felt without breaking apart at the seams. In the end, his response was that I was a good writer and just needed to practice. From there on in, that's what I've been doing: practicing.

I do my best to stretch the arms of words, to double, triple, quadruple their meanings and possibilities. I do tend to get away from myself (admittedly, even here). It takes several revision sessions to rein myself back in. This year I 'm going to work on a graphic novel project. This project will force me to control my elaborate, curlique way of expanding text. I will need, unlike my responses to your questions, to keep the **** short. And yet there's something very Juanita (and a little like my mother) that lets me ride the tangent wave that leads me to story. I'm going to go with it - it's worked for me so far.

We collaborated in writing Sister Chicas... how would you describe the impact in crafting a novel in that way?

The impact has been indescribable. I namely became friends with two talented writers. I learned from Ann Cardinal how to make a character pop through their language. Where my characters have the poet-voice in them, obscure, quiet, a little consumed, hers explode! They take on the page like war - they are full of talk and dragon. I love her gorgeous way of making her characters stand out: veined, real, blood people. From you, Lisa, I watched scenes unroll. You write like film. My eyes can follow and swallow each moment as if I were living it myself. Also, I learned to appreciate the art of editing, your precision and care. Thanks to our connecting, I finished with my adolescence! I still can't believe it was one phone call that brought Taina, Graciel and Leni out from the wood. This can only be exemplary of how the universe brings us to certain situations and places so that we'll learn. It is the Divine at work. From girl to woman, I believe I grew into a careful writer, watching around bends and corners for missteps in continuity. Like Taina, I learned to walk in heels. I couldn't have gained that experience anywhere, except through the pearl of our collaboration.

Years ago, a poet friend talked to me about credos. I didn't have one. It was the Sister Chicas project that helped me earn a credo, a belief in what I mean when I say I'm a writer. I learned more about myself in that encounter, in that sharing, than I ever had before: the dangers between what is friendship and business. I learned about responsibility to another and loyalty to one's art, to one's message.

How would you describe your ties to family and place as it relates to your creative life?

My family, living and dead, is extremely important to me, first as person who needs love and validation. Secondly, as a writer, they provide for me a vast landscape of memory. You got a truck load of those earlier in this interview. Though some places of that valley that is the past are unreachable, it is my family that reminds me that I am part of that story. Even those who've gone (whether by choice or not) are a section of the weave of that fabric. There is nothing I can extract or throw away. Even the ties broken by my father are vital to who I am and what I tell. His absence, though no longer painful, is still part of my experience as a woman. I no longer live on the island I write about. Does that mean I am disassociated from the oily mangroves or the cliffsides dipping into the ocean or the lovely stuck roasting pigs lining the dusty highways? I am only slightly bereft; my heart and mind make up what is not there. Memory is such a spirit that it is voice and it is blood. I can call it Latina, like I can name it African diaspora, like I can say it's female. But truly what I am is a construction of stories: island, mainland, back street, city, country, suburb, military base, coffin, nursery. I am part of that language, that text.

Where do you see yourself in ten years, personally and creatively?

I believe that wherever I am creatively is where I'll be personally. I recently received my doctoral degree in English literature from Binghamton University. When people ask me what I took from the experience, there is only one thought bursting in my mind: I spent five years writing. I woke thinking of what I wrote before sleep. I went to sleep thinking of what I wrote during lunch. Or thinking of what my students wrote. Or what they wanted to write. I have been very fortunate to have been given the time, the funds, the fellowship and the space. Who else can say that? Whatever I do, whether it involves driving a cab (which I would be horrible at) or teaching in a classroom, I hope I continue exploring those disconsolate, buzzing, ecstatic voices within, bubbling at my seams, ready to spread their words.

What's something not in the official bio?

I got MAD Nintendo skills. Well, not really. Recently, I beat my brilliant and talented nephew at a game and not being techinically-inclined in any way or fashion, it felt pretty good. I was never really sporty either - though I had the Adidas with the side green stripe and the Members Only jacket (are there still members or have they been excommunicated?) I was so bad at sports that I became a cheerleader. Shy girl - a cheeerleader - a really bad cheerleader. After a cheer, I usually ended up facing the wrong way. I never really got the hang of the round-the-world thing, one time landing a foot in a pothole and chipping a bone in my ankle; another time, slipping into an ant hill. The ants weren't thrilled, believe me. I guess it was another reason, other than being clinically poor at Mathematics, I became a writer. I think I made the right choice.

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River Silk: A Song for Maria



She was mined from the mouths of worms, centuries gathered,

then crated cross oceans to Paterson, that bustling city where she plaited

her mother's hair, and her father's skin shone between the shadows

of the Royal Machine Shop. In her bobby socks and poodle skirts,

she was just a young girl reeling in the dream of cornsilk.



All she knew breathed in Paterson's gills,

the worlds between PS 18 and the 17th Street

kitchen, Meyers Brothers and the pulp of rotting

marigolds on neighbor's stoops.



She grew to understand power plants and fish weirs,

a city's promises and the legs of a father's labor.

She read a rivertown's desire, once prehistoric and big as God,

now skeletal, its ribs surrounding a whole city of dollar stores.



Long gone are the ship odors of jasmine. Now it's the pulse of car horns

and chickenwire that greet her, the tricks of a church spires' reach,

the wintergreen songs of silk wrapped around women's throats.



But still she tells the world of Paterson's sweetwaters,

new immigrants of alcapurrias, their children that rise then fall and rise again,

and those with faces like her Papa's.



On the days she is not boro or back bay or northwest bend,

the hours she is the quiet New Jersey drought, she stays put,

near home, weaving ribbons. She is the lips of the Passaic, weaving through iron,

stone to lowland swamp, but words are not all she looms in that bustling city.



Find her in drainage ditches, in the wet tongues of Clifton's suburban curbsides,

near Spruce Street or Ward, floating down Pennington Park, a lined paper boat,

winding, climbing, navigating the dead to safety. I swear that if you lose her,

all you have to do is knock on leaning oaks, or smoke out of a cave.



Her words wings in the underworld that is the gut. If you look close,

it is love's fibers she threads, wide and emergent with all her strokes,

dancing in rooms reserved for slowness.



Kneel, go ahead, just kneel

to the ground, listen close to the Passaic passing by

on the errand of her heart.

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Smoke



Your father turns the rib-eye on the grill. In a few days he'll leave home

for field duty. You watch him get lost in the puff of new smoke.

It is like flipping a record over after the last song:



He slips his fingers on the vinyl, scratched and worn,

skating the dark circle. He does not know

his wife will thin the night and the linoleum

in a slow dance made for two.



In a weekend ritual, he bends over those old album covers:

Cash, Waylon, Campbell, their liquor red-eye and his.

Their superstar cowboy brims, your daddy’s boonie hat,

their throats cut with gold and diamonds,

around your father’s neck a noose dragging a dog-tag.



"… cow-boy, dun-dun", your father sings,

the chorus of fallen leaves crackling in the drainage ditch.

You wave away smoke to get a good look at him.

He smiles and you worry when he does it with all his teeth exposed.

It’s the kind of grin reserved for beer and barbecue and Sundays.



You try to sing along too to something rhinestone

but you get the words wrong. Your Papi lights up,

a tobacco puff blows your way, fragrant like cinnamon.

He does not look at you; instead, he looks around

at everything he’ll never own, though he signed for it.



Daughters and scraps of credit and memory. Children,

cornhusks blocking out his sky. Five mouths and a broken dial

on the pawn shop Sanyo. All he gets now is snow

in someone’s coal miner daughter.



Give him room, a cloud of smoke whispers, tells you to go away,

let your Papi do his thing. The smoke collars him, turns his hair white.

There’s a devil in the next track. You know what comes next.

He’s listening for clues, even in the scratches.



He is far gone, already turned to a secret B side, tuned to a twang

you cannot hear, blue forest floors in his eyes,

all the backcountry of his mind. The ditches he’ll dig,

holes he’ll slip into. You’ll always wonder



if all the voices that called were in his mother’s tongue

or if they carried all the dusts of Clarksville.



Finney, Nikki, ed. The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Univ. of Georgia Press, 2007

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Papi and his Chrysler Cordoba



In his eyes, you could see a salesman's bounty.

Every time Papi looked at his Cordoba

you knew he knew it was not meant to be a family car



but a car for the left lane, with the window down,

with dashboard dice over the grey plush exterior winking back

at the ladies passing, peering in, as if they couldn't get enough of



My Papi, who always waited until it was the hottest hour of Saturday

to wash his Mami. He made it a holy act, a Sabbath ritual, a cup of overflowing

burgundy, felpa and Turtle wax, so shiny, it reflected back his face in the sun.



This was how he relaxed, never asking for help, all puffed up,

shirt front wet with the whipping hose, suds in his lashes,

as if a rainbow had kissed his eyes. Proud Papi



of the Chrysler Cordoba with the silver and gold siderails,

and the Chrysler insignia bent sideways on the hood from the time

he hit the bicyclist who looked the other way.



It never mattered to him that his back bent the same,

a brace to hold a slipped disc, incurred falling off an assault tank

the way Icarus thudded back to earth,



all melted wax and white feathers, body broken like a pigeon's heart.

Papi's too was like that, maroon and mystical, like the surface of

a summertime lake, sparkling with the loosed oil of drowned cars.

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In ending this article, I have to say a few words about Jane's poetry. There is such longing, such braiding to familia, even if the price is heartache. There is too, a sense of heroism, of dignity in the face of loss, and a profound sense of ordinary beauty in both the construction of her work and the lyrical images that are shot through it.


Lisa Alvarado

Sacred Games Revisited, One Bit

Two Bits

Michael Sedano

A friend called me up to complain after last week's review of Vikram Chandra’s novel, Sacred Games. "So it's a thriller, a detective story, running 900 pages long, and all La Bloga can say is it’s puro fun?"

First off, I reclamared him back. Why didn't you post your complaint so other gente could take a crack at it? Maybe they agreed and you coulda been the first on the bandwagon? Or maybe, just maybe, they woulda agreed that a short piece on a long novel is appropriate and based on what else they'd heard about the novel, they would give it a shot.

However, I plead guilty to the brother's complaint. For one thing, it’s the truth. The novel is fun. But there are so many considerations to so hefty a work. For instance, on the writer side, imagine what you would do with the freedom to spin a yarn in every direction the story took you? For the reader, imagine a highly textured plot mixing gangsters, cops, crime victims, petty criminals, nuclear terrorism, ethnic and class divisions, movies, extortion, friendship, solitude, tasty Indian snacks, sex. Set the novel in India, in Bombay / Mumbai to add a generous helping of the exotic, write in elegant English but use code-switching liberally to heighten the local color, and you have a fun read.

Then again, because Sacred Games is a story of detection and suspense, I have to avoid giving away surprises and tricks, thus the short shrift given the plot summary.

I was hooked from the first page, a tale of cruelty mixed with humor as a dog name Fluffy is tossed out a high rise window.

A white Pomeranian named Fluffy flew out of a fifth-floor window in Panna, which was a brand-new building with the painter's scaffolding still around it. Fluffy screamed in her little lap-dog voice all the way down, like a little white kettle losing steam, bounced off the bonnet of a Cielo, and skidded to a halt near the rank of schoolgirls waiting for the St Mary's Convent bus. ( More from Chapter 1 at the link in the title or click here.)

Chandra wastes nothing. This could have been merely a way to introduce Sartaj and Katekar, and so it appears until the writer brings back the story after foregrounding other matters. One of these dog tosser characters will play a central role in one of the book’s two main plot lines, the biography of the policeman Sartaj Singh. The second plot, the thriller involving international intrigue and the mafia don Ganesh Gaitonde, will be told in first person. The criminal’s voice will lull some readers into sympathy for the devil, which is part of the fun, so go with it.

Ethnic and political division fills the book. Chandar builds incidents out of the history of Hindu v. Muslim v. Sikh v. a host of ethnic and class names you need the glossary to unravel—or not. Add nationalism v. multiculturalism v. religious fundamentalism, murder, brutality, and depravity and there’s something for every adult reader in the novel. Aside from the novelty of setting, younger readers won't get much from the novel.

Coincidence and inevitability are concepts the novel plays a lot with. For example, there’s a story of a cop doing a door to door search for a ruffian. He corners the man, who slices the cop’s throat. The cop’s partner shoots the fleeing blade in the back. Hundreds of pages later, we meet a village boy enduring scorn from all quarters against his dogged pursuit of schooling. He reads borrowed textbooks by streetlight, begs money to survive, is constantly starving. He comes to support himself through petty crime. One day he abandons his gang and disappears to Mumbai. Years go by. One night he is pursued by police. He is cornered. In desperation he flicks out his knife at the cop from the first story.

It’s connections like these that give so much texture to the novel that lead me to the claim of it being pure fun. So that's a more detailed look at a fine summer novel.


And now for something completely different...

I had a call recently from an anthologist whose collection will be coming to press soon. He asked artists I know if they would be willing to donate their work for the cover. Several artists generously responded with offers of some fine, outstanding museum quality work.

Why would they be so ready to give away their stuff, I ask them? Aren't they always broke and needing money to buy supplies or gas or maybe a new shirt? Giving away your stuff is why you're poor, eses. Oh well, they also are good at heart and understand the anthologist's need for charity. Bull roar.

And to the anthologist, I asked, isn't there more than a modicum of the sin vergüenza in asking artists to give something for a book that will have a price tag on it? I think the publisher should come up with a few hundred bucks for art work. Or the anthologist could fork over some cash. Consider the few measly bucks paid for the art a part of the cost of publication.

Extra bit for horticulturists
Have a look at a noxious weed that I find stupendously beautiful. This is my Fuller's Teasel page at Read! Raza.
http://readraza.com/teasel/index.htm



That's the news from the Eastside of LA, ok, from Pasadena, the East north.

See you next week. Read! Raza. And remember, La Bloga welcomes guest columnists and comments on the day's column or something you consider appropriate.

mvs

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

Book Review

By Daniel A. Olivas

Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction

Edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez

Chronicle Books
219 pp. (paperback), $14.95

Though scores of summer writing conferences have been established throughout the last several decades, one of the oldest and most respected is the Squaw Valley Community of Writers in Northern California. Founded in 1969 by novelists Blair Fuller and Oakley Hall, the Community has sponsored workshops in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, and nature writing. For almost forty years, published authors have dispensed hard-earned knowledge about the craft to conference attendees who harbor the dream of someday seeing their names emblazoned across the covers of bestselling novels or story collections.

For the first time, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers shares the wisdom of some of its contemporary staff members. Edited by Lisa Alvarez and Alan Cheuse with an introduction from Richard Ford, Writers Workshop in a Book (Chronicle Books) includes essays on many aspects of fiction writing from eighteen well-published authors. Regardless of whether reading this book will inspire a beginning writer to commence or finish a full-length manuscript, it is a fine and truly entertaining addition to the ever-growing bookshelf of “how to” tomes.

In the first essay, “How to Write a Novel,” Diane Johnson informs us that “most people in their lives think at one time or another of writing” a novel. Indeed, she read somewhere that “90 percent of college-educated women, at one stage or another of their lives, actually begin one.” Of course, very few actually get around to writing a novel because there are many obstacles including the fact that “it’s an awful lot of work.” But if you are willing to put in the time, Johnson offers very practical threshold decisions you must make before moving forward: “First you have to plan it. What will happen in it? Who will tell it?” Johnson identifies and explains the “[s]mall and large choices” you must make as you plot out your novel. Her advice is sound, honest, to the point, and decidedly unromantic.

Alan Cheuse’s piece is as wonderfully audacious as its title promises: “’Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid’: A Brief History of Point of View.” Cheuse notes that with movies, there is essentially one point of view which “employ[s] the simple equation of camera lens and eye of the audience member, or the so-called God-like point of view.” Literature, of course, has offered through the millennia many more options for POV. In examining the history of the point of view in literature, Cheuse begins with ancient Greek epic and then moves to biblical authors and then Chaucer, Dante, Herodotus, Cervantes, up through the ages to such writers as Joyce, García Márquez, Rhys and Atwood. All the while, Cheuse dissects how these authors used POV in their works and cautions that “[m]ost new writers slip and slide between third-person subjective and the general…” This essay is quite a heady (and fun) ride.

Some of the essays consist of war stories which are entertaining but also offer their own lessons. For example, Amy Tan recounts in “Angst and the Second Book” how after the publication of her wildly successful first novel, she was confronted with the similarly wildly high expectations for her, as yet, unwritten next novel. One writer told her that the second effort was “doomed no matter what you do.” Why? Critics will complain that “it is too much like the first,” and readers will complain “that it is too different.” Tan’s battles with self doubt and doomsayers are comforting in some ways because she lets us know that bestselling authors must do what beginning writers do: persevere despite the multitude of reasons to give up and move to something more practical.

The essays run from the basics to the spiritual. Sands Hall and Al Young dig into the nitty-gritty of scene construction, dialogue, theme, voice and language. Anne Lamott and Louis B. Jones plumb the mysteries of writing. Other pieces recount the rather odd convergence of circumstances that resulted in the writing of a first novel (Michael Chabon), or the fear of finishing a novel (Mark Childress). These and the other essays make one realize that such a book could not be dedicated to other professional pursuits such as the law or operating a chain of restaurants. Creating fiction is, indeed, a singular way of life.

Though one of the editors of Writers Workshop in a Book is Latina, there is not one essay by a Latino writer. But this likely will change in future editions based on the upcoming Squaw Valley faculty members and guest speakers that include Dagoberto Gilb, Michael Jaime-Becerra and Alex Espinoza. Such authors could delve into their use of "code switching" (moving from English to another language and back again) in a way that allows their characters to ring true while not leaving behind those readers who do not speak Spanish. Also missing is any meaningful discussion of the publishing industry's often ham-handed approach to writers of color. Despite these omissions, Cheuse and Alvarez have brought together fascinating, instructive and meaningful advice from some of our finest contemporary writers.

Interview with publisher Kent Brown About Authenticity

René Colato Laínez

Kent Brown is the publisher of Boyds Mills Press and Highlights for Children Magazine.

What does a manuscript need to have in order to be multicultural?

My belief is that depiction of events, traits of persons, customs, which reflect a culture make a book multicultural. So, a book about baseball, where the kid has a minority name, unless there is some substantial culture learned by the reader, is just a book about baseball.

For example, I did a book with Laurence Pringle called Octopus Hug. In it, a father plays special games with his kids, including one that is a big pile-up on the floor, the octopus hug. So far there is only suburban US culture depicted. The illustrator chose to depict an African American family. The book got special use because it was a book depicting a father taking an active role with his children, and many members of the African American community praised the book as an important work to the African American community. Was this book multicultural? I don't know. I don’t think is was in the sense that it depicted any cultural flavor; it did, however, "teach" that suburban families might all have the same routines and fun, regardless of ethnic background, which is likely true (more of a statement about economic class than ethnicity).

Of all those manuscripts that you receive in a daily basis how many are real multicultural or have the potential to be multicultural?

Ah, if Octopus Hug is multicultural just because of the artwork, then a high fraction of the fiction we receive could be multicultural.In my definition, less than 5% of submissions reflect some multicultural claim. I believe that some fraction could be made multicultural by superficial editing, such as the use of ethnic groups in the artwork. Again, not sure how to count them.

A thought: we do books that have kids in wheelchairs, completely incidental to the story. So these books are not about a physical disability, but they tend to reinforce the normalness of seeing disabled persons, and show that they are a regular part of society. That is a desirable thing with respect to multicultural topics: that we see, incidentally, a mix of ethnic groups, cultural artifacts, ethnic observances, etc. But those incidental pieces, while working toward better acceptance of differences and a celebration of our diversity, do not themselves constitute multicultural.

What is lacking in these stories?

What is lacking in a great many stories presented as multicultural is a perspective that lets the reader know more of unique cultural or accurate historical viewpoints.

Are they full of stereotypes or misconceptions?

Well, the bad ones are. And there are some instances where an accurate depiction, however accurate, may reinforce stereotypes.
Two examples:

I receive awful lot of stories about Mexican culture that has kids whacking a Piñata. Nothing wrong with this artifact of Mexican holiday celebration, but having stories about piñatas, over and over, as if that the only thing we might identify with Mexican tradition, subtly reinforces that Mexicans are a people who spend their time whacking piñatas.

Another common example: Chinese New Year. We did this in Highlights magazine. Has the advantage of being attractive to illustrate, picking the parade in San Francisco. Surely that is a part of Chinese (on Chinese-American culture and tradition). But its portrayal has the tendency over time to "teach" that Chinese people are people of big parades and big dragons.

Can an author write books outside his/ her culture?

Absolutely.
Can a Euro-American capture the emotion of emigrating from Central America across mountains and rivers? Can you make it up? Not without understanding its relevance in American culture, the experience as shared by many living in the US, and the likely high emotional stake in the whole process.
Can someone read about it enough to capture all the flavors? Probably. Do they usually? No. Can men write about the emotional lives of women? Some can. But it takes insight, extensive research, and pure effort.
So now lets take the other side of the coin.

I did a book by a suburban white middle class woman. She illustrated a book set in Jamaica. Was it accurate? Was it appropriate? Yes, because this woman had a passion for Jamaican culture; lived there seven years, and had a post-graduate degree in cultural ethnology.

She went on to illustrate a book set in Nigeria. She had not been there. But she got books from the British Museum of the period. She studied the look of the landscape. She did research into the trees and plants of the area the book was set. She got a cultural anthropologist at Harvard to review her sketches, and presented them as well for comment to the Nigerian born author. Could and African American yuppie, born in Westchester County, NY, going to Ivy League schools, and generally having no interest in Nigerian culture, done better?

My example is art. You asked about writing. Yes, I think anyone can write about a specific culture. But it does not happen authentically very often. The people most passionate and steeped in a culture are typically the best to write about it. Most of those examples are members of the culture.

What do these authors need to do in order to write an authentic multicultural picture book?

Passion, anyone can do it. But those who care are most likely to get it. With the passion is an intense knowledge. Mostly such passion and knowledge exists in a within the ethnic group members. But I think it’s not exclusive.

I never lived the life depicted in What Jamie Saw, by Carolyn Coman, for a magnificent example. I doubt Carolyn lived exactly that life. But she knows it. She nails it cold. We are there, and it is believable.

Virginia Ewer Wolfe nails down the character and thoughts of a young woman living near poverty, though she has not lived that way. Somehow she has studied it, not just imagined; living as a youngster on an apple ranch with connected labor housing, watching her mother stitch up a worker on Saturday night at the kitchen table, gave her some credential, not quite living it, but clearly pretty important in her development.

Muchas gracias Kent

Che

Manuel Ramos

On June 28, 1997, a group of Cuban and Argentinian forensic experts discovered a communal grave at Vallegrande, Bolivia, that contained the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara and six other bodies. The charismatic revolutionary was murdered in the jungles of Bolivia in 1967 at the age of 39, yet he already was a revered symbol for the rebellious youth that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. I remember a time when almost every UMAS or MEChA office in Colorado had the famous Che poster hanging on the wall. I'm sure that was one of the most popular posters throughout Aztlán.

Here are reviews of two books about Che that have been around for a while. They present down-to-earth perspectives about the man and his times from his closest friends and comrades, and from Che himself.


THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
Ernesto Che Guevara
Verso, 1996; Ocean Press, 2003

In January, 1952, Che Guevara was a 24 year old medical student–-out of work, eager to find adventure and on the threshold of making decisions that would, eventually, alter not only his own life but also a good chunk of the history of the world. Almost on a whim, the young Argentinian decided to accompany a friend, another medical student named Alberto Granado, on a trek through South America on an ancient Norton motorcycle that they had nicknamed La Poderosa. Over the course of the next six months, as the two young men traveled from Argentina to Venezuela, Che Guevara kept travel diaries that chronicled his amazing journey. Those journals have been published as The Motorcycle Diaries.

During the course of their travels, Big Che and Little Che, as the two were known during the trip, encountered one colorful character after another. The travelers were often destitute and hungry, and forced to use their considerable charm or wit to obtain a place to rest or an evening meal. They fought, fell in love a number of times and, just as often, fell off the motorcycle. They were drenched in rain storms, cooked under the brilliant sun and suffered from bouts of strange illnesses. They met and interacted with native Indians, copper miners, lepers, police, tourists, and scam artists. Unexpectedly, the book is laced with a fine, sarcastic humor and a bookish student’s eye for detail.

For example, Che describes the Peruvian city of Cuzco in these rather poetic terms:

The only word to sum up Cuzco adequately is evocative. An impalpable dust of other ages covers it streets, rising in clouds like a muddy lake when you disturb the bottom. But there are two or three different Cuzcos, or rather, two or three ways in which the city can be evoked. [There]... is the Cuzco whose plaintive voice is heard in the fortress destroyed by the stupidity of illiterate Spanish conquistadores, in the violated, ruined temples, in the looted palaces, in the brutalized Indians. This Cuzco invites you to turn warrior, and, club in hand, defend freedom and the life of the Inca....And yet there is another Cuzco, a vibrant city which bears witness to the formidable courage of the soldiers who conquered this region in the name of Spain, expressed in their monuments, the museums and libraries, in the decoration of its churches and the distinctive features of the white leaders who still take pride in the Conquest. This Cuzco invites you to don armour .... Each of these Cuzcos can be admired on its own ....

Che’s motorcycle odyssey occurred seven years before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Obviously, the trip was an important, life-changing experience for the man whose smiling visage became an icon for the armed struggles of the oppressed peoples of the Third World. From Che’s own words we come to know him as charming, and a very human young man who already has fashioned a solidarity with the poor. But the book is not a political polemic, nor does it artificially elevate the man and contribute to the cult of personality that exists for many romantic, revolutionary figures. Che in The Motorcycle Diaries is on the brink of discovering his true self, and we are lucky to be an observer of that process.



CHE'S COMPAÑEROS: WITNESSES TO A LEGEND
Francis Giacobetti
Assouline, 1997

Che’s Compañeros is a collection of photographs and interviews of men and women who fought and worked with Che Guevara. Given the subject matter, this book is not your usual coffee table conversation piece. There is no doubt that this book is intended to perpetuate the heroic image of Che and the Cuban revolutionaries.

Francis Giacobetti is a photographer who spent half-hour photographic sessions with twenty-one of Che’s compañeros. The photos were taken in 1997 in the lobby of the National Hotel in Havana. The subjects were asked to bring to the sessions an old photograph of Che and these, too, are reproduced in the book. Mauricio Vicent, Havana journalist, preserved the remarks of the different men and women and these have been published with the photos. As Vicent says in his introduction, many of the subjects “disclosed previously unknown episodes in the life of Che and anecdotes about him, making this book an exceptional document.”

I agree that this is an exceptional book. Giacobetti’s full page, full color, lightly tinted portraits are dramatic and engrossing. There is something special, almost classic, in the eyes, the wrinkles around the eyes or the smiles of these people who made history with Che. These portraits are contrasted with the cracked or faded black-and-whites provided by the subjects themselves, which show Che in the middle of the revolution, trying to organize the socialist state. They are unique.

The interviews tend to reveal the sentimental memories that friends have of someone they loved but who has been taken from them. For example, there are several pages of details provide by Aleida March, Che’s second and last wife, who had never given an interview and who had not spoken in public about the details of her life with Che. She was with him in the mountains and marched victoriously with the revolutionaries into Havana. In the midst of her remembrances, the editors have placed a striking photograph of the young Aleida, rifle slung over her shoulder, grinning broadly after a successful battle as she walks alongside Che, who, by the way, is busy perusing a book. She divulges that Che left her a one-hour cassette with a recording of his voice on which he recited their favorite poems of Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Nicolas Guillen, and other poets.

Of course, there is a portrait of Fidel Castro, but he is the one subject who did not provide an interview for the book. There are quotes from Castro and his memories culled from other interviews are included. We learn that Che and Fidel met in 1955 in Mexico and that their first conversation lasted eight hours. We also learn the genesis of the nickname “Che” and the admission by Castro that frequently he dreams that he is talking with Che.

Che’s Compañeros is infused with words and pictures of courage, sacrifice and idealism. Giacobetti eloquently predicted the long lasting importance of this book with this observation: “As they talked about him for hours on end and studied his image in the pictures they produced from their pockets, he returned from the dust and became living flesh, sitting at the end of my bed, drinking rum and chomping on his cigar ... . Like them, I felt his presence, handsome as a god, with his large floppy beret. His eyes began to shine. We laughed, we hugged each other, and [we] began to cry. ... Thanks to them, I rubbed shoulders with him.”


Later.

Words That Flow Like Water: Ann Hagman Cardinal

Ann Hagman Cardinal is a freelance writer, novelist, columnist, as well as the National Marketing Director for Union Institute & University. Ann has a B.A. in Latino Studies from Norwich University and an M.A. in sociology and creative writing from Vermont College of UI&U. She is currently working on her MFA in Writing from Vermont College as well. Her column, Café Con Lupe, appears in the state-wide publication Vermont Woman. She just completed her second novel entitled La Mongosta & The Pirate and is hard at work on her third. She lives in Vermont with her husband Doug and son, Carlos. She is also the author of The Gift of the Cuentista, a breakout novel of depth, of roots, of Puerto Rican identity and and family. It is also the story of one's girl's odyssey to adulthood and the meaning of a very special gift of sight.

Ann is a sister of my heart, and she's also one of the Sister Chicas trio of authors. Leni was written by Ann as wry, tough/tender, with a soul deep as a hidden aquifer. This too, is Ann.

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Describe your journey in becoming a writer. How is it integrated with your identity as a woman, as a Latina? Can you talk about your major influences, both personally and in a literary sense?

I never imagined I would be a writer until I returned to college as an adult student. Even then, if I hadn’t have been at a non-traditional program where I was exposed to other students doing different kinds of studies I’m not sure I ever would have become one. I met some wonderful writers who encouraged me, and after a year of insisting, “I’m not a writer!” I got the bug. But it was inspired by my desire to pass on elements of my Puerto Rican heritage and mother’s family to my son, Carlos. He never got to meet his abuela, so it is a way to put him in touch with her. And it’s helped me identify with those roots as well.

The cuentistas in my family, the storytellers that came before were my first influences. After that I was completely enthralled by Isabel Allende with her lyrical and beautifully written novels with their powerful political subtext. Also, Julia Alvarez is a wonderful writer, and I like that she publishes in different genres: novels, memoir, poetry, children’s literature. And Judith Ortiz Cofer, I was so taken with Silent Dancing, I didn’t realize it was a young adult book until after I read it. She has just the kind of clean but elegant prose I admire.

What differences do you experience as a novelist vs. writing as essayist/columnist/journalist? What parts of yourself take the foreground...the background when you work in different genres?

Good question. Well, as a novelist the answer depends on which novel I’m working on. I write literary fiction, but I love to write genre as well, horror, romance. These work different muscles than their literary sibling. The literary fiction is more taxing, pulling from a deeper place, while writing genre for me is pure joy.

As a columnist/journalist I feel like I am more of a sociological observer, mining stories and ideas from every day life. With my column Café Con Lupe, I like to talk about things that resonate with people on a universal level. Not each column reaches everybody, but when I get feedback from someone who says, “Your story made me think of the time my own mother…” I love that! That means I’m reaching people, and really, that’s why I write.

What would you describe as your major themes?

Issues of outsiderness. As a light-skinned half Puerto Rican I never felt totally at home in either world, and I’m amazed at how many people feel this way for different reasons. As I titled my most recent short story, I feel like a “Fish Out of Agua.” In addition, I often write about children who lose their parents at a young age. Having gone through that I know that this is a loss only someone who has experienced can understand. It defines you as a child and as an adult. Also, I love to write about la isla. That island and my family there are so damn important to me; they offer me a way to keep in touch with my mother.

What do you feel are your strengths as a writer....where would you like to see yourself grow?

I’m a very visual learner, so I see things clearly in my mind as I write them. I’ve been told that adds visual texture to my writing. I also love to write dialogue, and I listen intently to the way people talk and attempt to capture that.

As for growth, I’ve learned so much over the last two years of my MFA program, I think my brain is full! But there are so many ways I would like to grow. I’ve been trying to tackle short stories this last semester, and that is going to be a lifelong challenge as I find it a difficult form.

We collaborated in writing Sister Chicas... how would you describe the impact in crafting a novel in that way?

In past interviews I called it miraculous, and that has only become truer with time. To be able to learn from each other, and grow as a writer because of my connection to you two made it a transformative experience. And it continues to amaze me that we were able to do it, no egos in the way, supporting each other with love and sisterhood. Miraculous.

You've made a choice to live in VT as a NYC transplant....How has that choice affected you life? Your writing?

It’s funny, I didn’t really identify with my Latina side until I moved here and the culture was no longer readily available. In NYC, I could walk down the street and hear Boricua Spanish, smell tostones frying from an open window, hear merengue pulsing from a car window. But in Vermont I have to actively seek out other Latinos. That has made for some incredible connections, including meeting you and Jane! I’m also not sure I would have become a writer in NYC, it was finding a progressive education program that opened me up.

I love it here. My mother used to say it reminded her of Puerto Rico in the 30s with its rolling green hills, slow pace, and warm people. It’s a great place to raise a child.

You're a wife and a parent; in what ways do you feel those roles intersect with your life as a writer?

I think it is impossible to separate them out. I learned when I went to a writer’s residency last year, and my son broke his arm and I couldn’t be there, that I write better having him and my husband near me. I need to know they are safe and well to create. My son is the reason I write, really. My column deals a lot with my marriage and certainly parenthood. In that venue I aspire to be the modern Latina Erma Bombeck. Life is so bizarre and humorous, and we all need our diversions. Her writing and viewpoint made day to day life lighter.

Where do you see yourself in ten years, personally and creatively?

Still writing novels, and maybe with enough financial stability that I can do it more than on the fly. My goal is to not have to fit my writing in between everything else. To make it a main course and not just a side dish of my life. By then my son will be at college, and I hope to have a condo in Luquillo so my husband and I can go down there for a couple of months each winter. Though I love Vermont, the 40 below zero thing kind of sucks.

What's something not in the official bio?

I love tattoos. My sister was a tattoo artist and is getting me back into them in my middle age. They ain’t what they used to be and I just wrote a piece for AARP Magazine about the trend of getting tattooed after 50. Life is too short to not be inked.

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An excerpt from The Gift of the Cuentista:


My mother's Uncle Javier lived next door, and I would spend each visit running back and forth between the houses with my Puerto Rican cousins, skinning my knees and pulling my second language out from under the cedar blocks of winter storage in New Jersey, where the only Spanish I heard was at the local bodega where Mom bought her guava paste. After a few days of shyness, I would begin to feel comfortable with the other children, following along where they led, playing the games they played.

But among them I always knew I was different: larger, pastier, louder. I longed to be like them, switching so easily from elegant Español to an English that was more grammatical than my own. I watched their lithe bodies move easily among the adults, answering questions about school with enthusiasm, joining the conversations about art, culture and history. I sat on the periphery of these gatherings feeling thick-tongued and unable to speak in either language, watching the adults throw their heads back in laughter over something my cousin Maria had said. I looked at my play clothes that had seemed fine alongside the neighborhood kids in New Jersey, but on the island felt shoddy and mismatched; at my un-groomed hair, too short and boyish.

When my visits expanded to the entire summer, I learned to adjust to my life on the island, and then back again when I returned to our cold suburban home. Sometimes, on the flight home in late August, I would think about how I seemed to be most comfortable there, among the clouds high above the Atlantic Ocean, halfway between the two places.

My cousins did their best to make me feel welcome on their island. They were, quite honestly, much nicer children than I was. They were always polite, always thoughtful, and I would try to emulate them after I left each year, but this unnatural decorum would usually only last a week…maybe two. They were all about my age, and together we ran through Javier's one-story, concrete house at top speed, sliding over the slick, tiled floors, as adult reprimands in rapid-fire Spanish trailed after us like a kite tail. We had to pass through the last room, a bedroom, before we broke free of the building and barreled into the back courtyard, scattering chickens and dust in every direction.

The first time I encountered one of the room's inhabitants, I stopped short at the threshold, staring at the unexpected occupant on the shadowed bed. My cousins collided into me from behind, and seeing my apprehension they said, “Don't worry about her, prima,” as they pushed around me and pulled at my arms, taunting me to follow them through the darkened room. “She can’t hear you. Vamos!”

I could smell the room before I entered it. Medicinal. Antiseptic. Stale. I pulled free of my cousins, my feet rooted to the doorsill, hearing their jeering voices fade as they scampered out into the daylight. I looked down at the scrubbed white Formica floor, the gray and blue dots forming moving patterns if you stared at them long enough. Tía Lourdes made sure the room was spotless. She had been a nurse, and so the care of the infirm family members often fell to her. The lights were low, the bright afternoon glare permitted entry only through the wooden louvers that covered the windows, a narrow stream of sunshine spilling through the partially open back door, still swinging from my cousin Carlos’ escape.

A large wooden crucifix was the only decoration on the white stucco walls, the graphic dying figure of Jesus a ghastly contrast to the room’s sterility. Because of the near darkness, it was at least ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the house. And there she was. An ancient female relative—my cousins couldn’t even tell me whose—or the shell of one, lying on the bed to the left of the door, connected to a maze of medical tubes like the tentacles of a pale jellyfish. I could feel a current of anxiety running through my limbs. After a time, I decided I would steal quietly but quickly through the room, not looking over at the bed. I made it halfway across when a crackly voice emerged from the still, waxen figure under the white chenille bedspread.

“¡Ay Virgen! ¡Madre de Dios!” she yelled. I jumped and tore into the backyard, temporarily blinded by the summer sun, but grateful to be free. I avoided the room for the rest of that visit. Not because I thought I would disturb her—she was completely unaware of the youthful activity around her—but because I felt a reverence in the presence of one whom my cousin Inez told me was so near death. But also a fascination. I would occasionally peer through the slatted windows from the safety of the concrete courtyard, the sun on the back of my head reminding me that I was still outside the room, away from her spell.

But she was just the first: every year from then on there seemed to be a new old lady lying sentry in the rear chamber. To my cousins, these women barely existed. Each day they screeched through the room, bellowing to each other along the way. But it was easy for them. They didn’t have to worry about the old woman coming back to them after death: that honor was reserved for me.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Some last thoughts: In Gift of the Cuentista, Ann paints a picture of a young girl's struggle to know herself, to know her family, to be comfortable in her skin literally and figuratively that burns itself into the mind's eye. In this passage alone, we taste, see and smell this small universe in which someone looks for home and begins to see out what a long, long, trip it truly is.


Lisa Alvarado

Palabra Pura: Another Take

Last night, I had the pleasure to attend Palabra Pura's reading featuring Sandy Florian and Raúl Niño. Once again, over a pre-reading dinner (presided over by the Guild's Executive Director Ellen Placey Wadey, board members and poets Mike Puican and Mary Hawley, and the MC, poet and diosa Johanny Vasquez) I was able to have a far ranging, relaxed discussion with Sandy about her work. She's a master of prose poetry that is haunting, complex, dream-like, and we all got the scoop that the next day she was to fly out the very next day to prepare for a residency in France.

We were joined by Raúl at the California Clipper and I have to say being in the audience was a singular treat. I was part of a crowd in a full room of rapt listeners, including a young Latino who read a new piece in the open mic section, who was encouraged by Ellen after the reading to come back again.

The pairing of Florian's layered, imagistic writing about the everyday and the divine and Nino's clean, spare etchings of private moments reverberated in my mind even on the train into work today.....That, compays, is why poetry is food for the soul at the deepest level...at least for this writer, and I suspect, many of Bloga's readers.

Lisa Alvarado

Review: Vikram Chandra Sacred Games

NY: Harper Collins, 2007. ISBN: 9780002008518

Michael Sedano

When is a not Chicano novel a chicano novel in disguise? When you're reading Sacred Games. OK, Vikram Chandra doesn't claim to be a chicano, and the city of Bombay is a long ways from your eastside chicanada. Nonetheless, the novel’s landscape of undocumented and falsely documented immigrants worried about their status, characters worrying that their spoken English isn't good enough, and masses of brown skins everywhere creates a comfortable familiarity that speeds a reader's adaptation to the foreignness of India.

Sacred Games is a magnum opus, 900 plus pages, that weaves deep into its Bombay culture. Chandra’s rich, fluid English prose code switches readily into native terms when that is the right word. Thankfully, Chandra hasn’t taken the trouble to italicize most foreignisms, reserving that irritating typography to some, but not all, phonetically rendered expressions that remain untranslated in all their glory or unknown meaning. Obviously many of these foreign expressions are cusswords or colloquialisms that defy translations, others are song lyrics from Indian movies or television programs. The writer develops a rhythm, the page a comforting feel in the reader's grasp. To interrupt that with typography would be the worst form of cultural pendejismo.

The novel is puro fun. It comes with an engaging story of good, intrepid cops (even if they do solicit bribes) at various stages of difficult careers. Organized crime, political corruption, pimping and prostitution, good guys and bad guys getting killed. Readers familiar with chicano writing will enjoy the cultural parallels between Chandra’s India and the more familiar US setting. Although there is a glossary at the end, I urge readers to let the code-switching take the story along on its face.

A lot of the fun comes from having virtually unlimited space to tell the story. Vikram Chandra doesn’t constrain his story to a single central figure, the honest cop and his partner, nor a single villain, the legendary criminal Ganesh Gaitonde, who dies early in the book. The reader is treated to a sweeping exploration of the criminal’s life. One of the good guys is killed and we explore the aftermath. More tangential characters come in for extensive development, allowing side stories to blossom, connections made, parallels developed. For example, there are three mentor stories; the cop, the crook, and the intelligence officer. It’s a perfect way to balance out the story and make telling points about being successful, solitude, values, and growing older.

Extended character and family history can take a slow plot and make it lugubrious. Not in this novel. Despite the rich cast of characters and the Indian vocabulary code-switched with beautiful ease, the story moves quickly, the reader driven along by all the stories to see how they coalesce, what tiny detail will become the clue that closes down an investigation.

Sacred Games is perfect bound. This means Harper Collins had the pages made up in 16- or 32-page sigs, then stitched and glued into its stiff cloth cover. The volume has a heft to it, and when turning pages the stitching helps the pages make a warm sound as they rub against one another conforming to the avid reader’s eager page turning. How better can it get, an excellent story, well-drawn characters, a fascinating insight to a foreign culture, and a comforting tactile experience? If you haven’t read Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games yet, don't wait for the paperback. Find out from this hard cover gem, enjoy.


from "The Guild" and Daniel Olivas
Readings & Events

Sandy Florian and Raul Nino

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.)

PALABRA PURA
SANDY FLORIAN and RAUL NINO
THIS Wednesday, June 20
Doors open at 8:00 PM. Reading begins at 8:30 PM.
California Clipper, 1002 N. California (California at Augusta).
Free admission. 21 and over show (id required)

Sandy Florian was born in New York and raised in Latin America. She is of Colombian and Puerto Rican descent. She holds an MFA from Brown University's Creative Writing Program in Fiction. At Brown, she was the recipient for the Francis Mason Harris Award for best book-length manuscript written by a woman. She was also the recipient of the New Voices Sudden Fiction Prize in Cambridge. She is currently pursuing a PhD in English and Creative Writing at the University of Denver. Her work appears in the following journals: Indiana Review, Bombay Gin, Shampoo, La Petite Zine, Washington Square Review, 14 Hills, elimae, New Orleans Review, eratio, Tarpaulin Sky, Gargoyle, 42 Opus, Copper Nickel, Upstairs at Duroc, Word For/Word, Segue, Versal, Horse Less Review, Identity Theory, The Encyclopedia Project, Elixir, dANDelion, The Brooklyn Rail, and others. Visit her blog at http://boxingthecompass.blogspot.com.

With Breathing Light (1991) the Chicago Chicano poet Raúl Niño positioned himself as a writer committed to exploring individual and cultural, as opposed to social and political, concerns. Perhaps the least public and least extroverted of the Mexican poets one could call "Chicano" in Chicago--a group that includes Chicano poets writing mainly in English, recent emigrants from Mexico, and, above all, the self-named Generacion mojada, or "Wetback Generation," writing in Spanish--he represents an important dimension of contemporary Chicago and national Chicano writing as it has developed from its more militant roots and uses in the 1960s.

Please join on Wednesday to hear the work of these two wonderful poets.

Have a great week,
The Guild


Independence Day coming around the corner gente. A blockbuster novel like this one is an ideal way to spend a lazy weekend holiday. If you’ve read this one, or there’s another title you know La Bloga readers should hear about, share it with us! La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. Submitting your work is easy. Post a comment, email a La Bloga Bloguera or Bloguero, or click here.

See you next week.

mvs

SPOTLIGHT ON FERNANDO D. CASTRO

Fernando D. Castro was born in Ibagué, Colombia. He was barely fifteen when he immigrated with his family to the New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights – the heart of NYC’s Colombian community. He notes that he "grew up in the bosom of an immigrant working class family that wanted to embrace the American dream and yet was painfully aware of its contradictions."

Castro holds a B.A. in Architecture from Columbia University in New York City and a Masters in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. A writing vocation called late but loudly after he relocated to Los Angeles in 1984. Castro branched out from the rigors of architectural practice to poetry, playwriting, journalism, teaching poetry and cultural activism. His publications include Fernando’s Café, from the Inevitable Press (1998), and contributions to more than a dozen anthologies.

Castro is also responsible for twenty-five anthologies of creative writing by youth and adults. For more than a decade, he has been an artist-in-residence in programs sponsored by such agencies as the California Arts Council, the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs, the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division. He is a co-founder of TA’YER Multicultural Performance Collective, a non-profit organization that works with youth-at-risk, recent immigrants and the LGBT community. Castro notes that he "lives in Pasadena in a home that, like rewriting a poem, he continues to rework every couple of years."

His newest book is The Nightlife of Saints, published by TA’YER Books, which you can find at these locations:

Skylight Books
1818 N. Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 660-1175

Dutton Books
11975 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
(310) 456-9961

Small World Books
Attn. Staff
1407 Ocean Front Walk
Venice, CA 90291-3605
(310) 399-2360

For more information on The Nightlife of Saints, you may contact Castro via e-mail.

◙ If you missed Rudy’s brilliant post from Sunday, visit now or else I will visit your home and spank you silly. Glad to have Rudy back.

◙ The new issue of Palabra is now out. Palabra is a magazine of Chicano and Latino literary art edited by elena minor. I am honored to have a little story included in this issue along side the beautiful words of Peter Alvarez, William Achila, Mariana Dietl, Mayra L. Dole, Melissa Garcia, Rick Kearns-Morales, María Meléndez, Monica Teresa Ortiz, Andrés Rodríguez, Caridad Svich and Harold Terezón. To subscribe, drop an e-mail to the editor at palabralit@earthlink.net (website is coming soon).

◙ My review of The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (Camino Del Sol) (University of Arizona Press), edited by Francisco Aragón, appeared in yesterday’s El Paso Times. This is a must-own volume of poetry by the freshest Latino/a voices.

◙ I’m just digging into a new book, Writer's Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction, edited by Alan Cheuse and Lisa Alvarez. Alvarez, who works over at one of the best literary reviews around, the Santa Monica Review, also has a story in the upcoming Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature, edited by yours truly and forthcoming from Bilingual Press (more on that later).

◙ Well, who says you can’t fight city hall (or in this case, a large metropolitan newspaper)? We get word that Al Martinez will be coming back to the L.A. Times! We thank the Times for listening to the over 300 e-mails from Martinez’s fans. As Howard Junker is found of saying, onward!

◙ Gustavo Arellano’s book, ¡Ask a Mexican! (Scribner) is number 9 on the Los Times Bestseller’s List. ¡Ajua! If you missed La Bloga's interview with Arellano, click here.

◙ The Chicano Studies Research Center Press is pleased to announce that article submissions can now be made online! Not only can you read Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies online, but you can also submit your article to Aztlan electronically. This means that you no longer have to print three copies and mail the whole package to the CSRC in a postage envelope, but rather you can submit articles to the journal in the comfort of your own home. Save time, trees, and money! Just visit the submission site and follow the directions. If you have any problems, email press@chicano.ucla.edu.

◙ All done. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro! --Daniel Olivas

Bloodsuckers, Quinones, Like Son & Redoubt

pensamientos on 4 books - by RudyG (Denver)

It would be a stretch for me to link this post to Father's Day, so I won't try. . . I've been gone so long from this site. . . I thought of sharing memories of my past year with 22 bilingual second graders, but alas, there were no tearful moments to end such a piece with. . . I considered ranting about the strain of reaching and teaching U.S. children when the educational bureaucracy binds one arm about your body, but thankfully, I'm bored with my rants.

Anyway, since my compa's on La Bloga have done a better-than-scholarly job since my going on sabbatical, I accept that anything I post is destined to pale. . .

Though I've written little in past months, I have read, some great and some so-so. Since I suck as a reviewer, better I just share mis pensamientos about four books, which I highly recommend, for differing reasons:

First: Dan Olivas recently gave us a great interview with Mario Acevedo, author of X-Rated Bloodsuckers (from Rayo press). I enjoyed his first, Nymphos of Rocky Flats, even though the vampire genre is not high on my list of must-reads. Maybe I read both because like some of you I'm aburrido con movies, TV programs and books where even the bad guys are usually Anglo. Mario's storytelling talents made his novel well worth the digression.

Now, to my minor, peculiar thoughts about this book: the format Mario--more likely his publishers--used to handle Mexican vocabulary. Here's two examples:
1. "He snipped the pouch open and squeezed blood over his chile relleno combination plate. "Smothered. The only way to eat Mexican food. Come tomorrow this chile and beans are going to turn my ass into a weapon of mass destruction." [Nymphos, p. 214]
2. " 'Tripas for menudo. Sesos. Lengua. You name it.' . . . It wasn't tripe, brains or tongue that I wanted." [Nymphos, p. 35]

As an accommodation to the non-Spanish readers, this style feels non-intrusive. An English reader should get that the relleno plate was chile and beans, and easily understand the second passage. In the back of my bilingual brain I notice this accommodation, but glide over it. Now look at the format adopted in Mario's latest book:

"Que bonito chante," Coyote said. What nice digs. . . "Pa'que?" What for?" [X-Rated, p.78]

Not every Spanish word is handled this way. Nada is not translated, assumedly because of wide usage. And other formats are sometimes used, like dashes around the translation instead of a literal repetition in English. But the vast majority of Spanish terms are tediously, almost inexorably follow the above format.

The style used in Nymphos required more skill by the author, and at times more effort by the reader, both desirable in a literate society. But flexibility in Mario's first work, gave way to regimentation in his second. It reminds me somewhat of a condescending approach toward Anglos. "Let's repeat it to the poor English reader, right afterwards, very obviously, so he doesn't have to use his brain to grapple with a foreign tongue," I can hear the editors thinking.

Clearly, I'm putting words in people's mouths. This may in fact be Mario's new approach to dealing with monolingual readers. Since I'm not one of them, I can't complain as such. I'm simply ranting as a bilingual that this format draws more attention to itself in its didactics than his previous style, making me very aware of its usage and taking me out of the story, not a desirable literary feature.

Notwithstanding its peccadillo, do check out X-Rated Bloodsuckers. Then you will also learn what tapetum lucidum means.

Second: Fellow Bloguista Dan Olivas also previously highlighted Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream, from UNM Press, the second collection of border/migration chronicles by Sam Quinones.

If you enjoy investigative reporting--hard facts and wonderful trivia--this book is a must. It's historical in that it details anomalies like the rise and demise of Elvis-velvet paintings, and it is insightful in the wealth of personal narrative Quinones collected over many years of communicating with Mexican immigrants.

In our ignorant era of anti-immigrant hate-propaganda, billions-for-border-patrols and the attempted elimination of U.S. bilingualism, I have an added reason you should check this very readable book: because you work with mexicanos. I recommend this book (plus his True Tales From Another Mexico) to those of you--Chicano or otherwise--who need to know more about the mexicanitos you teach, the immigrant families you service or the expatriated machos you sell to.

Face it: Americans, including Chicanos, don't really have much prior knowledge about the mexicano. We have stereotyped ideas about why they came, what their aspirations are, what they hope their children's futures will be.

For instance, my previous assumption was that many mexicanos who send money back to Mexico will return or retire there. I even had a student this year who repeatedly retorted to my criticizing her poor attendance with, "My dad says we're going back to Mexico one day, anyway."

It's only from Quinones' book that I learned how and why this aspiration has instead resulted in Mexican ghost towns filled with custom-built homes financed by immigrant dollars, homes that are occupied maybe twice a year by expatriates whose ties to the motherland weaken with each year they spend in the U.S. Many become permanent residents of their adopted country.

This knowledge led to my adjusting discussions with immigrant parents about their kids' schoolwork. One parent was surprised I knew so much about Zacateca migration, about his upgrading his home there, about my prediction that he might never return with his family--all things garnered from an informative read of Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream.

Visit Quinones's website for more information.

Third: I've been accused of being a homophobe, but I like to think it's just cultural vestiges of my muy macho-ness. I do admit queer lit is even lower on my list than vampire novels. This means that added to my weaknesses as a book reviewer, I've little knowledge of novels written by or featuring lesbians. So, when I picked up Like Son (Akashic Books), by Felicia Luna Lemus, I wouldn't have been surprised to not like it, or not finish it, something I rarely do.

But this is one of the most captivating, literary novels I've read in years.

Set against a thematic backdrop of historical figure Nahui Olin (the mesmerizing cover photo), Like Son feels like a novel only a Chicano, una mujer escandalosa as Lemus calls herself, could write. That it is considered a jewel in the transgender circuit unfortunately may mean many in the Chicano-reader world will never enjoy the experience of Lemus's great writing.

Yes, even a homophobe will find considerable merit in the well-developed, complicated plotting in this coming-of-age story that engaged this hetero from beginning to end. And you won't even have to set aside your abhorrence of lesbo scenes. This is one fine work.

The novel and author have been greatly praised by the literary world and there's no point in my attempting to outdo them. Check her website or the publisher's for yourself.

Fourth: Wings Press, publishers of Cecile Pineda's Redoubt, describe her book like this: "Imagine Woody Allen, Lewis Carroll and John Barth with a feminist surrealist twist." From my read, I'd suggest something more like: "Imagine Paul Auster, Samuel Beckett and a flashback of your best mescaline trip, through a totally female introspection."

This book is heavy on the experimental, as it's called. Plus, if you can't spell existentialism, if you easily tire of free-flowing prose, however well presented, and if you'd rather be story-led in the manner of Acevedo's publishers, stay away from this one.

But if you're a writer or a serious reader, looking for prose that takes you to the type of places where few have successfully kept your attention before, pick this one up. As the publishers further describe it, Redoubt is "Told in the voice of a lone holdout standing guard on an unnamed frontier. Redoubt addresses questions of conception and birth, gender, war and the slouch toward Apocalypse. Structured like a jazz riff, it takes as its thematic underpinnings the dictionary definitions introducing each section."

If I'd read that, I doubt I'd ever have opened its pages. Again, to differ with the publishers, here's my version: "Told through the mind of one unfathomable woman permanently relegated to warn of imminent invasion by the Enemy, Redoubt will carry you into an emotional maelstrom where Apocalypse would seem like liberation, in contrast to the heroine's timeless solitude. Enmeshed in an existence more Huit Clos than Sisyphus's most dreaded nightmare, it will carry your unwilling Self into niches of life never described in any dictionary."

Redoubt is a road many readers--forget about just Chicanos--wouldn't want to take. Of course, many of us have no idea what the labors of childbirth or the daily grind of repressed-but-one-day-liberated females might be like, either. We males would not be lesser males for learning about that. Redoubt takes you there; it is as close as I've ever come to "being one" with a woman, through the pages of a book.

You can find out more about Cecile Pineda and her other works at http://home.earthlink.net/~cecilep/index.htm.

That's enough for a return post. If you're one of our readers who has no life and nothing better to do on Father's Day, I'd be interested in comments about my approach to these works. Of course if you have a life, please go enjoy that, instead.

Feliz día de los padres

René Colato Laínez

Let’s have a double celebration. Say “Happy Father’s Day” tomorrow and say “Feliz día del padre” on June 17.

Take a look at these books about Fatther’s Day/ Día de los padres:

Waiting for Papá/Esperando a Papá by René Colato Laínez. Illustrated by Anthony Accardo.

A Perfect Father's Day by Eve Bunting. Illustrated by Susan Meddaugh.

Father's Day by Anne Rockwell. Illustrated by Lizzy Rockwell.

The Secret Father's Day Present by Andrew Clements. Illustrated by Varda Livney.

Papa, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse. Illustrated by Barbara Lavallee.

Daddy All Day Long by Francesca Rusackas. Illustrated by Priscilla Burris.

My Daddy And Me by Amy Sklansky. Illustrated by Ard Hoyt.

This And That

Manuel Ramos


EL LABORATORIO AND LORNA DEE CERVANTES
Here's an announcement about a new project I recently joined and a plug for the project's first event featuring Lorna Dee Cervantes -- an excellent beginning.

El Laboratorio: Thinking En Público, a new Latino arts and culture center housed within The Lab at Belmar, will host some of Colorado's most acclaimed Latino writers, artists and scholars for literary workshops, public readings, and conversations beginning in summer, 2007. Each event will feature readings by an award-winning author or artist who is reshaping or extending our understanding of the literary arts of the United States. Themes will include avant-garde poetry, experimental novels, drama, the spoken word, storytelling, and slam poetry. In partnership with Arte Público Press, the oldest Latino press in the U.S., El Laboratorio aims to be a premier space where both Latino artists and the general public can gain insights into the ways Latino culture is changing the landscape of the U.S.

Lorna Dee Cervantes, acclaimed poet, teacher, and author will read from her Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, Drive, followed by a conversation with John-Michael Rivera, the Creative Director of El Laboratorio, on June 23, 6:00 PM reception, 6:30 - 8:00 PM main event, $10 ($5 members). The Lab is at 404 Upham Street, Lakewood, CO 303-934-1777.

And I just read on Lorna Dee's blog that she is moving to Berkeley, CA. Our loss is the Bay Area's gain. I'm hopeful she will keep her ties to Colorado -- the cultural scene around here now has a big hole because of her leaving.



MIGRATIONS AND OTHER STORIES
Lisa Hernández
Arte Público Press, 2007
Speaking of the oldest Latino press in the U.S., the following message showed up recently on my computer screen and I pass it along to you.

This debut story collection explores issues of migration and identity from a Mexican and Mexican-American perspective. It is the winner of the University of California Irvine’s Chicano/Latino Literary Prize. Past and present are interwoven in the eleven stories dealing with migration across geographical and cultural boundaries. Set in California and Mexico, the characters in these stories struggle with all that life throws their way, including abusive boyfriends, separation from loved ones, and unfaithful spouses, all in an uneasy search for a balance between a Mexican past and a Mexican-American future. With vivid brushstrokes, Hernández paints a collage of Latinas who work vigorously to overcome drastic situations. A woman is convinced that her brother-in-law’s constant fooling around with co-eds caused her sister’s heart attack, and she obsesses about getting revenge even if it means turning to brujería. A young woman who has flunked out of college multiple times finally goes home to confront the memories of her father’s sexual abuse that she hasn’t been able to flee or forget. On her deathbed, Chata reveals to her daughter that when she was growing up in a small Mexican village, her first love was a beautiful prostitute. Themes of survival, identity, and cultural conflict are woven through the stories in this intriguing and entertaining collection. Publisher’s Weekly gave the book an excellent review, and said “Short and affecting, Hernández’s tales are as ardent as they are prosaic and unflinching.” Lisa Hernández is a native of Pasadena, California, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She teaches English at Los Angeles Community College and coordinates literacy programs for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

ART FROM ASHES
Time: Saturday, June 16, 2007 10:00 AM - all day
Location: Cultural Legacy Booksellers, 3633 W. 32nd Ave, Denver
Art from Ashes is a Denver-based, high-risk youth empowerment through poetry organization, and Cultural Legacy is supporting the group with a fundraiser on June 16, the date of the Highlands Street Fair. At 3 pm, there will be an Art from Ashes poetry performance.

Come to Cultural Legacy, meet local authors and enjoy their books! Wellington Webb, Christine Loomis, Charlene Porter and others will be there.
The entire event will run from 10 am until dusk. The fundraising will extend to purchases on-line until midnight. Join us to support this great organization.

I'm one of the "others" and will be at the bookstore signing books (even mine if you have them) at 2:00 PM.

MANITOU SPRINGS LIBRARY AUTHOR FEST
Author Fest of the Rockies 2007 in Manitou Springs, CO, to be held
October 19-20, at the Cliff House Hotel. The organizers are looking for authors,
illustrators, poets, editors, publishers, agents, and anyone interested in the business
of books. They have made a call for proposals from those wishing to
participate as a workshop presenter.

The Friends of the MSPL sponsor this event as a fundraiser for the Carnegie
building's preservation, restoration, and expansion campaign. The library building is almost 100 years old, and the Friends of the MSPL are attempting to update it to meet ADA
requirements, and to expand the infrastructure necessary to meet today's
library technological needs.

The theme of this year's conference is Writing As Art, and you can get an application to make a proposal for a presentation from the library's website.

FINAL NOTES
Rolando Hinojosa sends word that his article, De noche todos los gatos son pardos, con excepciones,will appear in Ventana Abierta (UCSB) Vol. VI, NMo.22, Primavera 2007/Inmigrantes.

Some of you may recall that in last week's column I challenged writers to write an ending to the first page of a story that I posted. Well, two of my comrades here on La Bloga accepted the challenge and wrote up a couple of imaginative endings to my little beginning. You can read how Lisa Alvarado and Michael Sedano ended the story in the comments to my column, here. Sad to say, however, no one else took up the challenge. Oh well.

Later.

Amigas Latinas: Opening Doors, Celebrating Hermanas

I wanted to help La Bloga celebrate LGBT Pride month by profiling Amigas Latinas, an affinity group here in Chicago and one of its founders, Evette Cardona. I was lucky enough to meet Evette through her partner, Mona Noriega, both of whom have done groundbreaking work in the Latina and queer communities, with local and national impact. As a typical example of the kind of support the organization offers, when I, Ann Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston Coralin launched the release of Sister Chicas in Chicago in 2006, the Amigas were in full force at a reading they co-sponsored with a landmark Chicago independent bookstore, Women and Children First. With love and gratitude, I offer this post.

Find out more about this remarkable woman who is also an inductee in the City of Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame and this vital organization.

Evette Cardona

Evette Cardona's lesbian activism began in 1993 when she came out "publicly" and became a founding member of WACT (Women of All Cultures Together), a gathering of lesbians, bisexual women, and heterosexual women allies taking advantage of Chicago's diversity to bridge racial, ethnic, and cultural divides. The group has held monthly potluck brunches throughout the Chicago area. During Cardona's tenure with WACT, over 70 brunches gathered suburban and city lesbians together.

As an organizer, she has helped to lead or found several community groups, including Women of All Cultures Together, Amigas Latinas, the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, and the Center on Halsted Steering Committee. As a philanthropic administrator, she has been especially helpful in funding organizations serving historically underrepresented community sectors.

In the summer of 1995, Cardona helped to found Amigas Latinas as an organization for Latina les/bi/questioning women. Through a model of monthly dining and discussion groups, the organization has provided a celebratory environment for English- and Spanish-speaking women to learn about the Latina community's diversity. The group addresses such issues as immigration rights, language barriers, and homophobia in special relationship to ethnic discrimination. In 1999, Cardona helped to create the Aixa Diaz Scholarship Gift Fund, named after an Amigas Latinas founder, to aid a Latina lesbian or bisexual student fighting high school homophobia and to aid children of Mozart Elementary School, where Diaz had taught first grade.

In 1997 Cardona became a member of the planning council of Color Triangle, a consortium of persons from various organizations who meet to discuss racism within the Chicago lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. She also co-chaired the Leadership Development Institute, designed to foster leadership in Chicago's LGBT community.

In 1998, Cardona joined the board of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, which addresses lesbians' and women's health issues. In the autumn of that year, she aided in producing El Sexto Encuentro, the annual conference of LLEGO, the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Organization, which was hosted in Chicago.

Most recently, Cardona has become a member of the Center on Halsted Steering Committee, which in conjunction with Horizons Community Services is developing a community center that is anticipated to open in 2004. The committee is seeking community suggestions and involvement.

Professionally, as a Senior Program Officer at the Polk Bros. Foundation, she co-chaired the Funding Lesbian and Gay Issues Group of the Donors Forum of Chicago, which is a regional association of grant-makers. She is a current board member of the national Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues and is an executive committee member of Chicago Latinos in Philanthropy. She received a master-of-arts degree from the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration in 1998. In 1997, Cardona received a Leadership Award for Community Service from Chicago's Association of Latin Men for Action (ALMA). In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois presented her one of its annual John R. Hammell Awards for her work in the LGBT community.

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What is Amigas Latinas, and what need did it meet for Chicago area Latinas?

Amigas Latinas is a support, education and advocacy organization that provides safe spaces, educational opportunities and resources for Latina women who love and partner with women to explore, challenge and celebrate who they are as women, as mothers, as daughters, as comadres.

The need we fill is both to offer space for women to understand and explore their lives at the intersection of their identities - Latina and woman-loving-woman at the same time to just be in the same space as other women like themselves, speaking the same language and sharing
the same culture.

Can you talk about its constituency and the ways the organization is representational? What kind of outreach does Amigas do to meet its goals? Platicas? Events? Socials?

Our membership is close to 300 women from all Latina cultures and all ages. Our diversity spans the range from third-generation, monolingual English speakers to recently-arrived, monolingual Spanish immigrant women. Many are newly out, many have been out for years and years and seek us out for the friendships and affinity we provide. About a third have children from previous heterosexual marriages, some are still in heterosexual marriages, some have disclosed issues of domestic violence and struggles with alcohol/substance abuse.

In the past several years, we have seen a 50% increase in the number of immigrant monolingual Spanish-speaking women seeking services that are non-existent due to a chronic lack of bilingual, bicultural service providers that are sensitive to sexual identity issues.

We mail to our membership of nearly 300 once to twice a month to advertise our monthly platicas, workshops and events, we have a listserve with about 200 women on it that is a great way to advertise quickly and broadly. Our web site is increasingly becoming a way for women to find us, too. We also advertise somewhat in the gay rags especially around special events, but we rely a lot on word of mouth. We have linkages with other lgbt organizations and are present at public events be it LGBT or Latino events to ensure the Latinaqueer voice is heard.

Aside from social contact and support, what kind of community building is Amigas involved with in both the Latino and LGBT community?

We spearheaded the development of the Chicago LGBTQ Immigrants Alliance (CLIA) to look at the challenges, myths and realities that arise at the intersection of queer and immigration issues. (We're planning a town hall for CLIA on June 12). We also helped create Entre Familia, the first Spanish-speaking PFLAG in the Chicago area. It's been meeting for three years. We partner with ALMA ( a gay Latino men 's affinity group) to do that work. We also partnered with Center on Halsted to start the first Latinaqueer youth group that meets monthly at the Center's facilities.

This January we launched our Proyecto Latina survey to gather information about who we are and what our needs, dreams and challenges are. That data will be used to inform our future work mobilizing the Latinaqueer community to inform and challenge policyholders and legislators to respond to and improve our lives.

Our biggest non-queer partnership is with Mujeres Latinas en Accion (a social service/anti- domestic violence organization) and we have annually provided trainings and education sessions to help their staff better serve Latinaqueer victims/survivors of domestic violence.

Talk in depth about the organization's scholarship activities and it's significance.

In 1999, Amigas launched the Aixa Diaz Scholarship Fund in memory of founding member, Aixa Diaz, who brought vision and commitment to the Latina lesbian/bisexual community through her organizing efforts, and knowledge and encouragement to Latino children through her dedication as a teacher. Over the last 7 years we have raised money to provide financial assistance to a young, lesbian/bisexual student activist of Latina heritage entering or enrolled in college who actively works to fight homophobia in high schools. Awards have also been given to gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in high schools with large Latino student populations and to the Mozart Elementary School where Aixa taught first grade, served on the Local School Council and was the Chicago Teachers Union delegate.

This work reflects the commitment Amigas has to education as a means of empowering women. We have awarded 12 scholarships ($1,000 - $2,000) to date and will award 3-4 scholarships this June. Our biggest success with the scholarships was last year when we brought on a 2004 Aixa Scholar, Zaida Sanabia, to head up our youth group efforts. She has been a wonderful addition to the Amigas family and is doing excellent work reaching out to Latinaqueer youth.

There are been much invisibility in the Latino community for women who love women. How would you describe the importance of LGBT reality to our people.

Amigas is built on the philosophy that as Latinas who love and partner with women we cannot separate our identities and often are asked to do just that throughout our lives. Coming out is a life-long process and being able to successfully blend our identities to live as healthy and complete persons in our families, work environments and communities is the reality we strive for with every activity we provide. As our vision statement proclaims we "celebrate our lives with pride and acceptance, without boundaries or limitations, fearlessly and unapologetically."

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Take a look a some photos from Amiga's events!

Amigas 11th Anniversary celebration

Aixa Diaz Scholarship Dinner invitation

Proyecto Latina Survey



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Other News:

Tianguis books|libros 2003 S. Damen Chicago, IL 60608 www.tianguis.biz

About Proyecto Latina

Proyecto Latina is a collaborative between Teatro Luna, Tianguis, and Mariposa Atomica Ink. We are excited about showcasing Latina talent and are always seeking outgoing Latina poets and performers for our monthly open mic series. Proyecto Latina takes place the third Monday of every month. Its an open mic so everything's game: Poetry, spoken word, music, monologues, shorts y en el idioma que prefieras. And if you're too shy to get on stage come and be one of the lucky spectators.

Proyecto Latina -- Recent and upcoming performers/2007 Calendar --- Mondays at 7 p.m.

January 15th: Diane Herrera
February 19th: Luna Blues Machine
March 19th: Silvia Rivera
April 16th: Sylvia Manrique
May 20th: Paloma Martinez-Cruz
June 18th: Lisa Alvarado.........it's shameless self promotion, forgive me.

...more dates coming soon...


And, again, DO NOT MISS THIS READING:

Please join PAGE in welcoming three outstanding writers
to our last reading of the season:

MIN JIN LEE
Free Food for Millionaires
(Warner)

MANUEL MUÑOZ
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
(Algonquin)

and

HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES
Their Dogs Came with Them
(Atria)

*

Thursday, June 14, 2007
7:00 p.m.
The National Arts Club

free and open to the public
open bar and refreshments
books sold at a discount
jacket requested

*

The National Arts Club * 15 Gramercy Park South * NYC 10003
PAGE is directed by Fran Gordon and Wah-Ming Chang.

For more information,
please e-mail pageseries@gmail.com
or go to
http://pageseries.wordpress.com.

*

Lisa Alvarado

JUNE 14: LAST DAY OF CHICANO ART EXHIBIT AT LOST SOULS CAFÉ IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES!

Lost Souls Café
124 W. 4th St.

(down the alley)
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Special Event:
May 5th, 2007 - June 14th, 2007
Chicano Art Exhibition: Tribute to Revolutionary Artists
For more information, click here

apres l'apocalypse...

Review: The Road. Cormac McCarthy. NY: Randon House, 2006.
ISBN: 978-0-307-26543-2 (0-307-26543-9)

and a few announcements

Michael Sedano


If Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road were a short story, it would be among the best. Father and son journey through alien lands on a mission. The atmosphere leaks black soot like a gentle rain from Hell. Some cataclysm burned the land, emptied the cities. All but a savage handful have left behind their dead where they fell. The pair, who call themselves “the good guys,” push a grocery cart of food along deserted highways, wary for “the bad guys.” Ten miles a day, from somewhere along the Atlantic seaboard to perhaps what would have been Mexico, or Miami.

McCarthy loads this adventure yarn with a powerful moral hook. The father still grieves for his dead wife, the boy trudges on stonily, but like any, looking to dad for guidance. Encounters with depraved locals qualify as pure horror writing, some of which is definitely not for young children or the squeamish. Beware of a scene—the author telegraphs it so the cautious reader can skip past—when the father and son come upon an abandoned meal.

If you’ve ever been hopelessly cold you’ll be glad McCarthy’s synaesthesia falls short. I hate the cold. The cold, and the ever-present danger, wear on readers as much for the tension as the repetitiveness. The cold because it’s the least believable part of the characters’ experience. Despite rain, snow, being caught in open territory, the pair always escape getting soaked and die from hypothermia. When they get wet, their luck holds out and they find a structure with a fireplace and enough wood to build fires. Invariably they’ll find a can of peaches or some other foodstuffs that passed notice through recent history.

Despite their momentary invincibility, readers will pull for the father and son. The boy carries toys with him in the cart, and he’s not sure he can shoot himself through the mouth to prevent his capture by the savages. Their monosyllabic exchanges give the relationship between son and father a feral nature. Still, it’s a father raising his son to do his best with whatever they have, a few grains of alfalfa seed for a meal, or the luxury of wizened apples that escaped the fires that flattened Georgia.

I usually resist reading jacket blurbs but one stood out when I picked up my copy at Costco:

A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.

“Postapocalyptic” caught my eye cause it’s the word that comes to mind when I think of the landscape of Waiting for Godot, which always struck me as post something, but still, lofty company. Several titles suggest themselves as masterpieces of the postapocalyptic, setting the bar high for that bit of backcover hyperbole. Of the four that come immediately to mind, I rank The Road as fifth.

In the 1950s, we used to worry about nuclear war and spreading clouds of radiation. The last safe place on earth, the myth went, would be Australia. That was the postapocalypse that moved readers to On the Beach by Nevil Shute. The Disappearance by Philip Wylie splits the world into mirror dimensions, one for women one for men. The women learn to make do among nations. At the novel’s end, the men are launching nuclear missiles at each other’s land masses. Something went wrong with the world and civilization and people live in the forests outside where there used to be cities, in Oryx and Krake, Margaret Attwood’s venture in the post apocalyptic. Finally, to my mind, Lord of the Flies by William Golding sprang to mind as a classic of the postapocalyptic list, the abandoned boys dancing madly around the fire. McCarthy finds himself in good company.


from Alex Espinoza:

I wanted to alert you of an upcoming event I have scheduled in the Denver area. I'll be appearing at the LIGHTHOUSE LIT FEST's second annual SUMMER LITERAY FESTIVAL. My event, a literary salon and discussion on the topic, "The Exotic in Fiction: Finding Your Yoknapatawpha” will be on June 16 at 7:00 PM at the Tattered Cover in LoDo. Do you think you can make mention of it on LaBloga?



Please join PAGE in welcoming three outstanding writers
to our last reading of the season:


MIN JIN LEE
Free Food for Millionaires
(Warner)

MANUEL MUÑOZ
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
(Algonquin)

and

HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES
Their Dogs Came with Them
(Atria)

*

Thursday, June 14, 2007
7:00 p.m.
The National Arts Club

free and open to the public
open bar and refreshments
books sold at a discount
jacket requested

*

The National Arts Club * 15 Gramercy Park South * NYC 10003
PAGE is directed by Fran Gordon and Wah-Ming Chang.

For more information,
please e-mail pageseries@gmail.com
or go to
http://pageseries.wordpress.com/

*


Blogmeister's reminder guest columnists find warm welcome at La Bloga. Send your ideas, columns to a Bloguero Bloguera for inclusion on their regular day. Or click here.



Here we are, Tuesday, May 12, 2007. A day like any other day, except you were there. Say goodnight Gracie. Goodnight Gracie.

mvs

INTERVIEW WITH MYRIAM GURBA

Myriam Gurba is a high school teacher who lives in Long Beach, California, home of Snoop Dogg and the Queen Mary (as she gamely notes). She graduated from UC Berkeley, and her writing has appeared in anthologies such as The Best American Erotica (St. Martin's Press), Bottom's Up (Soft Skull Press), Secrets and Confidences (Seal Press), and Tough Girls (Black Books). Gurba’s first book is Dahlia Season (Manic D Press), a collection of short stories and a novella.

Gurba kindly agreed to answer a few questions for La Bloga:

DANIEL OLIVAS: In your heartbreaking story, "Cruising," a teenage girl dresses in male clothing to cruise the pier and public restrooms in Long Beach along side gay men looking for anonymous sex. When she finally hooks up with a young man and the tryst fails, as it must, she runs away and blames herself: "I had spoiled everything. I ruined it by being myself, by being a girl." This guilt for simply being herself is something that runs through many of your stories. Can you speak a bit to the issue of guilt and how it affects the lives of your protagonists?

MYRIAM GURBA: I hadn't thought about the thematic guilt that runs through my stories, but now that you mention it, I see it very clearly. The narrator of "Cruising" is very mysterious to me and while this character is definitely female-bodied, this person ultimately seems transgendered to me. The guilt experienced by the narrator erupts from physical frustration, being trapped by a body that limits and can't fully express its chameleon self. All my characters have physical circumstances that limit them and they somehow feel responsibility for that although they really have no reason to. I think that this guilt, a guilt experienced by people who feel that their bodies are beyond their control, is part of our unique existential quandry. It's something I've definitely struggled with as a person with Tourette's. I've felt like my body's disobedience is a betrayal that I have to fix and assume responsiblity for. Guilt is such a physical thing.

OLIVAS: The character of Desiree Garcia in the title novella uses a mordant wit to deal with her Tourette 's syndrome and OCD. This humor is what keeps the story from falling into bathos. How do you decide which characters will be armed with such humor, and who will not?

GURBA: I knew that if I was going to explore morbid and violent obsessions, I'd have to do so with a spoonful of sugar. Humor became that in the case of Desiree. OCD lends itself very easily to comic writing, but Desiree's unique symptoms are pretty horrifying to her and I didn't want to minimize that by slathering on the laughs. Other OCD and Tourette's memoirs I've read have been really funny, playing up the silliness of sufferer's compulsions, but I had to pay respect to Desiree's nightmare and exercise caution when it came to timing the funny stuff.

OLIVAS: Sex scenes are notoriously difficult to write. Indeed, at least one award is given annually to the worst literary sex scene. But your story "Primera Comunión" has one of the most powerful and honest sex scenes I've read in a long time. Did you hesitate doing such a scene? Was it difficult to write?

GURBA: When writing that scene, I really was inspired by bravery and strength, very macho bravery and strength. I didn't set out to write such a raw sex scene. I had a character in mind, an intensely butch Chicana gangsta. When I was barely, like, thirteen, some white girls made fun of me for being a lesbian. Even then, it was apparent that I was a homo. This gangsta prima of mine who staying with us for the summer shushed these gabachas by telling this scary yet awesome story of a female cholo bad ass vato who nobody denied respect to and it inspired me and comforted me. I was thinking of this cholo when I wrote "Primera Comunión," honoring that vato loco. That mysterious g has served as my muse more than once.

OLIVAS: Why did you become a writer?

GURBA: I decided that I wanted to write my senior year of high school. I was in love with all things Sylvia Plath and put myself on a strict writing schedule like I read she'd been. I filled so many notebooks with writing, but then when my OCD got really bad, I stopped writing. This break lasted throughout my first years at Berkeley. Then, on a lark, I took a class on porn. There were all these writing exercises we got assigned which got me writing again. I started to write a lot about sex and got an intership at On Our Backs, a lesbian pornographic magazine. Since I was in this sex rich environment, my stories reflected that. After I left San Francisco for Long Beach, a lot of sex left my stories. I didn't quit writing, though. I just started to write more about myself and explore other themes.

OLIVAS: How did you and Manic D Press get together?

GURBA: In a weird way. Kevin Sampsell, the publisher of Portland based micropress Future Tense, asked me to submit some stories to Spork, a literary journal he was editing. He liked what I sent and asked if I had more. I did and sent it to him. Kevin responded that he does a yearly imprint through Manic D Press and that he wanted to publish my work as a collection. I'm pretty darn lucky to have an offer like that fall in my lap.

OLIVAS: What is your writing routine like?

GURBA: Pretty hectic these days. I teach high school so I try to get up around 5 am and write till I have to leave for school. Weekends I give myself a longer time.

OLIVAS: Do you have any mentors?

GURBA: Kevin, my co-publisher and editor though Future Tense, has really helped guide me through the publication process. He has been such an inspirational doll. Bett Williams is a new bud but she's been very supportive and nurturing of me, too.

OLIVAS: What are you reading these days? Any recommendations?

GURBA: Right now, I'm reading Felicia Luna Lemus' novel Like Son. I'm also waaaay into Trinie Dalton, author of wide-eyed. She writes these borderline psychedelic pieces with animals and mythic creatures. I'm re-reading Ali Liebegott's The Beautifully Worthless, this genre busting ballad sung to a lonesome America. I plan on reading some of Cookie Mueller's stuff, too. She was one of the Dreamlanders, one of John Waters' actresses.

OLIVAS: Any advice for beginning writers?

GURBA: Write. Write, write, write. Don't be afraid to write about yourself. Don't think you need the most epic, adventurous life ever to write and that you need to mine your imagination for these crazy yarns. Tell your stories. Tell your everyday stories. There's plenty of fodder there.

OLIVAS: What are you writing right now?

GURBA: Right now I'm working on a graphic novel about how living creatures, human and non-, communicate love. Interconnected shorts featuring people, rabbits, and other animals are currently being sculpted into this piece.

[Note: Myriam Gurba will be reading this Sunday one of L.A.’s hippest reading series. Click here for details.]

◙ I recently asked Francisco Aragón to write a short piece on Letras Latinas’ foray into the blogosphere and he kindly did so. Here it is:

Joining the Blogoshpere: Letras Latinas
by Francisco Aragón

Daniel Olivas suggested I write a short piece introducing Letras Latinas' weblog. And that's part of the point, really: the Internet, for all its limitations, has afforded us the opportunity to forge different types of communities--even ones made up of two individuals (Daniel and myself) who haven't had the pleasure of sitting across a table to break bread, say, or have a drink, but who have, thanks to the Internet, connected in meaningful ways.

Like a number people I know, I've been on the sidelines these past few years, where weblogs are concerned. My former reluctance reminds me of people (artist and non-artist alike) I've met over the years who state, almost like a badge of honor, that they don't own a television, or waste time on the cinema ("It's all crap"). It continues to amuse me, this "stance."

There is a certain risk and vulnerability to writing a weblog. In the end, it's one more tool. Nothing more, nothing less. In the past, I've relied on sending notes to, say, Daniel and Eduardo C. Corral, to let the "blogosphere" know about this or that. As I continue to deepen my involvement with Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, it seemed finally the time to use this additional tool "to get the word out" and better carry out Letras Latinas' mission--especially among those who are interested in Chicano/Latino literature and Chicano/Latino writers. Hence, this brief piece for La Bloga, one of my role models.

I'm calling the weblog, right now, Latino Poetry Review (LPR), as a form of advance publicity for an online journal Letras Latinas is launching in January of 2008. Anyone want to know more about LPR and/or Letras Latinas? Write to me, or have a peek at my posts from May. Or, better yet, suscribe to:

http://latinopoetryreview.blogspot.com/

Gracias,
Francisco Aragón
Director, Letras Latinas
Institute for Latino Studies
University of Notre Dame

[Note: PoetryFoundation recently noted Aragón’s Web project.]

◙ A little note from Daniel Alarcón, author of Lost City Radio (HarperCollins):

Etiqueta Negra, the Peruvian magazine I help edit, is launching its new website. Soonish. And while it's not yet operational, there is some progress to report. Pdf's of our most recent issues are now available online. Check it out: www.etiquetanegra.com.pe.

◙ With the recent bloodletting at the Los Angeles Times (such as the ouster of Al Martinez), many fine writers and editors have been let go. One of them is Mary Ellen Walker, former creator and editor of the Kids’ Reading Room. I had the opportunity of working with Mary Ellen as she edited and published several of my children’s stories. In any event, she is a fine editor, is bilingual (Spanish), and loved her work at the Times. So, if you work for a magazine or book publisher and you’re looking for someone with Mary Ellen’s experience and talents, feel free to email her.

◙ Lectura Books received Second Place for Graciela’s Dream in Best Young Adult Fiction – Bilingual, and Honorable Mention for Teo and the Brick for Best Educational Children's Book – Bilingual, at the Latino Book Awards.

◙ RealPoetik will be reading submissions of poetry (and microprose) for the month of June. The editors say: “We read and love all schools and styles: just make them good.” Since 1996, RealPoetik has delivered a poem (or more) weekly to 1000+ newsletter subscribers, including (in the last year) Bill Knott, Ilya Kaminsky, Sawako Nakayasu, Mathias Svalina, Sharon Dolin, Rebecca Loudon, Miguel Murphy, Amy King, Carmen Firan, Mairead Byrne, Tomas Ekstrom, The Pines, jeroen nieuwland, C. Dale Young, Noah Eli Gordon, Jose Luis Peixoto, and many many others. Find RealPoetik online at http://realpoetik.blogspot.com/. To submit, send 3-5 poems and a brief bio to realpoetikblog@gmail.com.

◙ Though I’ve written for The Jewish Journal before, my first book review appears in this week’s edition. It’s a review of The Diary of Petr Ginz (Atlantic Monthly Press). Take a peek. In a similar vein, Ramón Rentería, book editor for the El Paso Times, reviews a fascinating new book, Lone Stars of David: The Jews of Texas (Brandeis University Press), which notes that many Holocaust survivors settled in El Paso, a city which still boasts a strong Jewish community. “One of the most inspiring stories [recounted in the book is] that of Holocaust survivor Henry Kellen, founder of the El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center.”

◙ Also at the El Paso Times, Rigoberto González gives a mixed review of Cristina García’s latest novel, A Handbook to Luck (Knopf). CaliforniaAuthors posts an interesting interview with García.

◙ All done. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro! --Daniel Olivas

Triple Threat Reading!

Please join PAGE in welcoming three outstanding writers
to our last reading of the season:

MIN JIN LEE
Free Food for Millionaires
(Warner)

MANUEL MUÑOZ
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
(Algonquin)

and

HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES
Their Dogs Came with Them
(Atria)

*

Thursday, June 14, 2007
7:00 p.m.
The National Arts Club

free and open to the public
open bar and refreshments
books sold at a discount
jacket requested

*

The National Arts Club * 15 Gramercy Park South * NYC 10003
PAGE is directed by Fran Gordon and Wah-Ming Chang.

For more information,
please e-mail pageseries@gmail.com
or go to
http://pageseries.wordpress.com.

*

Don't miss this, East Coast Contigent!

From the Acentos crew.

Tuesday, June 12th @ 7pm
ACENTOS Bronx Poetry Showcase, in association with Curbstone Press, Book Release Party for TEETH, by Aracelis Girmay

With an introduction of the author by Martín Espada, along with readings by Ms. Girmay and invited guests Ross Gay, Patrick Rosal, Samantha Thornhill, Rachel Griffiths, a group of Aracelis' students,and many more! AND...throughout the night, copies of the book will beavailable for purchase, courtesy of Curbstone Press!

Aracelis Girmay writes poetry, fiction, and essays. Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Salt, Bellevue Literary Review, Indiana Review, Callaloo, and MiPoesias, among others. Her first collection of poems, TEETH, is available from Curbstone Press, and her picture book CHANGING, CHANGING was published by George Braziller in 2005. Girmay teaches community writing workshops in New York and her native California.

The Bruckner Bar and Grill
1 Bruckner Boulevard (Corner of 3rd Ave)
6 Train to 138th Street Station
Hosted by Rich Villar
FREE! ($5 Suggested Donation)

Coming from MANHATTAN:
At the 138th Street Station, exit the train to your left, by the last car on the 6.Go up the stairs, to your right, to exit at LINCOLN AVENUE. Walk down Lincoln to Bruckner Blvd, turn right on Bruckner. Walk past the bike shop. The Bruckner Bar and Grill is at the corner: One Bruckner Blvd., right next to the Third Avenue Bridge.

Coming from THE BRONX:

By Train: At the 138th Street Station, exit to your RIGHT, by the FIRST car on the 6. Go up the stairs, to your right, to exit at LINCOLN AVENUE. Walk down Lincoln to Bruckner Blvd, turn right on Bruckner. Walk alongside the bridge, past the bike shop. The Bruckner Bar and Grill is at the corner: One Bruckner Blvd., right next to the Third Avenue Bridge.

By Bus: Bx15 to Lincoln Ave. and Bruckner Blvd. Walk one block west, past the bike shop, to the Bruckner Bar and Grill.Bx1, Bx21, Bx32 to 138th and 3rd Ave. Walk five blocks south along the left side of 3rd Avenue to the end (Bruckner and 3rd). The Bruckner Bar and Grill will be on the corner.

For more information, please call 845-598-8654.

Writing for Children's Magazine

René Colato Laínez



If you have an article, short story, poem or recipe and want it to be publish in a children's magazine, you can submit it to Highlights for Children. Highlights is the best magazine for children in the United States.


HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN
Current Needs
Spring/Summer 2007

FICTION CATEGORIES
Fiction for Young Readers (readers ages 2 to 7) up to 500 words, Marileta Robinson, Senior Editor
No current special needs.

Fiction for 8- to 12-year-olds (readers ages 8 to 12) up to 800 words, Joëlle Dujardin, Associate Editor

• Holiday stories (but not necessarily Christmas), especially Valentine's Day (not sappy) and Halloween (not scary)
• Humorous stories
• Historical fiction about little-covered time periods
• Multicultural pieces

NONFICTION CATEGORIES
Younger Nonfiction (readers ages 2 to 7) up to 500 words, Joëlle Dujardin
Younger nonfiction should be written for readers ages 4 to 8 and should not exceed 450 words. All articles should have a clear focus and relevance to young kids.

• First-person accounts of fieldwork
• Photo Essays
• Arts Stories
• Accessible Biographies of key historical figures
• Kids living in various cultures
• Ancient history
• High-interest animals
• Details from urban life (workers, transportation, etc.).

Science, 800 words (two-page features), 400 words (one-page features), 50 words (activities) Andy Boyles, Science Editor

• Features about kids involved in science
• Scientists studying high-interest animals in their natural habitats
• Short, quick, easy, fun science activities

History/World Cultures, up to 800 words, Carolyn Yoder, Senior Editor

• Fun, humorous, kid-friendly articles
• Presidential (NOT Washington and Lincoln) and patriotic pieces
• Need anecdotal articles, rather than broad interviews
• American holidays, specifically Thanksgiving.
• World cultures pieces. No need for India, but everywhere else. We want intimate snapshots of life in another country.

Adventure, up to 800 words, Kim Griswell, Coordinating Editor
Adventure articles that bring the reader in and let him/her come along for the adventure. Rather than telling kids "I went here and wasn't it grand" the best articles share the adventure.

Arts, up to 800 words, Kim Griswell, Coordinating Editor

• Need more contemporary articles with high kid-appeal. A fresh, focused slant rather than overviews.
• No need for "classic" arts articles, especially bios of famous artists.

Sports, up to 800 words, Judy Burke, Managing Editor

• Sports "how-to" pieces (except how to dive, how to shoot a basketball, and how to throw a football). Each article should be reviewed by an expert before submission.
• Contemporary female-athlete bios. It helps when the author interviews the subject for these.
• No need for baseball biographies or track-and-field biographies right now.

Economics/Personal Finance, up to 800 words, Kim Griswell, Coordinating Editor
Articles that address economics or personal finance at a kid's level.

Gallant Kids, up to 400 words, Kim Griswell, Coordinating Editor
Articles about a kid or kids who are serving others in some special way. Articles must be about unique, interesting, kid-generated projects. The idea is that when kids serve others, they are being their "best selves."

Full-page Activities, up to 400 words, Linda Rose, Assistant Editor

• 300-Word Activities of all kinds, appealing to a wide age range whenever possible.
• Indoor and outdoor games that involve exercise, creativity, and/or humor
• Activities and games that kids can do whether they're on their own or with others
• Some cooperative games (we publish both cooperative and competitive games, but receive more submissions of the latter)
• Projects that will result in a new hobby or skill and/or a quality finished product
• Magic tricks
• Activities to get children outdoors, moving around, or creating.

We prefer activities that do not require parental supervision or materials kids aren't likely to have handy.

• Picture Puzzlers Take a look at several recent issues to see the kind of puzzle we try to present here.
• A large visual puzzle with little text, offering our readers an entertaining and visually interesting puzzle activity. Art need not be supplied with the manuscript, but basic sketches showing your idea or detailed art/photo suggestions are helpful.
• We need fresh manuscripts/ideas for this page that we haven't already done.
• We need more ideas with more than one thing going on.
• A big visual puzzle with activities here and there on the page.
• Original board games that are visually interesting and can be played on the page are also welcome!

(Picture Puzzlers should not require readers to write in the magazine.)

Puzzles, Games, Recipes, Other Short Activities, Tiffany Hoffman, Editorial
Needs for Mixed Pages include:

• Art activities
• Activities with a sporty theme
• World culture activities; holiday games
• Geography-based activities
• History puzzles/activities
• Sequencing activities
• Recipes
• Code activities

We have very little need for logic puzzles and word games at this time.
Any activities that easily lend themselves to strong visuals are a huge plus!

Crafts, Tiffany Hoffman, Editorial

• Multicultural crafts (general or holiday-specific)
• Crafts that encourage play (musical instruments, costumes, etc.)
• Crafts with direct boy appeal
• Seasonal crafts (general autumn and winter activities?we have enough snowmen)
• Gifts, usable crafts (we have enough picture frames and cards)
• Crafts for all holidays, specifically non-Christian holidays (we have enough wreaths, Santas, Thanksgiving turkeys, and Christmas crafts)
• Fourth of July and summer crafts

Please send a photo or actual sample of the craft. A drawing doesn't really provide enough information.

Send submissions to
Highlights for Children
803 Church Street
Honesdale, PA 18431

A Writing Challenge

Manuel Ramos

I've tried different experiments here on La Bloga, usually to no effect. My crossword puzzle being a prime example. I got absolutely no response to that. In any event, I'm still trying to come up with something new for the folks who check out this column on Friday, a relatively low traffic day for La Bloga. Here's my latest wild hair: I give you the first page of a story, and you give me (and the readers of La Bloga) the rest. Send me your finish to the following and I just might publish it. I'm the judge, jury and executioner, so there is no mercy, but if you give me something that moves me, you're in, and you get all the fame and fortune that La Bloga can provide, plus you exercise your writing chops. This challenge goes out to my comrades here on La Bloga, too. And if you don't like this beginning, hey, change it, re-arrange it, let's see what you got. Send your stories to me at labloga@aol.com.

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The cold wind mercilessly whipped the old house. An occasional groan from stressed rafters carried through the high, dusty rooms. Loose windows rattled rhythmically. When the rain started to fall the roof surrendered and muddy, greasy water puddled on the floors.

I closed the blanket tighter around my shoulders and shivered by the smoky fireplace. The fire was slow and lazy and eager to die but I stoked it back to life with old newspapers and magazines. The stacks of yellowed pieces of paper had surprised me. My grandmother had always loved to read, in Spanish and English, and the fifty years that she had lived in the house were more than enough to stash, pile up, stow away, collect.

I thought I wanted to hear the music of José Alfredo Jiménez or maybe Robert Johnson but neither was an option just then so I hummed Stardust and let it go at that.

The last of the tequila from under the sink was gone and I had eaten the final cold french fry from my stop at the fast food drive-through. The drive earlier that day from Denver, south on I-25 over Raton Pass, was a fading memory. I huddled in my grandmother’s abandoned ranchito in the secluded cañon in northern New Mexico and I wasn’t sure why I was there.

I reached for a mildewed, wrinkled scrapbook to add to the fire. A photograph floated through the musty air and landed near my feet. I studied it and smiled. A thousand days and nights swirled and jostled my balance. I dredged up half-eaten tamales and potatoes dipped in vinegar to cure head colds and naive boys in nylon caps that covered ringworm. I recalled blood gushing from my brother’s elbow because he had jumped over the front porch railing, and I remembered my mother’s constant grief and tears.

A shadow moved across the photo. I looked up but I was too slow.

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Later.

Luis Rodriguez y Tia Chucha -- Casting a Giant Shadow

Luis J. Rodriguez has emerged as one of the leading Chicano writers in the country with ten nationally published books in memoir, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and poetry. Luis’ poetry has won a Poetry Center Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Literary Award, and “Foreword” magazine’s Silver Book Award, among others. His two children’s books have won a Patterson Young Adult Book Award, two “Skipping Stones” Honor Award, and a Parent’s Choice Book Award, among others. A novel, Music of the Mill, was published in the spring of 2005 by Rayo/HarperCollins; a poetry collection, My Nature is Hunger: New & Selected Poems, 1989-2004, came out in the fall of 2005 from Curbstone Press/Rattle Edition.

Luis is best known for the 1993 memoir of gang life, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. An international best seller—with more than 20 printings, around 250,000 copies sold—the memoir also garnered a Carl Sandburg Literary Award, a Chicago Sun-Times Book Award, and was designated a New York Times Notable Book. Written as a cautionary tale for Luis’ then 15-year-old son Ramiro—who had joined a Chicago gang—the memoir is popular among youth and teachers. Despite this, the American Library Association in 1999 called Always Running one of the 100 most censored books in the United States. Efforts to remove his books from public school libraries and reading lists have occurred in Illinois, Michigan, Texas, and more recently in California, where the battles were quite heated.

Yet for all the controversy, Luis has gained the respect of the literary community. In addition to the above honors, he has received a Sundance Institute Art Writers Fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, a Lannan Fellowship for Poetry, an Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature, a National Association for Poetry Therapy Public Service Award, a California Arts Council Fellowship, an Illinois Author of the Year Award, several Illinois Arts Council fellowships, the 2001Premio Fronterizo, and “Unsung Heroes of Compassion” Award, presented by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Luis is also known for helping start a number of prominent organizations—such as Chicago’s Guild Complex, one of the largest literary arts organizations in the Midwest, and the publishing house of Tia Chucha Press. He is also one of the founders of Youth Struggling for Survival, a Chicago-based not-for-profit community group working with gang and nongang youth. He helped start Rock A Mole (rhymes with guacamole) Productions, which produces music/arts festivals, CDs, and film in Los Angeles. And he is a cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Café & Centro Cultural—a bookstore, coffee shop, performance space, art gallery, and workshop center that opened in December 2001 in the Northeast San Fernando Valley.

On top of this, Luis has spent some twenty five years conducting workshops, readings, and talks in prisons, juvenile facilities, homeless shelters, migrant camps, universities, public and private schools, conferences, Native American reservations, and men’s retreats throughout the United States. He has also traveled to Canada, Europe, Mexico, Central America, and Puerto Rico doing similar work among disaffected populations. In addition, he’s editor of the new Chicano online magazine, Xispas.com.

Luis has been part of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation’s Men’s Conferences since 1994 with Mosaic founder Michael Meade, healer Orland Bishop, West African teacher-elder Malidoma Somé and American Buddhist Jack Kornfield. At these conferences, the complex but vital issues of race, class, gender, and personal rage are addressed with dialogue, ritual, story, poetry, and art involving men of all walks of life, including those in urban street gangs. He also created a CD of original music and his poems called “My Name’s Not Rodriguez” for Dos Manos Records, released in the summer of 2002.

Luis’ work has also been widely anthologized, including in Letters of a Nation: A Collection of Extraordinary American Letters (1997 Broadway Books/Kodansha American), and most recently in the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (1999 Thunder’s Mouth Press) and Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (2001 Three Rivers Press). His poems and articles have appeared in college and high school textbooks throughout the United States and Europe. He has done radio productions and writing for LA’s KPFK-FM, California Public Radio as well as Chicago’s WMAQ-AM’s All-News radio and WBEZ-FM. And his writings have appeared over the last twenty-five years in The Nation, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, LA Weekly, Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, American Poetry Review, San Jose Mercury, Grand Street, Utne Reader, Prison Life, Progressive Magazine, Rock & Rap Confidential, among others. In 2005, he was asked to become a contributing writer to the LA Times' “West” magazine.

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For those people not in the loop, recap for us the recent changes that you and Tia Chucha Cultural Center have faced?

In February, we were forced to move out of our space in Sylmar, CA (in the Northeast San Fernando Valley -- the second largest Mexican community in Los Angeles) when the landlords almost tripled our rent--they wanted to bring in a multi-million dollar laundry services. This was a terrible setback--we had been in that space for over five years and had amazing events there. We were also the only bookstore and cultural space for the 500,000 people who live in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. However, we did not give up. Our last event in the old space became a major fundraiser--we raised $10,000 and around 600 people showed up that day.

We also found a new place in Lake View Terrace, about 10 minutes from our old location. We are now fully operational with workshops, regular events, and author readings. We have also maintained the bookstore and Tia Chucha Press. Unfortunately, the new space is much smaller and we don't have our cafe. However, we are in negotiations with the city and developers--as part of a Community Benefits Agreement--to try and get a new Tia Chucha's in the barrio of Pacoima. Even if we succeed, it will be three to four years down the line--but it will also be a much bigger, better, and more permanent Tia Chucha's. Our major fundraiser for the year will be held on July 29 from 6 to 8 PM at the Ford Amphitheater in Hollywood. We plan to fill the 1200 seats of this theater. For more information and to obtain tickets, please go to www.tiachucha.com.

How would you describe the significance of the Center in regard to Latino literacy, community access to the arts, and visibility for Latino arts in the current anti-immigrant climate.

We are losing neighborhood arts spaces throughout the LA area--and in most major cities of the country. LA is concentrating the arts west of downtown, Hollywood and certain gallery districts. But in most local neighborhoods, especially in poor Mexican and African American communities, there are no bookstores, art galleries, or cultural spaces. Tia Chucha's was an important contribution to bringing the arts back to the barrio, to the neighborhood, to areas that are rife with poverty, gangs, drugs, and unemployment. We have found that the arts--music, painting, dance, theater, film, writing, and more--are vital to community spirit, economic development, and social health. This is why we have decided to continue our mission and to find a larger space for our programming, books, and workshops. In particular, we have created a space where immigrants can feel at home, can gain skills and knowledge, and can express themselves. Our Noche Bohemias, a weekly mostly Spanish-speaking open mic for guitarists, poets, and singers, is one of our most popular evenings at Tia Chucha's. And our dialogues and films on the issues of the day help bring consciousness and strategic awareness to this vulnerable and repeatedly attacked community.

Speaking of the term currently in use, 'anti-immigrant,' I personally feel it's code for 'anti-Mexican.' I don't see a groundswell of media coverage, for example on Polish, Irish or Serbian immigrants without papers. Could you comment?

Yes, it's based on the fact that Mexicans are the heart of the least paid and most exploited sections of the working class in this country. Mexicans have come to this country due to the dire poverty and hunger in Mexico. People don't realize that the GNP of Los Angeles is greater than all of Mexico. That the 10 million Mexican nationals in the US make more money than all of the 100 million still in Mexico. The fact we are people of color--mostly indigenous to this land--and that we have a long history of conquest and colonialism with the US also informs our special status among immigrants today. This is not to say that other immigrants won't be affected by any upcoming immigration law, or that they are not organizing and protesting the anti-immigrant sentiments and actions along with Mexicans. We all benefit if a humane, holistic, and truly encompassing immigration policy gets enacted in this country. Right now, neither the Democrats or Republicans know what to do with this issue. We're going to need the help of other immigrants, and citizens as well, if we are to move beyond the narrow-minded, xenophobic, anti-Mexican hysteria gripping parts of this country and some lawmakers.

You have a long history focusing on youth, youth in the arts, etc. What is your take on the artist's role concerning the lack of options for our young people? What response do you feel is necessary, given that lack and the ever-present recruitment of our young men and women into the military?

The arts are the most effective and meaningful way to deal with violence, alienation, disaffection, and a lack of hope--these are all plaguing young people today. While I don't have a gang-focus program at Tia Chucha's, I know that we are helping many gang (and much more nongang) youth. They find books they cannot get anywhere else. They get to see films, participate in dialogues, obtain skills in all the arts and various media, express themselves in Open Mics and other outlets at Tia Chucha's. This empowers them. It allows them to tap into the inexhaustible creative power they all possess. It helps them see themselves as agents of change with the power to shape their own destinies and futures. We need more imaginative options for young people. Too many of them join gangs, get into drugs, or join the military because there are few other choices to make. We need real resources and real relationships to help young people become what they are capable of becoming--the greatest resource for change, justice, and real peace we have today.

You and I are both at midlife. How has that influenced your world view, your priorities? Describe its impact on you not only as a writer and activist, but as a family man.

I have learned to value learning and change in my life. Too many of us "olders" don't get to become elders because we have become stuck with emotional, psychological, and social baggage. I feel I am entering a phase of my life that requires that I give back, that I teach, that I help others to summarize their lives and get organized.

It's not so much about what "I" need to get (whether in my career or personal life), but in the things I do and say, how I can help strengthen, guide, and positively contribute to my community. I learned, for example, to become sober after seven years of drug use and 20 years of drinking (I've been sober now for 14 years). I've learned to be a better father, especially to my youngest sons, but also with my oldest kids who suffered a lot due to my own fears, uncertainties, and failures. I don't do anything that pulls me away from family, yet I'm still quite active in the world. These have to complement and enhance each other, not take away and undermine. My writing as also changed--a lot more reflective and also conscious. I'm painfully aware of how much I can teach from my work, my actions, and my inactions.

The body of your writing, including your most recent works, Music of the Mill and My Nature is Hunger, you clearly connect with and honor not only Latindad, but working class people as well. What has it meant for you to write about the strengths, the losses and perseverance and the places where we stumble and fall?

For one thing, you still don't get to see these aspects of our culture--the Latino reality and the working class reality--in the mainstream culture. We are still "peripheral" to most film, literature, TV, radio, music, and similar outlets, although in reality we number in the millions and are part and parcel of most cities, most states, and most communities.

I feel this is also part of my contribution--to tell those stories that have not been told, or perhaps cannot be told due to what amounts to economic and social censorship, if not exactly censorship by law (more defacto than de jure). It's also important to point out that Latinos have many things that unite them, but they are also distinctly different, of all races and classes, with myriad interests. I find it hard to demand a unity with "all" Latinos unless it's clear what we mean. I love Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Colombians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and others. But they are not Mexicans. And in Mexico, there are differences depending on what state or region one came from. I also found it interesting how different Mexicans in Chicago are from those in LA. Yes, we have many things, essential things, that can unite us. And we should do that. But this should not mean that we homogenize and lose our unique flavors, tongues, expressions, and traditions.

What are some practical ways our readers can support the work of Tia Chucha?

We need people's donations and active participation. We want people to come to Tia Chucha's, to partake in the amazing workshops and events we have for the community, and to attend our outside events like the "Celebrating Words" literacy & arts festival that we hold every year in Sylmar Park--and our annual benefit event at the Ford Amphitheater in Hollywood. We need financial assistance from all over. We also hope in a few years to establish a Tia Chucha's in Chicago--we've been talking to people about this for a while now. And we need volunteers. Anyone in the LA area can help in this regard. Although Tia Chucha's started as a private business by my wife, a brother-in-law, and myself, we are now a 501 (c) 3 tax exempt non-profit organization. All funds, even through the bookstore and cafe, help us meet our mission, goals, and objectives to bring the arts to all ages in the Northeast Valley and the LA area.

Describe where you'd like to see yourself and Tia Chucha ten years from now.

I'm working on several new books, including new poetry, new fiction, and perhaps another memoir. I'm also working on a possible movie of Always Running. I hope this truly happens, although I want to make sure the authenticity and integrity of the story and people are intact. I would also like to consider some other film and stage possibilities. As for Tia Chucha's, I hope we can re-establish in Pacoima--the main barrio in the Northeast San Fernando Valley (and one of the poorest communities in LA County), but to also have one in Chicago, East LA, and perhaps some other locations. Tia Chucha's is a uniquely powerful concept that works. I'd like to help other communities achieve the same whenever possible.

And I must say, I pray that my family remains well and healthy in the years to come. My son Ramiro, who has served 10 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, will be out in four more years. I want him to be strong, safe, and out of the destructive life he was living into a healthy, wholesome, and satisfactory socially engaged and active one. I also hope I lose my unhealthy weight and stay in good shape for the long haul--I know I have so much to do, and not much time to do it all. I'm working hard now to eat right, exercise, and have a strong spiritual life for such a future.

What's something not in the official bio?

I'm now juggling work among gang youth and mentorship, including the shaping of urban peace policy, with my work in the arts; my own writing, stage, and film work; with family; and other community commitments. I've learned how to do this in a way that keeps me balanced and centered. I'm also in a strong sweat lodge circle in the Northeast Valley--something my wife. Trini, and I have been involved with since we lived in Chicago. We also do annual trips to the Navajo reservation for ceremonies (my family was adopted by a Navajo elder there many years ago), and we've added trips to sacred places like Peru to continue our spiritual growth and healing.

On top of all that I'm doing, I'm still editor of Tia Chucha Press--creating wonderful poetry collections for more than 18 years now. I'm also editor/founder of Xispas magazine, an online Chicano magazine. And I'm a regular columnist for the Progressive magazine, out of Madison, Wisconsin.

People may also not know that besides my four children (ages 32, 30, 19, and 13), I have four grandchildren, including two who are already teenagers--and older than my youngest son. I'm extremely busy, which means I don't get a chance to respond to the countless letters and emails in support of my work. For this I apologize. But I appreciate all the positive messages and stories. I may be in the middle of my life now, but things seem more vital and regenerating than I could have ever imagined.


Gracias.


No, Luis, gracias a ti.

Music of the Mill
ISBN-10: 0060560770

My Nature Is Hunger
ISBN-10: 1931896240


Lisa Alvarado

A Wonderful Kid Lit Event--Join René Colato Laínez and Others

Review: Tango for a Torturer. Daniel Chavarria.

translated by Peter Bush. NY: Akashic Books, 2007.
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-19-4

Michael Sedano

The tango is a fascinating dance requiring sure-footed twists, turns, and other intricate moves by a pair of dancers. Daniel Chavarria’s novel, Tango for a Torturer, offers the same kind of plot, filled with twists, turns and intricate moves. And, just as dancing the tango is a lot of fun, reading Tango for a Torturer likewise offers a ton of fun.

Set in Cuba at the turn of the century (2000), Chavarria reaches thirty years into the past, to the depraved policies that infected parts of South America in a series of dictatorial regimes whose accused revolutionaries and political opponents disappeared into police custody. In some cases, the children of the disappeared were adopted by their parents’ torturers. Interested readers will find a large list of titles that address the period.

If anyone deserves revenge out of that era, Chavarria posits, it’s victims of these monsters. Meet Aldo Bianchi, the victim of his own unforgettable monster, Orlando Ortega Ortiz, “Triple O.” Aldo and his wife were imprisoned and tortured by OOO. The woman was gang raped and suffered agonizing sexual torture before being killed by a cattle prod. Aldo, a wealthy man, was forced to watch. Then, Ortega humiliates and sodomizes Aldo, finally extorting a hefty chunk of money from Aldo and releases the victim.

As the regimes came crashing down, Triple O escaped behind bodyguards and his wealth. But Aldo finds “Captain Horror”, another of Ortega’s handles, and, after two failed sniper attacks, loses track of the torturer. Until one day in Havana, Aldo hears two prostitutes laughing when one of the women says a word that had been OOO’s favorite expletive. From this chance meeting, Aldo engages the whore Bini to help him track down Triple O, who calls himself Alberto Rios. Rios, a rich Argentinian businessman living in sybaritic luxury in Havana, is one of Bini’s regular customers.

Readers of Chavarria’s highly recommended first novel, Adios Muchachos, will enjoy a remarkably comedic crime caper. In Tango for a Torturer, there’s little comedy. Getting even with a torturer is deadly serious business. Every step toward the success of the plan faces tension-building obstacles. Will Rios/Ortega escape once again owing to his money, his political connections, his sheer brutality? Will Aldo’s and Bini’s luck run out? The tension builds to almost intolerable heights.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a useful reminder for book browsers. The blurb on the back cover describes Aldo and Teresita as Argentine revolutionaries. How odd, and misleading. Aldo’s bitter irony is that he and Teresa were not revolutionaries, the “legitimate” targets of the regime. Ortega insults Teresa on the street, hotheaded Aldo responds in outrage and kicks Triple O in the balls. A trained karate expert—Ortega both attended and taught at the School of the Americas and similar US military/CIA training courses—Ortega recovers quickly and thrashes Aldo before taking him and Teresa into custody. The couple’s abduction, murder, and torture occurs totally out of random coincidence, and the couple simply served for O to have a little fun.

Tango for a Torturer makes an excellent companion to other torture-themed works. I recommend reading Chavarria and two others, Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden and Lawrence Thornton’s Imagining Argentina. In Thornton’s book, a husband goes in search of his disappeared wife, in the process revealing horrors such as sexual torture and child-stealing. Dorfman’s brings a torture victim face to face with her torturer, a guest in her own home.

Peter Bush provides a highly readable translation that makes the novel’s 340 pages move swiftly. I do wonder what the Spanish phrases must be for the frequent iterations of “fuck”. There’s lots of (relatively) innocent sex and only a little gore. As a result, the squeamish reader won’t find much to avoid, yet the pruriently motivated reader won’t find a enough to slake that thirst. Everyone else will find this, and several other Akashic Books titles, exciting finds that they’ll be anxious to share with friends.

In fact, Manuel Ramos already has. See Manuel's review of Tango here.

Blogmeister's note: Rudy Garcia will rejoin La Bloga's regular contributors as our Sunday guy. Soon. Look for Rudy's byline. In the meantime, remember La Bloga always welcomes guest columnists. If you'd like to be a La Bloga contributor, click here and let me know. And, of course, La Bloga's Blogueras and Blogueros enjoy reading your commentary and feedback on what you see here. We encourage your comments on this, and all posts. See you next week! mvs

INTERVIEW WITH MARIO ACEVEDO

Mario Acevedo notes that he will never be known as a quick study in the publishing biz. One day he bought a computer to write a book and seventeen years and six manuscripts later, he finally sold his first novel. Acevedo writes a series featuring vampire private detective and Iraq War veteran Felix Gomez, featured in, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, and the recently-published X-Rated Bloodsuckers, both published by Rayo, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Acevedo kindly agreed to answer a few questions for La Bloga:

DANIEL OLIVAS: Felix Gomez has taken on a decidedly darker personality in this second installment. For example, he seems to be embracing the joys of bloodsucking on humans rather than fighting it. Why did you decide to have Felix evolve in this way?

MARIO ACEVEDO: In the first novel, Felix came to terms with the blood sucking aspect of his vampire nature. Since fanging and sucking blood are the central characteristics of a vampire, why not have him enjoy it?

OLIVAS: You set this novel in the mean streets of L.A., more specifically the porn industry of the San Fernando Valley. How did you choose this setting? Have you lived in L.A. before?

ACEVEDO: I started with the title. X-Rated Bloodsuckers. Bloodsuckers meant vampires had to be involved (as opposed to lice and ticks—not my genre). X-Rated of course implied porn. Then I had to plot a story involving the two subjects. I wanted Roxy Bronze to be a proud woman who was railroaded by her superiors and then chose a life making porn as way to provoke her enemies. The idea of a surgeon turned porn star was a compelling hook. Considering the porn angle, I set the story in the San Fernando Valley because it is the moldy bread basket of the adult industry. As a boy I used to spend summers with an aunt and cousins who lived in Pacoima. Last year I did the couch surfing thing when I researched the book and even got to tour the LA County Morgue but what I learned ended up in book three.

OLIVAS: The character of Coyote is a wonderfully odd, colorful vampire, sort of a broken down Pachuco who loves to feast on rats. Who (or what) was the inspiration for him?

ACEVEDO: Actually, Coyote likes rat chorizo. Felix needed a character who was both mentor and foil. I wanted the archetypal barrio vato, someone who seemed down on his luck and outside the ken of the greater American society, yet comprehended well enough his situation and the world around him.

OLIVAS: Felix falls hard for Veronica, his love interest in this novel. How did you walk that fine line between tough-guy noir and romance?

ACEVEDO: So Felix is a vampire? What, he can’t have love? As a vampire he has the power to take any woman but if he forces himself on her, then it’s longer love but something ugly. Felix may be a bloodsucking killer but he’s still the good guy. I bent the romantic story arc to emphasize Felix’s estrangement from humanity. Immortality, transmutation, and enhanced visual powers may be wonderful but they come at a price and I want to show that Felix’s existence is a bitter compromise between the mortal and undead worlds.

OLIVAS: The plot is, to say the least, complicated and takes all kinds of twists and turns while remaining entertaining and engrossing. How do you make certain your readers don’t get lost? How do you keep track of the plot threads yourself?

ACEVEDO: I have Felix review the story questions, sometimes alone, sometimes with Coyote to keep the reader and the characters oriented on their story goals. I outlined the different plot developments to make sure the story evolved in a logical sequence (considering this is a fantasy novel).

OLIVAS: What has been the response of your readers to your novels?

ACEVEDO: My books are selling. I don’t know the numbers but my agent is pleased and my editor returns my phone calls.

OLIVAS: What is your writing process like? Do you have friends who read drafts?

ACEVEDO: I try and write a couple of hours every day. I’m fortunate in that I have a critique group. After years of meeting, three of us have had contracts with the big NY houses. We study the genre market and push one another to be better writers and to market ourselves.

OLIVAS: Who are your literary idols? What are you reading right now?

ACEVEDO: I just finished Junot Diaz’s DROWN, put this on top of your must read pile. I’m reading ALREADY DEAD, a hard-boiled vampire PI story by Charlie Huston. It’s an excellent fantasy noir with a tight narrative. I’m also going through Tim Dorsey’s zany and kinetic novels about Florida.

OLIVAS: You have another novel coming out next year involving Felix. Do you plan on moving on to another protagonist after that?

ACEVEDO: My agent wants me to keep the Felix Gomez vampire series going as long they sell. I have other stories and characters I want to explore, either in different series or as stand alone novels.

OLIVAS: Has becoming a published author changed your view of writing? Any advice for beginning writers?

ACEVEDO: You’re never there. You get published, lose your cherry as a debut novelist, and then everyone expects a lot more of you. Writing is always a struggle to improve. As Somerset Maugham said, “Only a mediocre writer is at his best.” I’m always learning and surprising myself that despite my experience, writing continues to be hard work. I wish I had little elves to dance on the keyboard while I did “research.” My advice? Have faith. Write what you love. Read as much as you can. Write some more. And don’t ever give up.

POSTSCRIPT: Over at the Biting Edge, the blog that Mario Acevedo shares with Jeanne Stein, they announce the blog's writing first contest:

“It’s no ordinary writing contest. Forget the Pulitzer. The Nobel Prize for Literature. How can that fame and money compare against what you can win from us? All you need to submit is the first paragraph of your original vampire story. A limit of 75 words. Enter any genre or style. Gothic. Romance. Humor. Urban fantasy. Anything as long as it’s good. Deadline, June 15, 2007. Unpublished writers only!”

For more details, go here. The prizes are very cool.

◙ My review of Gustavo Arellano’s first book, ¡Ask a Mexican! (Scribner), appeared in yesterday’s El Paso Times. Also, in today's Houston Chronicle, Eyder Peralta offers this interesting profile of Arellano.

◙ Daniel Hernandez has an interesting post on his blog concerning the hot button issue of immigration reform. Hernandez, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, is a writer for the LA Weekly where he is getting rather nice honors.

◙ Over at our favorite magazine, Tu Ciudad, the new June/July issue covers the best people and places around Latino L.A. relying on a readers poll (I voted, did you?). There’s no “best blog” listing but we’re a virtual world out here…this time, Tu Ciudad focuses on things that you can touch and taste. There's also a handy, one-page index that can be cut out and kept in your car for future reference. For information on where you can buy Tu Ciudad (or do as I do and subscribe), go here. They've also added a blog to the newly-revamped website. The magazine continues to get more and more beautiful.

◙ Well, some great news: Kevin Roderick over at LAObserved reported yesterday that due to public outcry, Al Martinez might be coming back to the Times on a once-a-week basis. More on this breaking story later…

◙ Though Luis Alberto Urrea is currently on a little vacation, his blog is a joy to read. And if you haven’t read his magnificent novel, The Hummingbird’s Daughter (Back Bay Books), get thee to a bookstore!

◙ Next Monday I will post my interview with a wonderful new writer, Myriam Gurba, whose first book, Dahlia Season (Manic D Press), is a must-read for anyone who loves edgy, soulful, sexy short stories.

◙ I’ve been reading (and loving) Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration (University of New Mexico Press) by Sam Quinones. More later.

◙ Some nice news concerning me: Bilingual Press has just accepted for publication my newest short-story collection, Anywhere but L.A. More news later. My first full-length novel, The Book of Want, is still making the rounds with publishers.

◙ All done. By the way, if you missed Saturday's wonderful post by René Colato Laínez, go here. Anyway, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadres at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro!

Interview with Author Alexis O'neill

René Colato Laínez



ALEXIS O’NEILL is the author of LOUD EMILY (Simon & Schuster),THE RECESS QUEEN (Scholastic Press), and ESTELA'S SWAP (Lee & Low Books). She is the Regional Advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)-Ventura/Santa Barbara Region.

WHAT DOES A PICTURE BOOK NEED TO HAVE IN ORDER TO BE MULTICULTURAL?

The answer to “What does a picture book need to have in order to be multicultural” is: “authenticity” in the story and in the illustrations. I won’t say “accuracy” because even within what appears to be a single culture, there are multiple perspectives based on individual experiences. But the words and images must ring true to people within that culture in terms of syntax, behavior, beliefs and dress.

OF ALL THOSE BOOKS IN THE MARKET HOW MANY ARE REAL MULTICULTURAL? HOW MANY PRETEND TO BE MULTICULTURAL WHEN THEY ARE NOT? OR HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE MULTICULTURAL? WHAT IS LACKING IN THESE BOOKS? ARE THEY FULL OF STEREOTYPES OR MISCONCEPTIONS? CAN YOU GIVE ME TITLES OF BOOKS THAT HAVE THESE OR OTHER PROBLEMS?

I haven’t yet read every book there is to be read so I really can’t answer these questions fairly. A few years ago, there was a push by publishers – (rightly pressured by educators) -- to represent a variety of ethnicities in children’s books. Some book creators addressed the issue by making a visual potpourri of skin colors in the illustrations and a variety of exotic character names in the text to suggest diversity. But in many books, this was purely a superficial fix. (One test for authenticity in the text would be that the story could be clearly identified with a specific culture or group within a culture without looking at the illustrations.) Today, there is a better representation of authentic stories told by a diversity of authors and illustrators.

CAN AN AUTHOR WRITE BOOKS OUTSIDE HIS/ HER CULTURE?
I think passion should direct what an author writes about and what illustrator draws. After the heart of the story is created, then it’s their responsibility that the story is as true as it can be.

WHAT WAS YOUR PROCESS IN WRITING ESTELA'S SWAP?
I moved to Southern California in 1991 and fell completely in love with this state and the diversity of people in it. But the longer I was here, the more annoyed I became that there were too few children’s books that celebrated living in this part of the country. I wanted to write a book that was distinctly Southern Californian. I wanted to write a book that kids here might identify with.

On Sundays, my husband, David, and I often wandered through the Swap Meet that was held at our local drive-in in Simi Valley. Growing up in New England, I had experienced garage sales and flea markets, but never anything like a Swap Meet. It was like a carnival and neighborhood garage sale all rolled in one. Families would often drop by after church to check out the goods, eating chili dogs and tacos, and walking in time to the Latino music blaring over the loudspeakers. Sometimes, David brought computer equipment or car parts to sell. Other times, we just picked through boxes of treasures. I also loved seeing kids in a bargaining mode, earning money for the things they wanted to buy. Before my experiences at Swap Meet, I was a nuts-and-bolts shopper. If a seller told me a price, I paid that price. But once I swung into the rhythm of the Swap Meet, I began to love negotiating agreeable prices.

The more I went to Swap Meet, the more I wanted have a book take place in this particular California setting. Then I began to wonder, what kind of story might take place here? Who would my main character be? What might he or she be doing here? What would be the problem he or she would have to face?

I knew that my character should be Hispanic. Those were the faces I saw all around me. Then I began clipping newspaper articles and photos of young folkloric dancers and mariachi musicians. I attended Ballet Folklorico recitals and talked with educators in Oxnard who were working to revive traditional music and dances. Before long, I had my main character – Estela – who was trying to earn money for dancing lessons. When she tries to sell her music box at Swap Meet, a powerful Santa Ana wind throws her plans into chaos. But her spontaneous act of generosity and an old flower vendor’s unexpected swap eventually help her realize her dream.

The first version of this story was written as an early chapter book. But when Lee & Low Books expressed interest in it, I rewrote it as a picture book for them. What gratifies me is that the book has gone into a second printing and the publisher has just released a Spanish translation of it, Estela en el mercado de pulgas, in both hardcover and paperback. It was named to the Vermont Center for the Book Beyond Differences Top Ten Diversity Books list and was selected for the California Readers’ 2005 California Collection of 100 books for elementary readers. So, Estela’s Swap must feel authentic to enough readers to have all this happen!


WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR AUTHORS WRITING OUTSIDE THEIR CULTURE?
I advise authors to be true to the story and authentic to the culture about which they are writing.

¡BOOK READING AT IMIX BOOKSTORE TOMORROW!

Book signing and discussion with Reyna Grande and young adult author Malin Alegria. This a great event for readers of all ages!

IMIX Bookstore
5052 Eagle Rock Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90041
(323) 257-2512
Website: http://www.imixbooks.com/

DATE: Sunday, June 3, 2007
TIME: 3:00 p.m.
COST: Free!

Across a Hundred Mountains (Atria Books) by Reyna Grande

After a tragedy that separates her from her mother, Juana Garcia leaves her small town in Mexico to find her father who left his home and family two years before to find work in America, Using a non-linear narrative style, where the pieces don't fall into place until the very end, Grande takes readers inside the lives of the people of Mexico who are left behind in the phenomenon of migration to the United States. Mexican immigration is one of the most talked about, controversial issues in the news today. Author Reyna Grande, who came to the United States when she was nine, has an insider's perspective that lends insight to this politically charged issue. Across a Hundred Mountains puts a human face on the epic story about those who make it across the border, those who never make it across, and those who are left behind.

Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico (Simon & Schuster) by Malin Alegria

Even though Sofi Mendoza was born in Mexico, she's spent most of her life in California -- the closest she gets to a south-of-the-border experience is eating at Taco Bell. But when Sofi and her friends sneak off for a weekend in Tijuana, she gets in real trouble. To Sofi's shock, the border patrol says that her green card is counterfeit. Until her parents can sort out the paperwork and legal issues, Sofi is stuck in Mexico. In the meantime, Sofi's parents arrange for her to stay with long-lost relatives in rural Baja. It's bad enough that Sofi has to miss senior prom and even graduation, but her aunt, uncle, and cousins live on a ranch with no indoor plumbing! As the weeks pass, though, she finds herself adapting to her surroundings. Sofi starts helping out on the ranch, getting along with her bratty cousins, and she even meets a guy with more potential than anyone from school. Through the unexpected crash course in her heritage, Sofi comes to appreciate that she has a home on both sides of the border.

Story Time

Manuel Ramos

OUR VERY OWN SISTER CHICA
I am pleased to add my congratulations to my bloga hermana, Lisa Alvarado, and her writing partners, Ann Hagman Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston Coralin, and their wonderful book, Sister Chicas (2006, Penguin/NAL) for winning second place in the Mariposa Awards for Best First Book in English at the BookExpo in New York City. Way to go, Lisa, you make us proud! I'll take this opportunity to also remind our readers that Lisa will be the featured performer at the June 18 Proyecto Latina: More Than Poetry, at Tianguis, 7:00 PM, 2003 S. Damen, Chicago, call 312.492.8350 for the details. It's way cool to hang out with such a talented person, even if we only get together online.


THE STORY
Here's an unpublished story I wrote several years ago. I never tried to get it published so I must have thought it needed some work. In any event, this story is copyrighted by me, all rights reserved. What do you think?

OUTPOST DUTY

The mountain air stimulated Corporal Martínez and it dawned on him that every sound, every smell was intense and vibrant. A reflection of the importance of his job, he thought. "Outpost duty is not so bad," he said to himself as he huddled near the campfire. "Except for the pig private."

He stared at the lump on the other side of the fire. The man infuriated him, almost made him physically sick. He was filthy, grotesque, and he smelled. Martínez understood that the private was in the federal army only because these were desperate times. Revolutions erupted in the countryside almost every month, or so the newspapers reported, and the government conscripts were men who had little value except that they could serve as bodies, numbers to swell the ranks, ineffective as soldiers. Private Santos should count for two, Martínez thought to himself, and that made him laugh. He quickly stifled himself, not because of fear that he would waken the private, the man could sleep through an earthquake, but because he was, after all, on outpost duty and bandits were in the area.

His task was to watch for them. He had been selected for duty in the most advanced position the government controlled and he believed that was an honor, an opportunity created by the turbulent times that would not have come his way in peace time. He was a professional soldier, a man who thought to make the army his life's work, if only the private didn't sabotage his efforts. Santos was lazy and obviously a coward. Corporal Martínez believed that only his superior military skills would save them if, indeed, they had to confront the bandits.

Martínez knew exactly what he would do when he faced the enemy. He excelled at planning. Military strategy was his specialty. He mapped out vast maneuvers and campaigns in his head or scratched them in the dirt. His chance would come with the clouds of dust kicked up by the bandits' horses when the historic showdown happened between the federales and the bandits. Martínez would make a wild dash back to the division headquarters where he could give his valuable information to the Colonel and help plan the counterattack. Martínez would impress the Colonel with his well-developed military knowledge. He would be given command of a squad of crack troops, the main thrust of the offensive, and his men would shout his name in glory as he led them to victory, fame and his own promotion to colonel.

Yes, he was blessed with the gift to plan.

The routine had been the same for weeks. Martínez watched and waited for the enemy. He moved his outpost to avoid discovery. The days passed slowly in the worn out countryside. Santos was his first companion since the assignment had been given to him.

The mountains were unchanging, gloomy mounds of earth that reminded him of the graveyard in his home town. Impatience for action played on his concentration and his thoughts wandered to memories of his home and family. When he thought of Antonia, her soft skin and long, thick hair, he felt a loss, a pang of homesickness. He abruptly shook his head, made the unwelcome feelings disappear. He thought again about the importance of his duty.

Where are they? Even I am tired of waiting. Why don't they come? They have to move through this valley. Maybe through one of the other arroyos. Then Hernández or Garcia will see them, report them to headquarters, and here I'll be, stuck in nowhere with this miserable slob. That can't happen. They have to come this way. They have to.

Santos snored, growled in his sleep and then rolled over like a fat bear in the zoo. Gray hairy insects crawled from under his hulk. The fire highlighted his mud-encrusted beard, testimony to his hard riding the past few days to get to the outpost. He had been in the attack at Zacatecas and then ordered to help Martínez. He dreamed of a naked woman, wanton and coarse.

Private Santos hated the army. He was a peón, a poor country boy with no special allegiance to the government or the rebels. He was forced to join the army and he accepted that as his fate, just as his poverty and struggle to survive were all part of life, part of the hand he had been dealt. He was taught in a week how to shoot, how to march and how to take orders and then thrown into battle against Villa's men. He killed to survive, without hatred or patriotic fervor. Now he waited in the desert, asleep and content that he would live another day.

The corporal did not affect him. The man had insane ideas about war. He obviously was ambitious, he talked high and mighty, and Santos knew that they had nothing in common. But that was life. One had to survive, that was one's obligation, one's duty.

Martínez kicked Santos's boot. "Wake up! Your watch. Wake up!" He kicked the sleeping man again.

The larger man woke, slowly, and then stretched his cramped legs and arms. He leaned close to the fire in an attempt to warm his chilled bones. He grabbed his rifle and stared off into the night. He asked for coffee. "I feel like I haven't eaten for days. What I wouldn't give for some lamb mole. Ay, anything except beans."

Martínez threw a scrawny piece of dried-up cholla on the fire. "We're lucky to have beans. If we cooked anything other than beans you can bet we'd have every bandit and coyote within ten miles sniffing around. With beans we're like every Indian around here. Anything else would be too suspicious. We have to manage with what we've got."

Santos snorted and moved his fat rear end off a rock. "You really think Villa is coming this way? You've been out here for how long, two, three weeks? Villa is long gone. He packed his men on the train and headed back north. They're probably in Juarez, maybe even the States. Long gone from around here."

"Don't say that. They'll come this way, I know it. They have to. They need to make a show of force to keep the peasants in line. If they retreat now they lose face and what little support they have. No, they'll come this way. They have to engage our troops one more time before they head north. They have to."

"If you say so. I'll let you know if I see anything. You'll be the first to know." Martínez could not see his smirk--the broad, toothy smile--in the darkness. Santos added, "If the enemy is near, this fire may be a mistake."

Martinez pretended not to hear Santos. His mumbled words drifted across the desert. "I've got to relieve myself. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour. Watch for me." Martínez walked into the desert. He was swallowed by the night.

"What an idiot." Santos drew a blanket tight around his shoulders and soon his eyes were heavy. He tried to focus on the horizon but all he saw was darkness, and he fell asleep. He dreamed again of the naked woman.

Mesquite and cactus hid Martínez as he squatted over the earth. Plans for elaborate military exercises filled his head as he waited for his bowels to move. He imagined leading an attack on Villa's camp. He saw himself wrestling the bandit leader to the ground and forcing him to surrender. Mexico's savior. Long live Martínez!

"Look at this boys. A federale, bare-assed out here where the snakes and lizards could bite his balls off!" The laughter of men surrounded Martínez before he knew he was captured. He tried to jump to his feet but he fell backwards, tripped by his pants. His naked legs clawed the air.

Martínez squealed, "What? Who? How did you?"

The men laughed again. One of them stood with a boot on the corporal's quivering belly. "How pretty this one is. It will be a shame to shoot such a handsome soldier." He poked at Martínez with his rifle. "Hey, pretty one. Want to have some fun?" The laughter was rough and strained. The men knew they had a short time to enjoy the game, then it had to end. The war had to be fought.

Martínez tried to make sense out of what had happened. Maybe he should try to make a run for it. But the boot heel dug into his guts and he was forced to squirm in his excrement. He tried to explain. "You can't do this. You have to ride in, I have to tell the Colonel. It can't be this way, my squad, the offensive, don't you see, don't you see?"

The men were silent.

The leader handed his rifle to one of the others. He pulled a handgun from his holster and placed the barrel next to Martínez' ear. "Too bad, pretty one. We can't use crazy prisoners, we can't take any prisoners. God forgive me.”

Santos thought he heard a shot but his dream was too vivid to turn loose. He was deep in sleep thinking that it was one of life's unexplained ironies, and, therefore, regrettable, that dreams did not come true.

END

Later.