Wednesday
this week, I joined other Latino writers for the workshop sponsored by Science
Fiction and Technoculture Studies Program at Univ. of California, Riverside,
organized and hosted by Sherryl Vint, Professor of
Science Fiction Media Studies. Appended are the 2. La Bloga Spec Lit Directory,
and 3. links I promised to post. [photos by Michael Sedano]
 |
| Prof. Sherryl Vint |
1. The workshops were
great, a great hostess and audience for the event. Being there with Mario
Acevedo, Ernesto Hogan, Rosaura Sanchez, Beatríce Pita, Jesús Treviño and La Bloga's Michael
Sedano was uplifting. What immediately follows are my notes, only some of which
I shared there:
Latinos have had to follow
Anglo-Americans; they kept invading our lands, our Aztlán and
our islands. That's their history and why we had to adopt and follow the ladder
of the American Dream, even when forced to assume the role of Boogie Man. As
U.S. society "allowed" Latinos to enter, we worked our way up, saving
money, buying homes, sending kids to college, becoming professionals,
established or famous. Our relatives the immigrants do the same, getting a
credit card, a home, buying a big black truck, etc.
As our gente's educational level rose and
Latino spec writers emerged. We weren't uneducated before; the problem was the
literary establishment's English-only prejudice about accepting Spanish.
Getting past the East Coast/White Boy publishing curtain, latinos' SF works
were/are being published, winning awards as best sellers, even making their way
into movies; no Nobel Prize winners, yet. In the SF Hugo Awards for Best Professional Artist, Daniel Dos Santos and John Picacio
were nominated this year and last year, with Picacio taking it in 2013.
However, latinos haven't always followed
the exact path of Anglo writers, and this speaks to why we may not need to and
maybe shouldn't follow in their footsteps.
Anglo sci-fi lit arose in the 1930s with
John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Frederik Pohl, Robert A.
Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury. They called it the Golden Age of
science fiction--golden as in blond-haired--with stories centered on scientific
achievement and progress, like at the first World Science Fiction Convention held in NY in 1939.
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| 5 of the 6 Latin@ authors |
My father grew up in those
times and with that technological awareness; he read SF pulps every day. He
never became a Rudy Rucker mathematician or David Brin scientist and never
wrote SF. He rose as he could, up to supervisor of military jet maintenance, a
prestigious position for a tejano in the 1950s. But, as a Mexican, he was
tracked into Tech High School, otherwise he might have graduated from college
and written SF, and I could've pimped off his fame.
Decades later, the
"forward-thinking" SF establishment opened its white-man's club to
women and then, people of color. The rear, kitchen door was always open, but
now the front door is ajar. Now that Latinos have a foot in the door so they
can't close it on us, what directions will we take or even create?
In a recent interview, YA
novelist Matt de la Peña asked, "Where's the African-American Harry Potter
or the Mexican Katniss?" Elsewhere, author Armando Rendón asked where are the "guidelines appropriate to
writing aimed at Latino children, created by Latino literati who understand
their needs?" And a member of our better, mestizo half,
Sherman Alexie, said, "I want to see more brown kids as characters!" Such
statements made me begin to wonder if there are different paths Latino SF could
take.
We know Latino youth need
Latino-authored stories about Latino heroes and heroines. If you need backup to
convince your principal, school board or politicians, just check the recent and
ongoing #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign.
Focusing on mainstream, YA
sci-fi (and fantasy), there are five, frequent themes: Good vs Evil, Love
Triangles, Paranormal Beings, Dystopian futures and the Superhero. What
perspectives do Latinos bring to these themes? I'll skip the struggle of good
vs. evil that could be the topic of a whole conference. I'll also skip Twilight's love triangles of two hunky
boys competing for one hot girl because I was never the former nor did I get
the latter.
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| Ernesto Hogan & Mario Acevedo |
#3. Paranormal beings,
like aliens, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, zombies, shape-shifters, fairies.
Latinos bring indigenous Taíno zemí
spirits and the huracán god, and La Llorona and El Cucui from Mexican heritage.
But we didn't stop there, even as Anglo SF writers appropriated our monstruos.
Mario Acevedo gave us a Chicano vet bitten by an Iraqi vampire. Ernesto Hogan
gave us sentient, gaseous life-forms on Jupiter. Magical realism regularly
emerges from the latino heritages.
Theme #4 in YA SF-
Dystopia, which includes futuristic, dismal settings where teens battle
tremendous odds, and sometimes, adults, in order to save humanity. What I'd
like to see from Latinos is more about our
dystopias. A future where there's no electricity, no lights or power, no gas
for cars or food on store shelves? Hey, Latinos (and all the poor) have been
living that dystopia before Anglo SF writers even knew how to misspell the
word.
What about portraying the
barrios, when mamá can't pay the utilities because she only has a lowly typist
job. Zombies stomping all around in the future? Try making it to the baño in
the middle of the night when the rats are playing all over the sink, without
crunching the cucarachas that're running all over the floors! You want hunger
games? How 'bout your familia doesn't qualify for food stamps, and the only
things in the cupboard is cans of lima beans and garbanzos. I don't think Latinos
have even begun to exhaust the contemporary
dystopias we could write for mainstream U.S. readers.
I believe theme #5 is the
biggest challenge--and opportunity--for Latino SF writers. The lone hero on a
quest to save the world or to defeat the forces of evil.
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| Only a part of the Riverside audience |
To take just one old
white-guy SF, R.Heinlein's Stranger in a
Strange Land, the character Michael Smith was raised by Martians to have
psychic powers and superior intelligence and battles evil, church forces and
starts a new religion that will remake and save human, gringo society. In
another of my favorite readings, The
Foundation Trilogy, Hari Seldon develops the statistical math to save the
intergalactic empire but he's outflanked a human mutant named The Mule, who's
even more gifted and powerful.
Catniss in Hunger Games (2008) or Frodo in Lord of the Rings (mid 50s) are slightly different. These heroes need allies because they are not
superhuman enough to accomplish their deeds, alone. They need help, they need
to gain or win friends for that. They're like today's kids. Actually, they're
also like my 30-year-old kids when they were growing up with friends of other
colors--white, Asian and multi-ethnic.
So what can Latinos bring
to this theme? In Afro-6, maybe the
first Chicano SF novel, blacks form a military alliance with Latinos of NYC,
the Boricuas. Think on that for a second. The first latino SF book. Wasn't just
about Latinos. It was not about a Latino Robin sidekick for an ethnic Batman
vato--it was about two ethnic groups, communities uniting, about black
and brown solidarity.
In another examples, Jesus
Treviño's screenwork includes Ed Olmos in Battlestar
Galactica--as the admiral, not a drug lord. Treviño also wrote for the
multinational cast of Star Trek.
Afro-6
didn't come out of the civil rights struggles; it pre-dated them. However,
ethnic mixing is not surprising for NYC. Remember, the book Afro-6 came out 50 years ago. Realize
how many decades it took the old white-guy SF writers to have characters,
peoples cross that line. Some still never leave their fictionally colorless
Gringolandia where many characters are still college-educated scientists. So,
what different routes have Latinos taken?
As in all Latino lit, our
SF includes the successful, middle-class Hispanics. But a lot of it doesn't.
Looking at today's panelists, The Techos
and Migros in Lunar Braceros were the homeless and unemployed; Mario Acevedo's
Felix Gomez character and my protagonist didn't graduate from college; Ernesto
Hogan's character Pablo Cortez, a self-educated dropout, probably spent most of
high school in detention or suspended. And Jesus Treviño's characters in The Fabulous Sinkhole live in a poor,
border town colonia. Qué. Curioso. Somos. How different the
Latino SF protagonists--no?
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| Jesús Treviño on media panel |
The indio Sherman Alexie also said, "With YA, you can make real,
significant, social change." In general, the same is possible with sci-fi
and spec lit. Latino SF is politically
and socially more progressive because of our shared histories dominated by U.S.
Manifest Destiny, oppression and exclusion. Again, looking to the panelists'
novels, this is developed in Lunar
Braceros to a great degree. Cortez on
Jupiter is about a Chicano artist dealing with an unbelieving, white
establishment. The Chicano protagonist of Nymphos of Rocky Flats doesn't just
get screwed over like so many latino Iraqi War vets, he returns home
vampire-bitten! And my hero in The Closet
of Discarded Dreams has one goal--to get out of a mad,
consumer-goods-worshipping world where americanos' dreams are his nightmares.
But speaking about the lone hero in SF, in Afro-6, Lunar Braceros and in my novel,
there's something else--united action, popular uprisings, mass movements like
those of the 60s and 70s. The last Hunger
Games novel has rebellion and urban guerilla warfare and the defeating of
the establishment, much like Afro-6. But that's still an old, white-guy SF
story. It's not new.
I'll pimp my novel to get to a new theme
different from the lone hero. Not to do a spoiler, in the book, the hero is
only part of a mass movement. That
movement is spontaneously organized, works by democratic consensus and
volunteer brigades. They don't have Twitter or Facebook, but they use a
crowd-sourced Grapevine to organize themselves. The multinational population
divides up based on their skills and abilities. Their efforts succeed in
helping stall the forces of evil long enough for others to realize how my hero
plugs into their struggle. If the book had been published when I finished it, I
could have taken credit for predicting the Occupy Movement.
I don't think Latino SF writers have tapped into
our roots of communal action enough yet and there's reasons we should. From our
indio roots, come many traditions of councils of elders, some matrilineal,
where it wasn't just one, big warrior who saved his people. Also, all latinidad
have familial, even clan, traditions where mass action helps everyone survive
(not to romanticize us as perfect). From the annual communal clearings of
acequías in the Southwest to almost magical way families contribute to a
tamalada, we have historically proven methods of accomplishing almost anything.
If you've never seen one, try describing the dynamics of an Easter celebration
at abuela's house.
One great, black author who went beyond the lone
hero theme was Octavia Butler in her Parable
of the Sower series where the Oya heroine begins a religion, a movement to
"shape God and the universe." Now there's something mass(ive)--a
peaceful, though not passive, movement.
Some Latino SF writers will explore developing
our own themes to shape the future, something going beyond the lone hero,
however much the Hero's Quest must be used as a narrative approach. I don't
know all of what might come out of that. I do know the Afro-6 revolution isn't necessarily it, but not because I'm a
pacifist. My first published novel began my thinking that I further developed
in a just completed YA manuscript, Hearts
bruised, dreams mended.
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| UC-Riverside grad students on panel |
But we don't need a new jefe, caudillo, chingón
Supermacho imposing his will, followed around by his bodyguards, having his
pick of the women, and leading and saving his people. A female one, either. We
need Latino heroes and heroines for the 21st Century.
Dystopia, economic collapse, unaffordable
college, homelessness, Global Warming catastrophes, even the heightened racism
against immigrant and "legal" Latinos--this isn't some futuristic SF,
it's what many young people face now and for their foreseeable futures. In our
small way, Latino SF writers can give all
children something--new themes, methods, paths. Hope. Esperanza. Poder. Fuerza.
We can't follow in the footsteps of the East Coast, Anglo-male dominated
publishing industry, anymore. We need our own Latinonautica, we need to show
others a multinational effort for change, what Ernesto Hogan terms, "an international, Latino New Wave in speculative fiction."
2. La Bloga Spec Lit Directory
[Speculative
literature = science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, a lo menos]
Below is the latest list of Latino spec novelists, only their first books,
publishers, and websites in chronological order. I welcome contributions to
making this more complete and current and will periodically update.
[Self-described: Chicano,
Cubano, Hispanic, Mexicano, Mexican American,
Puerto Rican, Sudamericano, American y más,
expanded as needed. ?? = undetermined by us. Publisher in
parens.]
1922
Campos de Fuego - breve narración de una
expedición a la región volcánia de "El Pinacate", Sonora Gumersindo Esquer [M]. "A
Mexican Jules Verne." This came out after the Border got put up, but we
could claim Esquer as a precursor.
1969
Afro-6, Hank Lopez. [MA?]
(Dell Publishing) According to NYTimes
obit, Lopez was "born in Denver of parents who had emigrated from
Mexico." A futuristic thriller about a Black, armed take-over of
Manhattan. [Copyright includes Harry Baron, not listed as co-author.]
1972
Bless Me, Última, Rudolfo A. Anaya
(Ch] (Quinto Sol)
http://www.neabigread.org/books/blessmeultima/readers-guide/about-the-author/
1976 Victuum,
Isabella Rios. (Diana-Etna Inc.) Where
psychic development epitomizes with the encounter of an outer-planetary being.
O.O.P.
1978
The Road To Tamazunchale, Ron Arias
(Ch) (Bilingual Press)
http://www.amazon.com/Tamazunchale-Clasicos-Chicanos-Chicano-Classics/dp/0916950700
1984
The Rain God: A Desert Tale, Arturo Islas [Ch] (Alexandrian Press)
http://business.highbeam.com/4352/article-1G1-18616692/historical-imagination-arturo-islas-rain-god-and-migrant"
1984
The War of Powers, Victor Milán [??]
(Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.) http://www.victormilan.com
1990
Cortez on Jupiter, Ernest Hogan
[Ch] (Tor Books) A Ben Bova Presents
publication. "Protagonist Pablo Cortez uses freefall grafitti
art--splatterpainting--to communicate with Jupiter's gaseous forms of
life." http://www.mondoernesto.com
1992 Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist,
Kathleen Alcalá [Ch] (Calyx Books)
1993
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura
Esquivel [Ch] (Random House Black Swan)
1993
Afterage, Yvonne Navarro [A]
(Overlook Connection Press) http://www.yvonnenavarro.com/ Dark fantasy &
horror.
1995
The Fabulous Sinkhole, Jesus
Treviño [Ch] (Arte Público Press) "Stories into magic realism:
spunky teen Yoli Mendez performs quadratic equations in her head." Film/TV
Director/Writer of Prison Break,
Resurrection Blvd. Star Trek Voyager, Babylon Five, Deep Space Nine.
http://chuytrevino.com/
2000
Clickers, J.F. Gonzalez [??]
(DarkTales Publications) Horror. http://jfgonzalez.com/
2000
Places left unfinished at the time of creation, John Phillip Santos [Ch] (Penguin Books) "A girl sees a dying
soul leave its body; dream fragments, family remembrances and Chicano mythology
reach back into time and place; a rich, magical view of Mexican-American
culture." http://provost.utsa.edu/home/Faculty_Profile/Santos.asp
2000 Soulsaver, James Stevens-Arce [PR] (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
www.stevens-arce.com
2001
The New World Border, Guillermo
Gomez-Peña [??] (City Lights Publishers) News reports from a borderless future
where whites are a minority and the language is Spanglish.
2003
Matters of the Blood, Maria Lima
(Cu-Am?] (Juno Books) http://www.marialima.com/
2004
Unspeakable Vitrine, Victoria
Elisabeth Garcia [??] (Claw Foot Bath Dog Press) Chapbook collection of short
magic realist fiction
2004 Devil Talk:
Stories, Daniel A. Olivas [Ch]
(Bilingual Press) These twenty-six stories bring us to a place
once inhabited by Rod Serling . . . only the accents have changed; Latino
fiction at its edgy, fantastical best. http://www.danielolivas.com
2004 Creepy
Creatures and Other Cucuys, Xavier Garza (Piñata Books)
2005
The Skyscraper that Flew, Jesus Treviño (Arte Público Press). An
enormous crystal skyscraper mysteriously appears in the Arroyo Grande's
baseball field. Then the stories begin. http://chuytrevino.com/
2006 The Nymphos of Rocky
Flats, Mario Acevedo [Ch] (Rayo Harper
Collins) http://marioacevedo.com
2006
Gil's All Fright Diner, A. Lee Martinez [A] (Tor) Born in El Paso, he
has other books, but may not consider his books or himself anything latino.
http://www.aleemartinez.com/
2007 Firebird, R. Garcia y Robertson [A] (Tor)
2007
Moon Fever, Caridad Piñeiro [Cuban
American] (Pocket Books) http://www.caridad.com/bio/" Paranormal romance.
2008
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, Marta
Acosta [L] (Pocket Star) http://www.martaacosta.com
2008
The King's Gold: An Old World Novel of Adventure, Yxta
Maya Murray (Harper Paperbacks)
2009
Lunar Braceros, Rosaura Sanchez, Beatrice Pita & Mario A. Chacon.
(Calaca Press)
2012 The Witch Narratives,
Belinda Vasquez Garcia, [??} (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
http://www.belindavasquezgarcia.com/ The little-known world of
Southwestern witchcraft.
2012 The Closet
of Discarded Dreams, Rudy Ch. Garcia [Ch].
(Damnation Books) A Chicano alternate-world fantasy. Honorable Mention, SF/F
category, 2012-13 International Latino Book Awards. Discarded-dreams.com
2012
Spirits of the Jungle, Shirley Jones
[H] & Jacquelyn Yznaga [H] (Casa de Snapdragon)
2012
Virgins & Tricksters, Rosalie
Morales Kearns [PR +Dutch] (Aqueous Books) Magic and folklore pop out of
everyday encounters. http://rosaliemoraleskearns.wordpress.com
2012 Joe Vampire, Steven Luna (Booktrope Editions) [??]
thestevenluna.wordpress.com
2012 Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe
Garcia McCall [Ch] (Tu Books) Pura Belpré Award winner; Andre Norton Award
nominated. http://www.guadalupegarciamccall.com .
2012 Roachkiller and Other Stories, R. Narvaez [PR] (Beyond the Page Publishing)
Winner of 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection and
2013 International Latino Book Award for Best eBook/Fiction.
2012 Salsa
Nocturna, Daniel José Older [??] (Crossed
Genres Publications) http://ghoststar.net
2012 Dancing With the Devil and Other Tales From Beyond, René Saldaña
Jr. [MA] (Pinata Books) http://renesaldanajr.blogspot.com
2012
Ink, Sabrina Vourvoulias [L] (Crossed Genres Publications) http://followingthelede.blogspot.com
2013
The
Miniature Wife & Other Stories, Manuel
Gonzales [??] (Riverhead Books) www.facebook.com/pages/Manuel-Gonzales/110962335695879
2013 Spirits
of the Jungle, Shirley Jones & Jacquelyn
Yznaga [??] (Casa de Snapdragon)
Kindle version, 2012.
2013
The Odd Fellows, Guillermo Luna [?]
(Bold Strokes Books) http://friendshiploveandtruth.blogspot.com
2013
This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire & the
Fantastic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia [M] (Exile Editions)
silviamoreno-garcia.com. Collection of fantasy, science fiction, horror—and
time periods.
2013
Infinity Ring: Curse of the Ancients, Matt de la Peña [??]. (middle-grade, Scholastic Inc.) "Sera
sees the terrifying future, but can’t prevent the Cataclysm while stranded
thousands of years in the past. The only hope lies with the ancient Maya, a
mysterious people who claim to know a great deal about the future."
http://mattdelapena.com
3. Websites relevant to the Latino SF workshop:
"Speculative fiction is
at its core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it certainly
didn’t "spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of beardy old
middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s." from N.K. Jemisin's Continuum GoH speech last year in Australia, calling for "a
Truth in Reconciliation commission, such as encouraging blind submissions,
demanding diverse characters on book covers. Women and people of color have our
own suggestions for change. . . . Who has the greater stake in teaching
mainstream U.S. sci-fi "how to be multicultural, and in tune with the
world?" Women and POC have learned from the mistakes and successes in
sci-fi "to truly become the literature of the world’s imagination."
"According to the Cooperative Children's
Book Center, fewer children's books were written by Latinos or
African-Americans in 2013 than in previous years. . . . Publishers turn down 97% of manuscripts they receive, regardless of the topic."
"55% of young adult
books purchased in 2012 were bought by adults between 18 and 44 years old,
according to Bowker Market Research.
A
multicultural books list.
About
artist John Picacio's new Lotería Cards
About
"Reviewing the Other"
A
summary of sites about Racefail 09
Daniel
Jose Older's article "Diversity Is Not Enough"
12
Fundamentals about writing the Latino Other
Junot
Diaz’s article on the POC failures of MFAs
Es
todo, hoy,
RudyG
aka Rudy Ch. Garcia
1st Novel - http://www.discarded-dreams.com/
Author FB - rudy.ch.garcia Twitter - DiscardedDreams
11 comments:
Gracias. Muy útil. ¿Supongo que conoces a CBS? -- Carl Brandon Society. Un mes al año hacemos lista de obras latinas -- que hubiera colaboración sería cosa bueno creo.
Sí conozco a CBS y recibó los mensajes. Pero la lista que vi no tenía muchos latinos del E.U. Espero que la de La Bloga les sirve. Por dónde vive usted? También conoze a Ernesto Hogan? Estoy en Facebook para recibir su respuesta.
A lot to think about. I may put my thoughts in my next Chicanonautica on Thursday. Latinonautica -- I like it. I see a danger in that people want to put borders around our exploding imaginations. Why can't we surf the supernova shockwave in our barrio, eses? I could go out into a rant, but should save it for my post. To be continued . . .
Hogan, my usage of Latinautica was a passing remark, not a proposed genre. I use the term "Latin@ Spec Lit" and would stick to that.
I'm not proposing limiting our fiction. Instead, I'm suggesting there are cultural roots to the not-often-used theme of Afro-6, and Parable of the Sowers, and my novel--where a protagonist-hero doesn't save the world on her own. That she needs more than allies; that she needs la gente of multi-ethnic origins. - RudyG
I'm very grateful for the feedback about the sci-fi gathering, Rudy. Still wish I could have been there(I'm working on my time machine, tho--any yesterday now...). I also want to recommend a new book for your lista, namely my own book for young adults: Noldo and his magical scooter at the Battle of the Alamo; it's a finalist in the Int'l Latino Book Awards competition, which will be finalized at the end of June in, of all places, Las Vegas. My hero, who resides in the 1950s' West Side barrio of San Antonio, Texas, builds his own scooter, imbuing it with magical powers that transport him to a point in time, two days before the final assault on the Alamo by Santa Anna's troops. He returns home, but has two (maybe three) more adventures back into time before summer vacation ends. He faces some of the dilemmas of time travel, e.g., knowing what is about to occur but unable to relate it to his hosts. Yes, I'm having a lot of fun writing about this kid. Anyway, I hope Noldo meets the criteria for your list.
Thanks, Rudi. If you want, you can add my novels, which all contain elements of magic realism: Spirits of the Ordinary, 1997 (2013 winner of the International Latino book into movie award for historical fiction) , The Flower in the Skull, 1998, and Treasures in Heaven, 2000, all from Chronicle Books. Keep us in the loop.
I've read and re-read your article about Latino Science Fiction.
I have no argument with your comments encouraging Latinos to add to the Sci-Fi genre.
I do however think that Frank Herbert, author of the Dune series, deserves a positive mention among the list of famous writers, if only because he did have an appreciation of the way Native Americans and other tribal people lived in a respectful relationship with their environment. He took spiritual inspiration from Sufi, Buddhist, and other belief systems which he incorporated into his Sci-Fi classics.
Particularly important is his foresight which appears to predict the environmental issues we are presently experiencing world-wide, such as a world-wide water shortage and the ensuing 'water wars', the use of recycled effluent as drinking water, the threat of the planet becoming one massive desert ( a dune) as a result of 'ecocide' caused by humans.
There's a Sioux proverb 'The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives', but we're getting there! Herbert's characters wear 'suits' that recycle their own water, just like the NASA astronauts drank water recycled from their own urine, sweat and water condensed from the moisture in the air. And our government in Australia is presently considering adding recycled effluent into some of the drinking water in our cities.
- Alma Iris
Armando Rendón and Kathleen Alcalá, your books noted and I'll see about adding them, so long as they're not children's books, which I'm not prepared to explore yet. Alma Iris, Herbert's series is one of my favorites and I acknowledge his take on los indios. RudyG
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