Cristina Acosta: Luminous Work, Lasting Art

Cristina Acosta

Guadalupe with Crown, the World is Her Heart

La Conquistadora/The Corn Maiden/Dine Spider Woman

Exhibit: Reshaping the Divine - Contemporary Hispanic Retablos Exploring the Divine Feminine

When: Summer 2009

Where: El Museo Cultural, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Click here to see this series of Hispanic Retablos.

This is quintessentially female, strong, sinous, visual art. It is a contemporary re-visioning of traditional retablo, hinting at the aesthetic of popular commercial artists like Laurel Burch, but containing a depth of spirit. There is a certain richness, an evanescence emanating from the figures portrayed.

Acosta has an ability to make a heart connection with the observer beyond the demands and trends of the marketplace, or the prevailing winds of "fine" art communities and critics. I find Acosta's work to be completely accessible, capitalizing and re-visioning icons from a metizo heritage, as well as feminist ideas of the female God-force.

She's also creative in the use of precious and mundane material in the creation of these retablos. In an in depth look at her site, piece after piece reveals she is truly a renaissance woman balancing comerciality with content and succeeding admirably.

Take a look at what Cristina herself has to say about her work:


Over the past twenty years, my series of Madonna retablos came to me in ebbs and flows via a series of powerful dreams. The dreams started during my pregnancy with my daughter. For the entire pregnancy I dreamt of being a woman on a journey north across dusty plains and through arroyos as I mostly walked behind an oxcart. The dreams ended in a room lit by a wooden candelabra filled with tallow candles and the birth of my daughter, Isabella Pilar in 1993.

I called these dreams my Maria Dreams because in the dreams, I/she was named Maria. Seeking the meaning of those dreams over the years brought me down a path I could never have imagined and deepened my understanding of my cultural heritage. Searching for the meaning of my Maria Dreams eventually lead me back to New Mexico, the land of my Ortiz ancestors.

My paternal grandmother, Catalina Maria Ortiz Acosta, born in 1904, was the daughter of J. Nestor Ortiz and Maria Elena Salazar, descendents of the original Spanish settlers founding the cities and villages throughout New Mexico. Researching my family genealogy (my grandmother spoke vaguely about her ancestors), I discovered that my direct ancestors had participated in the initial 16th and 17th century migrations of the Spanish, traveling North from Mexico City into the region that is now the State of New Mexico. I read books about the era and became fascinated by the types of experiences my female ancestors must have had while living on the New Mexican frontier for generations. With this research nurturing my experience of my personal history, my calling to paint Madonna’s began to take shape.

Born in Los Angeles to an Anglo mother and Hispanic father, early on I was aware of cultural concepts because of the differences between the two sides of my family. Despite their differences, Catholicism was the central theme for my parents. Celebrating their devotion resulted in religious images from the Americas and Europe scattered throughout our home and those of our relatives. Images of Mary the Mother of God as the Guadalupe, Conquistadora and many other versions were always present. Along with those images were displayed American Indian items from the Ortiz ranch.

The artifacts from the Ortiz family ranch consumed my imagination from as far back as I can remember. Handmade Indian blankets and pots, and even a gold menorah (referred to as a “candelabra” by my grandmother) made by Ortiz ancestors generations past (some of the men were renowned filigree gold smiths). Those as well as the chili ristras hanging in my grandmother’s kitchen hinted at another world far from the Southern California beach scene of my childhood home. For reasons I can’t sufficiently articulate, the mix of these images and experiences coalesced into my calling to visually explore and create new images of the Madonna as an expression of the feminine divine.

Each of the retablos I paint results in a new vision of the sacred. For example, painting La Conquistadora opened the door to re-balancing the dominant patriarchal and European view of the divine with the North American native and feminine. In La Conquistadora I layer symbols of the Dine Spider woman and the Puebloan Corn Maiden, seeking to blend the indigenous ancient female images and concepts harmoniously with the Catholic image of Mary. The result is a Madonna that hints of ancient goddesses many thousands of years old at the same time she conveys the current blend of cultures in the Southwest.

I create my work in the traditions of the Spanish/Mexican retablo to reinforce my expression of reverence and convey the intimate experience of sacredness. I find antique, reclaimed timbers for the substrate. I mix gold, silver and copper metals into my oil paintings to both embellish the image and in homage to the gifts my ancestors created for me with their existence. The vintage gold glazed ceramic tiles come from a tile company that operated near my childhood home in Southern California during the 1950’s and 60’s. When I finish a retablo, I write a blessing on the backside of the retablo to convey love to all who view the images.

My Maria Dreams from over a decade ago continue to influence this series of work. May you find your own meanings and blessings within these images.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And from none other than our own recently published Rudy G,

Win a book!
Midnight, Friday, June 26 is the deadline to enter to win a copy of the just-released Needles & Bones anthology, featuring a fantastical story by La Bloga contributor Rudy Ch. Garcia.
Click here for details.

Lisa Alvarado

LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS – April 28 & 29

Monday's post from Daniel Olivas...

It’s that time of year again when UCLA’s magnificent Westwood campus becomes one, big world of books. Visit the Festival’s webpage for details on obtaining free tickets to panels, directions, parking, etc. Many friends of La Bloga will be participating on panels and signing books. Though it can be a bit daunting at times because of the huge number of folks who show up, it's worth the effort to spend a day or two meeting and listening to your favorite authors. There's also plenty of good comida and lots of activities for the children. Here are a few of the panels that you might be interested in attending (in no particular order, but Chicano/Latino authors are highlighted for your convenience...feel free to post a comment regarding any interesting panels or appearances that I might have missed):

Saturday Panels:

Panel 1093 - 1:00 PM
Fiction: Hopes and Disappointments in the Promised Land
Moderator: Ariel Swartley
Panelists: Richard Rayner, Luis J. Rodriguez and Carolyn See

Panel 1102 - 11:30 AM
Fiction: Writing Across Genres
Moderator: Denise Hamilton
Panelists: Francesca Lia Block, S.E. Hinton, Cynthia Kadohata and Demetria Martinez

Sunday Panels:

Panel 2034 - 2:30 PM
Crossing the Border: Immigrant Lives
Moderator: William Deverell
Panelists: Gustavo Arellano, Sam Quiñones and Gabriel Thompson

Panel 2111 - 10:30 AM
Inland Empire Fiction: The Other California
Moderator: Tod Goldberg
Panelists: Gayle Brandeis, Michael Jaime-Becerra and Susan Straight

Panel 2074 - 2:30 PM
Fiction: Taking On the World
Moderator: Yxta Maya Murray
Panelists: Chris Abani, Bruce Bauman, Tony D'Souza and Cristina Garcia

Panel 2061 - 10:30 AM
The Power of Fiction
Moderator: Ellen Slezak
Panelists: Liam Callanan, Alex Espinoza and James D. Houston

Panel 2063 - 1:30 PM
Fiction: Outside the Margins
Moderator: Michael Silverblatt
Panelists: Tom Drury, Brad Kessler and Helena María Viramontes

And there will be many other fine authors signing books including Max Benavidez who will appear with the artist Gronk at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center's booth (Booth # 630) on Saturday where they will sign Benavidez’s book on Gronk.

◙ In addition to appearing at the Festival of Books, Gustavo Arellano, OC Weekly columnist and author of ¡Ask a Mexican! (Scribner), which is based on his nationally syndicated column of the same name, will be out promoting his book in May at the following venues:

May 3: Libreria Martinez, 1110 N. Main St., Santa Ana, 714-973-7900, 7 pm

May 7: Borders Pico Rivera, 8852 Washington Blvd., Pico Rivera, (562) 942-9919

May 9: Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW, Albuquerque, (505) 344-8139, 7pm

May 10: Barnes & Noble Webster, 1441 W. Webster Ave., Chicago, (773) 871-3610, 7pm

May 13: Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way NE, Lake View (near Seattle), 206-366-3333, 5:30 pm

May 16: Barnes & Noble Westheimer, 7626 Westheimer, Houston, (713) 783-6016

I hope to have a little interview with Arellano soon.

◙ In conjunction with the recent release of his novel, Lost City Radio (HarperCollins), Daniel Alarcón will be appearing in the following venues with other writers sponsored by PEN American Center:

April 24, 8:30 p.m.
Granta’s Best of the Young American Novelists
Panel with Nell Freudenberger, Olga Grushin, Gary Shteyngart, Uzodinma Iweala, Gabe Hudson, Jess Row, and Akhil Sharma
Tischman Auditorium, The New School
Additional Information

April 27, 1:30 p. m.
Gritty Realism
Panel with Francisco Goldman, Guillermo Arriaga, Jorge Franco, and Patricio Mello
Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center
Additional Information

April 27, 3:00 p.m.
Imaginary Geographies
Panel with Arthur Japin, Tatyana Tolstaya, and Deborah Treisman
Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center
Additional Information

◙ Rigoberto González reviews Alex Espinoza’s debut novel, Still Water Saints (Random House) in the El Paso Times. González notes: “Espinoza's strength is in giving each voice its individuality and in painting a durable portrait of the contemporary multifaceted American town. This is an excellent novel.” My review of Espinoza's novel will come out in the next issue of the MultiCultural Review.

◙ Belinda Acosta interviews Helena María Viramontes for The Austin Chronicle regarding her new novel, Their Dogs Came With Them (Atria Books). Of the novel, Acosta observes:

“[T]o fully appreciate it, approach it like a mural. While the grandness of a mural is what first commands attention, the viewer enters through its image details. After which, the viewer can then step back and reflect on the whole. The same is true of Viramontes' startling second novel. Twenty-five characters take turns standing in relief, written with extraordinary precision and profound compassion.”

If you missed it, you can read La Bloga’s interview with Viramontes here. I also note that Viramontes graces the cover of the new issue of Poets & Writers magazine with a profile by Renee Shea.

◙ Over at Poetry Foundation, Francisco Aragón interviews Victor Hernández Cruz. Hernández Cruz has published nine books, including his most recent collection, this year’s The Mountain in the Sea (Coffee House Press), and currently divides his time between Morocco and Puerto Rico. The interview touches on the interests most vital to the poet—the history of the Caribbean, stories of migration, and encounters between cultures.

◙ The new issue of the MultiCultural Review is out and I have several reviews featured of the following books: Come Together, Fall Apart (Riverhead) by Cristina Henríquez; The King of Things / El rey de las cosas (Cinco Puntos Press) by Artemio Rodríguez; Farmworker’s Daughter (Heyday Books) by Rose Castillo Guilbault; and Tales Our Abuelitas Told (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum) by F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada.

◙ In the Los Angeles Times, Agustin Gurza writes about comedian Cheech Marin donating 50 sets of high-quality digital prints of Chicano works to museums and universities. Gurza observes:

“For a time, Marin, 60, was sounding like the Rodney Dangerfield of the art world, always complaining that he can't get no respect from the arts establishment. Nobody's laughing nowadays. For the past five years, the actor has taken his personal art collection on tour in an exhibition titled ‘Chicano Visions: American Painters on the Verge,’ which appeared at major galleries, drew strong attendance and garnered generally positive reviews.”

◙ The El Paso Times informs us that the El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center, which teaches the lessons of the Holocaust, needs your help. Founded in 1984 by a Holocaust survivor, Henry Kellen, the museum will open its new facility before the end of the summer. Temporarily at 101 S. Kansas in the Centre Court building, the Center relies on a small, dedicated group of volunteers to lead visitors through the galleries. For information on volunteering as a docent, or as a worker in the store or library, drop an e-mail to Leslie Novick, the Center’s executive director.

◙ Espresso Mi Cultura will be opening its doors in Montebello, California this summer, so they are searching for a part time Coffeehouse Manager (the full time position has a been filled). This position requires coffeehouse experience. For more information on qualifications, please visit here and click on "jobs available" to view the job description. On a personal note, I had one of my first book readings at EMC. Happy to see that they will continue to offer coffee, culture and literature.

◙ Gregg Barrios interviews Oscar Hijuelos over at the San Antonio Current. After his critically praised debut novel Our House in the Last World, Hijuelos wrote his masterpiece, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Hijuelos, a New York City native of Cuban heritage, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1989 for Mambo Kings. He was the first Latino to receive that honor.

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

Alexander Street to Calle Madero

Manuel Ramos

Latino Literature Project
Taibo and Mexico City
Steven Torres

LATINO LITERATURE PROJECT
I recently learned of the Latino Literature Collection that has been compiled by Alexander Street Press. This is a huge electronic database of Latino writing that is now available to universities, scholars, students, teachers and other subscribers.

The following is from Alexander Street Press:

"¿Cómo puede seguir uno viviendo con dos lenguas, dos casas, dos nostalgias, dos tentaciones, dos melancolías? -- Heberto Padilla

Latino literature draws from three major sources: the world of Aztlán, the mythical homeland of the Aztecs prior to Cortez; the Spanish heritage of the national homelands of the writers; and the intersection of these two with Anglo culture. These influences create persistent themes, the most common of which are social protest and exploitation; the migratory experience; self-exploration or self-definition, including the exploration of myths and legends; and life in the barrio (the traditional Latino district of the city). Alongside these broad, shared themes, Latino literature also reflects the distinct immigration experiences of discrete groups.

Latinos are a microcosm: a sum of heterogeneous parts that form a whole. The term 'Latino' (as we use it) encompasses all citizens of the United States whose heritage is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central American, and South American, as well as descendents of those who became U.S. citizens when Mexico reluctantly gave up fifty per cent of its territories at the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
...

The majority of [the Latino Literature Collection] is in English, with selected works of particular importance (approximately 25% of the collection) presented in Spanish. The three major components deliver approximately 200 novels and many hundreds of short stories; 20,000 pages of poetry; and 400 plays. Authors such as Rudolfo Anaya, Cherrie Moraga, Carlos Morton, Alurista, Virgil Suarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Ivan Acosta, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Rolando Hinojosa, Tato Laviera, Lucha Corpi, Luis Valdez are included, along with many others.

The collection begins with the works of those in the Southwest who became citizens of the United States in 1850, covering the body of early Chicano writers who began to create a distinctive literature in the early 19th century, such as Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Maria Cristina Mena, Josefina Niggli and Daniel Venegas. Much of this work has long been out of print and unavailable. The collection includes major writers from the Chicano Renaissance and current writers as well. The works of some Teatros created in the late '60s and early '70s are targeted for inclusion, such as El Teatro Campesino (The Farm Workers Theater) and El Teatro de la Esperanza."

TAIBO AND MEXICO CITY
The current issue of Américas includes Walking With Mexico City's Private Eye, by Joyce Gregory Wyels.

"Following the footsteps of his famous detective character, writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II leads our author on an exploration of this capital's intriguing icons. ...

'Man, I love this city,' says Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, independent detective.

'Yeah, me too," echoes his creator, Paco Ignacio Taibo II. 'It's a relation of love and hate, like every good relation -- full of passion, and ethical.' Mexico's most celebrated mystery writer takes a long drag from a cigarette, then muses, 'I've had this love-hate relationship from the sixties up to now. Forty years loving and hating Mexico City. Not bad.'"

The rest of the article is a tour of the city through the eyes of Taibo and his character, and nice photographs by Larry Luxner. It's a good article with an insider's view of one of the most intriguing cities in the world.

STEVEN TORRES
Speaking of crime fiction written by Latinos - how about Steven Torres?

Torres writes police procedurals. He's published three novels plus several short stories, and he also does interviews, articles, etc. His Luis Gonzalo series includes Precinct Puerto Rico, Death in Precinct Puerto Rico, and Burning Precinct Puerto Rico. You can find out a lot more about Steven and his books over on his website.

Kirkus, well-known for tough reviews, said this about Precinct Puerto Rico:"A top-notch police procedural whose engrossing details create an authentic feel. Terse, deadpan prose, believable characters, and an offbeat setting add up to a promising series kickoff." --Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Steven recently started up his own blog - the Crime Time Cafe. In the cafe he reviews books and short stories, provides news from the world of crime fiction, and also offers his stories for sale on what he calls the Menu of Doom.

¿Ya Nadie Lee?

Manuel Ramos

In this post:

Does Anyone Read Anymore?
Taibo and Marcos
Alexander Street Press
Lucha Corpi
I Guess I Sort Of Brought Some Mexican-American Culture Into My Soul
Ask A Mexican

DOES ANYONE READ ANYMORE?
The question(s) of the day, debated in classrooms, bookstores, libraries, and blogs.

How many people do you know who actually read books on a regular basis? When was the last time you or someone close to you read a book just to read it, not because it was a bestseller, not because you are a book reviewer or a literary blogger, or a writer? And speaking of writers, how many writers do serious reading these days? How many young people do you know who read because they want to, not because they have a class assignment or are taking a test? Are we a nation of illiterates?

I just ask the questions.

TAIBO AND MARCOS
The amazing collaboration between Paco Ignacio Taibo and Subcomandante Marcos that we reported on when we were just a baby blog, along with just about every other Latino media outlet in the world, produced a novel that will soon (October) be available in English from Akashic Books. Here is the publisher's propaganda about a book that I am sure is a must read for many.

The Uncomfortable Dead
(What's Missing is Missing)
A Novel of Four Hands by
Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos
In alternating chapters, Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos and the consistently excellent Paco Ignacio Taibo II create an uproarious murder mystery with two intersecting storylines. The chapters written by the famously masked Marcos originate in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. There, the fictional "Subcomandante Marcos" assigns Elias Contreras--an odd but charming mountain man--to travel to Mexico City in search of an elusive and hideous murderer named "Morales." The second story line, penned by Taibo, stars his famous series detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne. Hector guzzles Coca-Cola and smokes cigarettes furiously amidst his philosophical and always charming approach to investigating crimes--in this case, the search for his own "Morales."

The two stories collide absurdly and dramatically in the urban sprawl of Mexico City. The ugly history of the city's political violence rears its head, and both detectives find themselves in an unpredictable dance of death with forces at once criminal, historical, and political. Readers expecting political heavy-handedness will be disarmed by the humility and playful self-mocking that runs throughout the book.

Subcomandante Marcos is a spokesperson and strategist for the Zapatistas, an indigenous insurgency movement based in Mexico. He first joined the guerrilla group which was to become the Zapatistas in the early 1980s. Marcos is author of several books translated into English, including the award-winning children's book Story of the Colors (Cinco Puntos) and Our Word Is Our Weapon (Seven Stories Press).

Paco Ignacio Taibo II was born in Gijon, Spain and has lived in Mexico since 1958. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, which have been published in many languages around the world, including a mystery series starring Mexican Private Investigator Hector Belascoaran Shayne (a protagonist in this book as well). He is a professor of history at the Metropolitan University of Mexico City. He has won various literary prizes, including the National History Award from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

ALEXANDER STREET PRESS LATINO LITERATURE
This announcement came across La Bloga's desk:

Alexander Street’s Latino Literature a “Top Five” resource -- Emerald Reference Reviews

Emerald’s Reference Reviews has just announced the Top Five Electronic Reference Sources of 2005. Latino Literature from Alexander Street Press was on the Top Five list. The awards were announced by Tony Chalcraft, Editor of Reference Reviews.

“We have worked hard to bring librarians a great deal of content that cannot be found anywhere else on the Web,” said Isabel Lacerda, editor of Latino Literature. “Most of the content is in copyright, and the remainder is unique, rare, or out of print for a long time. It’s been a great honor to work with these authors and archives, and the award is going to mean a lot to all of them—as well as to Alexander Street Press and all our customers who use Latino Literature.”

Latino Literature is part of Alexander Street’s cluster of products in Latino and Latin American history and literature. It’s also part of Alexander Street’s drama cluster, because it includes hundreds of plays along with the poetry and prose of the Latino writers.

The authors are Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central American, and South American and includes names such as Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Maria Cristina Mena, Josefina Niggli, Daniel Venegas, Rudolfo Anaya, Edwidge Danticat, Oscar Hijuelos, Lynne Alvarez, Lucha Corpi, Luis Valdez, Cherrie Moraga, Carlos Morton, Alurista, Virgil Suarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Ivan Acosta, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Rolando Hinojosa, Tato Laviera, and hundreds of others. As of September 2006, the database will include more than 120,000 pages.

Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., is an academic publisher of online databases, including collections in, history, literature, streaming music, music reference, women’s studies, black studies, sociology, psychology, ethnic and diversity studies, religion, social theory, popular culture, film studies, theatre videos, the arts, and other areas. Alexander Street databases have won numerous awards, and the company is known for its unique and powerful organizing and indexing methods. Alexander Street Press is located in Alexandria, Virginia.

###

Editors: For additional information on Alexander Street Press and its products, please contact Eileen Lawrence, vice president of sales and marketing, 800-889-5937 ext. 211 or lawrence@alexanderstreet.com. Or visit http://alexanderstreet.com/.

LUCHA CORPI
Lucha's situation has improved but she and her family are going through dark times. So much at once - including a death in the immediate family, the life-threatening illness of her husband, and a fire that destroyed her computer and manuscripts and required a move to another house. But Lucha is one strong spirit. Here's part of a message she sent: "I have no idea when I'll get back to my writing. I have probably no more than four chapters to finish the new novel. Thank goodness I made a hard copy of the ms ... . I still have it. Perhaps now that we're moving to a house I'll be able to finish the first draft. I need to write. Only then will the world make sense again."

Those of you who pray, give blessings, or otherwise care for people in your hearts, remember Lucha and her family.

I GUESS I SORT OF BROUGHT SOME MEXICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE INTO MY SOUL
There is a very hip interview with Irwin Tang online at the San Antonio Current -- Skip The Fortune Cookies, Please, written by Elaine Woolf. Tang makes an appearance 4:00 PM, August 26 at the Borders Alamo Quarry, 255 E. Basse in San Anto. So what, you may ask. Tang is the guy who wrote a commentary about Shaquille O’Neal’s racist taunting of the Houston Rockets’ Chinese center Yao Ming. He also has published a book entitled How I Became a Black Man and Other Metamorphoses, a short-story collection based on growing up in College Station, TX. Blogger readers may find Tang interesting because of comments like the following, which I lifted from the interview:

How do you answer that question: How can Shaq be racist if he’s African-American? Well, it’s kind of like asking, if I get spat in the face, does that mean I’m unable to spit on someone else’s face? Of course I’m able to. The title of my opinion piece was “Tell Shaq to Come Down to Chinatown,” and it’s like, yeah, me walking through Texas A&M University, the Corps might run by chanting something about dropping napalm on little Vietnamese kids or something like that — which they’ve done before — but if one of those Corps guys comes down to Chinatown in Oakland and starts mouthing off, he might end up with a knife in the back. It just depends on the situation, who’s got the power. So that’s the way I see it: Everyone has power. To say that some people can’t be racist is almost like saying that some people can’t have power, and that I think is kind of dehumanizing.

Tangentially related to that, let’s talk about your time working for Cesar Chavez. What were some of the lessons you learned? I guess the main lesson I learned being an activist on the Left wasn’t all about holding hands and singing “Kum By Ya” and “We Shall Overcome.” There was just some really hardball work that was done and there were a lot of people in the union movement that were really hardnosed activists. They weren’t gonna take any crap and there was a lot of hardnosed bargaining and negotiating with growers and boycotts and just trying to threaten as much economic damage as possible against those who wouldn’t respect the unions. So basically what I learned was a more hardnosed form of progressive activism from working with Chavez. And the main other thing was I really grew close to the Latino community. In a lot of ways my racial affinities growing up were affected by who picked on me, who defended me, who was half-and-half. Well, it tended to be like this: White kids tended to pick on me, although a few of them would stand up for me. Black kids tended to stand up for me, and Hispanic kids were sort of half-and-half. And in College Station there was either black or white; there was no sort of racial identity for [Hispanic kids] in my mind until I joined as an activist for the union and I felt like I was one of the Mexican-American activists. I guess I sort of brought some Mexican-American culture into my soul.

Visit Tang's website.


ASK A MEXICAN
Okay, I won't try to explain this. Read it for yourself. I will quote this tagline: "The Mexican can answer any and every question on his race, from why Mexicans stick the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere to our obsession with dwarves and transvestites." A couple of places where you can find Gustavo Arellano's column are OC Weekly and Alibi.com.

Later.

News, Notes, NAMI

Michael Sedano

Felicidades to "Author of the Year" Lisa Alvarado



If La Bloga had watercoolers we'd stand around them and toast the commendation of Lisa Alvarado as an Illinois Author of the Year. Lisa was named by Illinois' Secretary of State for her "ability to empower, educate, inspire, challenge and entertain readers."

Lisa, our comadre and retired La Bloga bloguera, was named along with Frank González-Crussí, Cristina Henríquez, Luis Alberto Urrea, Wilfredo Cruz, Cristina Benitez and Robert Renteria. Our hats off to Lisa on her recognition. A local news story carries biographical details of each of the awardees.

Congratulations, Lisa, on this recognition of your writing and art.



Latino Book & Family Festival Approaches


This weekend brings the 12th Annual Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival at Cal State Los Angeles. It is Saturday and Sunday October 10 and 11. Admission to festival events is free but know that Cal State charges parking. A freeway flyer bus stop has an elevator and short walk to Salazar Hall, and beyond that to the plaza where the stages await the crowd.

The schedule is sure to lead to conflicting emotions when you are forced to choose between multiple events. As a painful example, the first hour on Saturday features five attractive events. Rigoberto Gonzales hosts a panel discussion on history in Latino novels. María Meléndez and Marisela Norte address Latino Poetry in the K-12 Classroom. In Spanish at that hour, Alfonso Silva leads a session on Self-Help and Cómo alcanzar el éxito. On the kids stage in Salazar Hall, Michael Heralda leads kids to Aztec Stories.

Those start at 10:30, leaving some time to view the 10:00 a.m. start of the Folklorico Challenge. The competition continues both days as dance troups vye to win $350 or $100 in three age categories..

Including competitive folkloric dance in the festival adds a note of convergence among the arts with the current publication of novelist Reyna Grande's Dancing With Butterflies. Grande is one of the principal organizers of the El Sereno campus event. Her novel revolves around four women whose lives connect around their folklorico troupe. Grande's exploration of the souls filling those colorful costumes will have you looking on folkloric dance performances with fresh eyes.


Click here to download a PDF document schedule of the Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. events.

On the March With NAMI Gente



The crowd strings out for several blocks. The head of the line is out of sight already. My group is glad for the temperate Santa Monica morning. We walk silently, George’s cane strikes in rhythm to his footfalls. It will be an easy walk. George has brought along a big old protest sign. I think of the song, "El picket sign".

The NAMI walk doesn’t attract loudly boisterous tipos so today’s three mile walk will be easily accomplished. Near the halfway point the organizers set up an appreciation station. "Thank you for walking!" they call, taking turns or in unison. Nice touch, I admire the theory: catch workers doing something right, acknowledge them as their reward.



Several thousands friends of The National Alliance on Mental Illness assemble to listen to the welcoming rituals. A county politician with a practiced eloquence orates for allotted time. He's credited with being a supporter of mental health issues. His words sound like he’s preparing a run for congress, maybe governor. But he's not too enthusiastic, so maybe he sees this crowd for who we are, the huddled masses with loved ones stricken with serious mental illness.

Newspaper columnist Steve Lopez takes the podium to observe his well-known involvement with Nathanial Anthony Ayres, a musician Lopez is helping find solid ground. Lopez offers the possibility of a special guest later in the program.



Ayres arrives. He makes a brief introduction of well articulated words. Then he picks up the instrument and touches the bow to the strings. Ayres practices excellent technique, the bow holds steady contact with the string. His tonality would be called rich if not for the tremolo that infiltrates the playing. His nervousness translates to shaking the violin as he pulls and pushes the bow. Eventually, Ayres finds a suitable comfort zone and begins playing a piece I do not recognize. The piece goes on and on into strung together snippets of melody but no structure, no central musicality to the sound. The Emcee eventually if somewhat tardily steps to the front and begins to applaud maestro’s work. Ayres takes the hint and disappears.

The P.A. system comes on loud and hard. A personal fitness trainer starts chanting the marchers onward. "Take your water!" My feet stride comfortably in my two-tone leather shoes. I wind up carrying the picket sign half the time. "NAMI SGV Brain Trust" I proclaim.

That's the first Tuesday in October, 2009. A Tuesday like any other Tuesday, except You Are Here. Thank you for visiting La Bloga.

Free Books! Book Giveaway!

Hachette Book Group celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, by giving away five outstanding Latina Latino titles.

1. Zumba® By Beto Perez , Maggie Greenwood-Robinson ISBN: 0446546127
2. Evenings at the Argentine Club By Julia Amante ISBN: 0446581623
3. Damas, Dramas, and Ana Ruiz By Belinda Acosta ISBN: 044654051X
4. Tell Me Something True By Leila Cobo ISBN: 0446519367
5. Amigoland By Oscar Casares ISBN: 0316159697

Send your mailing address and answers to these La Bloga questions. All answers are posted in the current week's set of La Bloga columns:

1. Did Olga Garcia climb all the way to the top of the Statue of Liberty?

2. Title of KATHY CANO-MURILLO's new novel.

3. Her poem, "To Walt Whitman" is one of this poet's most quoted works.

4. Jesse Tijerina's guest column reviewed this poet's early work.

5. This character in Reyna Grande's Dancing With Butterflies steals money to buy cosmetic surgery.

One winner will be drawn from all correctly answered emails received here on October 8. This is not the same contest Liz Vega announced on her Sunday column. You have two opportunities to get the set of five novels.

La Bloga welcomes your comments and observations on today's or any day's columns. Simply click the comments counter below to share your views. When you have a column of your own, a book review, a report on an arts or cultural event, remember La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. Click here to discuss your invitation to be our guest.

The Ohio State University Press announces the “Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors Series”

Frederick Luis Aldama, series editor

The Ohio State University Press proudly launches the Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors Series with Frederick Luis Aldama serving as the series editor.

Overview

The “Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors” series offers scholars the possibility of formulating an interpretive approach about a single or cluster of contemporary Latino authors (novelist, short story, poet, comic book author/artist) or directors (fiction and/or documentary). The goal of these books is to enrich our understanding of and pay critical attention to Latino authors or film directors. While there are many authors and directors we can readily identify who merit study, there are also (and in a way perhaps unforeseeable at the present time) authors and directors working today--or soon tomorrow--who will have a significant impact within Latino culture and the culture at large. Such an author or director may be the next Junot Díaz or Robert Rodriguez.

The Latino authors and directors published by the series will be assessed according to their cultural impact (present and potential), and not necessarily by the quantity of work done. Junot Díaz is a good case in point. He has published only one novel and two collections of stories, yet his impact has been huge. The same can be said of a film director like Alex Rivera who has made only one film to date, the award-winning Sleep Dealer, yet his cultural influence has been significant.

Books in the series will follow the format of a book-length essay and fall between 45,000 and 50,000 words. Each book will be organized according to major sub-headings rather than traditional chapters. They will present short, engagingly written, useful commentaries on contemporary Latino authors and film directors. While largely jargon-free, when the use of jargon is used (a short hand for a concept, for instance) the writers of the books will define it and explain its application. Theme, chronology, theoretical, or historical frameworks might be used depending on the scholar’s preference; historical, cultural, regional, even biographical information would be included where necessary. These critical studies will provide real criticism that offer readers a true understanding of either a single or series of Latino author(s) or film director (s). Each volume consists of incisive interpretive and critical commentary, historical/biographical information, and a detailed bibliography. Each book will include interviews with the author (or authors) or film director (or directors). These will not slip into hagiographies, but rather shed light on what works and what does not work according to reasoned analysis. That is, they will be interpretive and critical.

While there is no determined length to the interview section, books in the series will include interviews that do not take up more than 10,000 words. The scholar will establish the template for the interview as a last phase of the research and writing so that the questions enrich the information and analysis already presented in the main body of the book. Once again, both everything that precedes the interview and everything in the interview will aim at making the book memorable. There will be no padding. And the interviewee will be allowed to edit for clarity and eventual supplementary information.

The books in the series will be highly informative and critically interpretive in content. They will identify for a large readership the great variety of Latino authors and directors who are actively shaping Latino and mainstream culture. The series will grow with the idea that individually and collectively they will serve a wide ranging function: to make known all variety of Latino authors and directors to all variety of readers--from high school, college, to retirement.

The “Contemporary Latino Writers and Directors” series will offer accessible scholarly inquiry into one aspect (literature and film) that has become a comprehensive Latino cultural presence in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The series will make visible the contributions of Latino creators working in the areas of literature and film.

SUGGESTED LIST OF AUTHORS

Graphic novelists:

Joe Quesada (Cuban American)

Ivan Velez Jr. (Puerto Rican American)

Frank Espinosa (Cuban American)

Inverna Lockpez (Cuban American)

Wilfred Santiago (Puerto Rican American)

Rafael Navarro (Mexican American)

Rhode Montijo (Mexican American)

Gilbert Hernandez (Mexican American)

Mario Hernandez(Mexican American)

Jaime Hernandez(Mexican American)

Javier Hernandez(Mexican American)

Mexican Americans:

Susana Chávez-Silverman

Emma Pérez

Alma Luz Villanueva

Sheila Ortiz Taylor

Denise Chávez

Xochiquetzal Candelaria

Sesshu Foster

Alfredo Véa

Cecile Pineda

Lucha Corpi

Demetria Martinez

Monseratt Fontes

Michele Serros

Belinda Acosta

Tanya Maria Barrientos

Rudolfo Anaya

Alejandro Morales

Helena María Viramontes

Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Xyta Maya Murray

Tey Diana Rebolledo

Dagoberto Gilb

John Rechy

Salvador Plascencia

Pat Mora

Alurista

Isabella Ríos

Michael Nava

Norma Cantú

Richard Rodriguez

Cristina Ibarra

John J. Valadez

Cuban American:

Matías Montes Huidobro

Gustavo Perez Firmat

Achy Obejas

John Lantigua

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera

Elías Miguel Muñoz

Ruth Behar

Aleida Rodríguez

Ricardo Pau-Llosa

Virgil Suarez

Mirta Ojito

Ana Mendéndez

Margarita Engle

Naomi Ayala

Jack Agüeros

Cecilia Rodríguez

Eric Garcia

Zoé Valdés

Cristina García

Oscar Hijuelos

Dominican American:

Loida Maritza Perez

Rhina Espaillat

Angie Cruz

Rhina Espaillat

Angie Cruz

Julia Alvarez

Nelly Rosario

Marta Moreno Vega

Puerto Rican American:

Sandra Rodriguez Barron

Martín Espada

Irene Vilar

Sofia Quintero

Giannina Braschi

Nicholasa Mohr

Abraham Rodriguez Jr.

Carmen de Monteflores

Esmeralda Santiago

Luisita Lopez Torregrosa

Latino Americans:

Ruben Martinez (Salvadoran American)

Kathleen de Azevedo (Brazilian-American)

Marie Arana (Peruvian-American)

Daniel Alarcón (Peruvian-American)

Ariel Dorfman (Chilean American)

Héctor Tobar (Guatemalan American)

Alberto Ríos (Guatemalan American)

Sylvia Sellers-Garcia (Guatemalan American)

Francisco Goldman (Guatemalan American)

Christina Henriquez (Panamanian American)

Jaime Manrique (Colombian American)

Lilia Cobbs (Colombian American)

C. Dale Young (Latino/Asian)

Sigrid Nunez (Latino/Asian)

SUGGESTED LIST OF DIRECTORS

Carlos Ávila (Mex American)

Jesse Borrego (Mex American)

Paul Espinosa (Mex American)

Gregory Nava (Mex-American)

Lourdes Portillo (Mexican American)

Alfredo De Villa (Mex American)

Hector Galán (Mex American)

Efrain Gutierrez (Mex American)

Nancy de los Santos (Mex American)

Rick Tejada-Flores (Puerto Rican American)

Marcos Zurinaga (Puerto Rican American)

Miguel Arteta (Puerto Rican American

Marcos Zurinaga (Puerto Rican American)

Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Puerto Rican American)

Judith Escalona (Puerto Rican American)

Jacobo Morales (Puerto Rican American)

Franc Reyes (Puerto Rican American)

Linda Mendoza (Cuban American)

Sergio Giral (Cuban American)

Leon Ichaso (Cuban American)

Joe Menendez (Cuban American)

Ramón Menéndez (Cuban American)

George Romero (Cuban American)

Jessy Torrero (Dominican American)

Alfredo De Villa (Mexican American)

Gustavo Hernández Pérez (Venezuelan American)

Rodrigo García (Colombian American)

Orlando Jimenez-Leal (Cuban American)

Patricia Cardoso (Colombian-American)

ABOUT THE SERIES EDITOR:

Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English at The Ohio State University, United States, where he teaches Latino/a and Latin American post-colonial literature, film, and comics, as well as narrative theory and cognitive science approaches to culture. Prof. Aldama obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1999. He received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude in English from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992. For questions about the series or wish to be considered as an author for the series, you may e-mail Prof. Aldama at aldama.1@osu.edu or aldamaf@hotmail.com. 

Más y más - more new books in the new year

The Spring 2022 Catalog of the University of Arizona Press features several titles that should be of interest to readers of La Bloga.  Take a gander.

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The Book of Wanderers 

Reyes Ramirez

February

[from the catalog]
What do a family of luchadores, a teen on the run, a rideshare driver, a lucid dreamer, a migrant worker in space, a mecha soldier, and a zombie-and-neoNazi fighter have in common? 

Reyes Ramirez’s dynamic short story collection follows new lineages of Mexican and Salvadoran diasporas traversing life in Houston, across borders, and even on Mars. Themes of wandering weave throughout each story, bringing feelings of unease and liberation as characters navigate cultural, physical, and psychological separation and loss from one generation to the next in a tumultuous nation. 

The Book of Wanderers deeply explores Houston, a Gulf Coast metropolis that incorporates Southern, Western, and Southwestern identities near the borderlands with a connection to the cosmos. As such, each story becomes increasingly further removed from our lived reality, engaging numerous genres from emotionally touching realist fiction to action-packed speculative fiction, as well as hallucinatory realism, magical realism, noir, and science fiction. 

Fascinating characters and unexpected plots unpack what it means to be Latinx in contemporary—and perhaps future—America. The characters work, love, struggle, and never stop trying to control their reality. They dream of building communities and finding peace. How can they succeed if they must constantly leave one place for another? In a nation that demands assimilation, how can they define themselves when they have to start anew with each generation? The characters in The Book of Wanderers create their own lineages, philosophies for life, and markers for their humanity at the cost of home. So they remain wanderers . . . for now. 

REYES RAMIREZ , a Houstonian of Mexican and Salvadoran descent, is a 2020 CantoMundo Fellow and has received grants from YES Contemporary, the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Warhol Foundation’s Idea Fund. Read more of his work at reyesvramirez.com.

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Cardinal in My Window with a Mask on Its Beak
Carlos Aguasaco

translated by Jennifer Rathbun
March

[from the catalog]
Winner of the 2021 Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets

Cardinal in My Window with a Mask on Its Beak takes readers on a journey through poetic portraits, exploring the lives of passionate social justice advocates and historical migrants such as Ota Benga, Sarah Baartman, Isidro Marcelino Orbés, César Vallejo, and Gertrude Stein, among others. Raw and unapologetic, the poems in this bilingual collection ask readers to question their role in today’s society. The verses press the reader to examine what it means to have social justice in our globalized world, as Aguasaco confronts how society treats the Other—be that the immigrant, the Indigenous person, or anyone who embodies Otherness. 

A first-generation immigrant to the United States, Aguasaco embraces his transborder/transnational/intercultural identity by building a bridge across time and distance to unite the great voices of the Renaissance with his lyrical poems. The collection offers bold and fascinating dialogue with Spanish authors such as Juan Boscán, Francisco de Quevedo, Garcilaso de la Vega, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The poems examine the fundamental liberties inherent to humanity through stunning verse. In a quest for freedom, the poems openly criticize the treatment of immigrants in the United States, drawing poignant parallels with human rights abuses throughout history. 

Cardinal in My Window with a Mask on Its Beak brings potent voices of the past to life in poems that critically examine the present and future of the human experience. 

CARLOS AGUASACO is a professor of Latin American cultural studies and chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the City College of New York (CUNY). His most recent poetry book is The New York City Subway Poems. 

JENNIFER RATHBUN , a professor of Spanish and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Classics at Ball State University, has published sixteen books of poetry in translation; two anthologies of poetry; and the poetry collection The Book of Betrayals. Rathbun completed her PhD at the University of Arizona.

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A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back

Edited by Gloria J. Wilson, Joni B. Acuff, and Amelia M. Kraehe
April

[from the catalog]
In 1981, Chicana feminist intellectuals Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa published what would become a touchstone work for generations of feminist women of color—the seminal This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. To celebrate and honor this important work, editors gloria j. wilson, Joni B. Acuff, and Amelia M. Kraehe offer new generations A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back. 

In A Love Letter, creators illuminate, question, and respond to current politics, progressive struggles, transformations, acts of resistance, and solidarity, while also offering readers a space for renewal and healing. The central theme of the original Bridge is honored, exposing the lived realities of women of color at the intersections of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality, advancing those early conversations on what it means to be Third World feminist conscious. 

A Love Letter recognizes the challenges faced by women of color in a twenty-first-century world of climate and economic crises, increasing gun violence, and ever-changing social media constructs for women of color. It also retains the clarion call Bridge set in motion, as Moraga wrote: “A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives—our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longing—all fuse to create a politic born of necessity.” 

GLORIA J. WILSON is co-founder and co-director of Racial Justice Studio and an assistant professor in the School of Art at the University of Arizona. Her research centers cultural studies and Black studies engagements with theories of racial formations, anti-racism, and critical arts-based praxis. 

JONI B. ACUFF is an associate professor in the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at The Ohio State University. Acuff utilizes frameworks such as critical race theory, critical multiculturalism, Black feminist theory, and Afrofuturism to develop and disseminate pedagogical and curriculum strategies that activate critical race knowledge in art education. 

AMELIA M. KRAEHE is associate vice president for equity in the arts, co-founder and co-director of Racial Justice Studio, and an associate professor in the School of Art at the University of Arizona. She researches and teaches about intersectional anti-racism, the arts, and creative agency. She is co-author of Race and Art Education and co-editor of Pedagogies in the Flesh: Case Studies on the Embodiment of Sociocultural Differences in Education and The Palgrave Handbook on Race and the Arts in Education.

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Latinx TV in the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Frederick Luis Aldama
April

[from the catalog]
Latinx TV in the Twenty-First Century offers an expansive and critical look at contemporary television by and about U.S. Latinx communities. This volume is comprehensive in its coverage while diving into detailed and specific examples as it navigates the complex and ever-changing world of Latinx representation and creation in television. 

In this volume, editor Frederick Luis Aldama brings together leading experts who show how Latinx TV is shaped by historical, social, cultural, regional, and global contexts. Contributors address head on harmful stereotypes in Latinx representation while giving key insights to a positive path forward. TV narratives by and about Latinx people exist across all genres. In this century, we see Latinx people in sitcoms, sci-fi, noir, soap operas, rom-coms, food shows, dramas, action-adventure, and more. Latinx people appear in television across all formats, from quick webisodes, to serialized big-arc narratives, to animation and everything in between. The diverse array of contributors to this volume delve into this rich landscape of Latinx TV from 2000 to today, spanning the ever-widening range of genres and platforms. 

Latinx TV in the Twenty-First Century argues that Latinx TV is not just television—it’s an entire movement. Digital spaces and streaming platforms today have allowed for Latinx representation on TV that speaks to Latinx people and non-Latinx people alike, bringing rich and varied Latinx cultures into mainstream television and addressing urbanization, immigration, family life, language, politics, gender, sexuality, class, race, and ethnicity. 

Once heavily underrepresented and harmfully stereotypical, Latinx representation on TV is beginning to give careful nuance to regional, communal, and familial experiences among U.S. Latinx people. This volume unpacks the negative implications of older representation and celebrates the progress of new representation, recognizing that television has come a long way, but there is still a lot of important work to do for truly diverse and inclusive representation. 

FREDERICK LUIS ALDAMA is the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Radio-Television Film at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as Adjunct Professor and Distinguished University Professor at The Ohio State University. He is the award-winning author of more than forty-eight books and founder and director of UT Austin’s Latinx Pop Lab.

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Latinx Teens :  U.S. Popular Culture on the Page, Stage, and Screen 

Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera

April

[from the catalog]

What can Latinx youth contribute to critical conversations on culture, politics, identity, and representation? Latinx Teens answers this question and more by offering an energetic, in-depth look at how Latinx teenagers influence twenty-first-century U.S. popular culture. 

In this exciting new book, Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera explore the diverse ways that contemporary mainstream film, television, theater, and young adult literature invokes, constructs, and interprets adolescent Latinidad. Latinx Teens shows how coming-of-age Latinx representation is performed in mainstream media, and how U.S. audiences consume Latinx characters and stories. Despite the challenges that the Latinx community face in both real and fictional settings, Latinx teens in pop culture forge spaces that institutionalize Latinidad. Teen characters make Latinx adolescence mainstream and situate teen characters as both in and outside their Latinx communities and U.S. mainstream culture, conveying the complexities of “fitting in,” and refusing to fit in all at the same time. 

Fictional teens such as Spider-Man’s Miles Morales, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter’s Julia Reyes, Party of Five’s Acosta siblings, and In the Heights’s Nina Rosario comprise a growing body of pop culture media that portray young Latinxs as three-dimensional individuals who have agency, authenticity, and serious charisma. Teenagers and young adults have always had the power to manifest social change, and this book acknowledges, celebrates, and investigates how Latinx teens in popular culture take on important current issues. 

With a dynamic interdisciplinary approach, Latinx Teens explores how Latinxs on the cusp of adulthood challenge, transform, expand, and reimagine Latinx identities and their relationships to mainstream U.S. popular culture in the twenty-first century. 

TREVOR BOFFONE is a lecturer in the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Houston. He is the author of Renegades: Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok. 

CRISTINA HERRERA is director of Chicano and Latino Studies at Portland State University, where she is a professor. She is the author of ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature: Brown and Nerdy.

Later.

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Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction. His latest novel is Angels in the Wind.