Chicanonautica: ¡Tonk You, ICE!

  

by Ernest Hogan

 

Who would've thought that ICE had a secret word that they call their victims and potential victims? They’ve been keeping it to themselves. Giggling about in private like the cowards they are.

I only know about it because Gustavo Arellano spilled the beans in the L.A. Times. Thanks, Gustavo, keep up the good work.

This new word is tonk.

Yeah, it’s pretty lame, but we aren’t talking about witty, imaginative types here. 

I wonder why they can’t seem to come up with a workable slur for us?

Greaser is misleading. It was what they called the sombrero-wearing villains in the first silent movies made in Hollywood. It was never clear what kind of grease they meant. And it’s become antiquated. Would young Latinxes know that they’re supposed to be offended?

Beaner is also awkward. Yup, I eat beans, and like them. You gotta problem with that? I’ll just fart in your face.

Then there’s spic. Growing up on SoCal. I never heard it until the original West Side Story was shown on national television. No knee-jerk reflexes for an East Coast chingadera. 

And it sounds like part of a word. Maybe spicko or spickie or spicker would be more appropriate. Or maybe not.

So now we have tonk. It started as an onomatopoeia. What ICE does to people: TONK! Like in the old Sixties Batman. 

Also like egghead, that came from the Nazis referring to those whose skulls they were cracking open on the sidewalks. Funny how these things keep going back to the Nazis . . .

The n-word doesn’t have to worry about the competition.

(Funny how the n-word has become more forbidden than the f-word . . .)

I think some preemptive strikes are in order. Pick up this grenade and throw it back at them. Remember, Chicano and pocho were originally slurs our South of the border hermanos used against . . .  us. What goes around comes around. Besides, racists hate it when their magic words don’t do what they want them to.

We should turn it back into a verb. Four letters ending with a k. It rhymes with the f-word! A perfect stand-in.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Tonk you, ICE! started appearing in walls all over the land?

It could be said, shouted, chanted, when they come after someone.

Oh, for someone telling them to go tonk themselves on a video that goes viral!

It’s what all those tonksucking, mothertonkers deserve.

Ernest Hogan has been called the n-word so often that when he hears it, he assumes they're talking about him--and is usually right. He's working on his New, Improved Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom for the Palabras del Pueblo Writing Workshop. Because pendejos are trying to exterminate us from the future . . .

Welcome Home, Esmerelda- Bienvenida a casa, Esmerelda

Written by Daniela Ramirez

Illustrated by Maribel Lechuga

*Publisher: Charlesbridge

*Print length: 32 pages

*ISBN-10: 1623543908

*ISBN-13: 978-1623543907

*Reading age: 5 - 8 years

*Grade level: 1 - 4

From a military family, Esmerelda discovers that home is where she's always welcomed—thanks to music, dance, and the big, unconditional love from her extended family. 

An ideal picture book for kindergarteners and 1st graders who are moving, need reassurances during a transition, and could use the reminder that home is family.

Papa's job in the military has taken Esmerelda and her family all over the world—and yet she's never lived in the United States. Now she and her family are moving to San Antonio, Texas.

Although many of her extended family members live there, Esmerelda is unsure it'll feel like home. Even more, she's unsure she will fit in. Gradually, music and her sweet abuela spark bravery and the realization that home is not always a place—it's familia.

Heartwarming and hopeful, Welcome Home, Esmerelda will provide reassurance to any kid that while moving and change are difficult, you have the support of loved ones to help you through it.

Edición en español! Proveniente de una familia militar, Esmerelda descubre que el hogar es donde siempre es bienvenida —gracias a la música, la danza y el gran amor incondicional de su familia extendida.

Un libro ilustrado ideal para niños de kínder y primer grado que están mudándose, necesitan consuelo y seguridad durante una transición y que pueden beneficiarse de recordar que el hogar es la familia.

El trabajo de Papá en la milicia ha llevado a Esmerelda y a su familia por todo el mundo. Sin embargo nunca ha vivido en los Estados Unidos. Ahora ella y su familia están mudándose a San Antonio, Texas.

Aunque muchos miembros de su familia extendida viven allí, Esmerelda no está segura de que se sentirá como en su casa. Incluso, no se siente segura de que encajará. Gradualmente, la música y su dulce abuela despiertan su valentía y la ayudan a entender que el hogar no siempre es un lugar: es la familia.

Conmovedora y esperanzadora, Bienvenida a casa, Esmerelda proveerá tranquilidad a cualquier niño, mostrándole que, aunque las mudanzas y los cambios son difíciles, cuentan con el apoyo de sus seres queridos para ayudarle en la transición.

Review

A warm and relatable tale told with heart. —Kirkus Reviews

Moving and reassuring choices for picture book collections, especially for libraries serving military families and children experiencing big moves, these titles will capture readers’ attention with beautiful imagery and writing, and their hearts. —School Library Journal

Spanish words peppered into the text add warmth and cultural authenticity. Ramirez succeeds in sharing a warm reflection on family and the sacrifices of service members and their families. An author’s note about military families concludes. —Booklist

Daniela Ramirez has a passion for writing books for children. She is Mexican American and excited to share her culture. Daniela loves writing Latine characters and wishes to inspire her own children. She is married to her college sweetheart, is a military spouse, and currently resides in New Mexico.

As a child, Maribel Lechuga spent every quiet hour of the day drawing. She studied illustration in art school in Madrid and is now the illustrator of many children's books, including, Night Owl Night, Ten Beautiful Things, and Seaside Stroll. Maribel loves the environment and animals and recharges her batteries by hiking through the Spanish hills. www.maribellechuga.com

Sublime Sculpture Setting For Sublime Poetry

Studio 347: What's In A Name?
Michael Sedano

The poster arrives like many other posters; a line-up of poets, a date and time, a place. An unobtrusive nearly transparent image holds the background. “Poetry  Salons” the title says, and the names: John Martinez, Natalie Sierra, Matt Sedillo, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Francisco Letelier, Yasmin Cardona. 

Juan Carlos Muñoz Hernandez, curator of the Graham archive, offers a message of welcome

Through an Hernandez sculpture with magenta colored eyes

That’s a sublime lineup of some of Southern California’s premier voices. The afternoon’s reading proves exactly that. Letelier opens the reading—he leaves for another event. 

Francisco Letelier

John Martinez not only reads, he's brought tamales and birongas--and water for gente who prefer cool clear water.

John Martinez reads in Spanish and others in English.

MC Matt Sedillo calls the readers in the order listed on the poster.  Natalie Sierra, Poet Laureate of Pomona, Califas, reads from her novel, Beyond the Grace of God (link). 

Sedillo pulls a surprise out of his hat—maybe Matt knows there’s extra time on the event since Cardona is not in attendance—and he invites selected audience members who are poets to come up and share something impromptu.

It’s a delightful twist on the standard poetry reading. All the surprise invitees perform with aplomb and find warm welcome from the audience. Indeed, the gente gathered today are good friends and the spirit of camaraderie infuses the readings with love for poetry and one another.

Thelma T. Reyna, La Bloga's Friday columnist with Melinda Palacio.

Thelma T. Reyna, Altadena Poet Laureate Emerita, ever the consummate professional, hasn’t brought her poetry and recites a Shakespearean sonnet from memory. Roberto Leni steps up, he’s brought a few pages from a work in progress. Abel Salas arrives after the readings have started. Sedillo calls him to the front. Matt’s partner in publishing, David Romero, works from memory. A seasoned performer a la brava, Romero provides thoughtful amusement.

Margaret Elysia Garcia's dynamic reading is a highlight of the afternoon 

Margaret Elysia Garcia—La Bloga’s newest Bloguera who takes the Saturday/Weekend edition—offers an understatement by way of prologue, “You know I have a sense of humor?” 

Litotes has never been higher! 

Matt Sedillo is CEO of El Martillo Press

As Sedillo winds up an introduction to the next poet, audience members protest, “Dude, you’rek introducing yourself?” And David Romero seizes the lectern and gives Matt Sedillo a formalish introduction. Romero and Sedillo are partner publishers of El Martillo Press. The readers today are El Martillo authors.

David Romero performs for university audiences across the nation. 

Sedillo wows ‘em, reciting from memory and doing what speech coaches recommend, don’t get stuck behind the lectern. Sedillo leaves the mic and steps into the space between listeners and speaker. It’s a dynamic way to own the platform entirely. It’s clear Matt has done this before. It’s a sublime move to cap off the wondrous event in this wondrous space.

Abel Salas

Roberto Leni

From the street outside, the anonymous building appears unremarkable. But inside, ay de mi. The space, Studio 347, houses sculptor Robert Graham’s maquettes and a few finished gems.  

Los Angeles landmarks and Graham’s work are synonymous. The male torsos that adorn the peristyle of the Los Angeles coliseum hang from the ceiling. Elements from Graham’s Mary door at the LA Cathedral, figures featured on the plaza of the Music Center. 

In bronze, this torso greets visitors to the LA Coliseum 

A marian figure installed at the cathedral. Not all Marys are Guadalupe.

Several lucite sculptures and a brass assemblage are work of the gallery curator and Graham’s mentee Juan Carlos Muñoz Hernandez. Juan Carlos greets the visitors, invites them to photograph the sculpture, including a multicolored assemblage he completed just in time for these visitors. Hernandez’ brightly colored work provides an interesting counterpoint to Graham’s subdued tonalities.

One woman, Corrina Corrina, shares her enthusiastic review of the afternoon’s writing:

Corrina Corrina

“All the poets rocked. The women had a personal voice that spoke to me with a soft feminine tone that spoke so softly loud from Shakespeare to punk Rock Band and sexy head wrap cleavage vanilla cream colored feminine touches ! I love how boldly soft they spoke . So much sweeter than I remember from 70’s-90’s female poets. Very pleasing, like watermelon.”

Watermelon-eaters Sedillo, Michael Sedano, Thelma T. Reyna, David Romero

News & Notes

La Bloga welcomes guest columnists and is happy to share information on upcoming events in your region, such as this announcement from the venerable LA Poet Society: 

https://www.lapoetsociety.org/

Click on the fotos of Blogueras Blogueros at the top of the column to email La Bloga Editor Michael Sedano with your ideas and announcements.

Elvira Barbosa’s _Nadja’s Secrets_ by Xánath Caraza

Elvira Barbosa’s Nadja’s Secrets by Xánath Caraza

 

Elvira Barbosa

Of Elvira Barbosa

Elvira Barbosa is a professor at the Federal University of Technology – Paraná (UTFPR), Apucarana Campus, Brazil, and a researcher specializing in linguistics and literary studies. As a novelist, she is also deeply interested in Brazil’s cultural memory and the ways in which history continues to shape contemporary society.

 

Drawing on her family roots in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais and Bahia, Barbosa brings both emotional sensitivity and historical precision to her fiction. Her work explores the complex dynamics of power, memory, and identity with particular attention to the social structures that have shaped—and continue to shape—Brazil.

 

Nadja’s Secrets, her debut novel, weaves together literary fiction, social critique, and psychological depth. Through the voices of women and other figures marginalized by official history, the novel illuminates the contradictions, silences, and enduring emotional legacies that pass from one generation to the next.

 

She lives in Paraná, Brazil, where she teaches, conducts research, and continues to write literary fiction.

 

Nadja's Secrets by Elvira Barbosa

Of Nadja’s Secrets by Elvira Barbosa

 

Raised to value elegance, propriety, and unquestioning obedience, Baroness Nadja grows up believing that silence is the highest virtue. But beneath the polished surface of aristocratic society, she discovers a world sustained by hypocrisy, quiet cruelty, and carefully performed respectability.

 

Trapped in a marriage to a vain and socially admired man, Nadja begins to see what others refuse to acknowledge: affection can conceal violence, beauty can disguise corruption, and prestige often depends on the suffering of those without a voice. As her awareness deepens, the greatest struggle is no longer against the people around her, but against the expectations that have shaped her entire life.

 

Rather than relying on dramatic twists, Nadja’s Secrets builds its emotional power through psychological depth and quiet revelation. At its heart lies the conflict between appearance and truth, love and convenience, power and compassion, all seen through the clear-eyed, melancholy perspective of a woman who can no longer ignore what she has learned.

 

A richly atmospheric literary novel exploring vanity, family silence, inherited privilege, and the devastating cost of preserving appearances. Nadja’s Secrets asks how much injustice a respectable society can conceal—and what remains when beauty itself becomes monstrous.

 

Elvira Barbosa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Laureate Fountain

Celebrating an Unsung, Pioneering Poet Leader, Pauline Dutton

Thelma T. Reyna

In the thriving, bustling poetry mecca of Southern California, particularly the greater Los Angeles area, there is no shortage of poet leaders, those poets of substantial influence and followers whose renown transcends the boundaries of maps:  L.A. Poets Laureate Luis Javier Rodriguez and Lynne Thompson, for example. Today I celebrate an unsung leader, a small-town head librarian whose pioneering vision of integrating poetry into the fabric of her community helped transform it into a little mecca of its own.

This poet leader is Pauline (Pauli) Dutton, and the small town she tilled, seeded, and nurtured into a poetic gem is Altadena, a picturesque home to writers, artists, and musicians nestled in the foothills adjacent to Pasadena. Engulfed by the calamitous wildfires of January 2025, stalwart Altadena still stands, rebirthing. Predictably, the town turned to poetry to document and mourn its devastation by flames.  This collective catharsis of anger, grief, and resilience became another annual anthology, another byproduct of Pauli Dutton’s early cultivation. 

The Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology 2026 continues 21 years of Altadena poetry anthologies first started under Pauli’s leadership: the first 10 under her tenure as founder and Altadena Library District Director; and 11 years under my editorship and/or publication of it via Golden Foothills Press. Collectively, all these anthologies represent the depth and breadth of Pauli’s commitment to nurture and expand access to poetry, and visibility of its power and beauty. She blazed new trails by engaging like-minded community members as follows:

• In 2003, Pauli established the now-renowned “Poetry & Cookies Reading Event,” an annual gathering of diverse poets from throughout SoCal reading their poems to packed audiences.  This event has run continuously since 2003, including via Zoom during Covid.

• In 2004, Pauli established the first local anthology, Poetry & Cookies, and produced it unfailingly for 10 years until she retired. (It was replaced by the Altadena Poetry Review: Anthology in 2014.)

• In 2006, she founded the Poet Laureate Program, which continues unabated to this day, with some Altadena Laureates distinguishing themselves on the national stage of poet leadership. Fourteen diverse poets, to date, have held this distinction.

When Pauli retired in 2014, she could have “rested on her laurels,” as the old saying goes, since these programs she created were well-received and firmly established. Instead, she remained in her role as leader of the Poet Laureate Selection Committee, insuring that Laureateships continue. She remained devotedly engaged in the readings, workshops, committees, and festivals that were and are hallmarks of Altadena’s loving embrace of poetry writ large. Pauli Dutton’s  influence and legacy continue to inspire us. May these continue to flourish unabatedly. (For more details, visit https://www.altadenalibrary.org/poetry)

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ABOUT THE ALTADENA POETRY REVIEW: ANTHOLOGY 2026

Lester Graves Lennon holds his editorial magnum opus

This collection, edited by Lester Graves Lennon, showcases 180 poems of varying styles, themes, lengths, and formats by 158 culturally-diverse poets primarily from Southern California, but also from across the United States and internationally.  Authors include past and present Poets Laureate of local, regional, and state levels, including two Los Angeles (CA) Poets Laureate, Luis J. Rodriguez and Lynne Thompson. Some poets are at the beginning of their careers, but most are experienced authors with publication experience and name recognition. Many are award-winners at local, regional, and higher levels; others are affiliated with colleges and universities; and others are mentors and poetry leaders in their communities.  Overall, the poets published in this anthology are distinguished and markedly skilled in their art.

Advance praise of this anthology underscores the depth of sentiments expressed in the poems, especially compassion, humanity, strength, and resilience regarding the "fire poems" in the book: poetry bearing witness to the devastation caused by the horrific wildfires that swept through Altadena, CA, on January 7, 2025, one of the most destructive fires in California history. This anthology attests to the human will to overcome, to be reborn, and it does so with poetry that is lyrical, solemn, thought-provoking, insightful, and full of heart and soul.