A Pair of Summer Reads

These two upcoming books should get you started on your summer reading.  One is the latest from the prolific, popular, and iconic Isabel Allende.  The second is the highly praised and much anticipated debut novel of Katie Gutierrez (paperback edition - the hardback was published last year.) Take a look.

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The Wind Knows My Name

Isabel Allende

Ballantine Books - June 6

[from the publisher]

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

__________________________

More Than You'll Ever Know

Katie Gutierrez

William Morrow - June 20

[from the publisher]
The dance becomes an affair, which becomes a marriage, which becomes a murder...

In 1985, Lore Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo, Texas, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international banker, Lore splits her time between two countries and two families—until the truth is revealed and one husband is arrested for murdering the other.

In 2017, while trawling the internet for the latest, most sensational news reports, struggling true-crime writer Cassie Bowman encounters an article detailing that tragic final act. Cassie is immediately enticed by what is not explored: Why would a woman—a mother—risk everything for a secret double marriage? Cassie sees an opportunity—she’ll track Lore down and capture the full picture, the choices, the deceptions that led to disaster. But the more time she spends with Lore, the more Cassie questions the facts surrounding the murder itself. Soon, her determination to uncover the truth could threaten to derail Lore’s now quiet life—and expose the many secrets both women are hiding.

Told through alternating timelines, More Than You’ll Ever Know is both a gripping mystery and a wrenching family drama. Presenting a window into the hearts of two very different women, it explores the many conflicting demands of marriage and motherhood, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone—especially those we love.

Later.

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Manuel Ramos writes crime fiction. Read his latest story, Northside Nocturne, in Denver Noir, edited by Cynthia Swanson, published by Akashic Books.

Chicanonautica: Among the Aztecs on an Electric Air Yacht

 by Ernest Hogan

I was hooked just reading the long, awkward title: Frank Reade Junior and His Electric Air Yacht; Or,The Great Inventor Among the Aztecs. Luis Senarens, the Cuban-American Jules Verne takes his hero, and crew, not only into the lost world of Pre-Columbian culture, but takes a whack at the classic “lost race” subgenre.

Turns out it’s another action-packed read with some food for thought on American views about the worlds (yeah, I meant the plural) south of the Border.

There’s the usual formula, Frank had finished another invention–this time, an air “yacht” with electric propulsion (the kind of batteries used are never mentioned) and two balloons in case one bursts. It also has a diabolical defense system–arrays of Winchesters that one man can fire in instant fusillades–the idea of a Gatling gun, or machine gun machine having not occurred.

There’s the usual bickering between his sidekicks Pomp and Barney, and their wives, and a stranger comes with a mission in which the new inventions would come in handy. This time it’s Captain Calavaras, the Man of Mystery (which is also the title of the first chapter), who is described as a white man, accompanied by two “dark men with rings in their ears.”

The swarthy fellows turn out to be from a lost city/colony of Aztecs somewhere in Central America. Seems a sinister white man had overthrown the rightful king and put his puppet on the throne. Captain Calavaras has offered to help them set things right in the colonial attitude that outsiders are always getting dark people into trouble, and this can only be set right by white saviors.

They are also accompanied by Felix Frolix, a journalist described as a “little dude” who writes a version of the story in which he is the daring hero.

I must also point out that this differs from the typical lost race novels of the time, like H. Rider Haggard’s She and Edward Bulwar-Lytton The Lost Race–it features dark skinned Aztecs, rather than elvish, whiter-than-white people that inspired the Nazi and other white supremacists.

On the way south they have trouble with the Apaches, have to stop in Mexico for repairs, and they have to fend off some local villagers who are able to summon an army to their aid. Reade and crew don’t use the Winchester-arrays, which would have resulted in a bloodbath worthy of Sam Peckinpah, but some cleaner electric weapons.

When they make it to the lost city of the Aztecs,who are relatively “civilized,” though sacrifices to “Chacmool” (which is the name of a Mayan statue) are mentioned. The dark men with rings in their ears, whose names are Tamos and Mora, and aren’t really developed as characters, help in infiltrating and starting a revolution. There’s also more use of electric weapons, even an all-terrain electric road wagon. All those Winchesters were apparently just along for the ride.

The rightful handsome prince and his beautiful consort are made king and queen. Lots of golden treasure is recovered, and distributed to people of the kingdom, a touch of socialism in this series which is mostly a love-letter to capitalism. In Frank Reade Junior Exploring Mexico in His New Air Ship a Mayan treasure is looted and taken back to New York. 

It ends with the establishment of a wealthy Aztec “Wakanda” in Central America, which is a very interesting idea.

Ernest Hogan finished teaching Papí Sci-Fi’s Ancient Chicano Sci-Fi Wisdom and is feeling enlightened and empowered.

The Moonlit Vine- Claro de luna

 

By Elizabeth Santiago

Illustrations by Mckenzie Mayle 

Publisher: Lee & Low Books 

Hardcover: ‎368 pages

ISBN-10: ‎1643795805

ISBN-13: ‎978-1643795805

 

 

Fourteen-year-old Taína just learned that she is a descendant of a long line of strong Taíno women, but will knowing this help her bring peace and justice to her family and community?

 

Despite her name, Taína Perez doesn't know anything about her Taíno heritage, nor has she ever tried to learn. After all, how would ancient Puerto Rican history help with everything going on? There's constant trouble at school and in her neighborhood, her older brother was kicked out of the house, and with her mom at work, she's left alone to care for her little brother and aging grandmother. It's a lot for a fourteen-year-old to manage.

 

But life takes a wild turn when her abuela tells her she is a direct descendant of Anacaona, the beloved Taíno leader, warrior, and poet, who was murdered by the Spanish in 1503. Abuela also gives her an amulet and a zemi and says that it's time for her to step into her power like the women who came before her. But is that even possible? People like her hardly make it out of their circumstances, and the problems in her home and community are way bigger than Taína can manage. Or are they?

 

A modern tale with interstitial historical chapters, The Moonlit Vine brings readers a powerful story of the collective struggle, hope, and liberation of Puerto Rican and Taíno peoples.

 

 

Taína, una joven de catorce años, acaba de enterarse que es descendiente de una larga línea de fuertes mujeres taínas. ¿Pero, le ayudará esto a traer paz y justicia a su familia y comunidad?

 

A pesar de su nombre, Taína Pérez no sabe nada de su herencia taína, ni ha intentado nunca aprender. Al fin y al cabo, ¿cómo podría ayudar la historia antigua de Puerto Rico con todo lo que está pasando? Hay constantes problemas en la escuela y en su barrio, han echado a su hermano mayor de casa y, como su madre está trabajando, le toca a ella sola cuidar de su hermano pequeño y de su abuela anciana. Es mucho para una niña de catorce años.

 

Pero la vida da un giro radical cuando su abuela le dice que es descendiente directa de Anacaona, la bienamada líder taína, guerrera y poeta, que fue asesinada por los españoles en 1503. La abuela también le regala un amuleto y un cemí y le dice que ha llegado el momento de asumir su poder como las mujeres que la precedieron. ¿Pero es eso posible? La gente como ella apenas consigue salir de sus circunstancias, y los problemas de su hogar y de su comunidad son mucho más grandes de lo que Taína puede manejar. ¿O lo son?

 

Un relato moderno intercalado con capítulos históricos, Claro de luna ofrece a los lectores una poderosa historia de lucha, esperanza y liberación colectiva del pueblo puertorriqueño y taíno.

 

Elizabeth Santiago grew up in Boston, MA with parents who migrated from San Sebastián, Puerto Rico in the 1960s. The youngest of nine, Elizabeth was entranced by the stories her mother, father, aunts and uncles, and community elders told her. Later, she sought to capture and honor those narratives and share them with the world. She earned a BFA in creative writing from Emerson College, a master's in education from Harvard University, and a PhD in education studies from Lesley University. She still lives in Boston with her husband Kevin and son Ezekiel, but travels to Puerto Rico as often as she can to feel even closer to her ancestors, culture, and heritage. Find her @liznarratives

 

McKenzie Mayle is a New York City based artist and illustrator with roots in Appalachia Ohio. She delights in creating relatable and eccentric characters, predominantly inspired by Tim Burton, Shel Silverstein, Jann Brett, and Roald Dahl imagery. Van Gogh and Monet influenced the scenery she would create for her characters. When not drawing or out and about people-watching for character inspiration, she can be found cuddled with her cats, Pretzel and Tarmac. Find her at mckenziemayle.com.

Memorial Day 2023: Remember the Chicano Who Won WWII?

This column originally ran in September 2019. My father saw Europe through the gunsights of a .30 calibre machine gun. He fondly remembered a big house overlooking the arches on the beach of Etretat, Normandy. The Army billeted the victorious soldiers there on the cliffs. That house was one of two good memories Dad shared with me through the years.

Michael Sedano

“What the Hell is that doing there?” My dad’s vehemence wasn’t unusual but this time his irritation rang with something else. The cover of the big thick book had the Nazi swastika against a white circle. I recognized what I’d done and snatched the volume off the table and hid it away spine-first. I thought the author had been stupid to put that piece of crap so blatantly out there, but then, I knew my dad’s stories, and the symbol sold books about the 16-year old war.

I was probably 5 when I first heard about my daddy’s war. This puts my Dad only 5 years distant from the last days of World War II, 6 years from being an orange picker with a high school diploma. He was picking la naranja again, and smudging in winter, with 2 kids and a Good Conduct Medal.

Dad showed me the armbands, some fotos of dead German soldiers, a newspaper foto of his smiling face sticking up from the tank. He looked so young, even to my mocoso eyes. He told me haunting stories about killing people. About the dead German tank commander said to bear an eerie resemblance to my father's face. A barn filled with machine-gunned civilians. It was war.

They were never going to get rich on an orange picker's sueldo
but that didn't stop my Dad from 100-box days when the
grove was good.

Dad sat in the machine gunner’s forward post on 19APR45 when his tank, the C’est la Guerre, led the 69th Infantry Division to the front door of Leipzig City Hall. The war was won. If you saw the movie, Patton did it all by himself, casí. “We gave it back,” my Dad told me as he closed the shoebox of memories.

Dad wouldn’t have been the first GI inside the building, but as the machine gunner riding in the nose of that tank, my Dad was the closest GI to the front door when the driver set the brakes and WWII was over. A Chicano won WWII. My Dad never said that. William L. Shirer went that whole book and didn’t say it. I say it: A Chicano orange picker from Redlands California won WWII in Europe. It’s true.

By the time the Army allowed my dad and his platoon into the building, all the good stuff was gone. Rank has its privileges. A few worthless German marks littered the floor, some brand new Nazi armbands. Here's a chrome bayonet that slicks in and out of a decorative sheath, in all likelihood the guy who wore it in a goose-stepping parade was killed during the assault.

This is the crew of C'est la Guerre, the first U.S. tank
to reach Leipzig City Hall, where this bill littered the floor.

Dad autographed a one hundred thousand Mark bill and sent the loot home to Berdoo. Germany was printing money at will and the bill looks like it's fresh off the printing press.

C’est la Guerre’s crewmen signed a one hundred mark bill. Along with my Dad, these are the first GIs to reach Leipzig City Hall. History has forgotten these warriors. Somewhere a family has a similarly autographed bill. I hope they know it's a treasure.

McCann, the Loader on C'est la Guerre, remained in contact with my father the rest of their lives. Just as dementia was seizing my Dad's future, they'd planned a reunion so my nearly-blind Dad could view the Fall colors back east. When McCann died, my mom decided my Dad didn't need to know that. She said goodbye to Mrs. McCann for us. Thank you for your service.

Two armbands complete the collection. A variety of GIs signed their names and addresses. I looked up a couple. The address in Chicago is a building erected in 1900. It stands. I know one GI who returned there after WWII. Hillsboro TX buried a man whose particulars suggest he was with the 777th Tank Battalion that day in Leipzig. Another Chicano who won the war. Chippewa III 22 signed both armbands.

I am happy my Dad did not downsize his Army souvenirs. I’m downsizing my possessions and happened upon my Dad’s last Army stuff, the memories he kept in his strongbox. Dad, I won’t let go of your memories. I’m not waiting for VE Day to say “thank you for your service.” And I add, thank you for holding in those nightmares. I remember your stories, I understand holding it in can break a man. You did that for us.

The last time I sat with my father in his bedroom at home, his mind was back in the field. He wanted to reset the firing stakes for their new position. He was on the road to Leipzig, resting now, dug in and ready. I could hear it in his voice.

69th Infantry Division, 777 Tank Battalion, on the road to Leipzig, April 1945.
The soldier stands over the machine gunner's hatch.

U.S. Army tank C'est la Guerre in Leipzig, Germany April or May 1945

C'est la Guerre and other armor, Leipzig, Germany, April or May 1945

Swastika is too offensive to feature on La Bloga

Cimientos 2023: IATI Theater's Staged Readings Series (June 8 to June 11)

Cimientos Play Development Program at IATI Theater in New York is a unique opportunity for global playwrights. Out of hundreds of submissions, only ten playwrights are selected to develop their plays with us. This program is dedicated to pushing the envelope of traditional playwriting and explore what IATI calls vanguardia. The program provides the selected playwrights with resources such as mentorship, workshop-panels, and a platform to present their work to audiences.

IATI's ultimate goal is to cultivate and support innovative and unconventional voices in the theater community. IATI believes in pushing boundaries and supporting artists who challenge the status quo.

Join IATI for the Cimientos 2023 Staged Readings Series between June 8-11, 2023. Spotlighting this exciting curation of national and cross-continental contemporary writers. For information about the plays including getting your tickets for any or all of the readings, visit here.

Location: IATI Theater Studio, 64 E. 4th St 2 Floor, New York, NY, 10003.

I am delighted that my play, Waiting for Godínez, is a featured play in Cimientos 2023 with a live reading scheduled for June 9, 8:00 p.m. (Eastern). If you are in New York, pick up a ticket and enjoy an evening of theatre.

***

May 22 was the book birthday of the Spanish translation of my short-story collection, How to Date a Flying Mexican under the title of Cómo Salir con un Mexicano Volador (University of Nevada Press). The Spanish edition was translated by Cinta García de la Rosa. Having my work available in Spanish means a lot to this old pocho. Perfect for the classroom and libraries! Get your copy now from your favorite bookstore or online seller.

Poetry Connection: A Lesson in Resilience and the teachings of Poetry

Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

Woww Writers Lori Anaya, Mona Frazier, Melinda Palacio and 23rd US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo

*This post was previously published in the Santa Barbara Independent 

 

National Poetry Month May be over but Santa Barbara continues to bring the best of the laureates to our town. United States Poet Laureate Ada Limón closed out poetry month. Last Thursday, UCSB hosted Joy Harjo, 23^rd Poet Laureate of the United States. Joy Harjo was the perfect choice for Multicultural Center’s Resilient Love series. To read her poetry, songs, memoirs and plays is to understand how she navigates obstacles and rises above them. 

 

If you are not familiar with our previous United States Poet Laureate, a good place to acquaint yourself with her twelve books of poetry is to start with Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light 50 Poems for 50 Years with a foreword by Sandra Cisneros, a rare insight into the friendship of two once-struggling poets turned literary giants. The notes section of the book is fascinating and tells the backstory and sometimes to whom the poem was written. The Life of Beauty, a New York Times assignment, is also on her music album, I Pray for My Enemies. I’ve spent the past couple of days listening to her songs on Apple music. Sandra Cisneros describes being startled when she first heard Joy Harjo’s singing voice: 

 

“It was a voice as soft as the wings of sparrows, as sweet and transparent as rain, so unlike her deeper speaking voice, a wonder to me. Where had she hidden that voice all those years? More important, why?”

 

I spent the day with Joy Harjo, first at a lunch with students at the multicultural center and later driving around town. The luncheon was a highlight for Joy because the students shared their stories about who they are, who they aspire to be and how they came to appreciate stories and poetry. During the break before her reading, I took Joy and her husband, Owen, to the pier at Goleta Beach. We witnessed a rehabilitated pelican being released on the beach. There must have been at least 50 pelicans at a nearby sandbar. Joy mused about the stories the bird would share once it reached its squadron of pelicans.

Joy Harjo

 

Goleta Beach

At the I.V. Theatre, Joy began with a song on her flute to acknowledge those who keep the land. 

So much of her work has to do with facing obstacles and poems as tools for healing and transformation. She conveyed how poetry can allow you to speak the unspeakable. There’s so much to unpack in her words, a lifetime of books and music. She also revealed her latest picture book, Remember. Judging by the profound questions from the audience, many appreciated how she’s never shied away from the difficult work that is writing. 

 

For Joy Harjo writing is about going into that troubling space and listening. “Poetry can give the mind something constructive to do in the face of grief or obstacles,” she said. Joy spoke about the hard work that must be done before writing: listening. Acknowledging and listening may be painful tools but ‘once you acknowledge the monster’s story, you can choose to release it,’ she said. She read from her poem, I Give You Back, which begins: ‘I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear.’ For Joy, the power of poetry is walking a little lighter, having released burdens.

 

There’s so much more to find out about the new direction Joy Harjo’s work will take. I asked about her role as the Artist-in-Residence at the Bob Dylan Center. She is the first to take on this position and said she was making it up as she goes. As a fan of Bob Dylan’s music, I hope I get to see some of her projects there. 

 

Upcoming Poetry Events in Santa Barbara:

 

Next week, for First Thursday, June 1, I will be introducing our State Poet Laureate, Lee Herrick. We will also be joined by our Youth Poet Laureate Madeline C. Miller at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Paseo Nuevo at 6pm. We will also have music at this event. 

First Thursday Laureates at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Paseo Nuevo, June 1 at 6pm.

 

This Saturday, The Mission Poetry Series features award-winning authors from Gunpowder Press. Catherin Eposito Presscott whose collection Accidental Garden won Gunpowder Press’s 2022 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize, selected by Danusha Laméris and the co-winners of Gunpowder’s Alta California Chapbook Prize, Gabriel Ibarra and Florencia Milito, both selected by Francisco Aragón.

 

 

Family Tree with Crooked Branches

                                                                            

 Nicolas Gonzalez, Creator of a Mighty Tree

     How long are we supposed to keep family secrets? The relatives responsible for them are all dead. The irony is that before they died, some of them revealed what they knew.

     I wonder if migrants carry more secrets than those with the luxury of being settled in one place. Mexican men, for example, often left family, including wives and children, to come north and seek work. The plan was to send money home to the family, and when the time was right, and enough money saved, to bring the family north, reunite, and start anew. 

     Sometimes it worked, often it didn’t. Sometimes the men reappeared with new wives, and new families. In some cases, the young wives who remained behind lost hope, and found comfort in the arms of another, secretly bearing a new child, the father, incognito, whereabouts unknown, a village scandal.

     When the largest migration of Mexicans came to the U.S., between 1910 and 1925, the years of the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans came north to flee violence, pestilence, and starvation. Most came from the central Mexican states of Zacatecas, Jalisco, and Michoacan-north, a two thousand miles trek, no easy feat in the early 1900s.

     In her sixties, my aunt recalled leaving the family ranch Mitic, Jalisco, in 1918, as a child, with her father, mother, and five siblings. She said her last image was of her grandfather, Juan, astride a tall horse, tears in his eyes, looking down at his departing family. They had lived on the ranch for generations. They realized it was probably the last time they would see each other.  

     Sometimes the men came north alone, bachelors or husbands, like my paternal grandfather’s brother Pedro, who told his family he was heading north, to look for work. It was during the worst of the Revolution The family never heard from him again. In those years, the migrant trail must have been brutal. There were no superhighways or paved roads. People took whatever mode of transportation they could find.  

     If they could afford a train ticket, they headed for the station in Aguascalientes and took the train north. They rarely made it all the way to the northern pass, El Paso del Norte, so they struggled onward, taking a horse, mule, cart, or on foot. Once in the north, they found relatives or friends and crowded into barrios, often living on top of each other, parents, kids, uncles, aunts, and family friends.

     The stories of those years were passed down from generation to generation, mostly the good stories, about hard work, family bonds, triumphant over dire social conditions. Only behind closed doors did they mention anything unsavory.

     Then, it started, years later, maybe a simple request, like a daughter needing a birth certificate to get married. The parents feigned ignorance, bade their time, hoping their daughter would forget. When no answer came, she finally travelled downtown to the Hall of Records where she would learn the city had no record of her birth.

     The parents held her off as long as they could, making excuses. It caused a ruckus, yelling and tears. Where was her birth certificate? Eventually, it came out. Her parents weren’t really her parents, nor her name her real name. They were her uncle and aunt who had taken her in when her real father, a man she thought was her uncle, a wayward alcoholic, couldn’t raise her after her real mother died of cancer.

     She inquired further and found out her biological working-class Mexican father had married a young Anglo woman, the daughter of a wealthy Los Angeles family. She also found out her two older cousins were, in fact, her brother and sister. So many questions and no answers.

     The parents who raised her couldn’t articulate the complexity of the situation, how her father had begged them to take her in as one of their own. They raised her since she was in diapers, along with six other children, who treated her like a sister. How could she not see how much they loved her.

     Later, she heard rumors, questions about the man she thought was her real father. Her adoptive parents wouldn’t discuss it. The older family members clammed up, but years later, after the adoptive parents died, she asked an uncle about it, the last link in a shaky family chain. Even in his seventies, he was hesitant to say anything, so deep were the bonds of loyalty, and secrecy. She pleaded.  

     He thought it over and decided she had the right to know. Her real father was another man, a stranger, the father of an older cousin. The branch in her family tree was cracking. The truth wasn’t easy to accept, but she was relieved someone had finally been honest with her. Still, the revelation raised more questions. Don’t they always?

     When my paternal grandmother arrived from Chihuahua to Los Angeles, without a husband but with three children, one son and two daughters, it caused quite a stir, a lot of commotion over the years, and many more questions. No one ever asked. The barrio remained mum.

     Later, my grandmother’s two sisters, also with children, arrived. Rumor had it their husbands died working in Arizona’s coal mines, one run over by a coal cart in a dark mine shaft. Once all the women married, including their grown daughters, I had relatives with so many different last names it was hard to keep track.

     Because of all the interest in DNA testing and people wondering about their family roots, when my children asked how they were related to so-and-so, it was like trying to catch somebody up on a soap opera, and like the proverbial iceberg, more answers lie submerged under the surface than above it.

     The elders didn’t like talking about the past, especially anything personal. As I aged, I became bolder. I wanted to know, so I asked my father why my grandfather, rumored to be a happy-go-lucky older bachelor, would marry my grandmother, a woman with three children.

     My dad, a firmly integrated Chicano American, was a child of immigrants, refugees of the early 1900s Mexican diaspora. He told me, giving my question ample thought by digging into the recesses of his mind, how my grandfather had told him that a friend in the barrio, not the best source of information, said my grandfather could be drafted into the army for the first world war, but that the government would not take men with families.

     Apparently, that was good enough for my grandfather. He went out and found a woman with children to marry and guarantee he’d be exempt from the draft and from fighting in the war, probably a war he knew nothing about, and cared about even less.

     This explanation raised some questions in my mind. My grandfather resided in the U.S. legally, working, and probably in his early thirties when he married my grandmother. He spoke no English. During the war, the U.S. needed agricultural workers. In Mexico, my grandfather had been a rancher’s son, experienced in agriculture and ranching. Would the U.S. really draft a Mexican national, an older man who couldn’t speak, read or write English, a man who, in fact, taught himself to read Spanish.

     Who knows, maybe just the thought of going to war put the fear of God in him. After all, he had escaped from Mexico during the Revolution, a savage war that had already taken his brother. On his way to the U.S., he traversed a war-torn country. Had he seen the dead bodies littered over the Mexican landscape, or as many migrants described, corpses hanging from telegraph poles, images I tried capturing, in first novel, Pepe Rios, imagining my grandfather’s travels.

     Maybe he thought -- why would he fight a war for a foreign country, even an adopted country, when he had fled fighting in his own country? If he was like other Mexican migrants, he was just biding his time in the U.S., dreaming about the opportune time to return to Mexico and resume the life he’d left behind -- a pipe dream?

     When my father was born, his two half-sisters had already started their families, which had to have been confusing for him. He was the uncle to nephews and nieces who were older than he was. In fact, when I once referred to them as my uncles and aunts, because they were so much older than I was, he corrected me, “No, they’re your cousins.”

     Then, there was the time my maternal grandmother, sometime in 1930, suddenly, out of the blue, sent one of my uncles back to Mexico when he was seventeen. Eight years old when he arrived in the U.S., he was educated and raised in the North, Santa Monica to be exact. He was fluent in both English and Spanish, played baseball and football, an all-around American kid.

     Then, whoosh, he was gone, back to the family ranch in Jalisco, as if swooped up in a time machine, back to another world, where he stayed for the better part of five-years. The barrio kept its silence, even if, over the years, rumors had a way of seeping out into the open, something about an older woman, a pregnancy, and her husband away from home, working in another state, another cousin with questionable roots, another crooked branch in the family tree.

     Is it only my family, or is it the same in other families? Some things we just don’t talk about, but the family tree grows, sometimes taking a long, circuitous route?