“Fuerza ancestral” por Xánath Caraza

“Fuerza ancestral” por Xánath Caraza

 

Xanath Caraza

El Mes de la Historia de la Mujer se celebra cada año en marzo. Cada 8 de marzo se destaca esta fecha como el Día Internacional de la Mujer para reconocer contribuciones intelectuales, políticas, familiares y de activismo social en las respectivas comunidades donde muchas mujeres viven.  La historia ha pasado por alto, olvidado, reprimido, mal informado, no reconocido los logros de muchas mujeres a lo largo de los años, de los siglos, no solo en este país sino en todo el mundo.

Gracias a la perseverancia de tantas mujeres activistas, estas voces junto con sus aportaciones a la sociedad han salido a la superficie y han ido ganando terreno para ser reconocidas públicamente y alcanzar igualdad. 

No en todos los países somos afortunadas de poder honrar estos logros y de reconocer a tantas mujeres que han abierto brecha para cada una de nosotras.  Muchas se han quedado en el camino, otras han experimentado desapariciones forzadas, otras, experimentan violencia doméstica, social o pobreza. Para mí es un honor poder celebrar cada año ese día, el 8 de marzo, el Día Internacional de la Mujer, que nunca doy por sentado.

Para este 2026 me gustaría compartir un poema titulado “Fuerza ancestral” que fue originalmente publicado en mi poemario trilingüe Conjuro (Mammoth Publications, 2012) y en 2019 fue incluido en la antología Voices from the Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices (University of Arizona Press, 2019). La traducción al francés, “Force ancestrale”, es de Justine Temeyissa Patalé. La versión original de “Fuerza ancestral” y la versión en inglés, “Anestral Strenght”, son de la que escribe.

Muchas gracias y espero, queridos lectores de la Bloga, que disfruten “Fuerza ancestral”.

 

Fuerza ancestral por Xánath Caraza

 

Fuerza de mujer:

delicada

que fluye en aguas rojas

pensamientos concéntricos

fuerza que renace

se enreda en las copas de los árboles

Cihuacoatl

 

Fuerza creadora que canta

que despierta

que guía entre el oscuro laberinto

que susurra al oído el camino extraviado

que invita a vivir

Tonantzin

 

Latidos de obsidiana

de fuerza incandescente

de humo azul

corazón de piedra verde

frente a ti están

otras vibraciones femeninas

Yoloxóchitl

 

Fuerza de mujer que fluye

entre las páginas

de poemas extraviados

de signos olvidados

entre galerías

de imágenes grabadas

poesía tatuada en la piel

Xochipilli

 

Corazón enardecido

que explota

respira

siente

vive

Tlazoteotl

 

Montañas de malaquita

áureo torrente matutino

que recorre los surcos

del cuerpo

Coatlicue

 

Fuerza femenina ancestral

sobre papel amate

que se entrega

a los intrínsecos diseños

de las frases dibujadas

Coyolxauqui

 

Pensamiento de jade

que se evapora con la luna

que se integra a los caudalosos blancos ríos

Tonantzin

 

Fuerza de mujer:

del lejos y cerca

de arriba y abajo

del dentro y de fuera

de ciclo eterno

fuerza dual

de cielo de granate

 

Cihuacoatl, Tonantzin

Yoloxóchitl, Xochipilli

Tlazoteotl, Coatlicue

Coyolxauqui

 

Guirnaldas de flores blancas las celebran

plumas de quetzal adornan las cabelleras

las abuelas creadoras cantan

al unísono en esta tierra

 

Fuerza femenina, ancestral

 

Xanath Caraza

Ancestral Strength

 

Women’s strength

Delicate

Flows in red waters

Concentric thoughts

Strength reborn

Tangles in the tree tops

Cihuacoatl

 

Creative force that sings

That awakens

That guides through the dark labyrinth

That whispers into the ear the lost road

That invites to live

Tonantzin

 

Heartbeats of obsidian

Of incandescent strength and

Of blue smoke

Heart of green stone

Before you are

Feminine vibrations

Yoloxochitl

 

Women’s strength flows

Among pages

Of lost poems

Of forgotten glyphs

Among galleries

Of engraved images

Poetry tattooed on the skin

Xochipilli

 

Heart inflamed with passion

Bursts

Breathes

Feels

Lives

Tlazoteotl

 

Mountains of malaquite

Golden morning torrent

Flows along the channels

Of the body

Coatlicue

 

Ancestral feminine strength

On amate paper

Surrenders itself

To the intricate designs

Of the drawn phrases

Coyolxauqui

 

Thought of jade

Evaporates with the Moon

Integrates into the white water rivers

Tonantzin

 

Women’s strength

From far away and near

From above and below

From inside and out

Of the eternal cycle

Dual strength

Sky of garnet

 

Cihuacoatl, Tonantzin

Yoloxochitl, Xochipilli

Tlazoteotl, Coatlicue

Coyolxauqui

 

White flower garlands celebrate you

Feathers of Quetzal decorate your long tufts                         

Grandmothers sing

In unison on this land

 

Ancestral, feminine strength

 

Xanath Caraza

Force ancestrale

 

Force de la femme

Délicate

Qui coule dans les eaux rouges

Pensées concentriques

Force qui renaît

S'enroule dans les cimes des arbres

Cihuacóatl

 

Force créatrice qui chante

Qui éveille

Qui guide à travers le sombre labyrinthe

Qui murmure à l'oreille le chemin égaré

Qui invite à vivre

Tonantzin

 

Battements d'obsidienne

De force incandescente

De fumée bleue

Cœur de pierre verte

Devant toi se trouvent

D'autres vibrations féminines

Yoloxóchitl

 

Force de femme qui coule

Parmi les pages

De poèmes égarés

De signes oubliés

Parmi les galeries

D'images gravées

Poésie tatouée sur la peau

Xochipilli

 

Cœur enflammé

Qui explose

Respire

Ressens

Vit

Tlazotéotl

 

Montagnes de malachite

Torrent doré matinal

Qui parcourt les sillons

Du corps

Coatlicue

 

Force féminine ancestrale

Sur papier d'amate

 

Qui se livre

Aux dessins intrinsèques

Des phrases dessinées

Coyolxauqui

 

Pensée de jade

Qui s'évapore avec la lune

Qui se fond dans les rivières de blanc puissant

Tonantzin

 

Force de la femme

Du lointain et du proche

De haut en bas

De dedans et de dehors

Du cycle éternel

Force du ciel grenat

 

Cihuacóatl, Tonantzin

Yoloxóchitl, Xochipilli

Tlazotéotl, Coatlicue

Coyolxauqui

 

Des guirlandes de fleurs blanches les célèbrent

Des plumes de quetzal ornent les cheveux

Les grand-mères créatrices chantent

De concert sur cette terre

 

Force féminine, ancestrale

 

Xanath Caraza

Xanath Caraza

 

 

Book Review: Nilda by Nicholasa Mohr

Nilda: Ground-Breaking Book by Nicholasa Mohr

Reviewed by Thelma T. Reyna

Nicholasa Mohr (b. 1938) has been described as the most prolific and renowned Puerto Rican-American novelist. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, she represents the “Nuyorican” writers (“New York Puerto Ricans”), a group that first rose to national prominence for their considerable talents in the 20th century. Puerto Ricans officially became American citizens in 1917.

Mohr grew up in the 1940’s, with World War II a gauzy backdrop, and suffered the proverbial slings and arrows of prejudice and discrimination. With the well-received publication of NILDA in 1974, however, she cemented her place in American literature as one of the earliest American Latinos to publish her writings in English in the United States and one of the first to write a young adult book in English.

Mainstream America at that time had little interest in publications about Latinos. But Nilda successfully crossed the divide. Since 1974, Mohr has been the most productive and renowned Nuyorican novelist, earning major awards and publishing in a variety of genres: novels, short stories, novellas, and nonfiction. Her influence in other authors’ development has been significant, not just through her 15 published books, but also through her workshops and university teaching.

NILDA recounts the life of a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx from 1941 through 1945, as seen through the viewpoint of the only daughter in the family and the youngest child, Nilda. Her family is poor, large, and as diverse in personality and outlook as her neighborhood. But these nine people, with their varying degrees of dysfunction and tension, are the source of stability and love that enable Nilda to navigate her childhood intact. She, as well as other Puerto Ricans, regularly encounters naked racism and marginalization, often at the hands of teachers and other authority figures who should, paradoxically, be protecting and nurturing her. Through it all, Nilda is alternately petulant and carefree, defiant and obedient, aloof and moved to tears, frightened and resolute. She exhibits the resilience of her mother and moves forward.

Nilda, as a pioneering novel, captures the unique cultural experiences of New York’s Puerto Ricans in the 1940’s and thereby secures a solid place in the history of our literature. It still resonates decades later because its cultural depictions of family, love, individual pride, and resilience in the face of hardship still matter.

Order from Libromobile or the publisher.

https://artepublicopress.com/browse-and-order-books/?swoof=1&woof_text=nilda

[Note: Originally published in March 26, 2012, in a prior version, in Jesus Trevino’s  Latinopia, www.Latinopia.com]

Chicanonautica: The Surrealistic Burrito Western of My Dreams

 by Ernest Hogan

Once again, I’m waiting . . . for Codex II of Xicanxfuturism to come out . . . for the other shoe to drop on the world-transmogrifying moment of history we’re living through . . . for news about the precarious state of the publishing industry . . .

So, I do what I usually do, let my monstrous imagination wander, feed it the weirdness I see, let things happen.

Often I end up getting flashes of the Surrealistic Spaghetti Western of My Dreams, that I’ve decided to start calling the Surrealistic Burrito Western of My Dreams. It’s a better name for something growing in a Chicano brain. A collection of stuff wrapped in the tortilla of my twisted worldview.

 

They come from living in Aztlán, looking through the veneer of corporate Americana into the forgotten history and the witch’s brew of battling mythologies and my imagination. The word decolonized doesn’t seem to be strong enough.

 

The fact that it all gets more post-apocalyptic, alternate universe-y, and surrealistic (I overuse the word, but it’ll do it until somebody comes up with a better one) every day makes it more intense.

Though I grew up watching the likes of the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers, my favorite western is El Topo, so it ain’t gonna be no Johns Ford and Wayne kinda thing.

I mostly see things, take a picture—thank Tezcatlipoca for the camera phone— and imagine . . . mostly images, occasional fragments of scenarios like those wacko dreams that I can’t even begin to describe.

I’ve mentioned them to my wife and joked about writing a screenplay. (So many things in my life start as jokes!) But I can’t come up with a plot or characters (yet). Just imagery that amuses me no end.

Maybe if I added some elements of my Irish/New Mexican family history with my ancestors riding in a posse after and testifying against Billy the Kid, giving Pancho Villa a curandero cure, working in a Mexican circus. 

Like most Chicano families, our history is undocumented, mostly legend, full of holes that can be filled with glorious delirium.

Probably it will have to be more multiversal or surrealistic than post-apocalyptic. Time, space, realities . . .

Maybe it should be a novel, but only if I can make it so outrageous that no one dares call it magic realism.

Or maybe I should have the screenplay be nothing but opening scenes . . .

Fade in: The sun rises over a desert making twisted and decaying cacti into a tangle of bizarre silhouettes. The wind whistles. A flaming tumbleweed rolls past a Mayan pyramid in front of jagged mountains under psychedelic clouds. The camera pans to a close-up of the head of a person buried up to their neck. Ants swarm over it, feasting on the flesh. Bare skull shows in places. A dirigible painted like a feathered serpent passes by overhead. Cowboy boots decorated with art nouveau circuit patterns move in on either side of the screen. A stream of urine hits the head. The ants are undisturbed. The remaining eye opens. Cue Pepe Guízar’s Guadalajara, LOUD!

Ernest Hogan has been using radio.garden to listen to stations from parts of Mexico where Americans are told not to go. On one he heard songs with lyrics including “maquina del tiempo” and “no puedo teleporte.” Meanwhile, buy Codex I of Xicanxfuturism!

CABE 2026

The CABE 2026 Annual Conference will be held at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis from March 4–7, 2026.

The California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) is a non-profit organization incorporated in 1976 to promote bilingual education and quality educational experiences for all students in California. CABE has chapters and members, as well as partnerships with other state and national advocacy organizations, working to promote equity and student achievement for students with diverse cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. CABE recognizes and honors the fact that we live in a rich multicultural, global society and that respect for diversity makes us a stronger state and nation.

CABE conferences, such as the CABE 2026 Annual Conference, focus on themes like biliteracy, multicultural competency, and educational equity for English learners. These events serve as important venues for addressing the educational needs of California's millions of English learners and provide opportunities for professional development and collaboration among educators.

CABE VISION AND MISSION

Biliteracy, Multicultural Competency, & Educational Equity for All.

To support the vision of biliteracy, multicultural competency, and educational equity for all students, we will embody our shared values by implementing priorities, initiatives, and services designed to increase California’s capacity to create caring and highly effective learning environments that promote multiliteracy and support English learners and all diverse populations to graduate college, career, and globally prepared to live their lives to their fullest potential.

 If you are around come and say hello at the East West Discovery Press Booth.

Casa de Colibríes

At Home With Hummingbirds 

Michael Sedano 

Concha screamed in agony. The smaller boy heard her pain and understood immediately something awful had taken place. The older boy stood over the pile of green and brown feathers staring stupidly at what he'd accomplished. 

Concha gave him a look of pity and picked up the carcass. In a few seconds, Concha returned from inside carrying a hefty black book. The woman opened the Bible to some random page in the middle, laid down the dead bird and closed the book around it to dry. Concha told the small boy about la chuparrosa's magic and how she would keep the dried body for luck. 

It wasn't lucky for the hummingbird. The boy didn't understand that part. He knew about lucky rabbit's feet, but didn't understand that part, either. 

--La Bloga, May 2021. 

That’s the beginning of my attachment to hummingbirds. I am that smaller boy in the story, which occurs in Spanish at my grandmother’s house, sometime around 1949.

I can see Concha’s Biblia, how she brought it out into the sunlight. She had some flowers pressed in the pages of that book that proved to my eyes the efficacy of using books to dry stuff. 

Today, almost eighty years later, I have a photographer’s memory of hummingbirds. That is, I remember where I’ve seen them nectaring on one or another tree, shrub, or flowers, and I return with my longest lens, time and again. 

I stalk the Huntington Library and Los Angeles County Arboretum in search of good fotos. I talk to the gardeners—mostly in Spanish—asking where they’ve seen colibri in the area. The gardeners are from different places and they call the flying jewels chuparosa or picaflor, in addition to colibri. 

Chicano literature expresses high regard for hummingbirds. Luis Alberto Urrea’s gifted readers his Hummingbird’s Daughter (link), which isn’t about hummingbirds per se. My favorite literary hummingbird is Graciela Limon’s title character in Song of the Hummingbird. The character, Huitzitzilín, is named hummingbird in her native Mexica language, and has a mind faster than a speeding colibri as she torments the Inquisitor assigned to civilize her. 

I live well, after Alzheimer’s, and now, post-Eaton fire. My daughter bought a house where the yerba buena grows like a weed and mejor, a hedge of Cuphea ignea, cigar flower, firecracker flower, that hummingbirds love. I noticed that right away when I moved here las Fall.

Instead of walking miles and waiting half an hour or so for a glorious sight, I sit outside near my front door, lens pointed toward the hedge and wait. And wait. With enough patience, and a healthy dose of serendipity, these sparkling souls share themselves with a happy photographer.

While I enjoy the walkabout and all the other critters I get to see and photograph, I like the thought "cast down your buckets where you are." I'm not forced to look anywhere but here, I don't have to click my ruby slippers incanting "there's no place like home" but that's the way it is, for my hummers and me, there's no place like home.