Un tragito para Tomas

"It is impossible to imagine Chicano literature without the migrant farworker"

Tomas Rivera

Prior to Tomas Rivera's groundbreaking novel, searching for a literary work with the ability to portray the life of migrant farmworkers with such precision and haunting reality would have been time and energy hard spent. While the experience's of Rivera's characters survive between 1945 and 1955, their stories of heartbreak and joy along the migrant stream differ only in decade as familiar situations and circumstances continue to cultivate in the fields of fruits and vegetables toiled by today's migrant farworker.

Tomas Rivera's, "... y no se lo trago la tierra / ... And the Earth Did Not Devour Him," is a novel tackling a boy's search for identity. Rivera's masterful use of the vignette is the perfect lens for rendering the unpredictability of migrant life as child, adult, and elder. In the opening vignette, The Lost Year, Rivera introduces us to an estranged boy wrestling to recall the events of the year before. "The year was lost to him," writes Rivera. "At times he tried to remember and just about when he thought everything was clearing up some, he would be at a loss of words." And as you carry on with the reading of Rivera's autobiographical journey, you too arrive at a loss of words while guided by a voice flowing in such poetic rhythm.

Of the fourteen short sketches, it is difficult to measure one above the other; nevertheless, the title vignette, And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, surpasses the others in exposing the depth of the trials and tribulations conceived in the heat and dirt paved fields; it is the accumulation of lice, death, hunger, and racism that lead a devout family to question their everlasting faith in God. The final scene arrives without knowing as you will encounter no struggle in losing yourself in Rivera's masterpiece. In, Under the House, a delicately crafted epiphany liberates the nameless boy from his phantom year as Rivera concludes, "He even raised one arm and waved it back and forth so that the other could see that he knew he was there."

Now, nearly forty years removed from Tomas Rivera's acceptance of the inaugural Quinto Sol Literary Prize in 1970 for "... y no se lo trago la tierra / ... And the Earth Did Not Devour Him," the novel endures as a cornerstone in modern American literature. Although there have been other tales of migrant life by other scribes, none compare to and are written with the same firsthand knowledge and corazon. Surely, there are none as beautiful.

"It is impossible to imagine Chicano literature without Tomas Rivera."

Jesse Tijerina

Tomas Rivera. ...y no se lo trago la tierra / ... And the Earth Did Not Devour Him. Arte Publico Press; Bilingual Edition, 1995.

Feliz año- Happy New Year

EL BRINDIS BOHEMIO

Guillermo Aguirre Fierro (Mexicano)
El Paso, Texas 1915

En torno de una mesa de cantina,
una noche de invierno,
regocijadamente departían
seis alegres bohemios.

Los ecos de sus risas escapaban
y de aquel barrio quieto
iban a interrumpir el imponente
y profundo silencio.

El humo de olorosos cigarillos
en espirales se elevaba al cielo,
simbolizando al resolverse en nada,
la vida de los sueños.

Pero en todos los labios había risas,
inspiración en todos los cerebros,
y, repartidas en la mesa, copas
pletóricas de ron, whisky o ajenjo.

Era curioso ver aquel conjunto,
aquel grupo bohemio,
del que brotaba la palabra chusca,
la que vierte veneno,
lo mismo que, melosa y delicada,
la música de un verso.

A cada nueva libación, las penas
hallábanse más lejos
del grupo, y nueva inspiración llegaba
a todos los cerebros,
con el idilio roto que venía
en alas del recuerdo.

Olvidaba decir que aquella noche,
aquel grupo bohemio
celebraba entre risas, libaciones,
chascarrillos y versos,
la agonía de un año que amarguras
dejó en todos los pechos,
y la llegada, consecuencia lógica,
del "feliz año nuevo".

Una voz varonil dijo de pronto:
- las doce, compañeros;
digamos el "requiescat" por el año
que ha pasado a formar entre los muertos.
¡Brindemos por el año que comienza!
porque nos traiga ensueños;
porque no sea su equipaje un cúmulo
de amargos desconsuelos.

- Brindo, dijo otra voz, por la esperanza
que la vida nos lanza,
de vencer los rigores del destino,
por la esperanza, nuestra dulce amiga,
que las penas mitiga
y convierte en vergel nuestro camino.

Brindo porque ya hubiere a mi existencia
puesto fin con violencia
esgrimiendo en mi frente mi venganza;
si en mi cielo de tul limpio y divino
no alumbrara mi sino
una pálida estrella: Mi esperanza.

¡Bravo!, dijeron todos, inspirado
esta noche has estado
y hablaste bueno, breve y substancioso.
El turno es de Raúl; alce su copa
y brinde por . . . Europa,
ya que su extranjerismo es delicioso.

Bebo y brindo, clamó el interpelado;
brindo por mi pasado,
que fue de luz, de amor y de alegría,
y en el que hubo mujeres seductoras
y frentes soñadoras
que se juntaron con la frente mía.

Brindo por el ayer que en la amargura
que hoy cubre de negrura
mi corazón, esparce sus consuelos
trayendo hasta mi mente las dulzuras
de goces, de ternuras,
de dichas, de deliquios, de desvelos.

-Yo brindo, dijo Juan, porque en mi mente
brote un torrente
de inspiración divina y seductora,
porque vibre en las cuerdas de mi lira
el verso que suspira,
que sonríe, que canta y que enamora.

Brindo porque mis versos cual saetas
lleguen hasta las grietas
formadas de metal y de granito,
del corazón de la mujer ingrata
que a desdenes me mata.
¡pero que tiene un cuerpo muy bonito!

Porque a su corazón llegue mi canto,
porque enjuguen mi llanto
sus manos que me causan embelesos;
porque con creces mi pasión me pague.
¡vamos!, porque me embriague
con el divino néctar de sus besos.

Siguió la tempestad de frases vanas,
de aquellas tan humanas
que hallan en todas partes acomodo,
y en cada frase de entusiasmo ardiente,
hubo ovación creciente,
y libaciones, y reir, y todo.

Se brindó por la patria, por las flores,
por los castos amores
que hacen un valladar de una ventana,
y por esas pasiones voluptuosas
que el fango del placer llena de rosas
y hacen de la mujer la cortesana.

Sólo faltaba un brindis, el de Arturo,
el del bohemio puro,
de noble corazón y gran cabeza;
aquel que sin ambages declaraba
que sólo ambicionaba
robarle inspiración a la tristeza.

Por todos lados estrechado, alzó la copa
frente a la alegre tropa
desbordante de risa y de contento
los inundó en la luz de una mirada,
sacudió su melena alborotada
y dijo así, con inspirado acento:

-Brindo por la mujer, mas no por esa
en la que halláis consuelo en la tristeza,
rescoldo del placer ¡desventurados!
no por esa que os brinda sus hechizos
cuando besáis sus rizos
artificiosamente perfumados.

Yo no brindo por ella, compañeros,
siento por esta vez no complaceros.
Brindo por la mujer, pero por una,
por la que me brindó sus embelesos
y me envolvió en sus besos;
por la mujer que me arrulló en la cuna.

Por la mujer que me enseñó de niño
lo que vale el cariño
exquisito, profundo y verdadero;
por la mujer que me arrulló en sus brazos
y que me dió en pedazos
uno por uno, el corazón entero.

¡Por mi madre! bohemios, por la anciana
que piensa en el mañana
como en algo muy dulce y muy deseado,
porque sueña tal vez que mi destino
me señala el camino
por el que volveré pronto a su lado.

Por la anciana adorada y bendecida,
por la que con su sangre me dió vida,
y ternura y cariño;
por la que fue la luz del alma mía;
y lloró de alegría
sintiendo mi cabeza en su corpiño.

Por esa brindo yo, dejad que llore,
que en lágrimas desflore
esta pena letal que me asesina;
dejad que brinde por mi madre ausente,
por la que llora y siente
que mi ausencia es un fuego que calcina.

Por la anciana infeliz que sufre y llora
y que del cielo implora
que vuelva yo muy pronto a estar con ella;
por mi madre bohemios, que es dulzura
vertida en mi amargura
y en esta noche de mi vida, estrella.

El bohemio calló; ningún acento
profanó el sentimiento
nacido del dolor y la ternura,
y pareció que sobre aquel ambiente
flotaba inmensamente
un poema de amor y de amargura.

Review: Martin Limón. G.I. Bones

Martin Limón. G.I. Bones. NY: SOHO Press, 2009.
ISBN 978-1-56947-603-1


Michael Sedano

The Republic of South Korea is among the US’s key trading partners. Korea sends us electronics, automobiles, and immigrants. We send them GIs and the dollars they spend. Thousands of US soldiers serve along the cold, hostile DMZ, sacrificial cannon fodder poised to slow down the onslaught of another invasion, with thousands more a few miles south in the elegant comfort of Seoul and 8th Army Headquarters. Lucky dogs.

Life on a military post in Korea is duty, duty, duty, until a cannon sounds to designate the lowering of the flag at 1700 hours. At 5 p.m. most GIs, left to their own devices, will devise some movida or other in the Ville. If duty calls in the boonies--up on a mountain manning a missile site or guarding endless miles of barbed wire--the Ville will be a tiny collection of mud shacks where local farmers live, and one cinder block dirt-floored structure run by the Mama-san and serving black market GI booze, local Porta-Ju plum liquor, fiery Soju, and three or four worn-out prostitutes, “business girls”. For Headquarters GIs, however, the Ville runs to the deluxe: neon lights, rock bands, bevies of hostesses—a cornucopia of pulchritude--in club after club after club. There is one hang up. Soul Brother GIs go to their “tea houses,” Anglo and Latino GIs hang out within their own bailiwicks. When the twain meet, they explode.

That’s how Korea was back in 1969-1970, when I sat atop one of those mountaintops, later transferring to a Battalion Hq on the edge of mid-size Chunchon City. This is the Korea Martin Limón places his latest George Sueño and Ernie Bascom mystery, G. I. Bones. Set in the heart of Itaewon, the deluxe Ville adjacent to 8th Army’s main encampment in Seoul, G.I. Bones takes the popular "closed case" motif and draws out its links to the ongoing criminal enterprise that creates this particular Ville. Although I visited this place only once, briefly, that’s all it takes to recognize the authenticity of the wild party scenes that fill G.I. Bones.

Korea possesses a rich culture exemplified by its food, silk, ceramics, and architecture; out in the boonies geography creates spectacular scenery for those who elect to head away from the Ville. Many GIs, however, forego the culture and sightseeing to head straight for the Ville, where tea houses provide all the entertainment some young men crave, so far from home and US cultural strictures.

When GIs go too far, they get into deep kimchi. When the crime is big enough--murder, large scale black marketeering—Army CID investigators step in to dig out the details, identify the suspects, collar the bad guys. George Sueño and his partner Ernie Bascom are such a pair.

A Martin Limón detective novel has lots to recommend itself to police procedural enthusiasts. Owing to the intercultural setting, Limón’s novels have extra pleasures any reader should find fascinating. For an ex-GI, especially one who served in Korea, perhaps those there now, too, G.I. Bones rings with uncanny authenticity, from race riots to Om Rice (wonderful chop!), from the excesses of Ville rats to the “inscrutability” of GI-Korean interaction.

Sueño is an exception to the ugly Unitedstatesian GI. He’s a bit of a Ville Rat, heavy drinker, and skirt chaser. But Sueño reads and speaks Korean and treats locals, especially women, with respect, even the business girls. Given Sueño’s intercultural curiosity--evolving from his youth on the streets of East L.A.—he’s an especially adept investigator when the crime sends him deep into local culture as his novels always do. Oddly, Limón can’t make up his mind, in this novel, whether Sueño is Hispanic, Latino, or Chicano. He uses all three referents. Limón has been less reluctant to own chicanismo in other novels. Plus “Hispanic” was not a common parlance in the 1970s, so one might suspect an editor’s clumsy hand here.

G.I. Bones marks a giant departure for the Sueño character. Always working at the far reaches of authority but fiercely loyal to his country and his comrades, G.I. Bones sees Sueño fall madly in love with a Korean doctor who serves the local business girls and provides Sueño and Bascom entrée to this underworld, eventuating in solving the mystery of a 1950s-era G.I. skeleton found in the basement of a local club. The doctor is guilty of numerous crimes, but with Sueño’s assistance she defects to the North, pregnant with Sueño’s child. Probably. Sueño has been stupid and suckered many a time, but he's never been this vulnerable. The characterization adds richly to Limón's series and leaves me hungering for the next novel, with this huge event hanging over Sueño's head.

Weighing in at 266 pages, G.I. Bones provides wonderful local color of a culture so important to our contemporary US yet so unknown; excellent action--fist fights, gun fights, rotten slicky boys getting their due; heartbreaking pathos with sympathetic innocents suffering as if this is meant to be their lot in life. But more than any emotion, readers are rewarded with moving cultural empathy for los de abajo, no matter where they live, with no happy endings.

That's the final Tuesday of 2009, a Tuesday like any other Tuesday, except You Are Here. Thank you for visiting La Bloga. And by the way, the links inside this story are photos I took during my 69-70 tour of Korea. Please leave a comment to ask for details or share your observations. Here from my Read! Raza site is a small guided tour of life on Bravo 7/5.

La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. If you have an Army experience of your own to relate to Limón's work, or another author, or an arts/cultural event review, perhaps a worthy thought from your writer's notebook, please click here to discuss your invitation to be La Bloga's guest.

Blue

A short story by Daniel Olivas

One

All I want is to remember her smell. That’s all. It’s her smell that I miss most. I can’t forget anything else, though. The labor pains, the nurse wiping my forehead with a damp cloth and calling me sweetie and reminding me to breathe. And then the doctor saying she saw her head peeking out. And then almost like magic, the sight of her wet, squirming, new body. But I can’t remember her smell. That smell from the next day. After her first bath. She had trouble feeding. Didn’t want to take my milk. They’d give it a while before giving up. The nurse said, sweetie, that happens some times. But she knew it didn’t matter. So I tried to coax her. I directed her little mouth to my nipple, cooing to her: drink baby girl. You gotta drink to get strong and meet the world. And I’d put my lips on her hair and breathe in her freshly-washed smell. Baby smell. My baby’s smell. But it’s been too long since that time. And all I want is to remember her smell.

Two

My old man said it was for the best. She’d have a better chance with a family that could feed her, give her a good home, a proper upbringing. My old man said that when he and mom got married, they were out of high school. And he had a good job. That’s the way you’re supposed to do it, said my old man. Finish school. Then get married. To a man with a good job. Why couldn’t you wait, mija? I never could answer my old man. I was in love, though. That’s something. Right? That’s something, all right. No one can tell me different.

Three

Little Green. That’s what Richard called me. Because when he first saw me sitting in Mr. Bruno’s biology class, I was wearing this green T-shirt and a green skirt. All green. And it wasn’t even St. Patrick’s Day. So I was Little Green to Richard from then on.

Four

Carey. That’s what I would have named her. There’s no Careys in my family. One of the reasons I like the name. And it’s a strong name, too. Because a girl needs to be strong. Right? Stronger than a guy. That’s what I think. I wonder what they called her? Wouldn’t it be amazing like a movie if they named her Carey? And I used to think that one day we’d meet and I’d tell her I would’ve called her Carey, too. And she’d know that we always had a connection, like magic, like we always were together. But I don’t think that anymore. No reason to.

Five

Blue is what they call people who get sad. It’s weird, though. Blue makes me happy. And there are all kinds of blue. The sky in the morning. The sky in the afternoon. Richard’s eyes. How he got blue eyes no one ever figured out. Those eyes made me fall for him. A blue so clear they made you blink and wonder if they were contacts or something. But no. They were real. Blue like you’ve never seen. Blue that can’t be described. Blue that isn’t sad at all.

Six

California became home for my family. In San Diego, L.A., Bakersfield, even Sacramento. Up and down the state. Mom’s family came from Mexico and settled in L.A. about forty years ago. But Pop’s family. When they crossed the border, they scattered. They’re the ones in those other cities. Pop jokes that the Moreno blood must be in my veins because I’m not afraid to wander. Nine cities in seven years. But I always call home. They always know where I am. I’m not running away. I’m just seeing California. That’s all.

Seven

This flight tonight to Vegas wasn’t too expensive. Mom and Pop helped me with it, anyway. I just couldn’t drive. Too tired. But I had to go. Wouldn’t you? I got the call last week. They had tried my parents first. And then Pop called me where I’m living now. Oakland. He was gentle. With the news. I don’t know why they wanted me to know. Maybe they knew that I’ve been trying to remember what she smelled like. Maybe they knew I always thought of her. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. At least they called.

Eight

River? That’s a river? That’s what I said to Pop when he first pointed out the L.A. River to me. I guess I was fourteen. A year before the baby. We were on the freeway driving to tía Rachel’s house in Canoga Park and he pointed and said that’s the L.A. River. But it looked like a big V of cement with bushes and some trees growing in it. Not too much water, too. Nothing like the rivers I’ve seen in my geography books. You know, like the Amazon. River? I said. That’s a river?

Nine

A case of you is like a case of the flu. That’s what Mom liked to say. But she hasn’t said it a lot recently. Now she just says how much she wished I’d stay put. Near home. I look down from the plane and see only clouds. Mom is down there someplace. And soon I’ll be near my baby. But she’s not a baby anymore. She’s a girl. Or was. But at least I’ll be able to see her. And her parents. And I’ll thank them for giving her a good home. That’s what I’ll say. Because it’s true. I’m sure.

Ten

The last time I saw Richard was at high school graduation. He didn’t come to my house for the party. But he came up to me right after the ceremony while I was trying to find my parents in the crowd. It was so hot and all I wanted to do was get out of the robe and stupid cap and drink something cold. But he came up to me and said, happy graduation, Little Green. And I said, happy graduation. He touched my arm and gave me his blue eyes. Said he was leaving the next day. For Tulsa. I said, there’s no Mexicans in Tulsa. He laughed and his eyes got bluer. But I guess he’s a wanderer, too. Don’t know if he’s still in Tulsa. I wish I could tell him, though. About my trip to Vegas. To see my girl. Our girl. They told Pop about it. About the pool gate opening when it shouldn’t. How it happened during the party and no one noticed until hours later when people were beginning to leave. But it was a night party so it was kind of dark. And they told Pop about how they tried to make her breathe again. But I know she had a good home. With lots of love. Lots of toys. Thank you, I’ll say. Thank you for taking care of my baby.

[“Blue” first appeared in the literary journal Crate (2006), and it is featured in Olivas’ new collection, Anywhere But L.A.: Stories (Bilingual Press), which was reviewed this weekend by Sergio Troncoso for the El Paso Times.]

Times of sharing - Denver '09

The holiday season here seems much about purchasing commodities, "gifts for me" and, even when it involves charitable donations or Christmas presents, being recognized for our giving. However, the capacity to give costly presents is primarily a reflection of happenstance and of itself relates little to our true worth. Even Scrooge became a better, generous person only when forced to see how his miserliness would affect his future. That's a humbug example of altruism.

In my first grade classroom each year, my mexicanitos tend to think the season is about two things: purchased gifts and "gifts for me." So when the school's Holiday Fair opened, they gathered what little money they had and got drawn into the mania. Despite class discussions about the meaning of the season, nearly all the children returned with trinkets and cheap toys they'd bought for themselves. Trying to lecture to or model for them how Christmas should be about something more noble is a lesson not easily taught, at least by me.

When a rich benefactor adopted our school's kindergarten classes, some teachers suggested he spread his philanthropy to more grades, but he preferred just the kinder kids. Thus, approximately 100 children received several outrageously great presents. What I wondered was, how would their unemployed or plain-old-poor parents feel on Christmas day when their hijos opened Dad and Mom's gift that couldn't monetarily compare to what they'd received from the philanthropist?

In an attempt to carry a different message in my own life, this year my family sent out the following invitation:
"Those of us who are (somewhat) employed and (relatively) not destitute like too many in this country are (presently) the lucky ones. My family and I are among those (this year) and would like to share our (current) well-being with others. Come share something creative with us and others. It could be written, spoken, sung, or performed. Drawn, painted, carved or pasted together for show-and-tell. Baked, steamed, homemade, self-portraited, or recently read. Or something entirely different, of your choosing." I myself didn't know how it would be received and who would show up with what. Briefly, here's some of what was shared:

My niece Tonantzin Canestaro-Garcia participated in absentia, via her CD. Go here for a taste of her poesy. You can also catch her verse in Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas-Mexican Literature, edited by Dagoberto Gilb.

Art teacher Trudy shared her poetry:

"I want to meet me, I've been curled up inside
I haven't come out, thought it better to hide
I want to meet me, how about right now
I need to know and,
don't care about the what or the how
I want to meet me, who I am
what makes me strong,
how do I get through work all day long,
I want to meet me, not the image or reflection
but the person, I'm constantly perfecting
I want you to meet me, not the old me
but the new the one who doesn't have to hide,
because I know who I am, do you?"

Deme shared this seasonally appropriate gem by Neil Gaiman from his collection Smoke and Mirrors. Like much of this strange Englishman's stuff, the entire book is worth a read. Gaiman's intro explains, "Every year I feel insignificant and embarrassed and talentless. So I wrote this one year. I sent it out to everyone I could think of. My card. It's exactly 100 words long." Here they are:

"Nicholas was older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.
Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.
He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.
Ho.
Ho.
Ho."

My daughter Marika, a photographer, shared video from a recent trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but since I'm technologically challenged, you need to go here to see something simlar.

Carrie read Neruda's Poema 20 from Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada:

"Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: " La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.

Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo."

Neruda. In the original. Aloud. Makes any sharing more than can be described in print. Carrie was also arm-twisted into reading aloud her great short essay accepted by NPR, which you can check out here.

Patrick, on guitar, performed his song The River:

"Sitting back thinking 'bout yesterday
and all those things that I used to know
somehow they all seem to slip away
and I cry

change in the weather, I've always liked this time of year
brings misty memories from deep inside
seems like I'm watching life on a movie screen
then I realize

down by the river
things that I used to know
my memory's clearer, for things that I used to know

and if we all think about our pasts
how we wish the times would last."

Linda1 shared crafts she'd made, two of which I scanned, plus her first bronze sculpture that she'd made to go to her parents.
Now 60, Dan shared an essay he wrote when turning 50.
Susan shared an article that referenced her vegan belief of not cutting a tree for Christmas.
Linda2 detailed how the delicious gumbo she brought to share linked back to her Houston, Tex. upbringing.
Vixen, a Furry, shared her artwork, of which I unfortunately have none to show here.

Donald Holstrom, lead investigator of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, took us off to a place we didn't imagine we'd go, when he shared a DVD about the explosion at British Petroleum's Texas City (Houston) refinery in 2005 that killed fifteen workers and injured 180 others. The graphics simulation of how this occurred captivated us, despite the subject. Go here to view video of this. Tragic though the topic was, its sobering effect somehow didn't seem out of place, during a time when we indeed had something else to feel thankful for.

What else was brought to share, all that my wife Carmen had prepared, graced our table and home, eaten or imbibed, and as I watched and listened to the stories unfolding, I thought to myself what a wonderful creation the night itself became. Sometimes nervously, hesitantly, each person brought or even exposed something of themselves, something precious, from their past or heart, and as we warmed to the whole idea, the atmosphere opened up to more from the next to share.

This all led me to think that 2010's sharing might include more worth posting via La Bloga, live, webcast, etc. We'll see.

Back in my classroom on our last day before break, the kids returned from another round of gift-receiving, this time courtesy of the local sheriffs who became Santas for the first graders, with bundles of toys. Some received one huge gift, others a medium-sized one with a few smaller ones. I overheard six-year-old Manuel discussing what he planned to do with his four presents and had to have him explain it to the entire class.

He said (translated):
"I'm going to save this one and give it to my sister, this one's for my dad, and this one for my mom. I'm going to keep this one for myself."

He stunned the class.
He made me choke up.
The silence in the room and the looks on many faces made it obvious he'd succeeded in teaching the others about the something-nobler that I'd been working on for over a week. Two of them broke the silence, remarking:

"Eso quiere decir que Manuel es una buena persona."

It was that simple. Manuel was just that way. Sharing.

If your Christmas was somewhat like mine, or much like Manuel's, feel free to share some of it with La Bloga readers in Comments below.

© 2009 Rudy Ch. Garcia

They Really Said That? 2009 Quotes

Last year, the day after Christmas, I posted a few quotes from 2008 that I thought said something relevant, funny, or clever. I'm never one to quit beating a horse that has a few gasps left, so here are a handful of quotes from 2009. And since this is Christmas day, I should have even fewer readers than I did last year for this column.

NOTE: I kept a few off this list simply because we heard them so much, e.g. You lie! and Keep your government hands off my Medicare! But those two say a lot about the U.S. in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
__________________________


You give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders. Jesse Ventura (who was on last year's list -- he could become a regular.)

So if I had to do it again, what I would not do is use the word "quaint" and the Geneva Conventions in the same sentence. Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. (Other than the unfortunate word choice, Alberto apparently has no regrets. He also said it was cool to work in the White House. That word has lost all meaning.)

Always have bail money. 50 Cent. (Word.)


If my visual, literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis offends or outrages some readers, which seems inevitable considering that the text is revered by many people, all I can say in my defense is that I approached this as a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes. That said, I know that you can't please everybody. R. Crumb (in his Introduction to The Book of Genesis Illustrated, which has to be one of the best books of 2009. The cover jacket gushes: The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out! You gotta love Crumb.)

Jazz won't go anywhere. Playing this music is not an option for the musicians who get bit by the improvising bug. Jazz becomes a necessity, as important as food or water for the musician. It's organic music that will continue to grow as long as humans still play instruments. Jason Koransky (Editor of Downbeat, writing in the 75th anniversary edition of the iconic magazine. Amen.)

Newspapers have become deadweight commodities linked to other media commodities in chains that are coupled or uncoupled by accountants and lawyers and executive vice presidents and boards of directors in offices thousands of miles from where the man bit the dog and drew ink. Richard Rodriguez (writing in Harper's Magazine in an article entitled: Final Edition: Twilight of the American Newspaper.)

What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention? In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan’s importance is simply assumed—much the way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. Today, as then, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny. A.J. Bacevich (The War We Can't Win, in the same issue of Harper's [November] as Rodriguez's article.)

Now when the once-cocky Cutler walks onto the field, he looks like a man reaching for the doorknob to the motel room he's just discovered his wife rented with Dennis Rodman. Matt Taibbi (writing in Rolling Stone; you probably have to live in Denver or Chicago and follow the Broncos or Bears to really appreciate the irony and pathos of this quote.)

In these last few years, the winds of change have blown through Mexico -- citizens have more power, protests have managed to kick out the old administration. But they have only been able to improve relations with the cop on the corner, not defeat the march of crime. The madness comes back with new variations. Now we have a killer of old women, a cannibal who eats his girlfriends. Paco Ignacio Taibo (from the Introduction to Mexico City Noir, recently reviewed for La Bloga by Michael Sedano. )

I’ve tired of seeing the vibrant, dynamic literary output of my peers who work in Spanish interpreted through the single, constricting and somewhat outdated lens of magical realism. I say this as someone who has the greatest admiration for García Márquez, someone who, as a young man, devoured his masterworks with revelatory glee. Still, in the marketplace of Latin American letters in the US, this obsession with magical realism has had the unfortunate effect of erasing nuance and glossing over the great diversity of talent and voices that are out there. Daniel Alarcón (in his interview with Daniel Olivas for La Bloga.)


That's it for 2009. It was a tough year, but then it had it's bright spots. Time magazine says that we are in The Decade From Hell. Maybe. In my community, life has always been a struggle - there are just more of us trying to keep our heads above the raging waters these days.

Again, I've had a blast writing for La Bloga and only hope that I can keep up with my comrades who continue to produce outstanding and provocative articles for La Bloga, every day of the year. I wish everyone the joys of the season, and a truly happy new year. See you in 2010.

Later.

Interview with Daniel Olivas

By Lydia Gil

LYDIA GIL: Tell us a bit about your literary background and how it intersects with your legal background.

DANIEL OLIVAS: I majored in English Literature at Stanford University but, instead of continuing along that track, I went to law school at UCLA. I have been a lawyer with the California Department of Justice for the last twenty years where I have worked on cases in the areas of antitrust, environmental law, and consumer protection. I started writing fiction rather late in life at the age of 39 in 1998. Now, over ten years later, I’ve had five books of fiction published, edited an anthology, with two more books on the way in the next two years. My legal background intersects with my literary background primarily in the kind of people who populate my fiction: my characters (who are mostly Chicano and Mexican) come from all walks of life, from people who work with their hands to lawyers and judges. Also, because I am a trained lawyer who works with words all the time, I’m a very fast and efficient fiction writer. I never suffer from writer’s block. A lawyer can never say: “Oh no! I can’t finish this brief!” You have to get it done. I have the same approach with fiction writing. A blank computer screen does not scare me.

LG: How did your recently published collection of short stories, Anytwhere But L.A., come about?

DO: I found that throughout the last few years, many of my stories involved characters who had escaped Los Angeles (my hometown), wanted to escape the city, or simply had no connection to L.A. I like to have a theme for my collections (this is my third story collection), so I pulled together the stories and found the title in the words of one of my characters in the story “San Diego” to be a perfect fit. He utters the words, “Anywhere but L.A.,” after his wife has died and he needed to escape the city because everything reminded him of his wife. Also, I think natives of Los Angeles have a love-hate relationship with the city. It has so much to offer yet it can be maddening in terms of traffic, crime and smog.

LG: I'm not familiar with your earlier work (except your book for children, which my daughter loves). Is there a thread that runs throughout your work, or is each project completely different in nature and execution?

DO: If you were to look at all of my books, I think you would find that I’m not afraid to confront tough issues such as racism, sexism, dysfunctional families. But I often use humor in my stories even as I write about matters that normally would not be humorous. In the end, the important thing is to tell a compelling story and not be predictable. I think fiction should disturb the reader, in every sense of the word.

LG: What role does the "city" play in your writing? Is it necessarily tied to the Latino experience?

DO: I think that city life in the United States has allowed Latinos to thrive in ways that other settings have not. My grandparents came to Los Angeles in the 1920s and made a good living even though they had little education. My father’s father was a cook. My mother’s parents worked in a laundry. My parents took advantage of the low-cost city college system to improve their lives. In the mid-1960s, with five young children at home, my parents went to community college. After graduating, my father eventually landed a job with our public transportation system where he could wear a suit to work. My mother opened a pre-school in our neighborhood which she ran for many years. All but one of my siblings finished college, and three of us went to graduate school. So, in my fiction, Los Angeles and the Latino experience are necessarily tied together particularly with respect to how Latinos have taken advantage of the city’s opportunities to improve their lives. I think this is the classic story of immigrants in the United States.

LG: Has your connection to Judaism influenced your writing? How?

DO: I was raised Catholic but converted to Judaism in 1988. My wife, Sue, is Jewish and she introduced me to Judaism. So, I feel comfortable including Jewish themes and characters in my fiction particularly with respect to the theme of conversion. Anytwhere But L.A. includes my first Holocaust story which was a challenge for me. But I feel comfortable with the result and I hope that Jewish readers will, too.

LG: How do you see your work in relation to recent Latino literature?

DO: I think that my writing is part of the continuum of Chicano literature. I have been deeply influenced by writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Luis Alberto Urrea, Helena Viramontes, Luis Rodriguez, and many others. Yet, because my parents were born in the United States, and I am an attorney, I bring other experiences to my literary expression. My fiction has been called “postmodern” and I have been categorized as part of the “new wave” of Chicano writers. I don’t know if such labels really mean much to the average reader. I’m just delighted that people are reading my books.

LG: What are you working on now?

DO: My first full-length novel, The Book of Want, will be published by the University of Arizona Press in 2011. It concerns two generations of Mexican women and bounces back and forth between Mexico during World War II and Los Angeles in the year 2006. I recently put the manuscript through another edit and await further comment from my editor. My first poetry collection entitled Crossing the Border will be published next year by Ghost Road Press, a small and wonderful publisher based in Denver, Colorado. I’m always writing short stories and likely will have a collection completed sometime in late 2010. I’m a book critic for the El Paso Times and other publications, and I blog each Monday on La Bloga [HERE!!!] which is run by a collective of Latino bloggers [THAT'S US]. I’m also thinking about collecting some of my essays and interviews of writers into a volume. As you can see, I’m a compulsive writer!

LG: Thank you for your thoughtful answers, Daniel!

And to the rest of you, if you haven't yet read Anywhere But L.A., run to get your copy! It's full of wonderful twists and literary levitations. You may learn more about Daniel's writing by going to his official website.

En español: If you are still scrambling to find a present for your Spanish-speaking primas, here are some suggestions. And for the primitos, René Colato's bilingual books are guaranteed to be a hit.

¡Felices fiestas, mi gente!

Feliz Navidad

Traditional Christmas songs from Latin America

Los peces en el río

Las posadas

Mi burrito sabanero

La Marimorena

Blanca Navidad

Great News From Revista Iguana

OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION BY CHILDREN’S PUBLICATION RECOGNIZED (SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, DECEMBER 9. 2009)

The prestigious Multicultural Children’s Publication Award was recently presented to Iguana magazine for its "outstanding contribution to the field of multicultural education" by the National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) at its 2009 President’s Banquet and Celebration.

NAME acknowledged the contribution Iguana makes to the Latino community by promoting the "reading, learning and enjoying" of Spanish language, multicultural stories. The association recognized founder, publisher and editor Christianne Meneses Jacobs for her work, through the magazine, to “instill in young children a pride for their native language.”

“This is a great honor for Iguana,” said Meneses Jacobs enthusiastically. “NAME is a well recognized educational association and their endorsement validates the work we do on behalf of Spanish speaking children in the United States.”

Iguana is the magazine for Spanish speaking children. It contains original short stories, poems, articles about science, technology, history, geography, biographies, comic strips, recipes, craft projects, word searches and many more. “The mission of Iguana magazine is to serve as a tool for Spanish language retention and Latino cultural preservation,” said Meneses Jacobs. “Iguana is unique in that it aims to instill in Latino children pride for their language and cultural heritage.”
Now in its fourth year, Iguana has also been honored as the recipient of the 2007 Anna Maria Arias Memorial Business Fund Award and the 2008 Latino Future Small Business Award.

For further information about Iguana, visit the website www.IGUANAmagazine.com or contact via email at revista_infantil@yahoo.com or by mail:
Iguana c/o NicaGal, LLC.
P.O. Box 26432
Scottsdale, AZ 85255.

Iguana is a publication of NicaGal, LLC.

My Letter to Santa, 2009

Michael Sedano

*Click here to listen to this letter to Santa

Dear Santa:

Seems like only yesterday I wrote you all I wanted was my two front teeth so I could with you merry chrithmath. And here we are today, several fake teeth and numerous fillings, but my two front teeth are all mine, so thanks for granting me that small wish.

Then there was that bit of trouble, remember? I saw Mommy kissing you underneath the mistletoe that night. How was I to know Daddy was wearing your suit? I got sent to my room, but I didn't shout, I didn't pout. I knew about that list you keep and check twice. I did not want a couple lumps of coal instead of that Red Ryder BB Gun. Thank you, I see fine with one eye. It's not your fault. And it got me out of the draft back in '68, so all in all, that was another good Christmas for me.

I don't know what Grandma did to piss you off, or maybe it was just the worst time of the year for such a journey, the ways deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter, and all of that. But getting run over by reindeer is a hard way to reaffirm one's belief in myths. Did I say that? I meant the true spirit of X-mas and, of course, your existence, Santa. I shall be glad of another sale.

Last year I asked for RAM and got a whole herd of Bo-Peep's sheep. I meant computer memory, Santa. So, now that I know you have a low tolerance for ambiguity, I am going to keep this short, sweet, and specific, OK?

First, all I want is a room somewhere. You know, far away from the cold night air? Make it a big room, and soundproofed because when all the faithful come joyful and triumphant, they make a lot of noise. And no figgy pudding, sheesh.

Second, please bring You Know Who a puppy. I saw a doggie in the window, one with a waggly tail. Tan cute; its ears were grown long and its tail cut short. But the price was astronomical, so that little dogie can just git along, that's its misfortune and none of my own. Heah!

And, wow, did you pull a fast one on me last year! I was all happy knowing yes, there is a Virginia. And Pennsylvania. And Ohio. And Montana, of all places. Yes, Virginia and the others, si se pudo. I thought then we'd finally laugh, eat well, and grow strong, that no one will send us to eat in the kitchen, or Iraq, or Afghanistan anymore. Boy, was I wrong. My third wish: please wise up that pendejo in the White House. War is not Peace. Bring the troops home now.

As I promised, I’m keeping this short and to the point. Here’s hoping all your wishes come true, too. As you say, "Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night."

P.S. Enjoy the mutton stew.

INTERVIEW WITH CARMEN GIMÉNEZ SMITH

Carmen Giménez Smith is an assistant professor of creative writing at New Mexico State University, the publisher of Noemi Press, and the editor-in-chief of Puerto del Sol. Her work has most recently appeared in Mandorla, Colorado Review and Ploughshares and is forthcoming in Jubilat and Denver Quarterly. She is the author of Bring Down the Little Birds (University of Arizona, 2010), and Glitch (Dusie Press Kollectiv, 2009). She recently edited, with Kate Bernheimer, an anthology of contemporary fairy tale adaptations to be published by Penguin Classics in 2010. She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her husband and their two children.

Carmen kindly agreed to juggle yet one more thing and sit down with La Bloga to chat about her new poetry collection, Odalisque in Pieces (University of Arizona Press, 2009).

DANIEL OLIVAS: How did you decide upon the title of your new collection, Odalisque in Pieces? Did you consider other titles?

CARMEN GIMÉNEZ SMITH: I shuffled through many titles before landing on Odalisque. For a long time the book was called Fussy, which probably had more to do with my personality than it did with the book. It was called Solve For N when I sent it to Arizona; the editors there weren’t crazy about that one, so I ordered my husband to come up with a title; he plucked the phrase from a poem in the book. It seemed perfect to me: a woman naked, supine, slavish, shattered.… I feel that it’s the book’s secret symbol, in a way.

DO: You divide the collection into four sections without titles. Did you intend each section to have a theme?

CGS: I’d like to think that the book has an arc. Each section contains a poem with a sense of mythos about it, and the book tracks a progression into adulthood. Earlier drafts of the book didn’t contain section breaks, but a reader felt that the book needed some moments of pause -- some “breathing room,” I believe she said -- so the section breaks were included to provide something like that. I think the breaks serve to dramatize movement through the book, and also to help ensure that certain significant poems in the book’s project wouldn’t get lost in the melee of a sectionless collection. To be honest, I’m pretty order-illiterate when it comes to my own work. I’ve been lucky to have friends who will step in and say, “This is how you should order this book.” It may be that poem order literacy is a qualification for a poet’s friendship.

DO: One of my favorite poems in your collection is “Tree Tree Tree,” which begins: “There’s a game we play: / Repeating a word until it ceases to mean….” These lines are both thrilling and horrifying, at least for a writer. Do you ever get lost in words? Do their meanings sometime become obscured the more you dwell with them?

CGS: I am enthralled by syntax, by the sinews of the sentence. Often my absorption in the line leads to language becoming pure sound for me, something like murmur, but of course the printed word itself and at least the shadow of its meaning always remain. I love Wittgenstein’s take on this stuff, the way he seems so utterly perplexed by it, which I think is the correct attitude to take when it comes to thinking about the relationship between the look of the word on the page and the sound of the word in your head or your ear. There’s a line somewhere in the Investigations: “Remember that the look of a word is familiar to us in the same kind of way as its sound.” I suppose “Tree Tree Tree” speaks to this look–sound problematic in some way.

My first language was Spanish. Writing in a language other than that with which I grew up, with which I learned to think and feel, has surely had some bearing on my relationship to writing. I love finding words and sounds from other languages buried in English; I prefer to imagine discrete languages as continuous, like adjoining rooms connected by a common door -- sound. When I revise a poem, I’m thinking primarily about sound, syllables as phonemic puzzle pieces. I wrote “Tree Tree Tree” in graduate school; I think it was exhibitive of my coming to this awareness of new sonic possibilities in my writing.

DO: Do you have a favorite poem in this collection?

CGS: I have specific, special feelings for each of the poems. The poem “Finding the Lark” took me years and years to write, so I certainly have very strong feelings for that one: something like half ardor, half arduousness. I would write a draft with a truncated ending, and my good friend, one of my best readers, the poet Mark Wunderlich, would hand it back to me and say, “No.” When I started writing the poem, I didn’t have the chops to sustain the drama, the narrative. I have often seen the necessary course of a poem early on, but have failed to come up with the stamina, I guess, to follow it through all the way to the end. But this is something I’m failing better at all the time.

If I had to choose one poem that’s just my out-and-out favorite, I would probably pick “Idea In a Ruinous State,” the book’s final poem. I’m nuts about Wallace Stevens; early drafts of the poem contained a refrain that included his name. Mark said, “No.” I went back to the drawing board. I remember an interim draft that was significantly more expansive. Eventually I stripped it down into something like a litany, which turned out to be the solution to that particular poem.

As you can tell, my fondness for my own poems concerns the process by which they came to be. Revising and reshaping and reconceiving a poem: that is why I love to write poetry.

DO: Who are some of your favorite poets and how have they influenced your poetry?

CGS: Well, like I said, Stevens is pretty much the cat’s pajamas for me. When I was in graduate school I hated him; I didn’t see how earnest his work was until I was older. My favorites list is long and eclectic. My dear friend Rosa Alcalá’s work poetry has had a strong influence on my newer work. Her stuff is so nervy and tough; I love it, I love it, I love it. There’s Mina Loy, sort of modern dance. And James Wright, wow. Wright’s work has been a big force in my life. He’s tough too, but also so lyric. I like Neruda’s wryness. There’s Louise Glück, so terse, the master of compression. Brenda Shaughnessy is so lush, and her beautifully complex syntax. C.D. Wright is great. Juan Felipe Herrera is the sage. Alexander Pope is so funny. Mary Jo Bang has such amazing range. I work with two incredible poets, Connie Voisine and Richard Greenfield; I’ve learned a great deal from them. They’re very different, but both rare talents. Mark Wunderlich is one of the great lyric poets of our time; I’ve learned so much from him. Some contemporary poets with whom I’m in the early stages of romance are Ariana Reines, Paige Ackerson Kiely, Hoa Nguyen, Peter Ramos and Dan Machlin.

DO: Do you have a writing routine? How do you juggle writing with teaching and editing?

CGS: I drop a lot of balls when I juggle…. I have an amazing husband who helps and supports me. I’m blessed with so many generous friends and colleagues.

Once I became a mother, I had to become mercenary with my time. I can’t wait around for a poem to strike me, so instead I create goofy scenarios in my mind from which poems might emerge. I have lots of these little multiparous tricks to generate drafts. As soon as my kids are in bed, I write. I also do a lot of composition in my head while I’m doing any number of mundane things, folding laundry, cleaning dishes, etc. I don’t necessarily write a poem from memory, but I certainly can imagine a form or an arc, maybe the beginning of a lexicon, then scramble to write it down.

Teaching only fuels my writing. I get so inspired by my students; I often walk away from class jonesing to write. And the work I do as an editor informs my work, as well. I’ve learned a lot about my own writing from working with authors on their manuscripts. Being an editor and a teacher requires me to quickly and clearly articulate what is at issue in a piece of writing. Surely this has been helpful to my own revision process.

DO: Are you working on another book?

CGS: I just finished a manuscript of poems called (for now, at least) Trees Outside the Academy, as well as another collection called Happy Trigger, a book I’m terribly excited about because it’s my feminist polemic, the book I’ve wanted to write for a long time. I’ve also written a nonfiction book, Bring Down the Little Birds, which the University of Arizona Press will release next year. I’ve been working with Kate Bernheimer -- from whom I’ve learned so much -- on an anthology of contemporary writers adapting fairy tales, for publication with Penguin. I’ve been writing short pieces for a book about money and class called Squander and also beginning again to think about a book I’ve been working on for what feels like eternity, something called Goodbye Flicker about a girl who escapes into these fairy tales which her mother has, in the telling, corrupted. I always have to have several projects going on at a time. So many windows open on the computer, crazy stacks of papers around me, books all over the place. It helps me to flit about from thing to thing.

DO: Mil gracias for spending time with La Bloga.

◙ The latest volume of The Los Angeles Review is now out and available for purchase. Published by Red Hen Press and edited by Kate Gale, this issue is dedicated to Wanda Coleman and includes essays, fiction and poetry from many fine writers including a nice sampling of Latinos/as such as Conrad Romo, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Chloe Joan Lopez, Octavio Quintanilla, and Eugenia Toledo. I’m delighted to note that the issue also includes an interview by fiction editor, Stefanie Freele, of yours truly concerning Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Press, 2008). I do want to note that Stefanie is the author of a powerful, funny and not-to-be-missed short story collection, Feeding Strays (Lost Horse Press, 2009).

◙ Gregg Barrios interviews playwright Octavio Solis for the San Antonio Current. Barrios notes that “Solis’s breakthrough drama, Lydia, has made the El Paso-born playwright a national sensation in the theater world. But for the 50-year-old Solis, who has toiled in the theatrical trenches for half his lifetime, the idea of overnight success chafes a bit. He’d prefer to be described as an 'up-and-coming' playwright.” It’s an enlightening interview which you may read in its entirety here. Also, don’t miss Barrios’s tribute to the Crystal City, Texas Student Walkout 1969...this month marks its 40th anniversary.

◙ Lisa Alvarado is a poet, performer, and installation artist, focusing on identity, spirit, and the body. She is the founder of La Onda Negra Press, and is author of Reclamo and The Housekeeper’s Diary, originally a book of poetry and now a one-woman performance, and is the recipient of grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs, The NEA, and the Ragdale Foundation. Lisa has also completed an ambitious trilogy of performance pieces, REM/Memory, Bury The Bones and Resurgam, whose themes are the culture of violence, popular culture and personal redemption. Her first novel, Sister Chicas (written with Ann Hagman Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston) was bought by Penguin/NAL, and released in April 2006. Her book of poetry, Raw Silk Suture, was released by Floricanto Press in 2008. We have a treat: a poem by Lisa Alvarado in celebration of Chanukah. Enjoy:

Adonai assigns each Jew a rabbi or tzadik
because you can't eat yeshiva or angel's wings,
Even the holy need parnassa, and a job is a job, after all.

But we still were hiding
so my great grandmother, a woman, a bird at the end of flight,
was my first rabbi, my first tzadik.
Us two, with eight more in Gan Eden.
No one else allowed, no one knowing.
Because the neighbors already looked at us with sharpened eyes,
sharp as the knife she killed chickens with for Fridays.
The two of us, the ten of us,
burned that bread, lit those lights
and sang down the slipping night
and Shekinah's stars.

I am her patchwork Jew,
offering poor wages
to those rabbis close now.
No drush is as sweet as the honey from her table.

◙ Read Queer is Multicultural, and essay by Himilce Novas in The MultiCultural Review.

◙ If you’re still looking for that perfect gift, check out Marcela Landres’s suggested Latino/a titles.

◙ Rigoberto González, an award-winning writer living in New York City, reviews for My Latino Voice the new novel by Reyna Grande, Dancing with Butterflies (Simon & Schuster). He notes, in part:

“The landscape of the novel is genuinely contemporary, so the tensions between alien status and national identity, between prescribed gender roles and feminism, are key factors in the motivations and attitudes prevalent in the behaviors of the characters. But Grande is successful in keeping the women from becoming symbols or victims of the violence and struggles of international and domestic politics.”

You may read the entire review here.

◙ That’s all for now. I hope that you and yours will be healthy and happy this holiday season. In the meantime, enjoy the intervening posts from mis compadres y comadres here on La Bloga. And remember: ¡Lea un libro!

Loose Girl: A Book Review

Deborah Garcia

Some girls turn to anorexia. Others to alcohol, drugs, cutting, sports, ambition. I chose promiscuity.

Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity opens with self-effacing honesty on a difficult topic: charged sexuality among young girls. Kerry Cohen's memoir envelops her readers in sharply focused sensuous descriptions of her earliest sexual experiences that begin during her early teenage years and extend to adulthood. Her tale is common and relatable: as a young girl, Kerry quickly learns that her body and giving it over can command the desperate attention she seeks to harness from boys. More so, her emergent sexuality seals a fundamental truth: her body and sexuality provide an immediate conduit of control many seek over insecurity, self-esteem, and self-importance.

Loose Girl balances an uneasy awareness with a private narrative tone. The work’s established tone is borne from hindsight filled with shame, regret, and poignant insight to the kind of damage Cohen’s relentless promiscuity dealt to her emotional well-being. Confessional, conciliatory, and cautionary, Loose Girl challenges the reader to dissect our views on young girls’ early sexual experiences — a topic ensconced in some amount of cultural silence — and follow her introspection to understand and rise above emotional needs so commonly tangled up in our own adult sex lives.

We follow Cohen from her early teenage years to adult years wrestling with issues intertwined with her sexual awakening. Common issues surrounding her beauty in comparison to her peers, her body image as she perceives it and by boys whom she finds appealing, and more complicatedly, a burning and relentless need to find proof of her worth and ability to be loved. It is this last issue that governs and controls her frequent impulse to seek sex randomly, promiscuously, and irresponsibly.

In the memoir’s afterward, “A Conversation with Kerry Cohen,” a loose girl is defined as “a girl who has been badly emotionally hurt and attempts to ease that hurt through male attention and sexual behavior. … She is not wantonly or gratuitously trying to get sexual attention.” Perhaps because this is Cohen’s memoir and not discursive critique, the thorny issue of addressing girls who are sluts is clear cut and includes a tacit understanding that girls who have sexual experiences inside of relationships falls outside the realm of slutty behavior.

Loose Girl refrains from lecturing. It is a highly compassionate and feeling memoir. Loss and pain are buried beneath Cohen’s sexually dominant id. Time and time again, her sexual experiences leave her with deep longings — longings she understands come from profound emptiness and sorrow.

For everyone who was that girl.
For everyone who knew that girl.
For everyone who wondered who that girl was.

Kerry Cohen’s official Web site, www.kerry-cohen.com, highlights Cohen’s upcoming psychology and parenting book on the loose girl issue. She writes, “There are tons of books with evidence why gorls [sic] shouldn’t have sex, tons of books about rape and molestation, tons of books about the grown-up slut. But this will be the first book - like Loose Girl - that addresses the issue of addiction to male attention, how it’s culturally fueled and so hard to avoid.” The author welcomes reader comments and contact to be interviewed for her book.

Deborah Garcia is a publishing and writing professional

born and raised in San Antonio, Texas.

Continuing to straddle cultural fronteras,

she moved back to her hometown in 2008

after having spent half of her life

on the East Coast.

"SciFi", Latinos, Chicanos & Aztecs in outer space

Había una vez, back in '04 when Ramos was getting me drunk in a bar, as he was wont to do, I vaguely remember discussing the idea that eventually resulted in creating La Bloga. We were already in communication with Michael Sedano in Califas, via Teresa Marquez's CHICLE listserv at UNM.

That brings back more vague memories. One of them was my vision of my role in La Bloga. My cabrón father had raised me on what was then called SciFi, and I wanted to focus on Chicanos in that genre, as well as fantasy.

I wanted the blogworld to learn about characters like Pablo Cortez from Cortez on Jupiter (written by Ernest Hogan, whose mom's maiden name's Garcia), still one of my favorite Chicano characters--the "wild young Mexican-American artist who covers Greater Los Angeles with fantastic graffiti. . . founds the Guerrilla Muralists of L.A., and goes on to make mankind's first contact with the sentient life-forms of Jupiter, and ends as the Solar System's most revered--and least reverent--artist." (from the back cover)

Or Hogan's character Beto Orozco, from High Aztech, "a VR games designer with too much time on his hands, who decides to create an AI version of Tezcatlipoca using some illegal software he finds. The result is a digital resurrection of a god that would have been best left sleeping away the centuries."

Like too many of my plans, I never became the SciFi/Fantasy voice of La Bloga, nor of anywhere else for that matter, which is neither good nor bad, just a fact.

Recently though, I learned of someone who took up a similar mission, at least regarding Latinos in film. Since Sept 2009, if not earlier, una boriqua has been reviewing SciFi, as she calls it, over at SciFiLatino.com.

Her reviews read well, like this: "The film Cirque du Freak is based on the first three books of a young adult series called The Saga of Darren Shan or alternately, Cirque du Freak. It is unfortunate that this film comes after several vampire movies and TV series because I am sure vampire fatigue will make some people dismiss it. That would be a mistake because Cirque du Freak isn’t annoyingly angsty and any love story is secondary to the plot. It is grittier, darker, and surprisingly fun."

Here's her description of her mission: "SCIFI LATINO came about because of my love for science fiction and fantasy. Why focus on Latinos and Latinas? Because it gives me a thrill to see people like me in my favorite genre, and I want to celebrate each and every one of them. The blog will review current television series, cancelled shows, movies, books and anything else that I consider genre-worthy and where we see a Latino participating in a significant capacity."

You can find other gems there, like her preview of Al final del espectro (At the End of the Spectra)--"a 2006 Colombian thriller set to be remade in the U.S. in 2010." Or the Latina actress playing a Latina in the Avatar flick: "Our non-blue warrior chica Michelle Rodríguez (playing Trudy Chacón) kicked ass and was a favorite (at least in my theater) judging by the applause she got."

She's also up at Twitter: @scifilatino
www.facebook.com/scifilatino

So, if you're into this genre or want to check out the Latino connections, click here.

Ramos also claims he can remember well that bar back in '04 and that I was wont to nix ideas, like calling this site El Blogo instead of La Bloga. Would we have fared better, become more world-renown had we adopted El Blogo, instead? If you want to cast a very late vote, do so in the comments below. Which one would have better described what this site's become?

RudyChG