Voices Born In La Pinta

Author and Poet Honored with Luis Leal Literature Award

[press release]

Jimmy Santiago Baca could easily have pursued a life of crime. Sentenced as a young man to five years in a maximum-security prison, he was well on his way. While incarcerated, however, Baca learned to read and write, and found he had a passion for poetry. After serving his time, he chose to leave prison not as a hardened criminal, but as a new writer.

Now an award-winning poet, novelist, and essayist, Baca is the recipient of UC Santa Barbara's 2010 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. The award, which is co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara Book Council, was presented at a ceremony at 4 p.m. on Thursday, October 28, in the campus's Corwin Pavilion.

Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Baca is the recipient of several awards and honors, including the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award for Poetry, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the International Prize, which he received for his novel, A Place to Stand. He has held a Regents Chair at UC Berkeley, The Wallace Stevens Endowed Chair at Yale University, and The Endowed Hulbert Chair at Colorado College.

“From the time I starting writing 32 years ago, Mr. Leal was my inspiration,” Baca said of the scholar for whom the award is named. “I aspired to follow his model in scholarship, compassion, creativity, and commitment, but I soon realized few can do so. He stands alone. It is such a great privilege and honor to receive the Luis Leal Award and brings at least one of my dreams full circle - that my name would be associated with his one day.”

Baca jump-started his writing career in the late 1970s by sending three poems - from prison - to Denise Levertov, a poet herself, and the poetry editor at that time for Mother Jones magazine. His work was published in the magazine and later appeared in a volume titled “Immigrants in Our Own Land,” which came out in 1979 - the year he was released. He earned his general education diploma (GED) a few months later, and then went on to the University of New Mexico, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. In 2003, he received an honorary doctorate in literature from the same university.

“Jimmy Santiago Baca is a voice of Chicano survival in a country that has too often marginalized Chicanos and other Latinos,” said Mario T. García, professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies and of history at UCSB. García is also the organizer of the Leal award.

The author of more than 11 volumes of poetry and three novels, Baca has been a guest on several radio and television programs, including National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Good Morning America, Language of Life with Bill Moyers, and CBS Sunday Morning.

Devoted not only to his craft but to teaching others who are overcoming hardship, Baca established Cedar Tree Inc., a nonprofit foundation in New Mexico that conducts literary workshops in prisons and detention centers, and at community centers and schools for at-risk youth. The organization's mission is to provide underserved communities with the tools necessary to overcome obstacles to learning.

In 2006, Baca received the Cornelius P. Turner Award, a national honor presented annually to a GED graduate who has made outstanding contributions to society in the areas of education, justice, health, public service, and social welfare.

The Leal Award is named in honor of Luis Leal, professor emeritus of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCSB, who was internationally recognized as a leading scholar of Chicano and Latino literature. Previous recipients of the award include Graciela Limón, Pat Mora, Alejandro Morales, Helena Maria Viramontes, Oscar Hijuelos, Rudolfo Anaya, and Denise Chávez. Luis Leal died in January of this year at the age of 102.

Source: UCSB

Bookstore puts up a fight

The sign reads Resistencia Bookstore, but according to caretaker Rene Valdez, the space inside is more than just a place for selling books.

"It is a space of written resource, but the idea is that it became a safe-space that organizers and activists could come and exchange ideas," Valdez said. "We use ‘bookstore' loosely, but the vision is more a community center to hear people's victories and struggles."

The late Raúl Salinas founded the Resistencia Bookstore in 1982. Salinas was a former adjunct professor who taught in the communications department at St. Edward's University. He is known as a Chicano beat poet and social justice advocate. During his time at St. Edward's, Salinas taught courses about social movements and multicultural communication.

"He inspired so many students and was such a presence to have here," professor Tere Garza said.

Resistencia Bookstore is a part of the legacy Salinas left behind.

"We're a grassroots operation and a mom-and-pop five and dime shop," Valdez said. "We don't aspire to be Barnes and Noble or even a Book People."

Read the rest of this story from Hilltop Views, by Kristina Schenck, at this link.

Ricardo Sánchez

Chicano Timespace: The Poetry and Politics of Ricardo Sánchez
Miguel R. López
Texs A&M University Press, 2001

[publisher blurb]


The premature death of Ricardo Sánchez in 1995 marked the passing of an almost legendary figure in Chicano literature and in the Chicano political movement. A troubadour of Chicano Movement poetry, he established an anti-aesthetic that became the norm. Sánchez's autobiographical poetry forges a link between genres of the past and present and establishes him as the first great tragic figure of contemporary Chicano literature.In a body of work that spanned spatial, temporal, and cultural boundaries, Sánchez dealt with issues of power and of linguistic and cultural barriers between Anglo, Native American, and Mexican American peoples in the United States.While he lived, critics showed reluctance to engage Sánchez's work fully, perhaps in part because of his reputation as a confrontational, even outrageous individual. Focusing on Canto y grito mi liberación and Hechizospells, Miguel R. López examines Sánchez's work and places him in the context of the past, present, and future of Chicano literature. López explains clearly the relation of time and space in Sánchez's prolific work and shows him as a writer committed to his craft as well as to his political stance. In the end, the portrait that emerges is of a poet whose work was linguistically and thematically complex and one who was more passionate, controversial, and forthright in his expression than any other contemporary Chicano writer.

“The poetry of Ricardo Sánchez is here examined with a clinical eye in order to bring out its deep meaning and reveal its multiple values. For the first time the principal works of a major movimiento poet are evaluated in the context of his turbulent spacetime taking into consideration the author’s tragic life. The result is a tour de force seldom equaled in Chicano/a criticism concerned with the study of a single poet.”--Luis Leal, University of California-Santa Barbara.

Later.