¡De Chavela al Fado!

Por Xánath Caraza

Xánath Caraza, Nuno Júdice y Eduardo Franco en A Casa de América Latina en Lisboa, Portugal

Para esta ocasión, entre Chavela Vargas y el Fado, continúo reportando sobre mis actividades literarias en España y Portugal.  Comparto un poco de información sobre el Instituto Franklin que organiza cada dos años el Congreso Internacional de Literatura Chicana y la visita de UTEP Online MFA Creative Writing Study Abroad Program, todo esto, en Alcalá de Henares. También comparto sobre una celebración anual a Chavela Vargas en Puente Genil, mi presentación de poesía en Portugal y las palabras de Nuno Júdice sobre mi poesía.

Alcalá de Henares

El Instituto Franklin

Sancho Panza y el Quijote en Alcalá de Henares

El Instituto Franklin es parte de la Universidad de Alcalá en la población de Alcalá de Henares, comunidad de Madrid, y es la institución encargada de organizar el Congreso Internacional de Literatura Chicana.  Este congreso se lleva a cabo cada dos años en diferentes ciudades de España, como ya sabemos, el más reciente, mayo de 2014, fue en la Universidad de Oviedo en Oviedo, Asturias.  Hace dos años fue en la ciudad de Toledo y, más importante aún, en 2016 será en la ciudad de Madrid en colaboración con la Universidad Complutense.

Cada dos años hay una convocatoria para la Beca Nebrija para creadores.  Dicha beca consiste en una residencia de un mes en Alcalá de Henares, la estancia, ya sea en los dormitorios universitarios o en un apartamento, y el boleto de avión desde los Estados Unidos hasta Madrid.  También incluye el costo de inscripción al Congreso Internacional de Literatura Chicana y el hospedaje.  Algunos de los acreedores de la Beca Nebrija para creadores hemos sido, Norma Cantú (2012), Alejandro Morales (2011), Carlos Morton (2010) y Xánath Caraza (2014).

El Quijote

Haber gozado de la Beca Nebrija para creadores me permitió antes que nada el acceso a un espacio perfecto para escribir.  No hubiera podido ir a España sin esa ayuda.  Mi estancia en Alcalá de Henares se hizo corta.  Pienso que Alcalá de Henares es una comunidad estupenda para escribir, no es demasiado grande, es más bien pequeña y manejable.  Además es la ciudad natal de Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, autor de El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, libro con el cual se marca el principio de la modernidad en la literatura occidental.  Así mismo la Universidad de Alcalá es la que se encarga de seleccionar y organizar el tan prestigioso Premio Cervantes de Literatura.

 

Isabel Albella, Cristina Crespo, Julio Cañero Serrano y Ana Lariño

Durante mi estancia en Alcalá de Henares tuve la fortuna de conocer y convivir con el increíble equipo de trabajo del Instituto Franklin, Julio Cañero Serrano, Ph. D., Director del Instituto Franklin, Cristina Crespo, Ph. D., Directora de proyectos; Isabel Albella, Coordinadora de Conferencia y Eventos; Ana Lariño Ares, Coordinadora de Comunicaciones y Publicaciones.  ¡A todos un gran saludo y gracias por su apoyo!

No dejen de visitar la página del Instituto Franklin para la convocatoria de la X Conferencia Internacional de Literatura Chicana en 2016, en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

UTEP Online MFA in Creative Writing

Una inesperada sorpresa fue recibir un email por parte del Director del Online MFA in Creative Writing de UTEP, poeta y escritor, Daniel Chacón, para reunirme y conocer a los estudiantes de su summer study abroad program.  Por lo que entendí habían estado previamente en Londres y la segunda parte de su visita de estudios se concentró en Madrid.  Parte de su itinerario fue visitar Alcalá de Henares y el 19 de junio, gratamente, me encontré con ellos, por un par de horas, frente a la casa natal de Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra.  Fue un encuentro que yo califico como feliz.  Tuve la oportunidad de convivir con Lupe Mendez, John Veldt, Kimberly Mathes, Daniel Chacón y algunos estudiantes de licenciatura que se detuvieron a saludarnos brevemente. 

John Veldt, Daniel Chacón, Kimberly Mathes, Lupe Mendez, Xánath Caraza

Lupe Mendez, en su blog The Poet Mendez, escribe sobre sus impresiones de esa visita a Alcalá de Henares, “It was an amazing experience – getting the chance to meet with a poet and writer…I took the opportunity to ask as many different questions about craft and habits of writing and translations and language as I could think of…”

Haz click aquí para leer la entrada completa de su visita a Alcalá de Henares, The Poet Mendez.  Personally, I certainly had a beautiful time with poetry, charla, estudiantes y cigüeñas por todos lados.   

Los escritores

Puente Genil

Chavela Vargas

El escritorio

En busca de un refugio donde celebrar el solsticio de verano fui a Puente Genil, Córdoba, Andalucía.  Mi pequeño santuario fue y ha sido la bella casa de la artista Adriana Manuela y su esposo Pepe Baena.  Confieso que no he salido, básicamente, desde que llegué pero tampoco he dejado de escribir.  Mi gran aventura fue el mismo día que llegué, una celebración para Chavela Vargas.  El grupo Nameless que se reúne en el bar la Alcabala organiza anualmente un homenaje a Chavela Vargas.  Este grupo es el mismo grupo que organizó el 2º Festival de Música y Poesía donde tanto el Poeta murciano, Juan de Dios García y yo fuimos los poetas invitados.  Ya estando ahí me invitaron a leer un poema y así fue como comencé el solsticio de verano, leyendo poesía.  Nameless está dirigido por Alicia Baena.

Las mañanitas

"Ante el río/Before the River"

Puente Genil, Córdoba, Andalucía

Adriana Manuela y Pepe Baena

La poesía en Lisboa, Portugal  

Xánath Caraza and Nuno Júdice

Ya en la tierra del Fado, música que considero un símbolo de Portugal, el viernes 27 de junio de 2014 a las 5:30 p.m. en Lisboa en A Casa de América Latina tuve mi presentación de poesía.  El Poeta Nuno Júdice fue quien me presentó en esta ocasión, mi primera visita a Portugal.  Amablemente, Nuno Júdice accedió y comparte con nosotros el texto que leyó el viernes. También quiero compartir uno de mis poemas, “Niebla Verde” / “Green Fog” que fue traducido, junto con otros, al portugués, “Neblina verde”.  Después de las palabras de Júdice, va el poema en tres idiomas, primero la traducción al portugués por Catarina Nunes de Almeida, luego mi versión original en español y, finalmente, mi propia traducción a inglés.  Este poema es parte de mi plaqueta, Corazón Pintado: Ekphrastic Poems (TL Press, 2012).  Agradezco a Eduardo Franco y familia todo su apoyo para lograr esta lectura, Ian Carlo Mendoza por la música, Ana Rocha, Sandra Barros y todo el equipo de A Casa de América Latina por su entusiasmo e incondicional apoyo.  Llevo esta visita conmigo para siempre.

Ana Rocha, Xánath Caraza, Nuno Júdice

Nuno Júdice

UMA POÉTICA DE MÚSICA E COR

A poesia de Xánath Caraza tem duas vertentes: é uma poesia visual, pictórica, em que a palavra remete imediatamente para o objecto mas não é uma poesia descritiva, estática, como se fosse uma natureza morta.

O seu objecto é a paisagem, os rios, a natureza como um cenário quase barroco, com a multiplicidade dos nomes de plantas e a riqueza de uma vegetação que nasce das palavras que a designam e das cores que as envolvem. A poeta executa esses quadros de uma realidade que surge aos nossos olhos com a precisão com que ela executa o seu desenho, e há uma procura do fundo primitivo dessa natureza, tal como seria no tempo anterior à chegada do europeu.

A juntar a esse fundo ancestral e mágico, junta-se um vocabulário também ele encantatório, e aqui regressando a um fundo oral da língua, tanto nas palavras que pertencem à língua anterior à colonização que o poema resgata do esquecimento, como no uso de uma expressão directa, não diria coloquial mas vinda de um canto popular, dando a muitos poemas esse impulso para a voz e a sonoridade.

Música e pintura: são estes dois vértices do triângulo que a linguagem poética vai completar. Sendo colorida, visual, sonora, esta poesia não é melancólica nem elegíaca, mas será antes uma constante anábase, a subida a um cenário que aponta para o renascimento, mesmo quando se fala do passado dos maias e dos descobridores, das tragédias de um tempo de massacres, de escravos e de revoltas. A voz do poema é sensual, sensorial, e atenta à humanidade de coisas presentes que nos são dadas num entrançado de imagens que nos capturam a atenção num desfaio de labirinto que, no entanto, não é um espaço de morte mas antes «um labirinto/ de infinita sensualidade». É neste labirinto que a poeta reúne os espaços de viagens, de continentes, de países e de culturas; e a poesia dá-nos o registo dessas memórias com a generosidade de quem «vive para contar», na tradição de um outro grande escritor sul-americano, Gabriel García Márquez.

Xánath Caraza tem esse dom de transformar em conto o poema, mesmo quando ele tem a síntese lírica do toque metafórico ou do canto; e é isso que nos permite ouvir, em cada poema, essa voz que partilha e transmite o conhecimento do mundo e da vida.

Nuno Júdice

Lisbon, Portugal, June 27, 2014

Lisbon, Portugal

El Poema

Neblina verde

Xánath Caraza
Tradução de Catarina Nunes de Almeida

Para a poesia de Carmen Boullosa, Sor Juana e Alfonsina Storni

Homens de fumo
De eternidade azul
De pensamentos fragmentados

Homens que já não escutam a mulher sussurrante
A mulher de corpo celeste
A mulher de constelações doces
A mulher que estimula a imaginação

Ao coração das cidade divididas
Das cidades sem praia
Das cidades sem nome
Chega a neblina verde

Como ondas gigantes
Como o Saturno de Goya que devora
Como o hálito da serpente
Que faz entrar os homens de fumo

Força arrasadora que bloqueia
Força que não deixa fluir os sentimentos
Que não deixa crescer as almas
As almas dos líderes de coração puro

Onde estão as memórias da espuma?
Onde estão os sons da rua?
Onde estão as mãos selvagens criadoras?
Onde estão os pensamentos eternos?
Onde estão?

Niebla verde

Para la poesía de Carmen Boullosa, Sor Juana, and Alfonsina Storni

Por Xánath Caraza

Hombres de humo

De eternidad azul

De pensamientos fragmentados

Hombres que ya no sienten a la mujer susurrante

A la mujer de cuerpo celeste

A la mujer de constelaciones dulces

A la mujer que estimula la imaginación

En el corazón de las ciudades divididas

De las ciudades sin playa

De las ciudades sin nombre

Llega la niebla verde

Como olas gigantes

Como el Saturno de Goya que devora

Como el aliento de la serpiente

Que da entrada a los hombres de humo

Fuerza arrasadora que bloquea

Fuerza que no deja fluir los sentimientos

Que no deja crecer a las almas

A las almas de los líderes de corazones puros

¿Dónde están los recuerdos de la espuma?

¿Dónde están los barullos de la calle?

¿Dónde están las manos salvajes creadoras?

¿Dónde están los pensamientos eternos?

¿Dónde están?

Green Fog

After the poetry of Carmen Boullosa, Sor Juana and Alfonsina Storni

By Xánath Caraza

Men of smoke

Of blue eternity

Of thoughts fragmented

Men who don’t feel the whispering woman anymore

The woman of celestial body

The woman of sweet constellations

The woman who stimulates imagination

In the heart of the divided cities

Of the cities without a shore

Of the cities without a name

The green fog arrives

As giant waves

As Goya’s Saturn that devours

As the breath of the serpent

That lets the men of smoke come in

Crushing power that blocks

Power that doesn’t allow feelings to flow

That doesn’t allow souls to grow

The souls of leaders with pure hearts

Where are the memories of the foam?

Where are the sounds of the street?

Where are the wild creative hands?

Where are the eternal thoughts?

Where are they?

Las Nornas by Adriana Manuela

Vegas Latino Book Awards & Una en Canadá

When my first novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams, a Chicano fantasy, received honorable mention last year, I felt lucky and honored. I'm not a contender this year, since I haven't had a novel published since. Still, on-screen, I can remember the feeling and hope some of my acquaintances do well, in my place. But only this year, remember.

Over the ruido of Las Vegas slots, the 2014 International Latino Book Award finalists will be announced this weekend. Here's some special Gritos! for books of friends, and contributors to La Bloga (may they have better luck on-stage than they do at the roulette table):

Señor Pancho Had a Rancho, René Colato Laínez

Noldo and his Magical Scooter at the Battle of The Alamo, Armando B. Rendón

Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco-Violence, Sarah Cortez & Sergio Troncoso

What the Tide Brings, Xánath Caraza

Good Money Gone, Mario Acevedo [w/Richard Kilborn]

Mañana Means Heaven, Tim Z. Hernandez

Desperado: A Mile High Noir, Manuel Ramos

The Old Man’s Love Story, Rudolfo Anaya

Ghosts of the Black Rose, Land of Enchantment 2, Belinda Vasquez Garcia

Reyes Cárdenas: Chicano Poet 1970-2010, Reyes Cárdenas

Sylvia Moreno-Garcia

Another latina finalist. In Canada!

The novel This Strange Way of Dying by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was short-listed for The Sunburst Award Society for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, 2014.

The Sunburst Award jury said: "Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s short story collection This Strange Way of Dying is a grimoire of the beautifully macabre, capable of summoning up strange worlds imbued with the secret fears and thrills we try to bury in shadow. Moreno-Garcia’s words on the page whisper sweet seductions, inviting the reader to open doorways to her or his subconscious and become familiar with things that have been estranged.

This Strange Way of Dying bridges the divides between science fiction, horror, and fantasy, opening readers to the overall power of the uncanny, whether through Lovecraftian stories of summoning darkness, feathered snakes, vampires, necromancers, resurrected soldiers, witchcraft, or tales of murder and betrayal. Silvia Moreno-Garcia makes the mundane magical, the normal strange, and points out the macabre foundations of our social myths. This Strange Way of Dying opens funhouse mirrors, revealing for the reader her or his own distorted image, changed by the experience of reading.

Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is a writer, editor, and publisher who was born in Mexico but now lives in British Columbia. This Strange Way of Dying is her first collection; her debut novel, Signal to Noise, will be published in 2015.

BIG Lástima:

On Facebook I claimed I'd be featured in an NPR broadcast yesterday. I lied. Due to broadcast quality, it didn't happen. Sorry, because it might have been my fault, what with doing the phone interview outside on the patio and my dog's barking.  See last Saturday's post for info I would've given.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG, aka Chicano fantasy author Rudy Ch. Garcia

Work

By Manuel Ramos, all rights reserved.

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.”  Buddha

I retired from Colorado Legal Services (CLS) on April 1, 2014. For more than thirty years I worked at the statewide legal aid program as a staff attorney, unit coordinator, director of litigation, deputy director, director of advocacy and acting executive director. At various times I enjoyed the reputation of a good trial attorney, decent writer of legal handbooks, persuasive appellate attorney, and an expert in legal ethics and professionalism. I also served as a mentor and trainer for the legal staff, and beer supplier for the softball games (when I played on the team we were the Legal Eagles.) I participated in negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement as president of the staff union and then, years later, as a representative of management.

Retirement Reception - Photo by James Dean

Boiled down to its essence, my job, in all its diverse applications, consisted of trying to provide high quality, competent and meaningful legal advice to people who had no means to hire their own attorney and, thus, without the assistance of the hard-working people at CLS, would be without any type of legal help. Our clients were people facing the most extreme crises: domestic violence, eviction or foreclosure, medical emergencies, imprisonment for unpaid debts, loss (or theft) of wages, wrongful employment termination, human trafficking, loss of essential services such as health care, food assistance, and transportation. The clients came from Section 8 and public housing, migrant camps, nursing homes, shelters. CLS has never had enough resources to meet the needs of all the potential clients but the attorneys and support staff always have given it a hell of an effort. I am extremely proud of CLS and the work it does, For me, the job satisfied several of my needs: self-identity, purpose, challenges, among others.

All in all, I had a pretty good run with my legal career.

Then, it was over.

My earliest memories involve work. I was born and grew up in Florence, Colorado, a small town on the banks of the Arkansas River stuck between Pueblo to the east and Canon City to the west. The area’s economy when I was growing up centered on mining, agriculture, and tourism. Today it is a hub of the prison industry. One of my grandfathers owned a hole in a nearby hill that was supposed to be a coal mine. I never worked in it but I think uncles and cousins did, although my only remembrance is that the so-called mine never amounted to much.

Peach Picker In Training

I did work in the fields and farms that dotted Fremont County. As a boy I picked apples, cherries, onions, and other crops I’ve forgotten. One summer, my mother and I traveled with some of her sisters and a few of their kids to Palisades, Colorado, where we participated in the peach harvest. I functioned as a “boxer,” which meant that I had to move and deliver boxes and other containers to the pickers so that they would have receptacles for their pickings. I had to keep up with dozens of workers in several rows of trees. It was hot, sweaty work, and I was covered with peach fuzz at the end of exhausting days. We lived in the migrant camp, where I hung out with dark, surly Mexican boys from Texas. Somehow we managed to have a taste of summer in the middle of the work and drudgery. I admit that I was relieved when my mother announced that we were finally going home, but that experience stayed with me, of course. When I turned to writing, I used the basics of that experience in a short story that later became a chapter in my novel King of the Chicanos.

My point is, it seems I have always been around work and working people.

My father was the hardest working man I have ever known. Many sons say that about their fathers, but I saw my father’s labor upfront and firsthand. He worked at tough, muscle-straining jobs from his teen years until he retired as the director of his union’s training school, and then he kept working on his own at his house until the day a stroke stopped him cold and he couldn’t walk anymore, let alone climb up on the roof to replace a missing shingle, something he did the same month he had the stroke.

We moved from Florence to Colorado Springs when I was fourteen, at the exact time in my life when I thought the fun would really begin with all my hip and cool Florence friends since some of us could drive and the clubs and girls waited for us in Pueblo. It was not to be. My father was working full time in Colorado Springs, he had finally obtained a more-or-less permanent job with a construction company, and he had come to realize that the daily drive back-and-forth between Florence and Colorado Springs had to stop. During one of those trips, a deer ran out in front of him and the animal managed to total our car with its body. At other times, the weather on the highway prevented him from making it to his job, or from driving home. At one job he stepped on a nail that went through his foot. He ended up on crutches with his foot heavily bandaged. It took considerable effort to finally get him home after the accident.

When I was in high school, I worked at odd jobs (I failed as a busboy) until my father had me join the union and I started to work as a laborer and hod-carrier in training. I worked with him at several job sites. I had a difficult time doing what my father did. I was not as physically strong as him, nor did I understand all the interactions that go on between working men – with one another and with their machines. Some days I felt abused; others were glorious when I managed to make it through my shift without any major problems. I convinced myself that going to college would be my salvation. But I kept working at construction even while in college.

My father had a reputation as a smart, energetic, and driven construction worker. He was the type of man who "never stood still." I saw that other workers admired my father, that they respected and worked hard for him because he knew what he was doing and he would not ask anything from his crew that he wasn’t willing to do himself. He just didn’t stop. It was no surprise that when I would call home, long after he had retired, my mother often told me that my father was working in the yard, or up on the roof, or down in the crawl hole, or making something with his tools.She complained that "your father's always doing something, he needs to sit down and rest."

Today, when I take my mother for drives around Colorado Springs, I can point out several buildings that my father helped to build. The local laborers' union hall is named after him – The Henry Ramos Building. I hated working for him but I am so grateful that I worked for him. He taught me what work is all about.

One of the jobs I had as a teenager, which I obtained through the union, was to sandblast paint off the metal buildings inside NORAD – yes, that NORAD inside Cheyenne Mountain. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was intrigued by the idea of seeing the inner workings of the country’s missile defense system. I recall a long, winding road up the mountain, huge metal doors and gates, several soldiers checking identification, and, once we were inside, strict instructions about where we could go and not go. And then, nothing but noise. I did not have any ear protection (I got the job because of a call for workers at the hall, where I happened to be waiting as a good union member needing a job), and the sound of the sand shooting against the metal walls screamed and shrilled all day long, except when we stopped for lunch. At the end of the day the only thing I could hear was the intense ringing in my ears. I was deaf for days, even though I had ear plugs after that first day. I am convinced that the NORAD job is the reason I have to wear two hearing aids today.

Another job was to dig ditches for underground pipe that had to be laid for a new bible school out on the prairie a bit east of Colorado Springs. A high school friend and I worked for weeks digging those ditches the old fashioned way, with shovels and buckets. Just the two of us, digging trenches that stretched around the construction site, some deeper than others, some wider, some only a few feet long. We created ditch-digging contests to keep our brains from atrophying in the sun, and we filled the hours with stories about the high school drama we had both lived through – my friend as a long-time and well-liked student (white), me as the johnny-come-lately kid (Mexican) from the boonies that certain groups wanted to beat up.

I worked through college, in construction the first couple of years, then as a student adviser, recruiter, and tutor for the affirmative action program that we Chicano and Black students had created through our activism on campus.

During the summer of 1968 I worked on a particularly strenuous job. I think we were building a Woolco store (remember those?) For some reason the walls had to be especially thick. One detail I vividly recollect is that as a hod-carrier I had to keep the bricklayers supplied with 16-inch concrete blocks. Each morning I dreaded the day that was to come. Each afternoon I would come home and collapse.Some evenings I dropped on the living room floor and wouldn’t move for hours. From the floor I listened to the TV news and watched film of the police riots and attacks on the youth and antiwar protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Those news broadcasts had a profound effect on me, as did all the reading I did that summer. When I returned to Colorado State University I was not the same guy.

During law school, my summer work included providing legal aid services to the rural areas surrounding Boulder through the auspices of the Chicano Law Students. We called our efforts Centro Legal, and we agitated and argued with the law school administration when funding for the program was threatened.

Waiting for results of the bar exam, I worked in the IBM warehouse, where I drove a forklift and did other odds and ends for the computer giant. That job is nothing but a blur in my memory because I focused on the time in the near future when I would finally be a lawyer and have my first paying client.

Eventually, I was licensed as an attorney. I worked out of my house in the town of Longmont, along with my roommate, trying to establish a law practice. We did that for a while until we moved to Denver. After several months of living on the edge of bankruptcy we folded up our practice and went to work for legal services.

There was a time when my life went through a quick series of wholesale changes. One of those changes involved me dropping out of law, claiming that I was burned out, so that I could work in a solenoid factory where some of my more political friends were doing all they could to organize a union. That was dirty, thankless work. We were always on the verge of poverty, the working conditions were dangerous, the bosses and some of the workers were jerks, and my immediate supervisor was a racist older white man. After one particular insult I went after him but I was stopped by a Mexican woman who was twice my size and who had no problem keeping me from hurting myself by fighting the supervisor. When I returned to being a lawyer I never looked back.

So now, I am not that lawyer. I don’t go to the office, I don’t prepare for the next day’s confrontation, meeting, or crisis. I don't solve ethical puzzles or conference about advocacy tactics. I don't sign off on dozens of different forms of administrative paperwork. I don't email questions or answers to attorneys on the other side of the mountains or down in the San Luis Valley. I don't meet with attorneys to talk about (or simply to listen to) problems with their cases. I don't do a lot of things that I had taken for granted for decades. The transition has not been as smooth as I had anticipated.

For a few weeks the realization of the change in my life slowed me down. I started to feel sorry for myself and wondered if I had lost my purpose, my bearings. I worried over small things and endured a few tossing and turning nights. But those problems were short term.  I've found new outlets for my energy, much as my father had to do when he retired, and more and more I realize that I have quit fighting the change.
  
Retirement means that I own my life, as one writer friend told me. My work now involves much more mundane tasks such as cleaning the house, planning trips, organizing my home office, raking the yard, cooking meals, working out the exercise and yoga schedules. I did all those things before, but now they have assumed larger roles in the daily agenda.

There is that writing thing.

I talk and think and make notes about writing my next novel. That is one aspect of my working identity that has not changed. I’m still a writer, still trying to use the perfect word, create the perfect sentence, and write the perfect book. I just haven't yet started the actual manuscript.

And I accept that life, with all the hits and misses, ups and downs, pain and joy, is perfect. But we need to work at it.

Later.

Chicanonautica: Who’s Afraid of Diversity?

by Ernest Hogan

I’m developing some funny reactions when I hear or see the word “diversity” -- especially when concerning science fiction, speculative literature, or what ever we’re calling that twisted wad of imaginative genres today.  It happened when I read Rudy Ch. Garcia’s recent La Bloga post. Before I knew it, I had tweeted:

I was diverse back when it scared the shit out of people.

Right away my friend Selina Phanara reminded me that I still scare people “plenty,” and Bill Campbell of  Rosarium Publishing remarked that “I think it still kinda does.”

Yup. Diversity still does kinda scare the shit out of people. It's just that nowdays, it’s supposed to be a good thing, what we’re all working for in this here civilization. You can still be scared of it, but you have to grit your teeth and look brave.

Reminds me of some old job interviews where the interviewer would turn a shade paler and give me a forced smile. It was as if I was H.R.Giger’s Alien, drooling slime and deploying the inner jaws. It would have been hilarious if I didn’t really need a way of making a living at the time . . .

Long before everybody was talking about the need for diversity in sci-fi, people in the genre would go around congratulating themselves about how they were always promoting “tolerance” -- and you’d always be running into stories where caucasians would learn that people with green skin, that looked like giant insects, could be okay folks.

Tolerance ain’t so great. Ever been around people who were “tolerating” you? And trying hard not to notice the color of your skin? Talk about quiet horror.

After all the stories where the hero shoots first and asks questions later, the subject of tolerance usually came up when trying to sell sci-fi to a highfalutin audience.

So now there’s all kinds of talk about diversity and sci-fi, and since I’ve been tilting with this windmill for about forty years it brings back memories, and the desire to speak out.

Even back in the Seventies, diversity was considered desirable. It would bring prestige, if done right, so it doesn’t scare away the perceived predominately white audience. You couldn’t go too far. Make it like “mild” salsa . . .

Ocatvia Bulter, Samuel R. Delany and Steven Barnes would be interviewed and discussed, but somehow, their race wouldn’t be mentioned. Better not bring it up. The audience may be disturbed.

Diversity was desirable, but wasn’t considered profitable. The audience was seen to be white folks from the Midwest. And not everybody liked sci-fi. What would happen to the profits if they lost the racists?

Of course, it’s the 21st century now, a new millennium. The publishing world is in turmoil. Ebooks are rocking their universe, which is no longer centered around New York City and a white elite. 

And when they go out to meet the audience, more and more of them aren’t white.

It scares them.

Kinda like I scare them. And for me, it ain’t fun until it gets scary.

In the next few years, where books come from and how people get them will change radically. Diversity will be necessary for survival in this brave, new global village.

Or will it be a global barrio? Or an intergalactic barrio?

Hollywood and the surviving publishers will follow, not lead.

Ernest Hogan is a Chicano science fiction writer, an unlikely thing to be, but he really had no choice.

My Nana’s Remedies

Review by Ariadna Sánchez

I remember with great pleasure both of my grandmothers, Licha and Carmela. They used medicinal plants to treat illnesses. My abuelitas were amazing curanderas and storytellers. They sure knew how to heal the body and the soul.

The book My Nana’s Remedies written by Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford and tenderly illustrated by Edna San Miguel is a warm bilingual story that shows the immense knowledge of Nana when preparing a series of herbal remedies to treat her sick granddaughter.  Nana uses native medicine plants to cure from insomnia to a stomach ache. By doing this, Nana passes down to her granddaughter the vast richness of traditions, love, and skills in every remedy she gently prepares. Nana’s remedies bring two generations together to celebrate the beauty of family relationships. Nana’s wisdom is a legacy that will last in her granddaughter’s memory for ever just like the way I treasure my lovely abuelitas in my heart and memory.

At the end of the book, there is a useful medicinal plant glossary by Ana Lilia Reina that provides the readers a precise description of some of the most popular plants used around the world. My Nana’s Remedies is an excellent option to read during the summer. Special thanks to Restaurant Casa Oaxaca for making possible this pretty picture. Visit your local library for more stunning stories. Reading gives you wings. ¡Hasta Pronto!

Author Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford shares her books