Review: Skull of Pancho Villa

Review: Manuel Ramos. The Skull of Pancho Villa. And Other Stories. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2015.

Michael Sedano


It’s the “and Other Stories” that make such a reader’s treat of Manuel Ramos’ The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories. Ramos and Arte Publico Press put together a masterful collection of work spanning Ramos’ career 1986 to 2014. The 23 titles collected within four sections includes his first published story, “White Devils and Cockroaches,” the title piece which is a highlight of Ramos’ novel Desperado: A Mile High Noir, and finished versions of work Ramos shared in La Bloga. Ramos is a co-founder of La Bloga and one of our Friday columnists.

Ramos’ stock-in-trade is noir and hard-bitten fiction, so there’s a rich variety of losers and chagrined saps in these pages. Beyond that most satisfying set, other stories deal in poignancy, of kismet at a  chance encounter, science fiction death on strange planets, a poem, an eternity in a heartbeat.

The collection closes with a warmly nostalgic story. A shoeshine boy named Kiko runs across a guy named Jack who has a pal named Neal who’s out in California. A jerk pushes Kiko around and Jack gut punches the pendejo and gives him the bum’s rush. An irritated handler arrives, scoots Jack off to a college appearance. Kiko decides he’ll read Jack’s book some day.

The collection opens with a down-on-his-luck loser telling about that time he got shot by the mysterious woman.

The first-person story takes a hard bite out of the bitter ironies that make something noir. A drunken disbarred lawyer shoos off a desperate woman, thinks better of it, goes into Juárez looking for her. He makes a journey into a surreal temple, fails the quest, departs. He stumbles across her, she recognizes the wino who refused to help. She answers his pleading eyes with the only thing left to her now.

The ethos of noir characters is a rich field for writers like Manuel Ramos. Not only does he have the storyteller’s DNA, he’s visited by a marvelous agglomeration of characters who want their story out there. In Ramos’ hands, some characters really get out there while others are putty in his hands.

I got the biggest kick out of “The 405 Is Locked Down.” Ramos draws out the pain of bitter irony of a sap who should know better—has all the tools but he’s one of the biggest pendejos to be found in chicano literature. Ramos is a master of personae, pinning them like moths on display, short fiction ostensive definitions of categories of pendejismo. In “The 405” a small-time professor bites the lure of Hollywood riches and accepts an invitation to read at Cal State LA. On his own dime. That should have tipped him.

So the vato flies to the coast meets the fill-in-the-blanks female assistant to the big-time professor and nickle-dime producer. Uneasy feelings gnaw at the vato when he hears a vague notion of doing a pitch after the sap teaches a few classes. Then they start boozing it up. The producer gets sloppy drunk, the woman offers to show the vato a good time, the vato spends his last dime to cover the host's expenses and flies home with his tail between his legs.

Throughout that story especially I kept thinking of Burciaga’s essay on types of pendejos. That vato who got his comeuppance is the classic pendejo who is all the bigger one because he doesn’t know he’s a pendejo.

“If We Had Been Dancing” offers a different character sketch that comes with a generous helping of unexpected justice. A man walks into a bar and in his mind doesn’t want to drink too much after work. A woman strikes up a conversation and they start drinking whiskey.

Ramos lures the reader into empathy for the alcoholic narrator and the lonely woman. The story gets the reader siding with the woman even after she shoots a guy out of loneliness and robs the bar. The narrator offers how some people deserve a second chance. The final fifty words take all that good feeling, wraps it up in a wet towel, and gives you a loud cachetada for being a sucker. And you smile because the story’s only a third of the way into the collection and the reader feels the excitement of much more to come out of The Skull of Pancho Villa And Other Stories. 

Writers who struggle with that big novel will do well to see how Manuel Ramos, a master of the finely crafted mystery novel, handles the short form. The quick writes are gems and it's good seeing them get some ink.

From point of view, to character and ethos, to plot and twist, what Ramos does with such a tight space is a model for writers.

Readers have it best of all. The Skull of Pancho Villa And Other Stories is a perfect summer book and is widely available at local booksellers or the publisher's website.


Reading Aloud
Bluebird Brings Bukowski to Highland Park

A HOMAGE TO BUKOWSKI
Sunday, July 12 | 5pm - 8pm

Poets and other writers sharing Bukowski's work, and/or reading their own inspired work include:
Tomas Benitez
Felicia Gomez Verdin
John Martinez
Kym Ghee
Jim Marquez

The popular Bluebird open mic welcomes 2 minute contributions. Strictly applied.

To laugh, maybe cry, to celebrate his influence on us the real people, and also the writers, the drinkers, the lovers and haters of life, and lovers of Los Angeles.

as always - FREE, but donation appreciated
Avenue 50 Studio
131 N. Avenue 50
Highland Park CA 90042
323-258-1435

The Bluebird Reading series is a component of Avenue 50 Studio's literary arts programming.

Avenue 50 Studio is supported in part by the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and the California Community Foundation.

Dante

Por Xánath Caraza

 

La ciudad de Florencia, en la Toscana italiana, es principalmente conocida por haber sido la cuna del Renacimiento, donde una serie de condiciones, políticas, económicas y artísticas, entre otras, coincidieron y ayudaron a desarrollar lo que conocemos y entendemos como tal.  Mas Florencia, además de ser una de las ciudades más bellas del mundo, tuvo también una etapa medieval previa al renacimiento, me gustaría ir, en estas líneas, ahí y, lo que es más, simplemente enfocarme en uno de los más importantes escritores del mundo y ciertamente de la cultura italiana.  No quiero hacer ningún tipo se análisis literario en estas líneas sino compartir el lugar de nacimiento, Florencia, de Dante Alighieri y mi propia experiencia. 

 

Una pregunta constante que me hacen, en diversas entrevistas, es sobre mis libros favoritos.  Honestamente, y siempre lo digo, es muy difícil para mí decir este o estos son mis libros favoritos.  Contesto con cuidado, con la mayor sinceridad posible, y expreso que hay autores y títulos a los que regreso frecuentemente, y agrego que, la mayor parte del tiempo, depende de lo que esté trabajando.  Ciertamente La Divina Comedia por Dante Alighieri es uno de esos títulos que cautivaron mi imaginación de niña y a los que regreso con frecuencia.  Lo tuve en mis manos como un regalo especial de mi padre en una edición de dos tomos con grabados de Gustave Doré.  Los grabados me fascinaron y poco a poco fui leyendo esa obra “Dantesca”.  Mi primera lectura fue motivada, más por las imágenes que por otra cosa, entendí, poco de la obra, y no lo quiero justificar diciendo que era tan sólo una niña de nueve años.  Recuerdo de esa primera lectura, un Infierno, un Purgatorio y luego un Paraíso con una mujer llamada Beatriz que acompañaba a Dante, precisamente, en el Paraíso.  Había, también, un hombre, un poeta, llamado Virgilio, que en las ilustraciones llevaba una corona hecha de hojas de laurel, quien fue guía de Dante en el Infierno y Purgatorio.  A pesar de mi corto entendimiento, algo se quedó grabado y las impresiones de las imágenes en mi mente, se encargaron de despertar mi imaginación. 

 

Años más tarde, llegó la segunda lectura de La Divina Comedia. Era parte de las lecturas obligadas que tuve que hacer en la preparatoria en México.  Esta vez tenía que comprender, sino por lo menos memorizar, los datos más representativos de la obra porque un examen estaba programado sobre la lectura.  No recuerdo más, lo que sí recuerdo es que volví a esos dos tomos en color vino que mi padre me obsequió con las bellas ilustraciones por Gustave Doré.

 

Hoy no quiero resumir ni, mucho menos, analizar La Divina Comedia, lo que sí quiero es compartir algunas fotos de Florencia, donde Dante Alighieri nació.  Fotos de su casa, que fue reconstruida, la pequeña iglesia donde iba y donde Beatriz iba cada mañana, el amor platónico de Dante.  En esta pequeña iglesia es donde, supuestamente, Beatriz está sepultada.  También quiero compartir un poema, que escribí mientras estaba en Mantova y caminaba con tres poetas en sus calles empedradas.  ¿Por qué Mantova? Mantova en Lombardía es otra gran ciudad literaria.  Está a unos kilómetros de Andes, el lugar donde Virgilio nació, sí el poeta que guía a Dante en La Divina Comedia.  Virgilio, como mencioné, es otro de los más grandes poetas del mundo y también es uno de los personajes de Dante en La Divina Comedia. ¿Olvidé mencionar que Virgilio y Dante Alighiere nunca se conocieron? Efectivamente, vivieron siglos y contextos aparte.

 

En mi poema, los poetas a quienes menciono son Beppe Costa, Stefania Battistela y Stefano Lori, quien junto con su esposa, Carla Villagrossi, me recibieron en su casa durante el International Poetry Festival Virgilio 2015. Ojalá y les guste.

 

A continuación las fotos de la casa de Dante Alighieri en Florencia, Toscana.

 

 

 

 

El poema, con una traducción al italiano por Beppe Costa. ¡Viva Dante Alighieri, Virgilio y, por supuesto, la poesía! 

 

Áurea luz en los muros

Por Xánath Caraza

 

¿Cuántas veces puedo escribir un poema en la tierra de Virgilio?

Deambular por las calles junto a los poetas
Beppe y Stefania a mi izquierda
descubren una efímera nube en el crepúsculo
Stefano nos guía entre las calles empedradas
en lugar de Virgilio
Al caer la noche, luna mora en el cielo de Mantova
estrellas titilantes

 

Frente al lago, áurea luz en los muros
las sombras anaranjadas nos engañan, nos embelesan
¿Cuántas veces puedo escribir un poema frente a
la torre del Zuccaro?
Virgilio te siento en la atmósfera
en el dulce aire que respiro
camino tus calles empedradas en silencio
recorro tus pasos bajo los arcos de las plazas

 

Absorbo cada sílaba que vibra
en los gruesos muros de barro
en las flores de jazmín donde has dejado tu esencia
Virgilio quiero que tomes mi mano y me guíes en este
mi camino, mi infierno, mi purgatorio y mi paraíso
en este andar, de papel y de tinta, sin luz y sin tiempo
Divinidad poética
sé mi guía

 

(Mantova, Lombardia, Italia, 24-25 de mayo de 2015)

 

 

Luce dorata nei muri

 

di Xanath Caraza
Tradotta da Beppe Costa

 

Quante volte potrò scrivere poesie nella terra di Virgilio?
Passeggiare su strade insieme a poeti
Beppe e Stefania alla mia sinistra
scoprire una effimera nube passeggera al crepuscolo
ci guida Stefano tra strade acciottolate
invece di Virgilio
Al calar della notte, luna Mora sul cielo di Mantova
fra scintillanti stelle

 

Di fronte al lago, luce dorata nei muri
ombre di colore arancione ingannano e affascinano
Quante volte potrò scrivere una poesia di fronte
alla Torre degli Zuccaro?
Virgilio ti sento nell'atmosfera
nell’aria fresca che respiro
cammino in silenzio nelle tue strade acciottolate
percorro i tuoi passi sotto gli archi delle piazze

 

Assorbo ogni sillaba che vibra
nelle pareti spesse di creta
nei fiori di gelsomino dov’è rimasta la tua essenza
Virgilio ti chiedo di prendermi per mano e riportarmi qui
nella mia strada, nel mio inferno, nel mio purgatorio e paradiso
in questo cammino, di carta e inchiostro, senza luce né tempo
Divinità Poetica
mia guida

 

(Mantova, Lombardia, Italia 24-25 maggio 2015)

Tough as Steel Yellow Dresses: Bustamante's Soldadera and the Unfinished Revolution

Olga Garcίa Echeverrίa

“Without the soldaderas, there is no Mexican Revolution.”
--Elena Poniatowska
 

We’ve seen them repeatedly—images of women soldiers from the Mexican Revolution.  Sometimes they appear in Agustίn Victor Casasola’s black and white pictures, sitting atop train cars with their heads covered in rebozos, or standing solo by the train tracks, donning men’s clothes and cartridge belts crisscrossed against the chest, or as a firing squad in long flowing dresses, pointing their 30-30s up towards some mythical horizon.



It's difficult not to romanticized these female soldiers in Mexico’s history. Yeah, they were bad-asses; they had to be to survive, but they were also women navigating through war zones and patriarchal bullshit. Consider, for instance, that despite all their contributions to the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), women did not get the right to vote until 1953. We know women fought during the revolution, but there is much less discussion about how women were sometimes kidnapped and forced to join the military against their will. They were physically and sexually abused, sometimes by fellow soldiers fighting on the same side. They were cheated out of military wages and pensions. They were repeatedly relegated to domestic duties, such as cooking, washing, and being carriers of supplies--the mules of men. Some of them dressed as men (not to be radical) but to protect themselves from rape or from military higher-ups, such as Pancho Villa, who used women soldiers when they needed them, but who were ultimately threatened by their presence. It’s not too surprising that La Soldadera’s complexity (as both subject and object) has many times been reduced to something akin to a vintage Mexican calendar girl. I have nothing against calendar girls, especially Mexicans one, but it is interesting to note that what gets passed down is this…

Elena Poniatowska reminds us that there is much more beneath the romanticism that has been created around soldaderas in corridos, folklore, and film. In Las Soldaderas: Women of the Mexican Revolution, Poniatowska critiques the depiction of female soldiers in the classic film, La Cucaracha, where "Marίa Felix plays the butch—with a cigar in her mouth and a raised eyebrow—who slaps men left and right and carries a jug of aguardiente strapped around her back and shoulder. Did such a soldadera ever exist? There’s no proof of it. Instead, Casasola shows us, again and again, slight, thin women patiently devoted to their tasks like worker ants—hauling in water and making tortillas over a lit fire, the mortar and pestle always in hand. (Does anyone really know just how hard it is to carry a heavy mortar for kilometers during a military campaign?) And at the end of the day, there’s the hungry baby to breastfeed.”

Who were these women carrying guns and heavy mortars at the turn of the 20^th century in Mexico? What can we learn from them? How can we re-envision them not merely as icons, but as real-life mujeres? If we reach out (or back) into history, can we touch them? Can we protect them? Can we, for instance, dress them in delicately tailored and yet tough as steel dresses? These are some of the questions that echo in Nao Bustamante’s exhibit Soldadera, currently on display until August 1^st at the Vincent Price Museum at East Los Angeles College.  

 

Via mixed media installations that go beyond traditional representations of soldaderas, Bustamante’s artwork evokes emotion, imagination, and pregunta tras pregunta. Bustamante's art heightens our senses with metaphors, such as a hanging piece of Kelvar material unraveling at the edges. Kelvar, invented by Stephanie Kwolek in the 1960’s, is a synthetic fiber so sturdy it can stop bullets. At the museum, visitors can watch a video segment of Bustamante demonstrating how she shot up one of the dresses to test the strength of the material. Visitors can also touch the material and knot or braid the fringes, weaving themselves into this exhibit in this small but symbolic way. It seems simple on the surface, but this is the magic of Bustamante’s exhibit. It transports and forces you, the visitor, to insert yourself into this narrative of women and war. It does not give answers; it only speculates and prompts possibilities. There are only imagined bodies and faces in the multi-sized Kelvar dresses that stand center-stage; it is up to us to flesh out these women, to fill in the blanks.

 

Behind the dresses, loops Bustamante's short film, Soldadera. This is the artist's own attempt to fill in the blank in Russian filmmaker Sergei Eistenstein’s famous unfinished film ¡Que Viva México! Eistenstein's film was divided into chapters and included a segment titled Soldadera; however, the sequence on female revolutionaries was never shot. Bustamante's film is a response to this unfinished work, the missing female chapter. Her film employs digital scans of photographs from the revolutionary period, as well as contemporary re-imagined/re-inserted soldaderas in yellow vestidos. One contemporary soldadera enters a photograph of male soldiers sprawled on the large, low branches of a tree. Another one sits holding a baby in her arms. The hands of women soldiers make tortillas. A soldadera lays her hands on the body of a dead man. One, then two soldaderas wield pistolas in the air and dance slow motion in a dreamlike manner (you can join them as a shadow on the screen).

Constantly, the screen asks that we see her--this woman soldier--that we ponder her existence, her re-insertion, her unfinished revolution. A mixed troop of soldaderas (gathered from the past and the present) approaches, approaches, approaches until the faces of these women arrive in the present tense, magnified.

Also braided into the exhibit is the spirit of Leandra Becerra Lumbreras. In January of 2015, Bustamante traveled to Zapopan and visited Lumbreras, who at the time was the last living soldadera from the Mexican Revolution and the oldest person in the world, 127 years old. She died in March of 2015. At the installation Chac-mool, you can peer into a stereoscope and see footage of Lumbreras. I won’t give away exactly what you will see or hear, but I will mention that this was my favorite piece in the exhibit. Aside from the awesome sitting stool and the video, there are two real guayabas pinned beneath the stereoscope, so that whiffs of fragrant guayaba invade the senses as you sit and watch. How cool is that?

Stereoscope With Live Guayabas!

This is an exhibit that should not be missed, and it’s free! Check it out, and bravo Nao Bustamante on a unique and stimulating exploration/re-enactment of las soldaderas de Mexico.
 

Latino books and stories and stories about books

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Dreamland

Sam Quiñones's third book, Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, was released by Bloomsbury Press.

Sam explains: "The story of this epidemic involves shoelaces, rebar, Levi’s 501s, cellphones, football, Walmart, American prosperity, with marketing, with Mexican poverty and social competition, and with the biggest swimming pool in the US and what happened when that was destroyed.

"It’s about the marketing of prescription pills as a solution to pain of all kinds, and about a small town in Mexico where young men have devised a system for retailing heroin across America like it was pizza.

"The tale took me from Appalachia to suburbs in Southern California, into one of the biggest drug-abuse stories of our time – and one of the quietest, and whitest as well.

It’s been a long haul, and I thank the many people I met and spoke to along the way as I put together this American saga.

Hope you like it. – Sam

From the publisher: Over the past fifteen years, enterprising sugar cane farmers in the small county of Xalisco on the west coast of Mexico have created a unique distribution system that has brought black tar heroin--the cheapest, most addictive form of the opiate, two to three times purer than its white powder cousin--to the veins of people across the United States. Communities where heroin had never been seen before have become overrun with it.

Local police and residents are stunned: How could heroin, long considered a drug found only in the dense, urban environments along the East Coast, and trafficked into the United States by enormous Colombian drug cartels, be so incredibly ubiquitous in the American heartland? Who was bringing it here and why were so many townspeople suddenly eager for the comparatively cheap high it offered?


         Acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of American capitalism in Doped Up: Young men in Mexico, independent of the drug cartels, in search of their own American Dream via the fast and enormous profits of trafficking cheap black tar heroin to America's rural and suburban addicts; and Purdue Pharma, determined to corner the market on pain with its new and expensive miracle drug, Oxycontin, extremely addictive in its own right. Quinones illuminates just how these two stories fit together as cause and effect. Doped Up is a dramatic and revelatory account of addiction spreading to every part of the American landscape.

Reviews

“The most original writer on Mexico and the border out there.” –  San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

“Journalist Quinones weaves an extraordinary story, including the personal journeys of the addicted, the drug traffickers, law enforcement, and scores of families affected by the scourge, as he details the social, economic, and political forces that eventually destroyed communities in the American heartland and continues to have a resounding impact.” –  starred review, Booklist

“In Dreamland, former Los Angeles Times reporter Sam Quinones deftly recounts how a flood of prescription pain meds, along with black tar heroin from Nayarit, Mexico, transformed the once-vital blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, and other American communities into heartlands of addiction. With prose direct yet empathic, he interweaves the stories of Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics agents, and small-town folks whose lives were upended by the deluge of drugs, leaving them shaking their heads, wondering how they could possibly have resisted.” –  Mother Jones

“Dreamland spreads out like a transnational episode of The Wire, alternately maddening, thrilling, depressing, and with writing as sharp and insightful as a razor blade. You cannot understand our drug war and Mexican immigration to the United States without reading this book.” –  Gustavo Arellano, syndicated columnist, ¡Ask a Mexican!,

“Unflinching . . . compellingly investigated.” –  Kirkus

“Fascinating . . . a harrowing, eye-opening look at two sides of the same coin, the legal and illegal faces of addictive painkillers and their insidious power.” –  Publishers Weekly

Innsmouth Free Press 30% off

Buy direct and get 30% off selected print titles until July 5. Choose from these anthologies or collections. On their website, click on the title you are interested in, click on “add to cart” button located below the book summary. Discount applied at checkout. Here are just two of the selections:

Love & Other Poisons by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy. This collection of 18 speculative stories, including three never found in print before, explores the meaning of love, and, of course, of poison.

Sword & Mythos – The blades of heroes clash against the darkest sorcery. Aztec warriors ready for battle, intent on conquering a neighboring tribe, but different gods protect the Matlazinca. For Arthur Pendragon, the dream of Camelot has ended. What remains is a nightmarish battle against his own son, who is not quite human. Master Yue, the great swordsman, sets off to discover what happened to a hamlet that was mysteriously abandoned. He finds evil.Sunsorrow, the ancient dreaming sword, pried from the heart of the glass god, yearns for Carcosa. Fifteen writers, drawing inspiration from the pulp sub-genres of sword and sorcery and the Cthulhu Mythos, seed stories of adventure, of darkness, of magic and monstrosities. From Africa to realms of neverwhere, here is heroic fantasy with a twist.

Hungry Darkness

Severed Press just released Gabino Iglesias's Hungry Darkness: Deep Sea Thriller.

From the publisher: Nick Ayres wanted to be the first man to explore all of Caye Caulkers’ Giant Cave, the largest underwater cave in the world. Instead of fame and fortune, he found death at the hands of something that defies science, accidentally unleashing it on the island’s unsuspecting population.

Gabriel Robles is the man hired to take care of the monster. He knows the water and its inhabitants better than anyone else, but he's never faced something so deadly. Robles has to figure something out quick, because the victims are piling up and it’s only a matter of time before the blood in the water becomes a problem for all of Belize, maybe even the world.

Ancient Hunger, Silent Wings

tejano author David Bowles

Devilfish Review just published David Bowles's fantasy story featuring 18th-century Mexican vampires. Here's the opening:

Nicolasa Sandoval Murillo had not quite reached her thirteenth saint’s day when the hunger came upon her, sudden and sharp like talons round her gut, in the middle of the night. She crept wincing but quiet to the kitchen, where her grandmother’s clay olla of beans cooled slowly upon dying embers in the wood stove. Snatching up a cold tortilla someone had left on the roughhewn table, Nicolasa uncovered the jar and began shoveling the spicy mixture into her mouth. Soon she found herself gagging—the beans, normally delicious, tasted of ash and bile. With a frantic lurch she stumbled out of doors and vomited an acidic stream onto the mucky street.

The door opened behind her, and a figure emerged with a petroleum lantern: it was her grandmother Florencia Murillo—Mamá Lencha—and in place of anger or concern, a look of resigned understanding smoothed the woman’s wrinkled brow.

“It is the hunger, yes? It awakened you.”

Nicolasa nodded, her empty stomach too queasy for speech.

Read the entire tale, here.

The origin of Daniel José Older's story

If you're on Twitter, you know what "storifies" means. Read two origin storifies about his great novel, Shadowshaper.

Es todo hoy, since I'm behind on my reading,

RudyG, a.k.a. Chicano author Rudy Ch. Garcia, this week, completing what he imagines is his first great kids' story. We'll all know, if it lands up here.

New Classics

This week I showcase a few literary works that rightfully have attained the status of "classic" and that will be re-released in the near future.  New readers have a chance to find out what all the shouting was about when these books first came out, and those already familiar with the books can renew their relationship with new editions, fresh introductions, and the knowledge that these books have made a difference.

 

Death in Veracruz
Héctor Aguilar Camín
Translation by Chandler Thompson
Schaffner Press - October, 2015

Here's some really good news for those of us who want (desire, lust after) crime fiction with a social bite.  Héctor Aguilar Camín is recognized as a master of Mexican noir. Unfortunately, none of his books have been translated into English -- until now.  Schaffner Press out of Tucson has announced the upcoming release of one of Camín's masterpieces, Morio en el Golfo/Death in Veracruz ( first published in 1985.) The publisher says this:

This is the first novel by acclaimed Mexican journalist, editor and author Héctor Aguilar Camín to be published in the English language.  Heralded by Ariel Dorfman as "a classic of contemporary Latin American fiction," Death in Veracruz, set in the coastal regions of southern Mexico and the city of Veracruz, is a realistically drawn and beautifully detailed noir that explores the era of crime and graft in the late 1970s when the land and its people were under siege from the oil cartels and the gangs who lorded over their fiefdoms. A journalist finds himself plunged into a Mexican "Heart of Darkness," as he must confront both the corrupt government officials and the charismatic yet ruthless union boss, Lacho Pizarro, in his search for the truth behind the murder of his best friend and husband of the woman with whom he is carrying on a torrid -- yet doomed -- affair.

About the author:  Born July 9, 1946 in Chetumal; Mexican writer, journalist and historian; author of several novels, among them Death in Veracruz and Galio's War, of which Ariel Dorfman (Death and the Maiden) has exclaimed, "Without hesitation, I would call either one of these a classic of Latin American fiction. ... Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the history of Mexico, but also who simply wants to be thrilled by extraordinary narrative power." Aguilar Camín's most recent novel, Goodbye to My Parents, was published in Mexico to great critical and popular acclaim in 2014.

...y no se lo tragó la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him
Tomás Rivera
Translated by Evangelina Vigil-Piñón
Arte Público Press - September, 2015

[from the publisher]
“I tell you, God could care less about the poor. Tell me, why must we live here like this? What have we done to deserve this? You’re so good and yet you suffer so much,” a young boy tells his mother in Tomás Rivera’s classic novel about the migrant worker experience, … y no se lo tragó la tierra (first published in 1971.) Outside the chicken coop that is their home, his father wails in pain from the unbearable cramps brought on by sunstroke from working in the hot fields. The young boy can’t understand his parents’ faith in a god that would impose such horrible suffering, poverty, and injustice on innocent people.

Adapted into the award-winning film … and the earth did not swallow him and recipient of the first award for Chicano literature, the Premio Quinto Sol, in 1970, Rivera’s masterpiece recounts the experiences of a Mexican-American community through the eyes of a young boy. Forced to leave their home in search of work, they are exploited by farmers, shopkeepers, even other Mexican Americans, and the boy must forge his self identity in the face of exploitation, death and disease, constant moving, and conflicts with school officials.

In this new edition of a powerful novel comprised of short vignettes, Rivera writes hauntingly about alienation, love and betrayal, man and nature, death and resurrection and the search for community.

About the author:  Tomás Rivera (1935-1984) was born to a family of migrant farm workers in the South Texas town of Crystal City.  In spite of moving constantly to work the crops, he managed to graduate from high school.  He went on to obtain a degree in English from Southwest Texas State University, and then earned a master's degree in Spanish literature and a doctorate in Romance languages and literatures.  He became a university administrator, and in 1979 was appointed chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, a position he held for five years until his sudden death in 1984.

Claros varones de Belken/Fair Gentlemen of Belken County
Rolando Hinjosa
Arte Público Press - September, 2015 (originally published 1981)

[from the publisher]
National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement honoree Rolando Hinojosa returns to Klail City -- in Belken County along the Texas-Mexico border -- to chronicle the lives of its residents.  There's friendship, "which can all of a sudden pop up at any time," and death, which happens just as frequently.

The friendship between cousins Rafe Buenrostro and Jehú Malacara continues through war and peace.  After returning from Korea, Rafe -- like so many Mexican Americans -- is advised to use the G.I. Bill to learn a trade, like building fishing boats.  He and Jehú opt to attend the University of Texas

The sun rises and sets in Klail City. People fall in love, wrangle with God and sell their souls to the devil.  Frequently compared to William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha and Gabriel García Márquez's Macondo, Rolando Hinojosa's fictional Klail City brings to life the Texas-Mexico border area in the twentieth century.

About the author:  Rolando Hinojosa, the Ellen Clayton Garwood Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the most prestigious prize in Latin American fiction, Casa de las Américas, for the best Spanish American novel in 1976; and the Premio Quinto Sol in 1974.  His novels include The Valley/Estampas del Valle, Ask a Policeman, The Useless Servants, and Dear Rafe/Mi querido Rafa, all published by Arte Público Press.

Later.

Chicanonautica: Beyond Lust for a White Planet

by Ernest Hogan

I originally wanted to just write about The Turner Diaries as it related to science fiction, but then this Nazi punk committed an atrocity in Charleston, S.C., and a big, flaming chingada broke loose across the land. I read the book, took notes, and found I had way too much material for one blog post, so I decided to to a book review with the current-events angle over at Mondo Ernesto, and talk about the sci-fi issue, and how it relates to Chicanos, here in this Chicanonautica at La Bloga.

Yes, The Turner Diaries is science fiction, or more specifically, speculative fiction (there's ain't must sci in that there fi). They would have called it social science fiction back in the old days. It's also an example of a work of spec fic that had an impact on the real world. “We all wanna change the world, shoobie doo wah, oh, shoobie do wah,” as the Beatles said.

Timothy McVeigh, the infamous Oklahoma City Bomber, was a fan and promoter of The Turner Diaries. He was into science fiction, and liked to use the pseudonym “Tuttle” after the Robert De Niro character in Terry Gilliam's dystopian film Brazil. When asked about the people he killed, he said:

“Think about the people as if they were storm troopers in Star Wars. They may be individually innocent, but they are guilty because they work for the Evil Empire.” 

Just categorize people in the right way, strip them of their humanity, and the killing becomes easy. Like some perverse cosplay gone horribly wrong. It's also the central lesson of The Turner Diaries.

In a way, The Turner Diaries is a precursor to the now popular zombie apocalypse genre. A lot of people find pleasure in imagining that most of the people in the world aren't human, and it's okay to commit acts of bloody violence against them, because, after all you're human, and you have to survive.

But how much of your humanity is left after you're covered in gore?

Replace the word Black (for some reason Pierce capitalized it, but leaves white in lower case in the early chapters) with zombie, and a new audience can be attracted!

You probably will have to change Jew, Chicano, and non-White, too . . .

Yes, Chicanos are mentioned, and recognized as a threat. The fact that we are mixed-blooded makes us especially revolting. Though at one point Turner and some of his Organization buddies (who all seem like clones of Turner, maybe in a movie one actor could play all the parts, his girlfriend could be him in drag, and he could also do black- and brownface . . .) disguise themselves as Chicanos:

“. . . we applied a dark stain to our faces and hands and pinned Chicano-sounding nametags on our fatigue uniforms. We figured we could pass as mestizos – so long as we didn't run into any real Chicanos.”

Chicanos and other mongrels – I'm a mongrel and damn proud of it, so I'm not offended – along with “race-traitors” are all butchered in the book's final act that goes on and on in a worldwide, bloody purge that makes Earth an all-white utopia – like a lot of the science fiction of the 20^th century.

How it must have delighted Timothy McVeigh. Dylann Roof  too. And those I wonder how those who are disturbed by the growing trend in diversity in speculative fiction would react?

But what is utopia to some, is dystopia to others. I can read The Turner Diaries because of my twisted sense of humor and fascination with propaganda and the grotesque, but as a proud Chicano/mongrel/Raza Cosmica kind of guy, I prefer books like George S. Schuyler's Black Empire, Sam Greenlee's The Spook Who Sat by the Door, Hank Lopez's Afro-6, and Chester Himes' Plan B, they're all better written, and are about fighting for humanity rather than destroying it.

If you want to change the world, do it by creating, not destroying.

Ernest Hogan is guilty of impure acts of artistic and literary mayhem.