2020 arrived with annual bonhommie in every quarter of our lives, a new year, a
re-start, begin at the beginning.
La Bloga, along with readers everywhere,
looked forward to a Spring and Summer of new book releases and Casa Sedano
looked forward to working with Latinopia to produce Living Room Floricanto
programs of authors and good literature. That was the outlook in La Bloga-Tuesday's final 2019 column, reviewing Sergio Troncoso's soon to be award-winning collection of stories,
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son.
In February, when Troncoso took his
book on the road, he accepted Casa Sedano's invitation to read for a living room
floricanto and Latinopia's camera. The virus had begun killing people but we weren't on edge yet.
As the plague spread, social distancing spread. That put a stop to 2020's Living Room Floricanto plans. Summer arrived, we cancelled Back yard Floricanto. We were ready for a great set of readings and pachangas.
Rudy Anaya, QEPD, kept his downstairs bedroom as a traveling writer's guest
bedroom. Inspired by that hospitality, Casa Sedano installed its own traveling
writer's guest bedroom, then uninstalled it when the virus came calling. The ropa de cama is in the Lane chest and I keep the cat out of that room. We are ready at the poke of a million needles.
Winding
up 2020, La Bloga-Tuesday reprints those two Troncoso columns, in part as a sentimental
farewell to a year that only got started before it slammed closed, in part as a
token, mejor, a talisman, of what may be, in 2021, if those needles get poked. A ver.
Wrapping this year-wrapper,
La Bloga Co-founder Rudy Ch. Garcia raises timeless questions that La Bloga's
readers may wish to answer. Please do so when you leave a Comment below. Be sure to click the box to receive
notices when others Comment, too.
•
La Bloga December 31, 2019
A dozen characters in search of a peculiar son
Review: Sergio Troncoso. A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son. El Paso:
Cinco Puntos Press, 2019. ISBN: 9781947627338
Michael Sedano
13 stories make up the two-hundred pages of Sergio Troncoso’s A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son. (link) It’s a book so compelling it easily consumes an
afternoon in a single reading, then days re-reading, provoked into thoughts on
material success, identification, sex, quotidian life, and
story-telling.
Troncoso gives characters their own names and spaces, linking their stories to
offer readers points of view the characters won’t know. There’s added
enjoyment for readers when characters don’t recognize significant overlaps.
Troncoso plays with that in one story, bringing strangers together with one
degree of separation from a third, leaving readers on the edge of their seat,
like running into your first lover in a random airport.
Despite different names, I read them all as the same character who left
Ysleta, only they played out their lives in alternative futures. Each story is
the imagined “what-if” yearnings of a fifty-something man surrounded by links
to his past. I am David. I am Carlos. I am Galilea. I am Vendo Claridad.
Reading these stories as if they all are the same person on parallel courses
comes from a conversation Carlos has with his suegro.
Who knows what changes the human heart. Who knows if it changes at all.
Maybe the objects around it simply change too, so the heart – in– the –
world is only an older heart lost in a different world. The question then
becomes: are we the same person as our younger selves, or a collection of
different selves in new worlds, or something disquietly suspended between
the past and the present?
Why shouldn’t raza hold Harvard degrees and work on Wall Street? Marry Jewish
girls and seek out bad Mexican food in Manhattan? Follow your heart, if that’s
what you want. The Peculiar Immigrant gives permission for that. In this
sense, it’s a perpetual coming-of-age story because fitting into the
establishmentarian world of Columbia professorial chairs or investment banking
cubicles, exercise competencies that begin developing early in a
lifetime.
It sets you apart. The dead father had told his son how loved the boy was but
held him at a distance, “you are not like any of us.” He is “Joe, the
different Mexican” of the poem “22 Miles,” but instead of high school rings
their fingers have MBA class rings and if the work they do is stoop labor, it
pays six figures and buys condos near the park.
Troncoso’s raza in monied or prestigious milieus hold their own with
matter-of-fact social and professional competence, and save a repentant racist
suegra, being a Chicano doesn’t overtly trouble these characters. Troncoso
excavates that dreadful sense that lurks around the edges of social mobility,
and saves it for the last story. Some call it “imposter syndrome” but for
Troncoso’s character it’s a sense of being pursued by a wild beast in a
trackless wilderness, or have no space of one's own.
The wild beast story closes the collection, introducing a new character
after readers have come to terms with Paul, Galilea, Carlos, David, Sarah,
Arturo, Melissa, Lori. Vendo Claridad, the final version of the peculiar son,
waits until the end to raise the big issue of belonging. Given the dystopic
setting of the closing two stories, the beast leaves readers with an uneasy
gloom that remains unspoken, one's feelings for the collection not clear at
all. In fact, the ambiguity of “Vendo” and its nearness to “vendido,” add to a
reader’s unease in accounting the book’s closing words. Peculiarly
provocative.
A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son reverberates with literary
significance as Chicano Literature, and for a bunch of academic reasons, but
it doesn’t have to. Readers don’t have to catch all this, instead just enjoy
the way Troncoso tells a story or uses characters to flesh out peculiarities
of the Harvard Chicano.
Carlos acts a total asshole blithering on about how put out he is while
between-the-lines his wife is busting her back to make a good life for this
jerk.
Another fellow, Julio, is a cameo at the velorio, then gets righteously
murdered in a later tale.
Galilea will catch every reader’s interest, just for her and the cat’s name,
but more so for her eroticism. She’s not particularly likeable as her story
opens, especially when she has casual sex with that pendejo Carlos. Then,
Gali’s husband Ben dies from a second bout of prostate cancer, leaving Galilea
a million dollars.
Empathy takes a roller-coaster ride in Galilea's and several stories,
sometimes accompanied by humor. A character crashes and readers fear we’ve
lost her. Nope, just the leg. Look for it, you’ll laugh out loud at the
understatement.
Erotic writing calls attention to itself. Sex and lust occupy significant
parts of youth, and old people remember passion with yearning, so these scenes
are essential, though some obnoxious, others spicy.
Troncoso delves into adultery from both a man’s and woman’s perspective,
making his story devoid of moral dudgeon. Galilea likes to have fun and
fulfills her own expectations. Mostly his characters betray out of pendejismo,
but that’s neither here nor there. They just do it.
I don’t want to ignore Troncoso’s instructions on how to read and think about
his book, any book. Troncoso offers this, what seems reasoned and valuable,
it’s an element of torture and assimilation into a dystopic republic of
reading, the antepenultimate story, "Library Island":
They asked for a nuanced view of each book, a viewpoint based on details
about characters or scenes or writing style, or better questions and
possibilities posed by the book to the reader, and in reality, all of the
above.
If anyone tells you Troncoso's "Library Island" resembles less a dystopia than
a bad grad school experience, they’re right.
•
La Bloga February 20, 2020
Living Room Floricanto at Casa Sedano Welcomes Sergio Troncoso
Michael Sedano
Living Room Floricanto is a social movement instigated by gente who love literacy as much as they love reading Chicana Chicano writers. Join the movement in your own pad.
In Spring and Summer, Casa Sedano hosts a Backyard Floricanto. In fact, the homegrown floricanto started out as an a la brava get-together after the Pasadena Book Fair hosted its first-ever panel featuring raza writers. Before then, Casa Sedano hosted Mental Menudos with our late compañero, Magu.
Cold or inclement weather relocates the now-regular floricanto gatherings indoors, as February’s California chill promised when Latinopia’s Jesus Treviño first proposed the gathering. Would I be interested in hosting Sergio Troncoso during his Southern California tour for his short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son? As it turns out, Saturday, February 8 was a picture-postcard perfect day of sunshine. It was still more comfortable indoors.
Casa Sedano is a spacious place that encourages small crowd events. We had a dozen friends, mostly writers and significant others, join us for a mid-day event. We broke up around 7, such a great time was had by all wish you’d been here. But sabes que? You can, you should, you oughta have your own living room floricanto.
Invite an author who’s going to be on tour in your region. Generous people, authors. They’ll work with your schedule and theirs. Sergio Troncoso, for example, chatted with Alex Espinoza and read at Los Angeles’ La Plaza de Arte y Cultura on Thursday night. This week, Troncoso is featured at the University of California, Riverside literary week. Saturday, at Casa Sedano in Pasadena, filled the calendar and put his work in front of a welcoming audience.
For authors on a book tour, a Living Room Floricanto offers a chance for a unique sharing of one’s work. It’s an enlarged conversation with abrazos. The guest of honor was on hand to greet the gente as they arrived. For the purposes of the video, I did a stand-up intro long enough for Chuy to get “B-roll” shots. I went for light-hearted in my remarks and Sergio read some serious stuff. Let’s see what editing can put together next week at Latinopia.com.
Ordinarily, Casa Sedano has the traveling writer’s guest bedroom available, but la casa is in a bit of transition right now. Authors on book tours travel on their own dime, so a spare bed or a warm spot on the floor saves out-of-pocket expense.
A public one-to-many event might feature introductions, announcements, then the author chats before reading fifteen minutes of good stuff. If you’re lucky, you get Alex to put you through your paces. Then, as time allows, a half hour of Q&A that range from desultory to good questions usually too much for this event. Living Room Floricanto provides warmly beautiful contrast. Sergio has listeners sitting next to him or just across the room leaning against a wall.
He reads the first few pages in a standup then signs copies. The author runs out of books but retrieves a new supply from the rental car. Everyone takes home an autographed copy they’ll treasure for the good writing but especially this experience. Not to be mercenary or nothing sabes, but word of mouth is the best marketing there is. We talked about raza hurting sales by sharing their books with five or six people who should buy their own copy. Autographed copies tend to stay at home, heeding Polonius’ advice.
Living room Q&A quickly wears out literary discussion in favor of getting down raza to raza and heart-to-heart with these Chicanas Chicanos. Hours pass exchanging regional histories and family conectas, this group readily switching English to Spanish or mixing, as the subject matter demands. La palomilla is in town and they're in the front room.
In California it seems everyone is from someplace else, and in this group, half of them have Texas roots. Several guests hail from Juarez or El Paso. Ysleta, Troncoso’s wicked patch of dust, is a suburb, so lots of insider chismeando and exchanges fill the conversation. Topics range from writerly discussion among the writers, laments on development messing up the old home town. That book came in for some discussion, the guests familiar with Myriam Gurba’s important work with David Bowles in the nascent #DignidadLiteraria movement.
Treviño and Latinopia provided amazingly delectable Italian sandwiches and lots of soft drinks and some notable wines. Recently-retired multi-talented Mario Guerrero brought Gruet champagne. This superb New Mexico wine has found distribution in Southern California. A small winery like this offers a model for small publishers, that is, gotta find ways to break out of the local mold and get into distribution channels.
Independent publisher Cinco Puntos titles likely have spots on independent booksellers shelves, though the direct link works for gente who buy over the internet.
Clickable Links
La Bloga-Tuesday's review of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son.
Publisher's website to order your copies of Sergio Troncoso's works.
Looking Back With Delight
How Soon? Sooner Than Too Late.
History happens right before your eyes along Los Angeles' Marmion Way. It's the resurrection of a living spirit--make that 169 feet of living spirit, in the restoration of Daniel Cervantes' 169-foot long mural depicting indigenous gente in native settings.
I'm going to use "resurrection" interchangeably with "restoration," the artist's description of her labor. The wall had been put to death by tagging and city maintenance crews. The committee and the artist have brought this work back to life. That's a resurrection in the light. But that word, it has holy connotations! Yes, yes it does.
The location, on the alternative to busy Figueroa Street, makes a perfect display site given the towering original Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus, the original location of the Gene Autry-founded Southwest Museum of the American Indian.
La Bloga has followed the restoration since summer of 2019, when Lopez began working for the arts activist funding committee that pulled together funding from the local politician, the Los Angeles city arts commission, California's Arts grants, and other donors. Sadly, once Lopez had the project well underway, support evaporated like the blue tarp covers protecting the site disappeared within a few days of mounting.
The artist labored under open sun, no shade had been provided by the owners of the worksite. Worse, the ground provided treacherous footing from terrain displacement and trash. One night and weekend, a person who loves what Pola Lopez is doing raked the surface and leveled the worst spots. Only community support made the ground safe for a worker.
Lopez has enjoyed consistent support from Angel Guerrero, who's dedicated weeks of days to painting as directed, apprentice to the maestra. Angel, and a small number of other artists, have the skill to lend a brush. It's not a job, it's arte.
Community support has brought spiritual enrichment beyond a few dollars more, though money is really useful. Passersby honk and throw thumbs-up signals. A mother walks her babies past the site regularly, enjoying the progress. During my recent visit, Marco, a Salvadoreño, drove up and parked for a chance to talk to the artist. His son attends a local elementary school art program and Marco the dad was talking about an enrichment field trip for the kids. Imagine the insurance liability had that volunteer not been civic-minded, and some kid tripped on a dirt clod and broke a limb?
The site attracts attention from tourists and locals alike. The richly colored design and subjects create a landmark along an otherwise nondescript stretch of road. The mural fills a need no one realized was there, now it's an indispensable contribution to community unity. Taggers respect this wall.
The mural will be fully restored perhaps this week. Then Lopez has a crew spraying a protecting bonding coat, the semi-final stage of restoration. A final graffiti coat completes the entire project.
Lopez faces a funding crisis. Lopez has stocked the graffiti coating material now needs a professional installation crew to spray this vital protective coating. Here's a link to the artist's funding site. There's a spectacular photograph of the sorry state of the surface prior to Lopez' skilled recovery of this historic mural.
It's anyone's guess why the Cervantes Mural has become an orphan. The Autry's coordinator offered to share insight into the museum's abandoned role, but nothing further came from that direction. I wrote councilman Gil Cedillo an open letter (link) recently, about having a grand unveiling. Silence is golden so someone's getting rich but it's not Pola Lopez nor local cultura.
There's the pity. Here's a major cultural landmark nearing resurrection and the community's leaders turn blind eyes and deaf ears. Ask Lopez when the gran unveiling is and she stares back with a rueful smile. None she's heard of, and I figure if she hasn't heard, there is nothing planned.
I'll gather with some friends, burn sage, walk the mural, hear their stories, invite the artist to a good restaurant and toast her health. I hope the people at the next table won't shush us for raising a ruckus. We'll be the only people in LA celebrating the mural.
The business of art subscribes to the force of a contract, arte and cultura and culture be damned. The letter of the law says no more money. The law is an ass that never had to resurrect a cultural wonder and ran into cost over-runs and comes up short.
The value of what is happening on that wall is immeasurable, not zero, but zero is what funders and cultural giants have added to their earlier generosity.
The Autry museum, owner of the Marmion Way site, recently "undertook its major multiyear, multi-million-dollar effort" to preserve its collection. That's P.R. Its mural, its most highly visible cultural treasure and one not hidden in the museum's vaults, gets not one red cent nor indian penny more. "Take our word for it," Autry fundraisers say about their vaults filled with unrestored artifacts, "we care."
The business of art demands a piece of the action. So it goes. Fundraising costs money, sending a portion of all the gifts donated to restore the mural to the operating budget of the fundraising committee. There's no millions there, but who knows what the commission is, 30% 15%? One or five percent of that would finish the job. Not that the artist is asking. I asked Lopez about the final coat and she says that's an open issue. Now, the graffiti coating is the most critical step to protecting the mural, and it's an open issue.
It's not the business of art but the art of art at stake here. The entire raison d'etre of resurrecting this spirit is that people see its images, read the story, enjoy the color, identify the land they stand upon and its people. Ars gratia don't waste all this by not having professionals apply the graffiti coat.
The artist's funding site directly supports the restoration with no institutional overhead. Use this link to give directly to hiring professional graffiti coating experts.
Books In Review: 2021
Michael Sedano
Living Room Floricanto is a social movement instigated by gente who love literacy as much as they love reading Chicana Chicano writers. Join the movement in your own pad.
In Spring and Summer, Casa Sedano hosts a Backyard Floricanto. In fact, the homegrown floricanto started out as an a la brava get-together after the Pasadena Book Fair hosted its first-ever panel featuring raza writers. Before then, Casa Sedano hosted Mental Menudos with our late compañero, Magu.
Cold or inclement weather relocates the now-regular floricanto gatherings indoors, as February’s California chill promised when Latinopia’s Jesus Treviño first proposed the gathering. Would I be interested in hosting Sergio Troncoso during his Southern California tour for his short story collection, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son? As it turns out, Saturday, February 8 was a picture-postcard perfect day of sunshine. It was still more comfortable indoors.
Casa Sedano is a spacious place that encourages small crowd events. We had a dozen friends, mostly writers and significant others, join us for a mid-day event. We broke up around 7, such a great time was had by all wish you’d been here. But sabes que? You can, you should, you oughta have your own living room floricanto.
Invite an author who’s going to be on tour in your region. Generous people, authors. They’ll work with your schedule and theirs. Sergio Troncoso, for example, chatted with Alex Espinoza and read at Los Angeles’ La Plaza de Arte y Cultura on Thursday night. This week, Troncoso is featured at the University of California, Riverside literary week. Saturday, at Casa Sedano in Pasadena, filled the calendar and put his work in front of a welcoming audience.
For authors on a book tour, a Living Room Floricanto offers a chance for a unique sharing of one’s work. It’s an enlarged conversation with abrazos. The guest of honor was on hand to greet the gente as they arrived. For the purposes of the video, I did a stand-up intro long enough for Chuy to get “B-roll” shots. I went for light-hearted in my remarks and Sergio read some serious stuff. Let’s see what editing can put together next week at Latinopia.com.
Ordinarily, Casa Sedano has the traveling writer’s guest bedroom available, but la casa is in a bit of transition right now. Authors on book tours travel on their own dime, so a spare bed or a warm spot on the floor saves out-of-pocket expense.
A public one-to-many event might feature introductions, announcements, then the author chats before reading fifteen minutes of good stuff. If you’re lucky, you get Alex to put you through your paces. Then, as time allows, a half hour of Q&A that range from desultory to good questions usually too much for this event. Living Room Floricanto provides warmly beautiful contrast. Sergio has listeners sitting next to him or just across the room leaning against a wall.
He reads the first few pages in a standup then signs copies. The author runs out of books but retrieves a new supply from the rental car. Everyone takes home an autographed copy they’ll treasure for the good writing but especially this experience. Not to be mercenary or nothing sabes, but word of mouth is the best marketing there is. We talked about raza hurting sales by sharing their books with five or six people who should buy their own copy. Autographed copies tend to stay at home, heeding Polonius’ advice.
Living room Q&A quickly wears out literary discussion in favor of getting down raza to raza and heart-to-heart with these Chicanas Chicanos. Hours pass exchanging regional histories and family conectas, this group readily switching English to Spanish or mixing, as the subject matter demands. La palomilla is in town and they're in the front room.
In California it seems everyone is from someplace else, and in this group, half of them have Texas roots. Several guests hail from Juarez or El Paso. Ysleta, Troncoso’s wicked patch of dust, is a suburb, so lots of insider chismeando and exchanges fill the conversation. Topics range from writerly discussion among the writers, laments on development messing up the old home town. That book came in for some discussion, the guests familiar with Myriam Gurba’s important work with David Bowles in the nascent #DignidadLiteraria movement.
Treviño and Latinopia provided amazingly delectable Italian sandwiches and lots of soft drinks and some notable wines. Recently-retired multi-talented Mario Guerrero brought Gruet champagne. This superb New Mexico wine has found distribution in Southern California. A small winery like this offers a model for small publishers, that is, gotta find ways to break out of the local mold and get into distribution channels.
Independent publisher Cinco Puntos titles likely have spots on independent booksellers shelves, though the direct link works for gente who buy over the internet.
Clickable Links
La Bloga-Tuesday's review of A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son.
Publisher's website to order your copies of Sergio Troncoso's works.
Looking Back With Delight
How Soon? Sooner Than Too Late.
History happens right before your eyes along Los Angeles' Marmion Way. It's the resurrection of a living spirit--make that 169 feet of living spirit, in the restoration of Daniel Cervantes' 169-foot long mural depicting indigenous gente in native settings.
I'm going to use "resurrection" interchangeably with "restoration," the artist's description of her labor. The wall had been put to death by tagging and city maintenance crews. The committee and the artist have brought this work back to life. That's a resurrection in the light. But that word, it has holy connotations! Yes, yes it does.
The location, on the alternative to busy Figueroa Street, makes a perfect display site given the towering original Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus, the original location of the Gene Autry-founded Southwest Museum of the American Indian.
La Bloga has followed the restoration since summer of 2019, when Lopez began working for the arts activist funding committee that pulled together funding from the local politician, the Los Angeles city arts commission, California's Arts grants, and other donors. Sadly, once Lopez had the project well underway, support evaporated like the blue tarp covers protecting the site disappeared within a few days of mounting.
The artist labored under open sun, no shade had been provided by the owners of the worksite. Worse, the ground provided treacherous footing from terrain displacement and trash. One night and weekend, a person who loves what Pola Lopez is doing raked the surface and leveled the worst spots. Only community support made the ground safe for a worker.
Lopez has enjoyed consistent support from Angel Guerrero, who's dedicated weeks of days to painting as directed, apprentice to the maestra. Angel, and a small number of other artists, have the skill to lend a brush. It's not a job, it's arte.
Community support has brought spiritual enrichment beyond a few dollars more, though money is really useful. Passersby honk and throw thumbs-up signals. A mother walks her babies past the site regularly, enjoying the progress. During my recent visit, Marco, a Salvadoreño, drove up and parked for a chance to talk to the artist. His son attends a local elementary school art program and Marco the dad was talking about an enrichment field trip for the kids. Imagine the insurance liability had that volunteer not been civic-minded, and some kid tripped on a dirt clod and broke a limb?
The site attracts attention from tourists and locals alike. The richly colored design and subjects create a landmark along an otherwise nondescript stretch of road. The mural fills a need no one realized was there, now it's an indispensable contribution to community unity. Taggers respect this wall.
The mural will be fully restored perhaps this week. Then Lopez has a crew spraying a protecting bonding coat, the semi-final stage of restoration. A final graffiti coat completes the entire project.
Lopez faces a funding crisis. Lopez has stocked the graffiti coating material now needs a professional installation crew to spray this vital protective coating. Here's a link to the artist's funding site. There's a spectacular photograph of the sorry state of the surface prior to Lopez' skilled recovery of this historic mural.
It's anyone's guess why the Cervantes Mural has become an orphan. The Autry's coordinator offered to share insight into the museum's abandoned role, but nothing further came from that direction. I wrote councilman Gil Cedillo an open letter (link) recently, about having a grand unveiling. Silence is golden so someone's getting rich but it's not Pola Lopez nor local cultura.
There's the pity. Here's a major cultural landmark nearing resurrection and the community's leaders turn blind eyes and deaf ears. Ask Lopez when the gran unveiling is and she stares back with a rueful smile. None she's heard of, and I figure if she hasn't heard, there is nothing planned.
I'll gather with some friends, burn sage, walk the mural, hear their stories, invite the artist to a good restaurant and toast her health. I hope the people at the next table won't shush us for raising a ruckus. We'll be the only people in LA celebrating the mural.
The business of art subscribes to the force of a contract, arte and cultura and culture be damned. The letter of the law says no more money. The law is an ass that never had to resurrect a cultural wonder and ran into cost over-runs and comes up short.
The value of what is happening on that wall is immeasurable, not zero, but zero is what funders and cultural giants have added to their earlier generosity.
The Autry museum, owner of the Marmion Way site, recently "undertook its major multiyear, multi-million-dollar effort" to preserve its collection. That's P.R. Its mural, its most highly visible cultural treasure and one not hidden in the museum's vaults, gets not one red cent nor indian penny more. "Take our word for it," Autry fundraisers say about their vaults filled with unrestored artifacts, "we care."
The business of art demands a piece of the action. So it goes. Fundraising costs money, sending a portion of all the gifts donated to restore the mural to the operating budget of the fundraising committee. There's no millions there, but who knows what the commission is, 30% 15%? One or five percent of that would finish the job. Not that the artist is asking. I asked Lopez about the final coat and she says that's an open issue. Now, the graffiti coating is the most critical step to protecting the mural, and it's an open issue.
It's not the business of art but the art of art at stake here. The entire raison d'etre of resurrecting this spirit is that people see its images, read the story, enjoy the color, identify the land they stand upon and its people. Ars gratia don't waste all this by not having professionals apply the graffiti coat.
The artist's funding site directly supports the restoration with no institutional overhead. Use this link to give directly to hiring professional graffiti coating experts.
Books In Review: 2021
A column from 2010 by La Bloga Co-founder emeritus Rudy Ch. Garcia:
La Bloga reviews – pensamientos
In the years that La Bloga has been in existence in one way or another
we've reviewed thousands of books, not all of them by or about Chicanos.
We've covered classics, new releases, children's books and
even vampironovels.
While the ranks of our
reviewers have varied over those years, the core
of Blogueros continues weekly with this labor of love. At
the same time we have had delightful variation coming from
guest Blogueros or those who have followed our path for a
time. It's made for a huge body of work that we hope not only has
entertained and informed but in some way has contributed to the literary
body and history of Chicano lit.
Some questions come to mind that readers may be able to help us
with:
Is there a type of posting that we've neglected to cover or that we
need to expand?
What are the outer limits of Chicano lit and have we excluded books
and stories that in fact should be covered?
What about Chica lit?--the pulpier version of cozy
works being written for and read by Chicanas? Should we consider that
a higher priority or just leave it to other websites already doing
so?
Where's the reviews of Diana Gabaldon novels? Despite not
calling herself anything ethnic and insisting that her name should not
be pronounced as a Spanish word, Gabaldon is at least highly
successful as a big-name writer to mainstream U.S. audiences.
Does La Bloga have the cómo-se-llama to do critical
reviews of some of the most successful Chicana authors out there, or
do we limit ourselves to publisher blurbs?
Do La Bloga reviews suffer from undercurrents of that
old Chicano Movimiento envidia that
limits us in doing frank reviews of books that should not be
recommended?
Are all the books being published by Chicanos worth reading?
Should La Bloga's literary responsibilities be raised to higher
standards?
Would there be a purpose in becoming "more professional" and less
tolerant or would we end up cutting off our own noses?
Should we worry how the Anglo world of literary critics views our
present perspective?
Are any Chicanos out there reading Sci-Fi, westerns and
dragon-fantasy genres from Anglo writers and wish there were Chicano
authors doing such works?
Don’t' get me wrong. La Bloga reviewers have done incredible
and significant volunteer work through the years. In many instances they
have pointed out the weaknesses to reviewed books, and I'll note that
Michael Sedano is one of the most accurately critical in this. And the
reviews and opinions will continue.
Also, I ask these questions
not only in general, but also of myself. Things to ponder about how my own
Chicano mind works. And it's also possible other La Bloga contributors,
particularly those who've produced chingosmore reviews que yo, might have additional questions.
In any event, I thought it
might be a good time to put out these thoughts about how we've approached
Chicano literature and welcome readers' comments on them, as well.
Dan Olivas asked me to cover his spot today for personal reasons, but will
return next week. Although, after reading this, he may decide not to leave
Monday open again.
Es todo, hoy
RudyG
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