Revisiting Bless Me, Última

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

For the last post of 5 de Mayo week celebrating the publication of Rudolfo Anaya's classic, I chose to focus on revisiting the story itself, using Anaya's prose for those readers who read it too long ago, read it in class because they "had to" or have never read it.

Reading the novel's opening, one is tempted to think that Anaya's description only means to set the mood of a pastoral plot. I'm more tempted to see this paragraph as his synopsis of the entire novel, no small achievement when a writer writes about his own work. Here's the passage, with my comments below that:

"Última came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came, the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes, and the gurgling waters of the river sang to the hum of the turning earth. The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mystery into my living blood. She took my hand, and the silent, magic powers she possessed made beauty from the raw, sun-baked llano, the green river valley, and the blue bowl that was the white sun's home. My bare feet felt the throbbing earth and my body trembled with excitement. Time stood still, and it shared with me all that had been, all that was to come. . ."

"Última--a seven-year-old boy--the llano, the river--the earth--three times--magical time--mystery--she took my hand--magical powers--made beauty--the raw, sun-baked llano--the valley--sky (blue bowl) and sun--feeling and trembling--time stilled--all that had been, was to come." After reading the novel, return to this opening that will surprise you with the brevity of its capture of the novel's world.

Calling this book pastoral could imply simplicity, but capturing complexity seems always to have been Anaya's intent. Consider some of the Chicano themes that compose the book.

Chicanada / Agabachado – the protagonist Antonio Marez who is nicknamed Tony. Just as happened to many of us--I myself, born Rodolfo, anglicized into Rudy--Anaya's hero bears the brand of two cultures.

Western religion / indigenous belief – one of the most complex dichotomies that encompass the Hispanic, the Chicano, the mexicano cultures. Some authors have portrayed it as purely adversarial, others have dealt with it as assimilation of one by the other. In Última, Anaya took the approach of duality, coexistence, parallel worlds, it seems to me.

The treasured agrarian life / loss of land & dispersal of the family – on the surface, one of the most frequent themes in Última, made even more complex by Antonio's being pulled both by the llano and the valley, his paternal and maternal roots, the farm and the wide open plains. And the duality doesn't end there.

This extends into the female world, where contrasted to Última and his mother, Antonio's daily passes the village bordello with its carnal temptations, but also its womanly models who foretell what will develop in tourist border towns, another facet of the mexicano-Chicano world.

Anaya's narration and dialogue, too, contain the literary dichotomy he helped create with el español woven into the dominant English, but often with no literary apologies to the monolingual English-speaker for what might be its meaning. Whether he meant to or not, Anaya told us here: not to sit in the backseats of the bus where we could chat in our native language, the back row of the classroom where we could whisper Spanish epithets, nor that we had to stand separately from the English-speakers when we went to a dance. In his subtle way, Anaya wrote the language of the proud who should put themselves forward, and not just in using their language.

About Antonio's dreaded first day in the English-dominant school:
"Somehow I got to the school grounds, but I was lost. The school was larger than I had expected. Its huge, yawning doors were menacing. I looked for Deborah and Theresa, but every face I saw was strange. I looked again at the doors of the sacred halls but I was too afraid to enter. My mother had said to go to Miss Maestas, but I did not know where to begin to find her. I had come to the town, and I had come to school, and I was very lost and afraid in the nervous, excited swarm of kids."

This is more than a child's first day of school; it is the universal story of every colonized, conquered, oppressed student's entrance into the educational system of the dominant culture. Africa, Brazil, the 19th, the 20th century, doesn't matter. It happens every year, in every state of this union and many other countries. It will happen again this Sept. In that sense, it is universal. Note too, here Anaya mentions not one word to set the context in its Chicano/Anglo or Spanish/English setting. He didn't need to, because the fright he describes is inherently much more vast.

Lastly, here is the passage of Antonio first witnessing a local legend:

"Then the golden carp came. Cico pointed and I turned to where the stream came out of the dark grotto of overhanging tree branches. At first I thought I must be dreaming. I had expected to see a carp the size of a river carp, perhaps a little bigger and slightly orange instead of brown. I rubbed my eyes and watched in astonishment. . . The huge, beautiful form glided through the blue waters. I could not believe its size. It was bigger than me! And bright orange! The sunlight glistened off his golden scales. He glided down the creek with a couple of small carp following, but they were like minnows compared to him. "The golden carp," I whispered in awe.

I sometimes fall into a bit of vergüenza when among non-Chicanos, that our people's beliefs include La Llorona and El Cucúi. Then, I'm not Anaya, who often reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his magical realism. The golden carp is but one of Anaya's sharing of our mystical heritage. He apologizes for none of it, and goes on to laud its splendor. That's part of how he broke new ground for all of us. Again, another universal, the celebration of indigenous belief.

The novel is a classic, but not dated. The passage where Antonio's three brothers return from WWII, mentally changed and scarred, for instance. Replace that with Afghanistan or Iraq and its timelessness, unfortunately, continues for Chicano families today under this President and will for some time.

Anaya delightfully portrays Última, an anciana, in so many sensual ways that one often wonders whether she was that old. Sensual, not sensuous. This is a far cry from how we today have been raised to think of our own abuelos.

There are more universal and timeless themes in the book. The river, spoken of as the source--always italicized--in a drought-threatened land is as fitting in today's global warming world as it was forty years ago; more so now.

My intent here was a short revisit of the novel itself to possibly spur readers into picking up the book and opening its pages. I've but scratched the surface and as others have pointed out, there are many in-depth reviews and analyses of the book. There is much more contained within than my few words covered.

Should you decide to open the book, maybe do it at a family reunion. Actually, Última deserves to be memorized, like a Greek would do Homer, or a chileno would treat a Neruda poem. If you do choose to read a passage, do it for the young of your family, the culturally deprived of your cousins, your urbanized anglicized kin. After you read it, step back to let your family's forgotten stories reemerge to be shared. To feel what we sometimes forget is part of being Chicano. Thankfully, we will always have Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Última to help us remember.

Two final messages for Sr. Anaya:

Felicidades to el maestro Anaya on the 40th anniversary of the publication of Bless Me, Ultima. In 1972 I was a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin. Bless Me, Ultima was the first Chicano novel I read and it had a tremendous impact on me. – Juan Tejeda

Mis respetos, honor a quien honor merece. Yo conocí al Sr Anaya el año pasado en su casa y fue grandioso conocerlo. Mis hijos estaban facinados. Gracias Sr. por ser una persona sencilla y siempre dispuesto con una franca sonrisa. Gracias también por introducirnos en el mundo de las letras con su grandiosa imaginación y talento. – Margarita Hortelano

LA CURANDERA’S ROLE IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Hola Blogueros,

This is Ruldolfo Anaya's week in La Bloga. We are celebrating the 40th anniversary of his book Bless Me, Ultima. Today Wednesday, Children's Book Authors Monica Brown and Laura Lacámara discuss the use of a curandera in their new books.

But first what is a curandera? Ruldolfo Anaya gives us his definition of a curandera and talks about his book Bless Me, Ultima in this video.

*   *  *

Interview with Monica Brown

Clara and the Curandera

Clara y la Curandera

What is your definition of a curandera?

A curandera can mean many things to many different people, but most often it refers to a traditional healer in Latin America. Our most well known curandera in literature is Rudolfo Anaya's Ultima, immortalized in his novel, Bless Me Ultima.  Curandera's can work with physical or spiritual illnesses and are in touch with the traditions of their ancestors.

In my book, Clara and the Curandera, the curandera is really just a wise older woman who lends her wisdom to the members of her community, especially the children.

What did you decide to write about a curandera?

I wanted to honor the role that our elders can play in a community and also an ethic of generosity, of giving, which the Curandera teaches to little Clara.

What role does the curandera take place in your book?

This is the story of a little girl named Clara, who is grumpy. Like many others, she lives in a small space with lots of people and she gets tired of having to share her toys with her seven brothers and sisters, not to mention her chores and homework. She is especially grumpy about having to read a book a week for school.

When her Mami gets frustrated tired of Clara's grumpy face, she sends her daughter to the curandera to ask for help. The curandera gives Clara a list of things to do in the coming week: take out her own trash and the neighbors' as well; give all of her favorite toys to her brothers and sisters; and read five books instead of one!

It's a difficult, busy week for Clara. But, her neighbors are grateful for her help, and give her hugs. Her siblings are so happy that they are extra nice to her and invite her to play with them. She has fun jumping rope, playing checkers and soccer. Her mother takes her to the library to check out books and she reads lots of interesting things. When the week is over, Clara realizes that she has not had time to feel grumpy. The wise curandera gives her a new doll and relieves her of all her new duties.  Clara thinks she'll be relieved, but she misses the hugs and the stronger relationship with her siblings. She learns that helping others maker her feel happy.

Tell us more about your book.

The end of the book is fun, because when Clara runs down the hall to thank the Curandera for her newfound insight, she sees that the curandera is busy talking to "naughty Nicolas" from three doors down.

Visit Monica at www.monicabrown.net

* * *

Interview with Laura Lacámara
 

Floating on Mama's Song

Flotando en la canción de Mamá

What is your definition of a curandera?

In my story, Floating on Mama's Song/Flotando en la canción de mamá, the curandera is based on a Cuban santera. Santería is a Cuban religion that mixes Catholicism with African-based religions.  In addition to using herbs and magical incantations to heal and help people, santeras use divination to predict the future, cast daños or spells, and practice animal sacrifice (usually of chickens and goats).

Why did you decide to write about a curandera?

I used a curandera in my book because the story is set in Cuba and santeras are such an integral part of Cuban culture.  Santeras, or folk healers, are everywhere in Cuba. Seeking counsel from a folk healer in Cuba is like a person here going to see their therapist.  Most people will go at least once, if not regularly. 

I’ll never forget when I was in my teens and my dad returned from a trip to Cuba wearing two long, beaded necklaces -- one red and one white.  It turned out that my father, the confirmed atheist, went to see a santera while he was there.  The local “bruja,” bestowed the necklaces on him to help heal his sick brother.

What role does the curandera play in your book?

In my book, Anita seeks help from the curandera or santera who lives down the street (every Cuban neighborhood has one).  The curandera does a coconut shell divination to get answers about how to heal Anita's mama, who has been sad ever since she stopped singing.

After peering at the way the shells had fallen, the healer declares, “There’s nothing I can do to help your mama.  Her spirit is sick.” 

The curandera in my story has limited powers in healing matters of the heart.  Bringing music and happiness back to her mama and to her family is a job that Anita, who loves her mama, is best equipped to do. 

Tell us more about your book.

Anita comes home from school one day and hears her mama singing.  When Anita runs into the kitchen, she finds her mother floating in the air! Outside, the family dog is floating, too!
“Every time I sing whoever hears my singing floats!” Anita’s mama tells her. 
When Anita’s grandma forbids Mama ever to sing again, Mama (and everyone else!) is miserable.  Anita wants to see her mama smile again, so she goes on a quest to restore happiness to her family. 
Seeking help from the neighborhood healer is one of the things Anita tries.  But when that doesn’t work, Anita relies on her own instincts.  This leads Anita to discover a family secret that turns everything around.

In the end, thanks to Anita, Mama sings again and everyone happily floats on Mama's song! 

Visit Laura at www.lauralacamara.com

* * *

Ruldofo Anaya writes picture books.

This is a partial list of his books for children.

The story of a young Mexican girl who saves her village by making the first tortilla with the help of the Mountain Spirit.

In this bilingual story of faith, Don Jacobo has a dream that, in the end, is a reminder that miracles do happen.

In these ten stories, Rudolfo Anaya draws on a rich Hispanic and Native American folklore tradition, capturing the rhythm of life along New Mexico's RÍo Grande valley.

Luz carries on her grandfather's tradition of gardening in order to keep his memory alive. During her first Christmas without him, she carries on the tradition of lighting farolitos in his honor. Warm, color illustrations and a heartfelt tale portray the pain of loss and the joy of remembrance.

It's Christmas in San Juan, New Mexico, and young Luz worries that with her grandfather sick and her father in the hospital, wounded from the war, their usual Christmas celebration will not be. Then Luz decides to make her own little lanterns or farolitos to light the path for the oncoming celebration, and for her father, who returns home in time for the holiday.

Pensamientos about Chicano writers

by Rudy Ch. Garcia

With exceptions, being a writer is one of the loneliest occupations anyone can undertake.

Hours, days and years go into producing stories or articles, with the prospect of success maybe as far as decades away. I don't know what the statistics are on how many people take up writing and later discard it, but it wouldn't be surprising to hear it had some staggering number of those who give up on it.

I'm one who left writing for decades, but then returned for more decades of lonesome work. Writing alone is inherent to the occupation. The solitary feelings come from not seeing your works out in the world and being read by others.

Of necessity then, writers' goals include getting their works published, but given how infrequent this may happen, that can't be the immediate goal. Maybe writers have a lot in common with gamblers who hope to win The Big One. Both types can have distant hopes that they maintain through their daily passion or addiction to the "game."

. . . . . .

Aspiring writers who latch onto publishing as an immediate goal can transform into frustrated artists who yell at their kids and wives, see fault in others' writing, and eventually drop the whole idea, especially if publishing of their work doesn't soon appear.

That's how one of the most common questions from non-writing people, "Why haven't you published it yet?" can get under the skin of writers. If only my friends and family knew how difficult getting published was, they'd never ask this question.

In that sense, aspiring writers have a lot in common with artists who draw, paint or scupt; they're both hoping to be discovered; in the writer's case, preferably by a publisher with hard-copy imprints, not just E-published works.

. . . . . .

Being a Chicano writer in a Blanco-dominated market adds to the solitary feelings that are intensified from a publisher's rejection letter. One can't help wondering, sometimes, if a Blanco writers gets as many rejections. Assumedly, they do.

. . . . . .

When the field of work is narrowed further to fantasy and science fiction, the chances of getting your work published narrow even further. After all, as everyone knows, Chicanos don't read much fantasy and it's assumed they read even less sci-fi. When you write such short stories or novels with Chicano characters, your appeal to a publisher is further limited, because publishers may think that a Chicano sci-fi character could only work as a minor character, except in a case like Avatar where Neytiri is photoshopped into an indigenous role or Michelle Rodriguez plays human Trudy Chacon.

Publishers, like movie directors, worry that a Chicano or minority character might not appeal to the majority Blanco audience. And then, or course, they know that Chicanos don't read sci-fi, so there's no audience appeal there, either. At least that's the assumption.

Then along comes someone like Junot Diaz with his The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, disproving all the assumptions, winning literary prizes hand-over-fist, and becoming a big best seller. Diaz's characters Oscar de Leon or Yunior de Las Casas who turns out to be the narrator, are Dominican-national characters who decidedly appealed to the Blanco audience. [Curiously, among other things, Oscar is obsessed with sci-fi and fantasy novels.]

Bless Me, Última by Rudy Anaya is considered the best-selling Chicano novel and has sold less than 200,00 copies in the four decades since its release. Oscar Wao sold a quarter of a million in 2009, alone. Both figures speak to aspiring writers, some of whom would cut off their left index finger to achieve one tenth of those numbers.

When an aspiring writer gives up on new stories, revising other stories or submitting works to publishers, he likewise has given up where Rudy Anaya and Junot Diaz persisted. Rudy and Junot's world is the same lonely writing world that every aspiring writer resides in; theirs becomes not so lonely when they leave their desk or computer and venture outside to hear what others think of their work. Otherwise, it's the same.

. . . . . .

No matter the nationality, the genre, the decade or the success, writing is essentially what it always has been. Lewis Carroll was driven to write his outrageous fantasy novel about Alice. Back in the 1860s, he must have seemed out of place to publishers because twenty years later it wasn't even considered a popular children's story.

On the other end of the spectrum, Ernest Hogan's Cortez on Jupiter (1990), called a minor sci-fi masterpiece by some, was never marketed to success and disappeared for decades. His Chicano Pablo Cortez character became a casualty of the East Coast publishing mire. (It is now available as en E-book here.)

Writers write. If they give up on it, they go into the past-tense, even if they have hard-copy laurels to rest on. Write, rewrite, revise, edit, submit, send out, get rejections, repeat the cycles. And every once in a while, letters that read, "Your work has been accepted."

. . . . . .

That's our world. It's not for everyone. Only for those who can thrive in its lonesome environs. Not worrying about immediate publication. Writing for the passion. In some cases, the recognition will come.

Es todo, hoy RudyG

Guest Columnists: Lucha Corpi and Nuria Brufau Alvira From Eulogy to Loa. : News&Notes : On-Line Floricanto

Guest Columnists: Lucha Corpi and Nuria Brufau Alvira. Translation and Voice: A poet’s and writer’s views.

Michael Sedano

La Bloga is honored and excited to present this two-part series by Lucha Corpi and Nuria Brufau Alvira, Translation and Voice: A poet’s and writer’s views. The pair examines the process of Nuria's translating Lucha's Eulogy for a Brown Angel into the 2011 Spanish novel, Loa a un ángel de piel morena. 

In Eulogy, Corpi writes one of the best opening scenes in chicana chicano literature, a woman fleeing the police riot at Laguna Park, stumbles upon grisly infanticide. Corpi grabs the reader's attention and hurls the reader into a moral morass. The publisher notes:

Loa a un ángel de piel morena es una novela trepidante, de gran suspense, y llena de personajes diversos e interesantes. En el apogeo del movimiento chicano a favor de los derechos civiles en 1970, el cuerpo profanado de un niño pequeño yace inerte en una calle del Este de Los Ángeles, durante una de las manifestaciones socio-políticas más violentas en la historia de California. La activista política Gloria Damasco descubre el cuerpo del pequeño y, en ese instante, se enfrenta también el hecho de que su modo de percibir la realidad es un «don obscuro» que va más allá de la lógica «normal». En el transcurso de las siguientes cuarenta y ocho horas, dos personas más mueren asesinadas. Gloria no se permite sino el seguirle la pista a los asesinos hasta verlos entre rejas, así le lleve toda la vida. Cada paso en su investigación la conduce de Los Ángeles a la Bahía de San Francisco. Así mismo, la introduce en el camino de una conspiración internacional, una sangrienta venganza, y la violenta y trágica conclusión del caso en la pintoresca región vinícola de Napa, California.

In today's guest column, Lucha Corpi relates the writer’s experience in seeing her creation transformed in the hands of another, in understanding the uniquely creative writing process of translating chicanidad along with the words.

Next Tuesday, April 10, Nuria Brufau Alvira relates the translator’s experience negotiating the confluences of language, speech, cultural content, plot, and character, to fashion for Spanish language readers the same novel United States readers recognize as a classic of la literatura chicana.

La Bloga readers can order both novels via their local independent bookseller.

Lucha Corpi. Nuria Brufau Alvira. Loa a un ángel de piel morena : una novela de misterio. Madrid: Alcala de Henares Universidad de Alcalá, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos "Benjamin Franklin", 2011.

ISBN 9788481389432 8481389439


Lucha Corpi. Eulogy for a brown angel: a mystery novel. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1992.

ISBN 1558850503 9781558850507





Translation and Voice: A poet’s and writer’s views

From Eulogy to Loa
By Lucha Corpi

Loa a un ángel de piel morena, Nuria Brufau Alvira’s translation into Spanish of my novel Eulogy for a Brown Angel, was released late in 2011 by the University of Alcalá de Henares’ Instituto Franklin, to whom I am indebted for making this possible. I was thrilled, of course, and posted the news on my Facebook wall. Michael Sedano sent his enhorabuena to me. He commented that he was looking forward to reading the opening scene at the National Chicano Moratorium march and riot in the novel in Spanish. He then asked for my impressions, for my feelings when Gloria Damasco first “spoke” to me in Spanish. I had asked myself similar questions when I had read the first and the final drafts of Nuria Brufau Alvira’s splendid translation of my Gloria Damasco mystery novel. Long before, I had also assisted Catherine Rodríguez- Nieto when she translated my poetry into English, and voice in translation became one of my concerns.

Of course, literary provocateur that he is —in the best of ways— Michael then invited Nuria and me to write companion pieces about our respective experiences as author and translator for La Bloga. And here we are:

Translation and Voice: A poet’s and writer’s views

For forty plus years, I have worked very closely with Catherine Rodríguez-Nieto, the translator of my poetry into English. In the process, Cathy and I have developed great respect for one another’s arts. We have also enjoyed a wonderful lifelong friendship that was cemented back in 1972, when she began the translation of the four poems that constitute “Los poemas de Marina/The Marina Poems.” She agonized over the translation of “La Chingada” into English, given that the term refers to the native Mexican woman who was sexually used and abused by the Spanish conqueror, and who bore his children. Catherine did a thorough search for a word or two that would convey its true meaning in English and still meet the demands of the poetic meter and line. Frustrated and unable to find a satisfactory solution, she had to settle for the word “whore,” a term that by a stretch of the imagination would be possible but offered only a minute and myopic view of the woman La Malinche was. After decades, Catherine still looks for the turn of a phrase that will convey the meaning of “La Chingada” and conform to my poem’s demands, and she sighs. The translator’s work is never done.

Through my participation in the process of translation, I have also learned a great deal about my own poetic process, my voice, and how to improve my art as a poet. Translation tests and highlights the strengths of a poem like nothing else, but it also exposes its weaknesses and identifies them for the poet. If a poem is not strong enough, it won’t withstand the process of translation, thus it won’t retain its integrity as a whole. In some ways knowing this hasn’t affected my creative process at the “inspiration stage,” as I still write the first draft of a poem in longhand, and as it comes to me, whether weak or strong, fully formed or missing a part or two. But I revise and rewrite as needed without feeling that I am stripping off its emotional content—a notion that seems prevalent among poets when we first begin to write poetry.

Once translated, the poem becomes a separate entity but continues to be mine. And yet, although I speak English fairly well, it has taken me a long time and much practice to be able to “appropriate” the voices in the “English twins” of my poems to do an effective and affective reading of them in public.

Working with Catherine has been such a gift that when Cristina Crespo Palomares from Instituto Franklin asked if I would be willing to be available to Nuria Brufau Alvira for consultations during the translation of Eulogy into Loa, I was excited about providing Nuria with any assistance or information she needed. My enthusiasm grew when I read her initial comments about the story, the characters, and the major themes in the novel. She laid out for me her ideas about the project, and the kind of feedback and clarification she would not only need but also welcome from me. I was immediately impressed by her professionalism, and soon we were engaged in constructive e-dialogue across continents. We began to trust one another, and in time this trust evolved into mutual respect and great affection.

As I had done with Catherine’s English translations of my poems, I also read aloud Nuria’s text in Spanish chapter by chapter as to internalize then re-appropriate each character’s distinctive voice and manner in that language exclusively. I referred to the text in English solely when I needed to check for the accuracy of content as it pertained specifically to Mexican/Chicana-o culture in southwestern U. S. or to historical or other factual data. I suggested changes to Nuria accordingly, explaining in great detail the historical or the cultural context for any expression or term that might be unfamiliar to her. In doing so, I became even more aware of the fact that the translation of any literary text is truly as creative an art as any other.

The process of translating a novel into another language is by the mere complexity and length of the original work an enormous and daunting task. Implicit in it is the urgency in and the pressure on the translator to interpret accurately the culture that forms and informs the language that gives it its voice. In the linguistic aspect the translator must find a way to express, as faithfully yet as intelligibly as possible, what is in the work accessible and in plain sight, as well as what is ineffable in it. She must find a way to express that which has non-assignable meaning and is unchangeable between two cultural-linguistic systems.

As if these tasks weren’t difficult enough, every Latino or Chicano text is both directly and indirectly nourished by two greatly heterogeneous cultures in the U.S. So the Spanish language that allows one of them oral or written expression is an amalgam of several linguistic modalities that share a common linguistic source but not a single and homogenous culture. We Chicanas/os and Latinas/os face this linguistic reality every day when we communicate in Spanish, a language that reflects the diversity of Latin American cultures, while we also try to express our daily thoughts and feelings in American English, a language in constant flux, reflective of cultures that are already undergoing a transformation as we speak.

No doubt this is also the reality the translator faces, and in particular that Nuria has managed with great skill and painstaking care to render an admirable translation of Eulogy for a Brown Angel into Loa a un ángel de piel morena, in a language accessible to a diverse group of Spanish-speakers anywhere in the world. Nuria has also added a glossary at the end of the book for any and all readers who might need or want a more detailed explanation of certain terms. Brava! Gracias, Nuria. Gracias, Michael. Gracias, lectores.

About Lucha Corpi

Born in Jáltipan, Veracruz, México, Lucha Corpi was nineteen when she came to Berkeley as a student wife in 1964.

Corpi is the author of two collections of poetry: Palabras de mediodía/Noon Words and Variaciones sobre una tempestad/Variations on a Storm (Spanish with English translations by Catherine Rodríguez Nieto), two bilingual children’s books: Where Fireflies Dance/Ahí, donde bailan las luciérnagas and The Triple Banana Split Boy/El niño goloso.

She is also the author of six novels, four of which feature Chicana detective Gloria Damasco: Eulogy for a Brown Angel, Cactus Blood, Black Widow’s Wardrobe, and Death at Solstice.

Corpi has been the recipient of numerous awards and citations, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, an Oakland Cultural Arts fellowship in fiction, the PEN-Oakland Josephine Miles Award and the Multicultural Publishers Exchange Literary Award for fiction, and two International Latino Book Awards for her mystery fiction. Until 2005, she was a tenured teacher in the Oakland Public Schools Neighborhood Centers.



News&Notes
Journalist Joins Librotraficante Spirit

Political journalist Michael Collins has been my friend since the 1960s, Collins admits in his recent coverage of Tucson’s book banning evil.

Collins notes the Tucson atrocity had escaped his notice until I sent him a link to a La Bloga column. He investigated and published ten articles for his readership of political activists, covering the mentality of book banners, judge shooters, and Arizonans.

La Bloga happily reports that Collins, in his private capacity, has become a librotraficante. He’s using UPS and the United States Postal Service to smuggle banned books, a few at a time, to the John Valenzuela Youth Center, the Tucson landing site of the Librotraficante bus caravan.

Tony Diaz and Gloria Hamelitz, Director of Valenzuela Youth Center

News&Notes
Marathon Readings of Bless Me, Ultima Filling Your Organization's Coffers

The gente putting together the Monday April 23 marathon public reading of Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima have a fabulous idea other organizations might profitably consider: recruit people to read for a few minutes and pay for the honor.

The 248 page novel—it celebrates its 40th year of publication in 2012—needs eight hours at 2 minutes a page for a cover-to-cover reading. La Bloga celebrates the publication with a week of columns the first of May.

UNM’s English Depto and Zimmerman Library will raise scholarship money through the reading. Last week’s La Bloga has contact datos.

La Bloga On-Line Floricanto: Mixing Memory and Desire 
Elena Diaz Bjorkquist, Nancy Aide Gonzalez, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Raul Sanchez, Francisco X. Alarcon

"Morning Meditation Walk" by Elena Diaz Bjorkquist
"Xilonen" by Nancy Aide Gonzalez
"Gate of the Serpent and Mirror" by Jose Hernandez Diaz
"ESL by Raul Sanchez"
"Litany for Cesar Chavez by Francisco X. Alarcon

Morning Meditation Walk
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist ©2012

When I start my meditation walk,
The mountains around Tucson
Are blessed by sunlight
But only the promise of brightness
To come shines from behind
Rounded Aqua Caliente hill.

I walk East to where the sun rises,
To the place of the new dawn
To the place of new beginnings.
I walk East to reflect
That no matter how bad things
In life get, I can heal
And start again.

I walk East to the place of mystery
To the place of possibility
To the place of beauty.
I walk East to reclaim
The precious gift of life.

I walk East and chant
Taui, Taui, Taui, Taui.

As the sun peaks over the hill
I turn to the North,
The sun’s warmth kissing
My cold cheek.

I walk North to the place of the ancestors
To the place of mis abuelitas y abuelitos
To the place of wisdom.
I walk North to remind me
Of my roots
Of sacrifices they made
So I can be who I am.

I walk North and chant
Taui, Taui, Taui, Taui.

The sun has risen fully
And as I turn West
I feel its heat on my neck
Radiating warmth to my body.

I walk West to where the sun sets
To the place where life’s journey ends
To the graveyard of my loved ones.
I walk West to the place of letting go
To release my body’s energy
Of feelings of sorrow,
Ego, pity, fear, and hatred.

I walk West and chant
Taui, Taui, Taui, Taui.

The sun shines overhead
Warming the world,
Bathing all in its glory.

I walk South to the land of fertility
To where things sprout and grow
To where I find the child inside of me.
I walk South to nurture her
Toward the land of mis antepasados,
To pray for warmth and growth
And loving friendships.

I walk South and chant
Taui, Taui, Taui, Taui.

I arrive home
My starting place,
My ending place.




Xilonen
Nancy Aidé González

Aztec dancers
sway,
their brown faces
framed
by vibrant
feathered
headdresses.

In movement
the long plumes
appear
ready for
flight.

The vibration
of the drums
pulse
course
through
their bodies
which sway
back
forth
to the beat.

Seed pods
rattle around
their ankles,
their bare feet
touch the earth.

The elders
chant
songs that have
been sung since
before the
mountains were
created,
before the rivers
flowed through
the land.

The dancers-
men
women
teenagers
children,
wear embroidered
clothes
embellished with
polished stones,
mirrors
reflecting light
in constant movement.

Sage
and copal
waft
rising up
to the
infinite
vast
turquoise
sky.

This ceremony
is a rite of passage,
she has learned
from the elders
that she is a
contributing member
of society,
they have planted
the seeds of understanding
indigenous ways.

She is a tender
ear of corn
ripening
under the
sixth sun,
the voices
of her ancestors
have called
out to her.

She has been
given gifts of
aromatic flowers,
perfumed candles,
delectable food.

She has sat in
the sweat lodge,
experienced
spiritual refuge,
mental and
physical healing,
she has stared into the
the flame,
aglow with
the luminance
of the red hot stones,
she has asked for
guidance
wisdom
and power
from the Creator
and Mother Earth.

Los danzantes
the elders
her family
friends
los antepasados,
welcome her
into womanhood.

Xilonen is featured in Mujeres de Maiz, Flor Y Canto: Rites of Passage Issue no.10



The Gate of the Serpent of Mirrors (History of Conquest)
By José Hernández Díaz 

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy.

Now that they have
Banned our books
In the Arizona desert,

We must take it
Upon ourselves
To learn about
The sunset:

We were once
A tree of jade
And purple grains
Were at our feet.

We were once
A thirsty jaguar
Floating in the
Sea of night.

We were once
A poem
Of pain
And rain was at
Our knees.

The midnight moon
Is full of yesterday—
Democracy is but
A dream.

If it is their iron law
To steal and scorn
And boast,

Then we must
Light our own
Blue flame

And claim it
As a ghost.




E  S  L  
By Raul Sanchez

Remember….

the classroom full of kids with different colored skins
learning the difference between a noun and a pronoun
remember how innocently everybody used to play together
in the schoolyard?

remember—

how you shared your lunch and others shared theirs with you
now you are in high school, the faces
in your classroom full of kids with different colored skins
have changed

remember,

how it didn’t matter where you came from
and that your indigenous features were not
a subject of repugnant scrutiny and
un-requested criticism

learning

from others the “differences” between races
and why one ethnic group doesn’t get along with the others
notice that the same color hang together
like worms in compost

now

you have been ostracized because of your skin color,
your name, your features, your other language
how does that feel? You - get pushed
to the end of the line your hair pulled by others

they say

you are a greaser and a wet back, your dad
washes dishes at a Mezkin restaurant and your mother
cleans toilets at juvy hall
they mock you - playing your violin

they tell you

go back where you came from
don’t speak your Espanish language
speak English
there is no class in the classroom

only

class divisions’ ignorance and prejudice
based on racial differences. Red man, yellow man,
black, brown, white ones too
What happened to the innocence of the early years?

everyone

learns the poisoned language of snakes
they use nouns, pronouns and verbs to hurt others
with their serpent tongues bifurcated contaminated
diseased approach to the culture of hate

growing up in America


©Raul Sanchez 3-17-12

BIOS
"Morning Meditation Walk" by Elena Diaz Bjorkquist

"Xilonen" by Nancy Aide Gonzalez

"Gate of the Serpent and Mirror" by Jose Hernandez Diaz

"ESL by Raul Sanchez"

"Litany for Cesar Chavez by Francisco X. Alarcon

My grandmother and great-grandmother

Elena Díaz Björkquist, a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson is happy to have resumed her daily two-mile walk. It’s not only good for her health but is great for generating poetry. Elena is grateful that the walk through her desert neighborhood takes her in the four directions. Her great-grandmother, Josefina Cruz Limón, called a blessing from the four directions every day of her life as a curandera and partera in Morenci, Arizona. Elena’s grandmother, Teresa Limón Díaz, didn’t follow in her mother’s footsteps to provide medical care for her town but she learned the blessing of the four directions going with her mother every day to the top of the sierras to greet the sun. Later when her sons, sons-in-law, and nephews were soldiers and sailors in WWII, she prayed the blessing at every sunrise and sunset until all came home safe from the war.

Elena is one of the poet moderators for the Facebook page “Poets Responding to SB1070.
She recently received the 2012 Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the 2012 Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities.

Nancy Aidé González is a Chicana poet who lives near the lush grapevines in Lodi, California.  She graduated  from California State University, Sacramento with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 2000.  Her work has appeared in Calaveras Station Literary Journal, La Bloga, Everyday Other Things, and  Mujeres De Maiz Zine. She is a participating member of Escritores del Nuevo Sol, a writing group based in Sacramento, California which honors the literary traditions of Chicano, Latino, Indigenous and Spanish-language peoples. Miss González has participated in several poetry reading events in Northern California.

José Hernández Díaz is a first-generation Chicano poet with a BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley. José has been published in The Best American Nonrequired Reading Anthology 2011, La Gente Newsmagazine of UCLA, Bombay Gin Literary Journal, In Xochitl In Kuikatl Literary Journal, The Packinghouse Review, Contratiempo, Blood Lotus Journal, among others. He has forthcoming publications in HUIZACHE Literary Magazine, The Progressive Magazine, and in the anthologies, El Norte que Viene, and Tan cerca de EE.UU. (poesía mexicana en la frontera norte). He is currently an MFA student at Antioch University Los Angeles and is fulfilling an internship with Floricanto Press as an Editor. In addition, he is an active moderator of the online group, ‘Poets Responding to SB1070,’ where he has contributed more than 30 of his own poems.

Raúl Sánchez is a Seattle Bio-Tech technician, eschatologist, colletic, prosody enthusiast, hamartiologist, translator, DJ, and cook who conducts workshops on The Day of the Dead. His most recent work is the translation of John Burgess’ Punk Poems in his book Graffito. He has been a board member of the Washington Poets Association and is a moderator for the Poets Responding to SB 1070 Facebook page. Raúl comes from a place south where the sun shines fiercely. He lives in a place surrounded by asphalt, cement, full of rushing cars, coffee houses, fancy houses, empty houses. Where seasons shine and hide in the winter months. Where birds stop on their travel south to the land of the sun. Where blessed rain, oh! blessed rain falls. His first collection of poetry will be released in early April by Moon Path Press under the title "All Our Brown-Skinned Angels"

Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, is author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), and Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992)  His latest book is Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010). His book of bilingual poetry for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008), was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award. He has been a finalist nominated for Poet Laureate of California in two occasions.  He teaches at the University of California, Davis.

Francisco recently participated in the First Children’s Poetry Festival in El Salvador (Nov. 8-10, 2010) and was able to visit Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero’s tomb beneath the metropolitan cathedral of San Salvador. Monseñor Romero was killed saying mass in 1980 marking one of the most violent periods of the civil war in El Salvador.

He created a new Facebook page, POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that is getting lots of poetry submissions and comments. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poets-Responding-to-SB-1070/117494558268757?ref=ts

Review: Ocotillo Dreams. USC Salazar Archives. Literary Tourism. On-Line Floricanto.

Review: Melinda Palacio. Ocotillo Dreams. Tempe AZ: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2011.
ISBN: 978-1-931010-75-7(cloth) 978-1-931010-76-4

Michael Sedano

In Ocotillo Dreams, Melinda Palacio manages to perplex, amuse,

engage her readers, and finally leave them wanting more. Not that Ocotillo Dreams is too short at 198 pages. The author jumps into the scene, lets characters emerge, builds her story, and gets out. I would have been happy for more. Still, the result comes as a superbly elegant coming-of-age fiction culminating with a woman's deliciously private revenge on a clueless asshole of a man.

Palacio’s central character, a crusty professor, is blindsided by failed relationships; with a long-time lover, with her mother who dies as the novel opens.

Instantly, Isola’s uprooted in every way. Moving to Arizona to dispose of a home, she lays eyes on the hunky Cruz and, out of horniness and rebound desperation, romance (her), sex (him) blooms.

Isola’s an agonizer. She takes nothing in stride so her problems magnify themselves. Isola’s nearly witless discovering her mother’s activist involvement with coyotes and sanctuary gente. Isola needs to pack this stuff, another crisis, and has to fly back to Frisco for a rich helping of crisis! Irately, Isola starts a relationship with immigrants wanting to get their hands on her dead father’s ID. More worry and odd decisions.

With Isola's trials magnified to the edge of tolerance, the limit comes when Isola realizes she’s in a ménage-à-trois with Cruz and her dead mother. She goes numb and absorbs blow after blow. Then she plans her revenge. Palacio's climactic twist on seduction will shake up many a conventional moralist witnessing Isola’s choice of strategies to get a leg up on Cruz.

Palacio nicks the flesh of the immigration monster just enough to get it slouching toward Chandler to gorge itself in a frenzied breathing-while-brown crackdown that snags Isola but opens her eyes to her decisive acts.

Love in the time of choleric racism is blind, just like regular love. That’s Isola’s problem, love-is-blindness. In this, Ocotillo Dreams echoes Demetria Martinez’ Mother Tongue. In both stories, an inexperienced woman falls into lust for a good-looking immigrant. Lust becomes love, but in only her eyes. Mother Tongue’s Maria remains helplessly in love with her good-for-nothing lover. That Palacio’s Isola figures out--albeit tardily--that this man is a shit, is the liberating muse Isola and Chicana literature deserve. Here’s trusting there’s more Carmen La Coja in Isola, than Maria.

Cruz is a masterstroke literary creation. I grew impatient at Palacio’s refusal to condemn the pendejo. In fact, she opens and closes the novel with Cruz’ recurring nightmare of crossing the desert. There’s a second novel in Cruz, if Palacio wants to go that route, the undocumented stud’s career. What a treacherous tipo. As the saying goes, tipos like him give the other 1% of us a bad name.

Cruz deserves all the crap Palacio unloads on him. The vato acts like a lot of pendejos I’ve known. Not that he’s complex, but Palacio gives him a mother-centric morality, plays him as not entirely worthless to elicit a share of empathy. It’s a mark of honor--maybe--Cruz doesn’t brag to his pals about his two conquests. Or, he's protecting his gold mine.

That Cruz is a shameless opportunist and a deceptive pig earns this man a lot more misery than Palacio dumps on him. Until the end, when he understands how Isola gets him back. It’s a private little joke just between the two of them. And the reader.

Does Cruz deserve to die for being a typical man? Palacio pointedly raises the possibility then leaves it in the air, like a rag flapping against the espinas of a lonely saguaro.




USC Boekmann Collection acquires Ruben Salazar’s Personal Papers


Last week, the University of Southern California announced the family of Rubén Salazar has donated his archives to the University of Southern California Libraries. The collection—a gift from Salazar’s children Lisa Salazar Johnson, Stephanie Salazar Cook, and John Salazar—includes personal and professional artifacts that document the late journalist’s life from his birth in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in 1928, to his 1970 death in Los Angeles.

The USC story runs several fotos, shown here. The L.A. Times picked up the collage at top, La Opinion sent out its own fotog, other local rags picked up the story sans art. Lástima, as the fotos were mine.

I was invited by Barbara Robinson to document the initial inspection at USC of materials from the archives. In my imagining, Barbara would blow a cloud of dust off mysterious file boxes, opening them to discover treasures unseen by any eye since that LA Sheriff Deputy killed Salazar on August 29,1970.

Salazar was one of three Chicanos killed by police that day. Lyn Ward, a 15-year old, and Angel Diaz, did not leave archives, only their names joined forever to journalist Salazar’s. QEPD.

The archive material had been assembled by the family so nothing was an obvious lost treasure, not to my uncritical eye. The archive is the detritus and artifacts of an active professional life--correspondence, photos, a couple of string books of Salazar's bylines or work about him, Army paperwork. There's also a trove of mementoes from Salazar's parents, like their Mexican passports and a head tax receipt. Researchers will have a grand time sifting through to extract the narrative of what Salazar considered important, unfinished manuscripts, a life of ideas and value.

Here is my favorite frame of the session, it "tells the story." The label on the box and the two figures inspecting paperwork are page one stuff. The Times doesn't run it. Felix Gutiérrez, a journalism profe at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, a Salazar family friend, initiated the discussion bringing the archive to USC’s Boeckmann Center. Barbara Robinson, the librarian responsible for the USC Boeckmann Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies collection, joins Gutiérrez to receive the documents.

In this photograph of a photograph, Gutiérrez shows Robinson the last photograph of Rubén Salazar, taken by a police surveillance photographer and used during the Coroner’s inquest.

Carpe diem, indeed. Salazar is walking from Laguna Park, where the police rioted, to the Silver Dollar Café, where Salazar would quaff a last bironga before being killed by a blind shot by a supposedly reckless deputy. The current Sheriff of LA County, Lee Baca, continues to stonewall requests to release the entire documentation on Salazar. Why did the deputy fire? Why did police mount an intelligence gathering operation on the journalist? Why did the cops riot at Laguna Park? Why does Baca hate truth?

I took dozens of frames of Robinson and Gutiérrez and the materials. Visit this Read! Raza link for a selected set of high resolution images.


New Work at Latinopia

Over at Latinopia, I enjoyed viewing Rudolfo Anaya’s conversation about writing Bless Me, Ultima, especially the landscape he pictures in the passages he reads.

Every Sunday, Jesus Treviño posts new video material. In addition to Anaya, there’s also a new interview with artist Barbara Carrasco, discussing mural art practiced by chicana painters.


Breakfast in Salinas, Noir in Havana

I am listening to Rudolfo Anaya describe a landscape when I get a wanderlust for literary landscapes and places. I should see Anaya’s New Mexico, photograph those sere hills and rivers seen by Sonny Baca, Ultima, and Randy Lopez, but also Chee and Leaphorn. For chow, one of those upscale eateries of The Husband Habit…when sui generis, my thoughts pivot to Salinas and Havana. The one holds warm memories of near-past literary tourism, the other looms large as forbidden fruit.

A number of years back, my wife and I used the occasion of the annual Steinbeck Festival in Salinas CA not only to enjoy the ritual of literary tourism but also conduct a sentimental journey. Back in 1969, I was completing radio school at Ft. Ord. On weekends, we would drive out to Castroville and a café frequented by artichoke and broccoli pickers. A couple of cold Tecates arrive dripping from the tina. Served to noisy laughter, cigarette-tinged aroma of hard labor, Lifebuoy soap and home cooking, this is the best Mexican food in califas. Staring across the hazy room, looking for my uncle John’s face among them, it always occurred to me these men would be bunkmates with Lenny and George.

Just the other side of Reservation Road, the boundary of Ft. Ord, begins the Salinas Valley. This western approach to Salinas remains much as it was in memory. The land slopes away from the fort. Vast broccoli lettuce artichoke fields surround the two lane road that beelines toward Salinas. That’s unchanged. Except now Salinas itself begins much nearer the old fort. Agriculture yields to tract housing well in advance of the old edge of town.

That year’s literary tour confines itself to a relaxed stroll looping from the Steinbeck Library past a school to a packing house to a railroad track, passing old houses and stopping to talk of farm hand bars and former houses of ill repute. For all I know, I’m traipsing along my uncle John’s old stomping grounds. I chat up a wrinkled resident of an unrestored Victorian ruin. He is growing a small-berried tomatillo, the one that packs intense flavor. I haven’t found seed in years. I ask permission to take a few fruit. Go ahead he smiles, but they’re tiernos and won’t grow. My hard luck. Him, he’s enjoying the passing parade of English-talking tourists chattering Steinbeckiana and wondering if Tom Joad ever saw these parts, and if maybe Lennie and George still wander those rolling hills and the river bottom over there. The compañero asks why we’re doing this and when he learns it’s about the writer named Steinbeck the old man takes his chin in hand and goes, “mmmh.”

This year’s festival arrives August 4. Join us as the Steinbeck Festival takes on friends, foes and accomplices of all stripes, in literature, arts and ideas, and in Steinbeck. This four-day festival of books, talks, food, tours and visual and performing arts will be based in Salinas, with Steinbeck Festival International Fringe Fest events taking place in cities of letters throughout the world.

I wonder if that tomatillo still grows east of Eden, or if that old rooming house is now a seven eleven or maybe part of the National Steinbeck Center?

Ni modo, really, if urban renewal has razed some of those old houses along the route. The satisfaction derives of imposing the author upon the scene. “Steinbeck would have stood here…” and take a snapshot. Or “Steinbeck probably…” click. Such speculations are fun ways to engage one’s literary consciousness.

Things change fast, que plus ça change the more things disappear. Cannery Row is a beautiful aquarium nowadays, and who knows what remains of all those places informing Steinbeck’s narratives? One way to find out for oneself: make the trip.

At what price? A reservation on Cannery Row costs a bundle. The bayside rooms at Spindrift Inn look down at the lapping tide and across the bay where Ft. Ord became Cal State University Monterey Bay. My basic training barrack today an empty cinder block ruin--“the best damn company on The Hill, Sir!”--and the radio school site holds a gaudily painted dorm.

A trip to Salinas might cost an arm and a leg but you can get there from here, and find your way about. Save a dime and sleep in Salinas at the Motel 6 and pretend you just got here from Oklahoma.

Less certain is Cuba. A trip costs a leg and an arm. The cost is less than possible, given our nation’s limitations on the amount of money a tourist can spend, over there.

Salinas is worth the trip, no doubt about it, even if the cultural ambience of the novels has disappeared.

I’m thinking the years old embargo starved the island for funds to raze and redevelop. Indeed, Cuba’s literary allure revolves around keenly developed appreciation for space and place. One Havana, many Havanas, given the ambience of Jose Latour, Leonardo Padura, Achy Obejas.

Increasingly, the United States is relaxing the strictures on writers and cultural researchers visiting Cuba. La Bloga contributor Tom Miller advised recently plans to conduct a Literary Havana trip for Professional Researchers, as defined by the Treasury Dep't Office of Foreign Assets Control, January 15 - 22, 2012. To inquire further, contact Miller via email.

What a tempting pair of ideas. Salinas in August, Havana in January. I’m not sure I want to see what they’ve done to old Salinas, though I’d like a final turn on the horizontal ladder at my old barrack.

I know I’d enjoy the vast caña fields of Jésus Díaz’ Initials of the Earth. No, I don’t want to meet the jineteras of the Malecón, and also I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to see the floaters of José Latour or Martin Cruz Smith, but certainly would take the drive along the seacoast of Adíos Hemingway, and shop Conde’s used books and antique dealers of Achy Obejas’ Ruins.

I’m not after souvenir trinkets or mementi mori to fill my archive, though such have value for themselves. What tempts me urgently enough to consider the hassle of a long trip is the thought of getting a taste and a foto of the literary and cultural ambience of places so richly accounted in an excellent body of literature. That Cuban literary tourism has a taste of forbidden fruit adds to the prospect. A ver.


12July2011 On-Line Floricanto


1. "Now Is The Time" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

2. "Defining Moments" by Tara Evonne Trudell

3. "Border Song 11" by Israel F. Azul Haros Lopez

4. "Praise to All the Contributors to Poets Responding to SB 1070" by Raúl Sánchez

5. "Un Día de Estos / One of These Days" by Jabez W. Churchill



Now Is The Time
dedicated to my grandchildren

by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist


Now is the time for all Chicanos
To come to the aid of their raza.
Protest the racist laws being passed
In Arizona and other states.

Now is the time to let Brewer
And other racist politicians
Know that Chicanos/Mexicanos/Latinos
Won’t accept being treated
Like second class citizens.

Now is the time to stand firm, Raza,
Aquí estámos y no nos vamos.
We’ve been here for centuries,
This is where we came from,
Where we’ll stay.

Now is the time to pass a Dream Act.
Children raised here, educated here,
Deserve to continue their education here,
To become productive citizens,
Contribute to our country.

Now is the time to continue Chicano Studies,
To let our children know our history,
Let them be proud of what Raza
Has contributed to our country,
What we will continue to contribute.

Now is the time to regain our rights.
If we don’t fight for them, who will?



Defining Moments

by Tara Evonne Trudell


All my life
I was lighter
than her
and him
yet always darker
than them.

My friend of African descent
said I should tan
get a little darker
let my hair go
a little curlier
so that perhaps
I would look more
ethnic
the white kid said
"no offense, but Tara, you look white."
Offense taken.

"You don't look Hispanic"
they would say,
"Nope, not Spanish or Mexican,
and not quite White..."
"What are you?"

In that moment
I would wonder
what did they see?
To fullfil their needs
to catagorize me?
I don't know enough Spanish
yes, I know
I don't understand Lakota
(unless I have my dictionary)
I get lost in English
way to easy
forgotten languages
only my soul can speak

Then I discovered
I had a language
all my own
the language of Her
my Earth talk
as I listened in silence
of heavy breaths
gasping for a place
to exhale
I heard her
for the first time
I truly listened
as she chanted and sang
bringing me
parts of me
I left behind
in some one else's definition

Her song
vibrating along chakras
a ladder leading up
in my soul
of what was expected of me
only then
I could see
Me
staring back in reflections
of calm waters
in constellations of stars
woven in dark sky

My hair is brown and wild
like long ago ancestors
my light olive skin
warms to cinnamon
in summer Sun
my eyes
the color of salmon
my kundalini
all serpent energy
I can exist in wind
finding calmness
as it passes
through me
I touch roots
when I rest
on trees
I sit still
so hummingbirds and butterflies
will land on me
in constant search
of nectar
Red tail hawks screech
in open skies
reminding me
to find me

I am water
that flows
down river beds
bending and shaping
myself
to fit into places
between earth and sky

Heart rocks
line my path
I am a woman
that recognizes
I may not belong
to a defined race
I am a woman
who redefines
her place

Tara Evonne Trudell

c/s

Border Song 11

by Israel F. Azul Haros Lopez


there is no frontera
there is no senate bill 1070

there are no aliens
there are no papeles

solo fantasmas

there are only
distractions

while the sun
is still burning

while tonantzin
is still healing

while the waters
en las cuatro direcciones

necesitan cantos
while we still need

memory. of data fire.
random access memory.

de quetzalcoatl. no .
more ghost songs.

cántale a los que vienen.
para cantarle a la tierra.

dansar. con la tierra.
danzantes. de coyoxauhqui.

danzantes de tonatiuh.


con la memoria sin u.s.b.

Praise to All the Contributors to Poets Responding to SB 1070

by Raul Sanchez


Behind the great wooden gate
screeching past the threshold
our memories blossom into the open air
under the blue star spangled sky
our cultures united
tapestry of colors, accents
flavors Café con Leche
black and white
Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia
Borinquen bella escuchen mi llanto
la patria aquella que se ve de lejos
y se siente cerca
Argentina, Chile, Paraguay
far away yet near
our thoughts y pensamientos connect
the place of being with the state of mind
our cultures bring together
family lasting friendships
our cultural bond strengthen
our voices connected
with dignity and respect
aligned in culture and pride
poets, writers, artists
love for la Raza
united in this land
to the north
we are all Americans
we are just another shade of brown
living en el norte, north of Aztlan.




Un Día de Éstos / One of These Days

by Jabez W. Churchill


y que sea pronto
and I hope it´s soon,
no nos llamaremos adversarios,
invasores de Aztlán,
ni forasteros indocumentados
We won't call one another adversaries,
usurpers of Aztlán
or illegal aliens.

Un día de éstos,
one of these days,
y que sea pronto,
and I hope it´s soon,
no habrá que nos divida,
paredes ni orillas,
sino compartiremos ambos lados
we won´t be divided
by walls or shores
but we will share both sides.

Un día de éstos,
one of these days,
y que fuera pronto,
and it should be soon,
no andaremos extraviados,
rojos contra azules,
gabachos y mojados
we won´t be estranged,
red against blue,
white trash and wet backs
sino nos revelaremos el camino
y nos trataremos como hermanos.
But we will show one another the way
and treat each other like brothers.

Un día de éstos,
one of these days,
y demasiado pronto,
and way too soon,
no habrá ricos gringolandeses
y pobres latino, afro y nativo americanos
there won't be rich Gringos
and poor Latin, Afro, and Native
Americans,

sino puros sobrevivientes
only survivors
y serán pocos
and just a few.

Un día de éstos,
one of these days,
y ojalá que sea pronto
and hopefully soon,
enfrentaremos lo que nos separa,
we will confront that which divides us,
la avaricia y el miedo,
avarice and fear,
y repartiremos lo que queda
and we will share what's left.

One of these days,
un día de éstos,
y debe ser muy pronto
and it better be soon,
dejémonos de ser mayoría y minorías,
homofóbicos y machistas
we should cease being a majority
and minorities,
homophobes and sexists
y démonos paso a la solidaridad
and we should give solidarity a chance
antes de que se nos venza el paso,
before our chance is gone.



BIOS

1. "Now Is The Time" by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

2. "Defining Moments" by Tara Evonne Trudell

3. "Border Song 11" by Israel F. Azul Haros Lopez

4. "Praise to All the Contributors to Poets Responding to SB 1070" by Raúl Sánchez

5. "Un Día de Estos / One of These Days" by Jabez W. Churchill


Elena Díaz BjörkquistElena Díaz Björkquist, a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. Elena has been on the Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Speakers Bureau for ten years performing as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation, and doing presentations about Morenci, Arizona and also the 1880’s Schoolhouse in Tubac.

Elena is co-editor of two anthology collections by her writers group, Las Comadres of Sowing the Seeds: Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; celebrating our stories. She is nearing completion of another collection of Morenci stories entitled Albóndiga Soup

A SIROW Scholar at the University of Arizona, Elena conducted an oral history project funded by AHC; “In the Shadow of the Smokestack.” A website that she created contains the oral history interviews and photographs of Chicano elders living in Morenci during the Depression and World War II. Another project funded by AHC and the Stocker Foundation is “Tubac 1880’s Schoolhouse Living History Program.” Her website is www.elenadiazbjorkquist.net/.

Elena is one of the poet moderators for the Facebook page “Poets Responding to SB1070.

Tara TrudellTara Trudell lives in Northern New Mexico. She is raising her four children, rebuilding her life as a single mother and has returned to college to seek her BFA in Media Arts with an emphasis in Film/Audio combined with Visual Communications. She feels she can learn the tools necessary to document life and capture the stories and awareness that is vital in creating art on a social awareness level.

She has replenished her well after a long pause and in writing poetry she has allowed the courage of self-expression to flow and heal the inner parts of pain, that many times exist forgotten, in a world that cares only to divide and conquer. Tara is proud of her Mexican Indigenous roots and ancestry and the more society dictates it’s wrong to be ‘here’ or a crime to be brown, the louder her voice shall rise and that of her children.

No longer will there be shame to claim the Mexican part of her /our history and our connection to the land. It is of vital importance that Tara passes this on to her own children and future generations.

Raúl SánchezRaúl Sánchez is a Seattle Bio-Tech technician, prosody enthusiast, translator, and DJ, who conducts workshops on The Day of the Dead. Featured in the program for the 2011 Burning Word Poetry Festival in Leavenworth WA. His work appeared on-line in The Sylvan Echo, Flurry, Gazoobitales, Pirene’s Fountain and in La Bloga for the fifth time. His most recent work is the translation of John Burgess "Graffitto" which will be released on July 16th by Ravenna Press WA. Also, he appears in the second Anthology by The Miracle Theatre Viva la Word!, Latino Cultural Magazine, on Bookmarks by the Seattle Public Library 2007 Poetic Art Project, and in the Anthology Speaking Desde las Heridas (Publisher: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). Lastly, soon to be announced his first Chapbook! stay tuned.

Jabez W. ChurchillBorn in California, educated in Argentina and California. Activist since 1969. Mariner since 1971:Eastern Med., Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific Northwest. Single dad, currently teaching modern languages at Santa Rosa and Mendocino Colleges. California Poet in the Schools since 1998.