Santa Barbara Inaugurates Two Youth Poet Laureates

 Melinda Palacio

Kundai Chikowero and Madeline Miller photo by Rod Rolle

Santa Barbara County's First Youth Poet Laureate is Madeline Miller, who was born in Mexico City and grew up in Santa Barbara. Her laurels wrap around poetry and community activism. She works as an assistant at a local law firm and holds several titles in slam poetry, including two first place titles at the 2021 San Marcos High School Poetry Slam and the 2021 Santa Barbara County Poetry Slam. Read Madeline's poem "Bird Song" and others by young poets at the SB County Youth Poet Laureate website.

The county's first Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador, Kundai Chikowero was awarded the Outstanding Youth Leader--the City of Santa Barbara in 2018. She has published two volumes of poetry and has won the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay and Poetry competition six times since 7th grade.

As a judge for the the Martin Luther King Jr. Contest, I've watched Kundai blossom over the years. This is a newly indoctrinated position and the young women are excited about their titles. Kundai said, "the groundwork has not yet been laid out," but she looks forward to more events.  Both youth laureates have done great work, well before the title was bestowed upon them.  Kundai shares two of her poems with La Bloga. 

Untitled

 

By Kundai Chikowero

 

 

At the end of the day

When the news turns off

The paper discarded

The radio switched to aux

When sound is replaced with silence

Writing will still prevail

 

An art form existing beyond the voice of the speaker

One that can’t be powered off

Turned down

Or unplugged

 

You have a role

To act in the best interest 

And when the breaking news is censored

And the complicated conversation you do not want to address is still occurring.

Thank the writing

 

The form of writing so

Rhythmical 

Almost magical

The songs literacy

Preserved and distributed through paper

 

Because poetry is not just an art form

But a voice

Both quiet and loud

Explicit and vague

 

We must work as one

Listen as one

No us versus them

Breadcrumbing 

Or performative action

There will come a day when people remember their voice

And at the end of the day

We will use that voice

 

 

Hypocrisy

By

Kundai Chikowero

 

 

An irrelevant question

ludicrous, may I add

If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it

Does it make a sound?

To propose that existence

May only be in existence

If it is existing in perception of a human

Who is also existing

George Berkeley begs the question

Taking the action of existing

Away from the existee

Earth

And putting it on the perceiver

Human

In vanity, the human experience

Has deviated from being on earth

To being just to be

egregiously expected to fund and sustain existence

From beings who cannot exist within themselves

With a higher level of consciousness

comes a greater responsibility

Existence is no longer left up to the earth

But maintenance lies on us

To carry what we create

As we will only go as far

As the load we create allows us to

Chicanonautica: Steal This Civilization

by Ernest Hogan

Is this the right time to bring this up? Why not? Maybe after the election will be too late . . . Anyway, I was answering some questions for some publicity I'll be doing with The Future Fire soon, when my coining the term recomboculture came up.

It was a long time ago, the early nineties. Cortez on Jupiter had come out, and I had published stories in Science Fiction Age. I was also finishing up HighAztech – check the intro to the Españahuatl glossary:

Adventurous readers should not refer to the glossary until after reading the novel, and take advantage of a chance to practice learning new words from context while exploring a new environment—a skill we’ll all need more and more as we enter the recombocultural twenty-​first century. —E.H.

Some people thought I was going too far with that . . .

I started talking about recomboculture (recombo as in recombinant DNA), because just about every time I was mentioned, the word multicultural was used to describe me. I agreed, but in the sense that Ishmael Reed used it in his essay, “The Multi-Cultural Artist” (note the hyphen), in which he described a trend of artists' bringing together elements from more than one culture in their work. I could dig it. Hell, I was it.

Then colleges started going crazy for political correctness, and multiculturalism soon meant bringing representatives from “other” cultures into an official forum using only bureaucratic language that was designed not to “offend” anybody, and by the way, none of this using things from anybody's culture but your own – that's cultural appropriation, they say.

What's a New Mexico Irish Chicano to do?

Also, here in Arizona, when I would start talking about what I was doing, right wing/libertarian science fiction fans would start screaming “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!”

The term recomboculturism hasn't taken off, but I've learned that sometimes these things take a few decades.

And some folks read my work and assume that I'm a Chicano nationalist rather than a recombozoid.

I see the Chicano tradition, with its mestizaje and rasquache, as recomboculure. We tend to mix things from various cultures in ways that perplex monoculturalistas. I do it without thinking. It's just the way I am.

This tends to make people with rigid political agendas nervous. Creating Frankenstein monsters of assorted worlds does get close to the dreaded cultural appropriation. But to be honest, all cultures are appropriated. Think you're pure? Look back a few generations . . .

Also, the Aztec were master culture appropriators.

I keep dreaming of Wild West/mestizaje/rasquache/recombocultural free-fire zones where the civilizations of the future will be born. Ain't nobody gonna stop me, either.

Besides, for all we know there may be some intergalactic conquistadors closing in on our solar system, ready to appropriate us right now.

Ernest Hogan, of New Mexico Irish descent, is the result of recomboculture rather than its originator.

Chicanonautica: Beyond Lust for a White Planet

by Ernest Hogan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Points about spec lit written for all peoples

NPR's list of Top 100 Science-Fiction & Fantasy Books had one USican Spanish-surname, Diana Gabaldon. I left a comment that there really were zero, since Gabaldon, to my knowledge, doesn't call herself anything but "American" and doesn't write about any Latinos. At public readings, she insisted her name be pronounced as an English word. So, 0--zero--USican Latinos on another best-of list. [Actually, not even Octavia Butler was included!]

Kids and adults reading this may not realize the message NPR is sending. It's the message of same-ole exclusionary, white-privilege, not only that Latinos don't write spec-lit, but that none of it compares to The 100. To use a kid-expression, it made me want to throw up in my mouth and deliberately swallow it.

Pero, ya basta. Times are changing. The old White Guy Hero Saves the World is being chipped away.

No matter what you read or write, pumping out the classic tropes, classic plots, cardboard characters and stereotyped fiction is the receding wave of the past. The ivory tower of USican literature has been spray-painted with the graffiti art of people of color. The cornerstones crumble.

To glimpse the promise of the future, here's excerpts from articles that are worth reading in their entirety. Again, no matter which genres interest you, nearly all these articles can serve your art. Most of them are by women--some white--which possibly says something about who's carrying the good fight. Hint: Not enough old white guys have found their huevos and jumped in.

10 ways white people are more racist than they realize by Kali Holloway

Here's links to the science, the studies, the books, the facts that'll convince everybody but racists and right-wingers. Demographics that can be used in any fiction.

Set Truth on Stun: Reimagining an Anti-Oppressive SF/F by Daniel José Older

A great roundtable discussion of spec-lit authors, led by DanielJosé.

Putting the I in Speculative: Looking at U.S. Latino/a Writers and Stories by Sabrina Vourvoulias

"The U.S. Latino/a speculative fiction writer is largely invisible to the speculative mainstream editor, publisher, reviewer and anthologist. U.S. Latin@s are writing anyway. Fictions haunted by mestizo, Afro-Latino/a and indigenous ghosts, legends and magic. Fictions of future cities built on the foundations poured by Latino/a immigrants and Mexicans whose roots in the United States go back more than 400 years. Fictions populated by sinuous and spiky sentences in English mixed with Spanish, with Spanglish and Nahuatl and Chicano Caló."

They are not ghosts: On the representation of the indigenous peoples of North America in science fiction and fantasy by Maureen Kincaid Speller

Read this before you stick a Native American character in your next story. Or if you want to know what those Indians are doing in that novel. 

"In the same way that Hollywood relegates Native Americans to the Old West, so the Ghosts [novel] exist mainly in the Empire’s past. They have no present, and apparently no future either."

Boys Read Girls by Ana S.

Enough with the excuses about why you didn't put girls in your YA or children's book.

"The problem that needs to be fixed is not kick all the girls out of YA, it’s teach boys that stories featuring female protagonists or written by female authors also apply to them. Boys fall in love. Boys want to be important. Boys have hopes and fears and dreams and ambitions. What boys also have is a sexist society in which they are belittled for 'liking girl stuff.' Male is neutral, female is specific.

On sniping, women and SF by Brenda Cooper

"Most of the men who are part of the problem in written science fiction simply don’t know it. They don’t mean women writers harm, they aren’t meeting in back rooms plotting against us, and they aren’t dreaming about misogynistic ways to express themselves. So when someone twitter-slams them over a clueless phrase, they’re either embarrassed, or more likely, defensive. When they’re defensive, they bite. I do too.

"We don’t want them to bite. We want them to change."

Writing Women Characters as Human Beings by Kate Elliott

"I get asked if I have any advice for writers on how to create believable female characters while avoiding clichés, especially in fantasy novels where the expectations and settings may be seen to be different from our modern world. There is an 'easy' answer to this. Write all characters as human beings in all their glorious complexity and contradiction…. Three Basic Pieces of Advice: 1. Have enough women in the story that they can talk to each other….

Writing Strong Female Characters? That's A Great Goal, But I'd Rather Write Strong Kick-Heart Characters by Catherynne M. Valente

Kick-ass females are not the ultimate.

"I have never once been asked how I write male characters, nor how to write strong, kickass male characters, nor whether I’m concerned about making the men in my books vulnerable as well as tough. Yet our culture at large seems to peer into novels (and movies and television) as through the bars of a cage at the zoo: Here we see the endangered strong female protagonist in her natural habitat! What strange markings she has! What goes through the head of such a bizarre creature?"

Rewriting the Future: Using Science Fiction to Re-envision Justice by Walida Himarisha

This article doesn't just shred the envelope; it throws it away to develop new packaging.  "We started an anthology with the belief that all organizing is science fiction. When we talk about a world without prisons; a world without police violence; a world where everyone has food, clothing, shelter, quality education; a world free of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, heterosexism, we are talking about a world that doesn’t currently exist. But collectively dreaming up one that does means we can begin building it into existence."

Es todo, hoy, but not for el futuro

RudyG, a.k.a. Chicano spec-lit author Rudy Ch. Garcia

Some stuff Anglos taught a Chicano author

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In an interview, Sherman Alexie once told Bill Moyers, "I know a lot more about being white than you know about being Indian.”

Similarly, Latino authors likely know a lot more about Anglos than Anglos do about us. This regularly plays out in some Latino literature's Anglo characters. This brings to mind growing up in San Antonio decades ago, and how Anglos gradually worked their way into my life. Although mine is no template for the "Chicano lifestyle," here's how it taught me the first things I learned about Anglos.

A highway like this "improved" my 1st neighborhood

Given the decrepitude of ageing, I don't remember most of the names, but the first one was a neighborhood kid my age, maybe five. He came over regularly and taught me that playing "cowboys and Indians" was fun. Ignorant of the fact that I was part "Indian," we'd ride around the dirt yard on our stick horses, shooting at each other, falling down, and getting dirty. I sort of remember sometimes getting to be the cowboy. He taught me that some Anglos would play with me.

The next ones were female teachers, first through third grade. They were mostly nice, even if I don't remember what I learned from them. Before entering first grade, mi 'amá had already taught me to read, so I assume I picked up whatever math and writing I was supposed to learn because I kept passing to the next grade. The teachers taught me that teachers were Anglo women.

Two incidents in elementary school stick out in my mind. The first was halfway through first grade. Our teacher announced that three of us were being skipped into higher grades. This one poor white boy who could've been twelve years old--the biggest, burliest kid--was being "skipped" to third grade, which was probably still less than age-appropriate for him. I remember thinking the teacher just wanted him gone from her room. From him I learned there were Anglos were much less intelligent than me, even if they were bigger, older and meaner.

Then our teacher announced that two of us--I think the other one was named Judy--were skipping into second grade. That meant something to other kids, my parents, relatives, and the teacher, but I don't remember being impressed by this, since I didn't know what it meant.

Judy gave me another memory, of dancing. During one of those school activities everyone had to participate in, maybe May Day. Out on the playground, we were all paired up and for some reason, nerd-brain, skinny, too-tall, blond Judy got paired up with the shortest kid--a "Mexican" as we called ourselves--who was me. I faked it, going around in circles, thinking I it was supposed to be having fun. Though, not as much fun as getting to be the cowboy. From Judy, I learned Anglo girls would at times be willing to hold my hand, at least in public.

San Anto was the military's playground

Next came my uncle Jack, a military-lifer who later married my mother's sister. He was real white, tall and big, loud and always made his presence known. Whenever the couple came by our house was a treat, probably because their income was higher than most of the family. Before they had any of their own kids, Uncle Jack would take me out while he courted my aunt. The best time was a zoo visit where I got to eat lots of junk because he could afford it. He taught me the military had it much better than most people, though maybe his Anglo-ness had something to do with his good fortune.

Projects like where we lived

About my age, Mary B. didn't teach me as much as I'd have liked. In the federal projects where we lived, her family was one of the few Anglo families around. She had an older sister who was a template for juvenile delinquency, and sort of respected by all the younger kids. Whenever they let her out of juvey or prison, she'd visit with her latest tattooed boyfriend who also looked like he was on parole. They taught me there were tough, young Anglos in the world, whenever they were let out.

Marie B's were shorter than this

Mary B. could've been my first love, or at least experience, except that never happened. She was hotter than her older sister and usually wore shorts that couldn't have been cut any shorter. Neighborhood culture dictated she was unapproachable because she was white, something I didn't understand. For my only teen birthday party I can remember, I invited her and, chingau, she showed up. I danced with her at least once and that was as close to heaven or to Mary B.'s shorts that I ever got. Like Judy, she taught me Anglo girls would dance with you in public, but that my life experiences might be limited to that.

like the coach who "taught" me

There were so few Anglo kids in my junior high (middle) school, none of them would've stuck out. The gym coach, however, taught me corporal punishment and how much it hurt. I got busted doing some regular-Mexican-kid obscenity to another Mexican kid, in jest. But it wasn't funny to the teacher establishment. The board the coach used on the two of us--the "victim" of my jest was deemed guilty as me--taught me to never get caught again. That's how I learned that an Anglo's "paddle" could hit as hard as my pinche father's leather belt.

My mother snuck me into another school district so I've get a college-prep education. Thomas Jefferson was heavily Anglo, from higher incomes and taller parents, and being the shortest kid from being skipped a grade became a bigger joke; most of the kids were a foot taller than me. I learned they were much more silent around me and resembled actors on TV or commercials, with nicer clothes, make-up and styles of strutting that showed they were better than other humans.

Real pic of my high school

I had some great Anglo teachers, especially in the sciences, possibly why I later imagined studying to become a physicist. I don't remember facing prejudice from the teachers, but that might've been due to my I.Q., more than anything else.

My French teacher came straight out of an 18th century novel. She exuded European style and aloofness that I'd never seen in any "Mexican." Despite being ignored by most of the Anglo student body, I'd come to understand it wasn't that hard to get good grades, especially A's. There was only one student better than me in French class, and her grandmother was French-born.

Everybody knew your grades

Each grading period, we'd go up to the blackboard and write down every one of our grades that the French teacher dictated to us, and then figure out our average. As a private joke, through three years of French, I made it a point to totally fail one test. So, I'd stand at the board, copying down A after A, but always with one F. It was obvious what I'd done. Funny thing is, no student, much less the teacher, was ever impressed by this. It took me years to understand how difficult it was for old or young Anglos to admit when a Mexican could do better than them. And how much they didn't like being involved in my sarcasm.

I could write a book: How Chess Can Pay for Your Lunch

The only friends I had in high school were other nerds, the straight-As, headed-to-Harvard kids who sat together before school playing chess or sat at the lunch table playing chess. No other club, except for science clubs, would have them as members. I was comfortable among them, especially since the only way I ever had money to buy a Coke or breakfast was from beating them at chess.

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One of them--name withheld--was as fat as Fat Albert and became my best friend. With coke-bottle lenses, he was definitely smarter than me, possibly the smartest kid in the school of a thousand. Midway through, he spent a summer losing weight, getting contact lenses, and returned as New Hunk on campus, and was admitted into the exclusive club for the richest, cool Anglos. He still came around us, and I learned that if you were Anglo, you could change your outside appearance and improve your status in society.

Berkeley radicalism my best friend's parents saved him from

After we graduated, that best friend and I played tennis for the summer, until we got into a fight over a racquet, and he disappeared. I don't remember why we got in the fight, whose "fault" it was. He taught me I could have Anglo best friends, at least for a stretch. He also taught me that Anglos were sometimes smarter than me, were able to raise their societal standing, and could be accepted to schools like Univ. of Berkeley.

last time I returned to San Anto, for my novel

When his parents refused to let him go to that college, because of the student radicalism of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, he taught me Anglos could be more fragile than me, who'd only be accepted to UT. His suicide wasn't the last thing I learned about Anglos, but it's enough, for now.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG, a.k.a. Chicano fabulist-mextasy author Rudy Ch. Garcia, striving to put on paper some of the things I learned about Anglos. And others. And some things I never learned.

RMFW Workshop on stereotyped characters

This Sunday, author Mario Acevedo and I led the workshop, Deep-six the Stereotypes - Writing Characters from Another Culture. Below are URLs with more information about the described topics. Even writers who didn't attend the Con might find the info useful. While they relate mostly to spec lit, they're applicable to all lit.

Sherman Alexie: "Yes, there are white folks who write well about Indians. Tom Spanbauer and Craig Lesley are two of them. Here's my official statement on the matter: White folks, I don't care if you write about Indians. You don't need my approval, advice, or opinion. Do your thing. Put that wise old grandfather in it. And maybe some talking animals. And a very concerned white person who wants to save the Indians. Just don't expect me to read it." Alexie once told Bill Moyers, “I know a lot more about being white than you know about being Indian.” [Because he's been surrounded by whites all his life, everywhere, providing him with plenty of material for building characters.]

The great Chicano poet Dr. Ricardo Sánchez "Chicano literature can only be written by Chicanos" and "only Chicanos understand the nuance of the Chicano way of life."

Award-winning author Manuel Ramos: "Anyone can write anything he or she wants. Go ahead and include ethnic characters in your book so that it has the feel of authenticity. Throw in Spanish swear words. Make your protagonist a single, Latina female because your agent assures you that is what the NY editors are looking for - but be ready for heat if you get it wrong. Stereotypes, subtle racism, paternalism, and naiveté are products of bad writing. Call the bad writing cultural appropriation or exploitation or simply "another rip off artist passing himself as brown and trying to be just as greasy as us regular meskins."

From my presentation: "Independence Day, Armageddon and Deep Impact are just three of the movies that are offensive and inaccurate in their exclusion of a Latino presence. In these films, the American military is depicted without one single Latino character. The only Latinos in Independence Day and Deep Impact are stereotypical Mexican farm workers (one of the three prevalent stereotypes of Latinos in television and motion pictures, the gang-banger and 'illegal alien'). In Los Angeles, where the majority of America's motion pictures and television programs are produced, the population is 44% Latino, so, finding a cast shouldn't have been too difficult."

Author Samuel Delany's historic essay Racism and Science Fiction. He details and explains how a short story was rejected by a notoriously bigoted editor because the protagonist was black. "The famous sci-fi editor of Analog Magazine, John W. Campbell, Jr., rejected it, with a note and phone call to my agent explaining that he didn’t feel his readership would be able to relate to a black main character. As long as there are only one, two, or a handful of us, prejudice will remain a force—until, say, black writers start to number twenty percent of the total. . . ."

Author N.K Jemison's WisCon GoH Speech. "Trigger warning: I’m going to refer to rape, harassment, racism, and other forms of bigotry and abuse in this speech. Also, profanity warning. That’s sort of standard with me." Jemison has written considerable material about writing and non-white characters.

Protocols for Producing Indigenous Australian Writing has many relevant points applicable to U.S. writers. [Do U.S. writers have anything similar? Maybe we need for than one.]

My main points about avoiding stereotyped characters:

1. U.S. minorities are not one homogenous mass. Please don't ALWAYS use one black or Asian character and feel that that diversifies your fiction.

2. Brown does not equal brown. Hispanic is a 70s federal government term that many do not identify with. Latino may not be much better. Do your research about your specific setting and recruit a beta reader who's from there.

3. Use the Spanish of people from your setting. A Spanish-language, beta reader from the Univ. of Barcelona may not be what you want. Maybe your Chicano or mexicano neighbor would be.

4. Many Chicanos consider author John Nichols to be an honorary Chicano because of how he portrays Chicanos in the trilogy that began with The Milagro Beanfield War.I'd recommend this as a great example for Anglo authors. [Another author that Mario and I recommend for how he writes outside of his culture is Warren Hammond in his KOP series.] 

5. Conflict. When's the last time you gave your heroine a mexicano to interact with, one that wasn't just a drug dealer or a homeboy in a Cadillac, hiding an Ouzi under his hoodie? You want conflict? Have your white hero fall in love with an undocumented female who's shot, wounded and arrested by Border Patrol. Or, would your hero ever accidentally join a Ferguson protest and have to deal with the cops? Whose side would he join? Widen your cast of characters beyond your comfort zone or life experience. Then deal with it.

More info:

A Day of Latino Science Fiction - about workshops I, Mario Acevedo and other Chicano authors led earlier this year. Sponsored by The Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies at the Univ. of Calif., Riverside.

The new Captain America will be an African-American.

If White Characters Were Described Like People of Color In Literature. Satire on why not to use food-terms to describe a non-white character.

Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF

How To Write The Other - a literary retreat.

A Whitewashed Earthsea, How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Inclusive Reviewing: A Discussion (on Strange Horizons)

People of Color in European History. A great site about how PoC are excluded from classical or ancient history. 

A Strange Chicano at a Stranger Con. My reports about five panels I participated on at the 2013 WorldCon.

 

Spic vs spec -Chicanos/latinos & sci-fi lit. My series on the issue.

Project Hieroglyph and people of color. How I don't see the new SF Project Hieroglyph as taking on one of the biggest weakness of the genres.

Another World Waits: Towards an Anti-Oppressive SFF by Daniel José Older. Another Chicano's perspective.

SciFiLatino.com. By una puertoriqueña, archived reviews of books, movies and programs and how they depict Latinos.

The Carl Brandon Society - a largely black organization to help build awareness of race and ethnicity in speculative literature and related fields

If you attended this workshop or have further questions, please contact Mario Acevedo or me.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG, a.k.a. Rudy Ch. Garcia, Chicano spec novelist of The Closet of Discarded Dreams.