Read Conmigo

Empowering Families Through Bilingual Literacy

Time spent together is a precious gift for families. Read Conmigo, sponsored by Infinity Insurance, was created to help parents, grandparents, and educators develop in their children and students bilingual reading and comprehension skills.

Recognized as a Bright Spot in Hispanic Education by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, Read Conmigo provides parents with bilingual storybooks, apps, and online resources to read with their children in English and Spanish.

The program has already distributed more than one million free books to classrooms and families, and receives support from more than 9,200 educators. 

Join Read Conmigo's FREE reading program today!

Visit https://www.readconmigo.org for more information.

Ariadna Sánchez shared the following article about Read Conmigo on the Spanish Children's Blog Los Bloguitos.

Por Ariadna Sánchez

Febrero es la época donde los caramelos, flores y detalles para celebrar el amor y la amistad están tan presente como la lectura misma. Una manera práctica de ensalzar estos sentimientos es leyendo historias que cultiven valores que se quedarán para el resto de la vida. 

Una herramienta que se encuentra disponible para las familias latinas radicadas en la Unión Americana es Read Conmigo. Read Conmigo ofrece libros, aplicaciones y recursos por internet gratuitos para que los padres puedan leerle a sus niños en inglés y/o en español. El programa ha tenido un éxito tremendo que ha sido reconocido por la Iniciativa de la Casa Blanca para la Excelencia Educativa de los Hispanos, por su gran labor en el fortalecimiento de los vínculos familiares; a través de la lectura bilingüe. Su portal electrónico es colorido y muy fácil de navegar.   La inscripción es gratuita y sin compromiso; en un dos por tres, estas leyendo o descargando los libros, aprendiendo de valiosos recursos para los niños y sobre todo invirtiendo en estrategias para un óptimo desarrollo de todos los integrantes de la familia.

A continuación te dejo las ligas correspondientes para que las consultes e inicies un recorrido por el mágico mundo de la lectura.

Recuerda que la lectura te da alas. !Nos leemos la próxima semana!

https://www.readconmigo.org/

https://www.readconmigo.org/es/

https://www.readconmigo.org/member/log-in

https://twitter.com/readconmigo

https://www.facebook.com/ReadConmigo

https://www.instagram.com/readconmigo/

Review: America Libre. Book Give-Away. Mesoamerican Conference.

Michael Sedano

Review: Raul Ramos y Sanchez. America Libre. NY: Grand Central. 2009.

I was happy to read Daniel Olivas’ review of Hit List Monday because it opens the week with a taste of the sublime, unlike the novel I started reading last week, instead of Hit List. The dog ate it, what can I say?

Fortunately, the edition I read of Raul Ramos Y Sanchez’ America Libre, is an advance copy anticipating its July 2009 paperback publication. So there’s time to fix a lot of stuff. Geography. Idiom. The “H” word. Most of all, Ethos.

America Libre takes place mostly in a dystopic present-day Los Angeles, but the trouble is nationwide. A Latina takes an errant bullet from drug-raiding San Anto cops. Barrios across the Southwest explode in violence. A National Guard platoon draws down on a mob and when the smoke clears twenty-three people lie dead. Across the nation, the barrios explode. Bloodthirsty television news channels provide only slanted, anti-raza coverage. Soon, lawlessness, or police indifference, bring vigilantes into the barrio. Bloody drive-by slaughters not only go unsolved, they grow in audacity. Increasingly, across the nation, xenophobia divides the country into brown v. white.

Conservative assholes, but I repeat myself, nativist assholes, ditto, hold sway in Congress. In a short period the United States of America begins rounding up all “Class ‘H’” people—“Hispanic” or Spanish-last name residents. Relocation camps in places like North Dakota will house the, first quarantined, then ultimately, concentration camped, population.

In Los Angeles, a group of, at first dissidents, then armed defenders, take on the violence. They ambush a three-car vigilante caravan. Using AK-47 and Rocket Propelled Grenades, led by an ex-Army Ranger, Afghanistan veteran and third-generation Hispanic, Manolo “Mano” Suarez, the barrio defender tortures the leader’s identity out of a vigilante. Joined by the incredibly rich and sexily blonde Hispanic Uruguayan Tupamaro Jo, and fiery orator Ramon Garcia, Mano helps the pretend poverty pimps craft a bloody liberation movement. Hispanics will take back their land from the …

Exciting material, could be a lot of fun to read, but for some serious obstacles.

The timeline gets mucked up. Each chapter tracks events by month and day, e.g. Month 2, Day 10. Someone--an editor, an assistant, a careless author—loses track of time. Month 11, Day 8 sees Mano quit his job with Jo and Ramon. Next chapter, listed as Month 21, Day 17, has Mano back on the street jobless and cheated out of twenty bucks, regretting quitting his job three weeks ago. Nine months of four weeks transpire in titles, but only 21 days in novel time. There are similar lapses in the sequencing gimmick.

Throughout the novel I had to keep asking myself who Grand Central thinks is its audience. Chicana Chicano readers, especially Angelinas Angelinos will have a lot of trouble enjoying the action owing to troublesome location errors, or, perhaps, ambiguities. And that's a small problem.

“East LA” is a place, not a stereotype, nor a metaphor. America Latina’s core action takes place in “Easlo,” an expression I hear for the first time in the novel. In El Lay, locals refer to “East Los” or “East L.A.”, and just as often respect specific communities like Boyle Heights, East Los’ neighbor to the West. Ramos y Sanchez writes as if “East Los Angeles” is a stereotype. In fact, Mano lives on Fourth Street, which is in Boyle Heights, not East LA. In another glaring locational error, after Mano and his crew of bombers blow holes across downtown L.A., the CIA moves its headquarters from its overlook of the Veterans Cemetery to some nondescript landscape. The Federal Building Ramos y Sanchez describes is on the tony L.A. Westside, miles from the downtown and not visible from East LA.

That type of blunder is easily fixed with a map or an informed editor. Less tolerable is the language people, supposedly raza, use. “Hispanic” is the major culprit. It’s clear Ramos y Sanchez and his editor struggled with the term. A limited Spanish-speaking Mexican-American like Mano and his guisa might indeed call each other and their gente “Hispanic” but dang, lots of characters buy into the term without any editorializing from the author about one of the most sensitive idiomatic expressions among Chicanas Chicanos Latinas Latinos, raza. I recommend the author and editor explore this terminological perplex with an ear for authenticity. Manitos and a chingón of Tejanos say “Hispanic” but in El Lay, Boyle Heights or greater East Los, hasta la westside, the “H” word might get your ass kicked. Among Mexicanos, Los Tigres Del Norte put the issue to song: En Estados Unidos te dicen que soy latino / Pero no te quieren decir que soy un Americano.

Politicized characters lack the ideological vocabulary one expects of Tupamaro or 60s veteranos. Instead of “amigo” the expression would, in the appropriate context, be “compañero” or “carnal” or “brother” or a host of other phrases that define relationship among speakers. For Ramos y Sanchez, “amigo” is the singlular expression of solidarity or palhood. Like “Hispanic”, the novel’s use of “amigo” contributes it a stunning lack of authenticity. I frequently have to read the author’s name again to make sure it’s not Amado Muro.

Everything that stuns my sensibilities is fixable in this action novel. Grand Central Publishing is home of Robert Ludlum’s library of high action thrillers. With that heritage in mind, Ramos y Sanchez has an obligation to give the reader more and better action. Things happen off stage or in exposition that deserve eye witness details and loud noises. The action develops much too slowwwwwly, and challenges even the most charitable reader’s willingness to suspend bullshit filters. Dozens of ammonium nitrate bombs detonate across Los Angeles downtown and not a drop of blood shed!?!

I suspect the most unfixable element is the horrid stereotyping of raza. In this world, as noted, dystopic, but other than gangbangers, junkies, whores, and looters, the barrios of this Los Angeles got themselves populated by gente with no backbone. All the crap that goes down and the people do not rise as one to do as they actually engage today: use political muscle and union power to organize the community. In this Los Angeles, outsiders sweep into town and lead us into temptation. The homegrown hero, torn by his loyaty to law and ordure and his Hispanic community, resolves the dilemma only after a National Guard tank levels the building where Mano’s son stood. In other words, out of selfishness rather than selflessness.

This puppet-like ethos of Los Angeles’ Chicano community makes America Libre one of the more subversive works of stories about chicanos by non chicanos. The cover blurb and author’s website describe the author as a Midwestern Cubano. If true, the author could possible fix the whole shebang by relocating the revolución to Pilsen or, mejor, Miami. That’s the ticket. One-way.

May / Book Give-Away!

La Bloga is happy to join with Hachette Book Company's promotion of free books recognizing May's Latino Book Month. Hachette is offering a library of five titles, including:

1.       B as in Beauty By Alberto Ferreras ISBN: 0446697893

2.       Into the Beautiful North By Luis Urrea ISBN: 0316025275

3.       Hungry Woman in Paris By Josefina Lopez ISBN: 0446699411

4.       The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos By Margaret Mascarenhas ISBN: 0446541109

5.       Houston, We Have a Problema By Gwendolyn Zepeda ISBN: 0446698520

 

To qualify for your five books, click here to send your name and a street (UPS) address along with the answer to questions:

Who are the editors of Hit List?

Who wrote the Foreward to Hit List?

Whose skull is the focus of Manuel Ramos' story in Hit List?

2009 Conference on Mesoamerica. Continuity and Change in Mesoamerican History From the Pre-Classic to the Colonial Era Comes to Cal State El Lay Mid-Month.

Congratulations to Dr. Roberto Cantu and his team of scholars and dedicated student workers on their upcoming academic conference presented in homage to Maya linguist Tatiana A. Proskouriakoff. The two day event runs May 15 and 16 at CSULA. The first three events indicate the promise of an intensely researched event:

A Valley Zapotec Text from 1614: What it Tells Us

Featured Speaker, John Pohl lecture, “The Hummingbird and the Flower Prince: New Approaches to Identifying Regional Political Interaction from an Analysis of the Narrative Themes on Postclassic Polychrome Vessels

Ulama: the Survival of the Mesoamerican Ballgame

Click here to view PDF of the conference schedule. This is a public, no registration fee event. CSULA sits astride Asia and América in El Sereno. Alhambra and Monterey Park to the east are Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant-rich communities. Lincoln Heights on the near West, City Terrace, East LA, and Boyle Heights on the South, SE, and SW respectively, offer infinite choices of tacos, tamales, raspados. To pick only one, Moles La Tia provides unequalled pleasure.



Tempus has fugitted with alacrity. Uau, 5 May. El Drinko de Mayo, as Lalo Alcaraz satirizes the bironga-heavy adverts that usually pepper us around this time of year. Not so much this year, must be the zombie strain of pig flu.

See you May's week 2, day 3.

mvs

La Bloga welcomes your comments. Click the Comments counter below. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. Click here to share your idea.

Review: The Accidental Santera

"Irete Lazo." NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.

ISBN: 978-0-312-38188-2

Michael Sedano

That's not this author's real name, according to the inside flap of the dust jacket of this interesting novel. The photo of a smiling brown-skinned woman may be Lazo or quién sabe who. "Lazo" in her not pseudonym worked as a scientist, print journalist, announcer  for NPR, and santera. 

And there's the rub. The Accidental Santera describes an agnostic experimental scientist's religious conversion from lapsed Texas Catholic to priestess of the Cuban-Afro religion called Santeria. 

Santeria informs many a novel. From cultural allusions in such work as Leonardo Padura's Havana colors series, to the more typical scary elements of such novels as Alex Abella's scary The Killing of the Saints.

Perhaps owing to the horror-story character of the religion, "Lazo" elects to cloak her actual identity behind that pseudonym. Just as her character, a San Francisco State University professor does.

La Profesora works happily with her third-world students out of an obligation to bring people of color into the racist, sexist, deeply biased world of the hard sciences.

But other than that happiness, the first person narrator is dismal. She and her scientist husband have grown estranged, partially as a result of three miscarriages and their failure to conceive. But he's become an insensitive clod, and she drinks too much. Her BFF, another Latina scientist, offers a comforting shoulder to cry on, as well as a solid point of reference for Gabi's--our narrator--sense of estrangement from her own Latinidad.

Gabriella's crises of culture, relationship, faith, and faithfulness, come to a head at a New Orleans scientific conference. Drinking too much, she picks up a good-looking scientist at the conference party and allows herself to be pulled to the brink of adultery, until too many margaritas drive her to a toilet bowl to puke out her guts.

Having come to this head-spinningly low point in her life, Gabi sits for a santero's reading of the bones at Marie Laveau's voodoo shop, setting Gabi off on a search for identity that eventuates in her initiation as a santera of The Religion.

Stripped to these outlines, The Accidental Santera offers a fulfilling story of academic political bullshit, marriage, fertility, family, and friendship. Less arresting is the author's drive to explain her conversion to Santeria, which requires the novel to assume a pedagogical voice explaining the various terms and personages of The Religion--as Santeria is referred by adherents. Also less involving is the author's--or her editor's--insistence on appositional translation. Say something in Spanish and have it in English in the next clause. Worse, the translation is almost always literal, none of the fun with expression seen in such work as Houston, We Have a Problema. Fortunately, the "Lazo" resists the temptation to use a lot of Spanish but instead tells us a character speaks in Spanish.

Despite these flaws, or perhaps because of them, the novel is an enjoyable reading experience. And, given the allusions to Santeria in so many other novels, The Accidental Santera--including its glossary--will fill several gaps in many a reader's knowledge.

Free Houston, We Have A Problema

After I reviewed Gwendolyn Zepeda's chiclit title, Houston, We Have a Problema, the publisher offered a free copy to the first five La Bloga readers who requested a copy. And that's exactly what La Bloga was happy to do for these friends:

Randy Zuniga
Stanton, Ca

Lauren Bogenberger
Odenton MD

Arnoldo Mata
Pharr TX

Amy Mascareñas
Watsonville, ca

George Luna-Peña
Washington DC 20036

Congratulations to our five friends! I hope they'll read and enjoy the title and send in their own review of the novel, or pass along their copy to other readers to share in the experience.

Know that La Bloga welcomes your reviews of books reviewed here, or other titles that merit La Bloga's attention. Be La Bloga's guest by leaving a comment, or click here to get more information about your invitation to be a La Bloga guest columnist.

Arroba, arroba, arroba.

Last week, La Bloga's Thursday columnist, Lisa Alvarado, introduced Damian Baca's [Mestiza Mestizo] Scripts, Digital Migrations, and the Territories of Writing. Rather than spelling out the feminine and masculine noun forms of the title, Baca elected using the nonsense @ marker to designate both genders. I complained and a commenter with the handle Quetzal, presumably Baca himself, blamed some gente at UC Berkely for the orthography, averring the unpronounceable spelling offers some version of gender inclusivity. 

I disagree. Vehemently. For me, this arroba represents someone's cute idea gone wild. I see the usage as laziness, at best. As I complained, how does a reader pronounce that perversion? Chicanat? Chicanarroba? In any event, the spelling doesn't say what the writer intends, so it's simply an error.

Chicana Chicano writers express inclusivity by writing inclusively. Only slightly less huevón is the -a -o abbreviation, as in "Latina/o", which Quetzal acknowledges as similarly unpronounceable, and characterizes as a "landmine." Sheesh, gente. When approaching a landmine, the only sensible strategy is go around. I'd say that's a safe rule, ¿que no?

Hay les wachamos, folks. Happy inauguration.

Believe It.

When I was a kid, the legal voting age was 21. So I was already in grad school my first presidential election. 1968. Gene McCarthy was my man.

I remember. Bobby and Hubert. Riots in Chicago and Miami. Law and ordure Nixon’s Southern Strategy plays on racial divisions to solidify the still-solid GOP South. Thanx, Dick. In ‘68, Nixon drafts my ass out of grad school. Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton stay home.

You go. Yes you can.

I remember my parents' bitter disappointment when a real estate agent phones us the evening we’d bought a new house. The offer rescinded because Mexicans not allowed to live in that neighborhood.

No you can't.

I remember 4th grade, playing violin for the Superintendent of Schools who pats my head with his greatest compliment, “You are a credit to your race.”

No you can't.

I remember 5th grade, we buy a house and I enroll in a new school. The first week an invitation to a girl's birthday party. Wow, I am amazed that some people rent the entire roller rink—I’d never been inside--to hold private parties. Then the girl phones me and tells me I’m disinvited--Mexicans not allowed in the roller rink on Saturday mornings.

No you can't.

I remember photos and television images, cops using fire hoses to knock people down, attack them with dogs, club them to the ground, because they want to vote.

No you can’t.

I remember bombs. Schwerner. Chaney. Goodman. Evers. QEPD. Troops to open schoolhouse doors.

No you can't.

I remember incredulous men and women peppering me with questions, "What are you?" "Where is your father from?” “What language do you speak at home?" then denying I could possibly be, because I win speech contests.

No you can't.

I remember, all gussied up for fraternity rush, the curious stares from the guys. Why was I bothering? Not welcome.

No you can't.

I remember a voice on television telling me Barack Obama surpasses 270 Electoral Votes and is the 44th President of the United States of America.

Yes we can.

Where are you, today?

Michael Sedano

Where are these poets and writers today? Back in 1973, all appeared at El Festival de Flor Y Canto, at the University of Southern California. In 2010, I'd like to see them together again at USC, at Festival de Flor Y Canto 2010. 

I shot these mug shots at the University of California Riverside, whose library is the only one in California holding an almost-complete set of the rare videos recorded of that first Flor Y Canto. Only Jose Montoya's presentation is absent; that videocassette was lost by UC Davis' library years ago. The videos, with a single exception, exist only on ancient 3/4" U-matic videocassettes. Only Oscar Acosta's performance has been digitized; it's for sale on the DVD of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." See link in Gregg Barrios' guest column. 

Pictured here are: Lynn Romero, Alejandro Murguia, Enrique La Madrid, Pedro Ortiz, Estevan Arrellano, Juan Contreras, Javier Pacheco, Jeronimo Blanco, Jorge Gonzalez, Ron Arias, E.A. Maress, David Gomez, Antonio G. Ortiz, Barbara Hernandez, Jorge Alvarez, Olivia Castellano, Avelardo Valdez, Ponce Javier Ruiz, Teresa Paloma Acosta, Tomas Atencio. 

Not illustrated are writers whom I've already made contact with, as well as Teatro Meztizo, Teatro de los Niños, and Teatro Pequeño, though it'd be tremendous to see those children all grown up, and their mentors.

Also not illustrated are writers who are now dead: Ricardo Sanchez, Tomás Rivera, Marcela Trujillo, Abelardo Delgado, raúlrsalinas, Omar Salinas, Oscar Zeta Acosta. QEPD.

Several of the where-are-they-now names Google-up older-looking folks, apparently writers. The popular internet search engine, however, fails to provide email or other contact information. Hence this La Bloga column. 

If you are among these writers, please contact me for an invitation to the reunion floricanto in 2010. If you know someone with the same name and whose face sure looks like that younger face shown here, please let your friend know about this column and the links to the Call for Artists to the 2010 Festival de Flor Y Canto.

Book Give-Away Update

Great news from publisher Hachette Book Group for La Bloga reader Liana Lopez of Houston Texas! 

Just after the 8-title give-away closed last week, La Bloga received Liana's 100% correct response. Publisher Hachette Book Group extended its generosity to six winners, and mailed this 8-book library to Liana Lopez of Houston, Texas:

Dream in Color By Linda Sánchez , Loretta Sánchez ISBN: 0446508047
Gunmetal Black By Daniel Serrano ISBN: 0446194131
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters By Lorraine López ISBN: 0446699217
Bless Me, Ultima By Rudolfo Anaya ISBN: 0446675369
Brownsville By Oscar Casares ISBN: 9780316146807
The Hummingbird's Daughter By Luis Urrea ISBN: 0316154520
The General and the Jaguar By Eileen Welsome ISBN: 0316715999
Tomorrow They Will Kiss By Eduardo Santiago ISBN: 0316014125

Congratulations, Liana, and your fellow Hachette/La Bloga Book Give-Away winners:

Tom Miller
Tucson AZ

John Alba Cutler
Evanston IL

Eduardo Pena
Tucson, AZ

Marie Madrid
Denver, CO

Diana Chavez
Littleton, CO

Liana Lopez

Houston, TX

Election Season

As Daniel Olivas notes in Monday's column, La Bloga's blogueras blogueros are posting political columns including our predictions of the winners and weenies. Lucky moi, I get Tuesday election day. See you then. Gracias de antemano for going to the polls and voting, for encouraging your familia to vote. 

La Bloga welcomes your comments on this and any La Bloga item. Click on the Comments counter below. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. If you have a book or arts review, an extended announcement, a response at length to something you've read at La Bloga, by all means, please, join us. Click here for your invitation.

Book Give-Away! Read All About It.

Here's the final quiz in the La Bloga / Hachette Book Give-Away.

Publisher Hachette Book Group, as a way of recognizing "Hispanic Heritage Month", will mail this eight-title library of outstanding reading to the first person correctly answering the questions below, and provided the response includes a mailing address:

Dream in Color By Linda Sánchez , Loretta Sánchez ISBN: 0446508047
Gunmetal Black By Daniel Serrano ISBN: 0446194131
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters By Lorraine López ISBN: 0446699217
Bless Me, Ultima By Rudolfo Anaya ISBN: 0446675369
Brownsville By Oscar Casares ISBN: 9780316146807
The Hummingbird's Daughter By Luis Urrea ISBN: 0316154520
The General and the Jaguar By Eileen Welsome ISBN: 0316715999
Tomorrow They Will Kiss By Eduardo Santiago ISBN: 0316014125

All answers are readily available in this week's La Bloga posts:

1. Floricanto Press published this biography of a community worker and Monterey County judge.

2. Flor Y Canto 2010, will be held at this university.

3. The big city referred to in Estrellita en la ciudad grande is this one.

4. This is the fellow who said "The paranoid person is in possession of all the facts."

5. His novel, Rise, Do Not Be Afraid was a nominee for a Colorado Book Award.

Once you've assembled your answers to these questions, click here -- please include your mailing address -- and if you're the first to send in the right answers, you'll get your eight outstanding books from Hachette.

Bits and Pieces of the King's Gold

Michael Sedano

2010 Festival de Flor Y Canto Call for Writers & Artists

Planning is now in the definite maybe stage for a literary and arts festival at the University of Southern California in 2010 during fiestas patrias observances, celebrated in the United States as "Hispanic Heritage Month" in September and October.

Linked here is the first call for participants. If you are a surviving writer or presenter from the 1973 Festival de Flor Y Canto, please click and send your contact information. The festival looks to showcase the growth of Chicana Chicano Latina Latino literature since 1973, so contemporary writers need to click, too, and send along your contact information.

La Bloga will continue reporting on developments of the upcoming floricanto. For some background, see this post.

And thinking of that 1973 cast of artists, Daniel Olivas' Monday column reported Christopher Buckley's tribute to Luis Omar Salinas. The portrait in Dan's article shows Salinas at an advanced age. Here's a photo of Salinas, left, with Alurista, when both appeared at the 1973 Festival de Flor Y Canto.

To view additional photos of Flor Y Canto of 1973, see this page. The full collection of photos will be part of a gallery show at the 2010 event, including a portrait series I call "¡Presente!" featuring images of writers, like Omar Salinas, who have died since that first Flor Y Canto.

Front Range Paper Leading the Way

Who hasn't witnessed the shrinking space newspapers allot to literature and book review sections? One paper, The Rocky Mountain News, is showing the big rags east and west how to do literature honorably. Celebrating its 150th anniversary--and the city of Denver's 150th--The Rocky Mountain News is showcasing local writers by commissioning original fiction. As the paper observes:

This November, the city of Denver celebrates its 150th anniversary. In April, the Rocky follows with its own 150th. To commemorate both, we're celebrating the creative spirit that has marked our city since 1858, with a special series titled A Dozen on Denver: Stories to celebrate the city at 150. For the series, we've commissioned 11 Colorado authors to write original fiction. We asked the authors to choose a different decade of Denver's history, to mention Larimer Street at least once in their stories and to keep it all to 2,500 words.

Today's Dozen on Denver featured writer is La Bloga co-founder Manuel Ramos. You can read his piece by navigating to The Rocky Mountain News' "Dozen on Denver" page here; make sure to listen to Manuel's interview linked on that page. Here's a link to Manuel's story, "Fence Busters".

The King's Gold Doesn't Quite Fill A Formula

Arturo Pérez-Reverte. The King's Gold. NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2008.
ISBN 9781436240598

They say the memory's the second thing to go, when you get old, and I don't remember what the first thing is. Or maybe it's inattention. A few weeks ago, Daniel Olivas cited Rigoberto González' review of Yxta Maya Murray's new novel, The King's Gold. Only the title stuck in my mind. So when I browsed the new books shelf at the Pasadena Public Library, I saw that title, something triggered in my memory. and I picked it up.

The King's Gold I held is the work of Arturo Pérez-Reverte, not Yxta Maya Murray. Ni modo. Manuel Ramos turned me on to Pérez-Reverte, and I enjoyed Pérez-Reverte's The Sun Over Breda hence walked away happily with with my borrowed novel. You'll share the sentiment if you find your own copy.

It's a confection of a novel. With Fall hard upon us, it's time for sitting by a fireplace with something to pass a few hours. Nothing heavy, puro adventure. This one fits that niche. If some kid were to ask for a definition of the world "swashbuckler" I wouldn't bother with a dictionary, I'd give the reader a copy The King's Gold.

Sixteen years old, Íñigo Balboa narrates the story of his and Captain Alatriste's return from Breda to Seville, Spain. War, the pair learn, is a simple affair of point and slash. In Spain, nothing is nearly that obvious. Moreover, mid-17th century Spain is a mess of political intrigue complicated by old enemies, old friends, petty local cops, Moorish slaves, whores and crooks, and royalty.

The story's a reminiscence of an old man. Balboa alludes to his own high adventures and heroics yet to come, and much as he builds the larger-than-life character of Alatriste, Balboa magnifies the reader's affection for Alatriste by reminding us that the hero will be slayed in some upcoming adventure. This interplay of future against current events is an interesting technique to be on the lookout for, or have your emotions toyed with:

By God, it's been a long road. All the people in this story--the captain, Quevedo, Gualterio Malatesta, Angélica de Alquézar--died a long time ago and only in these pages can I make them live again and recapture them exactly as they were. Their ghosts, some loved, some loathed, remain intact in my memory, along with that whole harsh, violent, fascinating time that, for me, will always be the Spain of my youth and the Spain of Captain Alatriste.

The King's Gold is a work of translation, with the attendant cultural traps of vocabulary. These are reduced by the technology and setting of 1626, and the skill of Margaret Jull Costa. "The bluebottles," the cops, is so frequently used that I'd like to see the Spanish to see if this is a cultural substitution or a literal translation.

Irrespective of one's historical knowledge, Pérez-Reverte and his translator provide a vivid portrait of gritty hand-to-mouth existence of soldiers thrown into a world without a Veteran's Administration. To survive, some turn to thievery and murder. Our heroes accept a mercenary job to turn pirate and capture a treasure ship freshly arrived from Mexico. Sadly--because it would be such fun--the author misses an opportunity to draw out his story with the formulaic recruiting of his warriors like the movies "The Dirty Dozen" or "The Magnificent Seven". There's a colorful visit to a condemned killer and a fleeting glance at a couple of recruits. But drawing out character studies would take away from the focus on swordplay and bloodletting, and half of them will be killed in the raid, so we get a list of names and descriptions of their blades.

And use their blades they do. That's what swashbucklers do.


Book Give-Away Winner

Last week's winner came as a late entry, a Denver resident who discovered La Bloga by reading Manuel Ramos' bio in the Rocky Mountain News. Hachette / La Bloga are happy to recognize Marie Madrid's 100% correct responses to Saturday's questionnaire. Marie is receiving by US Mail these eight outstanding titles:

Dream in Color by Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters by Lorraine López
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brownsville by Oscar Casares
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea
The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago

Look for your opportunity to win the final set of eight this weekend.

And that's the antepenultimate Tuesday of October, 2008. A Tuesday like any other Tuesday, except, we are here. Thank you for reading La Bloga, and gracias de antemano for your comments on this, and any, La Bloga column. To comment, just click on the Comments counter below. And remember, La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. If you'd like to share your thoughts on books, arts, culture, or respond to something you've read here, click here to declare your interest in being our guest.

Book Give-Away

Here's a final opportunity, as Fiestas Patrias Month winds to a close, to receive the set of eight delightfully readable titles listed below. Send in your answers to the following La Bloga-related questions. 

1. She writes La Bloga's Not-Every-Sunday column. 

2. He edited Latinos in Lotusland and writes La Bloga's Monday column.

3. He's the Tuesday guy for La Bloga.

4. This children's books writer appears on La Bloga Wednesday.

5. She's la chicana from Chicago, writes on Thursday for La Bloga.

6. La Bloga's Friday guy, we're looking for him to finish that novel.

7. He's an elementary school teacher whose work now and then appears in La Bloga; he's also the guy who started La Bloga. 

Hint: look at our photos at the top of the page, and read "About"! Haz klik aquí to send in your list of La Bloga's blogueras blogueras. Remember to include a mailing address.

Thanks to Hachette for making the following available on this "Hispanic Heritage Month" book give-away:

Dream in Color by Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters by Lorraine López
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brownsville by Oscar Casares
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea
The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago

Sucias Lose Charm; bits 'n pedazos

Michael Sedano

Review: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. Dirty Girls On Top. NY: St. Martin's Press, 2008.
ISBN: 978-0-312-34967-7. ISBN-10: 0-312-34967-X

For the majority of its 336 pages, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez' sucias fail to live up to the optimistic title of their second outing. Not only has the author grown weary of her generally cutely endearing comadres, she treats them with undisguised contempt that defeats a purposeful reader looking for a good time in escapist comity.

The brashly reckless Usnavys, leads the story. Solidly married to househusband Juan, Usnavys thinks of herself as a plus-sized love goddess. That some men respond to her allure reaffirms her self image. Yet, one of her friends thinks Usnavys dresses outrageously and eats too much, and one man calls her a "fat bitch". Although he is a lethal misogynist, the ugly description carries some weight. Usnavy's narcissistic stupidity brings her marriage to a breaking point and as the novel ends, Usnavys finds herself alone and desperate.

Lauren acts the complete fool for the hot Amaury. A drug lord gone straight, he's an east coast promo man for a record company but also a cheating predator who hits on fourteen year olds. Lauren suspects Amaury's infidelity but convinces herself of his sincerity when he confesses his love. Think John Belushi and Carrie Fisher in The Blues Brothers. She punishes herself by binge eating and bulimic purging. A talented newspaper columnist, Lauren gets the wool pulled off her eyes when she agrees to mentor a talented boy-crazy high school writer, only to discover the child is Amaury's current sancha on the side.

Rebecca and Andre, the brilliant Nigerian-born Londoner with more money than midas, live a comfortable life, except she is an uptight straight-laced misfit who doesn't understand how to enjoy being with her oddball friends. The most "normal" appearing woman in the group, Rebecca suffers miscarriage after miscarriage, blaming a horseback ride for the one she experiences on the flight back home after her reunion with las sucias. When her paisana compañera Cuicatl offers to surrogate a child for Rebecca and Andre, Rebecca rejects the offer, in part because the Church forbids it, but mostly out of disgust because the rock star friend smokes pot.

Sara is the most benighted of the comadres. Single parenting her twins now that Antonio, her asshole abuser of a husband, has fled to Argentina after murdering the housekeeper and beating Sara into a stupor, Sara welcomes Antonio back into her life. In Valdes-Rodriguez' most chilling writing, she puts us into Antonio's mind where we understand his utter contempt for Sara, thus fear Sara's moth-to-flame self-destructiveness as she seeks Antonio's approval. She tells him she's taking karate, why doesn't she kick his ass for him?

Elizabeth has taken a wife, the miserable Selwyn, a whining woman who resents men and takes it out on their adopted son. When Lauren toys with Elizabeth's needy sexuality, the encounter nearly ends their friendship. Then Selwyn abandons Elizabeth and the child, proving Elizabeth's poor choice in mates and lovers. What is it about thirty-something women, they can't find a suitable mate?

Valdez-Rodriguez reserves her most bitter contempt for the chicana Cuicatl. In the singer-songwriter's manner of dress and speech, readers will detect an ethnic spite that grows either from mean-spiritedness or too little information about chicanidad. Cuicatl's "chicano" patois features frequent "órale" and "pinche" interjections, sometimes appropriately but as often in odd-sounding idioms. When Cuicatl has intercourse atop the Pyramid of the Sun the exaggeration is breathtaking.

True to her title, however, Valdez-Rodriguez manages to stretch everything back into a semblance of righteous order. The randy Usnavys becomes contrite and adapts to the lifestyle of a stay at home mom; Lauren checks into a clinic and plans to move down to TJ to write novels; Elizabeth finds true love--with a rich woman; Sara is head over heels in love with a twenty-three year old swain with a cute Tejano accent; Rebecca overcomes her religious hangups and finds her surrogate; Cuicatl/Amber finds a new stardom and cynically surrogates for a pair of East Los firebrands. They are on top.

Much as I have enjoyed Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez' work in the first sucias novel, and especially her well-crafted Make Him Look Good, I found much tedium and little to admire in Dirty Girls On Top. Rather than gaining some insight into the actions of a woman, and being able to enjoy these particular wild women's antics, I found little to explain their stupid mistakes. Instead, I found myself empathizing with an author in too deep to a story gone wrong, and unable to put herself into a better place. Let us hope her next work will prove a more satisfying experience for both author and reader.


Rigoberto Gonzales Reviews New Collection of Jose Antonio Burciaga Work

Burciaga's humor places him among the giants of chicano essay. His piece on the word "pendejo" invariably forces laughter from even the most seriously academic reader. Most moving work, however, are a pair of thoughtful pieces. The one at the beginning of Spilling the Beans, on learning of his aunt's cancer finds an eerie parallel when he later learns of his own cancer and writes of that as he closes that collection. It put me mindful of my dad's favorite saying "pa'lla va la sombra."

Here's Rigoberto on the The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes:

Burciaga's respect for his community and the unmistakable articulate phrasing of that respect are celebrated in this long-overdue volume edited by Mimi R. Gladstein and Daniel Chacón. Published 12 years after his untimely death, this project gathers a modest but no less powerful selection from Burciaga's body of influential critical essays, poems, fictions and portfolios of artistic work.

A pioneer of Chicano literature and activism, Burciaga was one of the founding members of Culture Clash, the comedic performance troupe known for its biting political satire. That humor is certainly highlighted here with the inclusion of such well-known pieces as "E.T. and Me" and "Pendejismo," and the never-before-published "For Whites Only,"...

The full essay appears in the El Paso Times of September 28, 2008.


Two 8-Book Winners. Contest Continues This Week.

La Bloga happily announces two winners of the La Bloga / Hachette Book Give-Away. Both submitted 100% correct answers to the Saturday quiz.

1. The oldest known photograph of Los Angeles’ plaza dates to this year.
1862. Dan Olivas' Monday column.

2. The four colors in the detective series The Havana Quartet.
Gold, Black, Blue, Red. Michael Sedano's Tuesday column.

3. She earned one of the 2008 Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Awards as well as the 2006 Colorado Book Award.
Sheryl Luna. Rene Colato Lainez' Wednesday column.

4. This writer’s story, Fence Busters, is set for publication October 14, in the Rocky Mountain News.
Manuel Ramos. Manuel's Friday column.

5. Marta Aponte Alsina published her first novel when she was 49 because...
she didn't want to publish it when she was 50. Lydia Gil's Saturday guest column.

Look for this Saturday's questions at noon Pacific Time. Questions and answers all come out of the week's La Bloga columns. The earliest correspondents to submit 100% correct responses, along with their mailing address, will receive the following outstanding library:

Dream in Color by Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters by Lorraine López
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brownsville by Oscar Casares
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea
The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago

Our winners last week are:
Tom Miller from Tucson, Arizona
John Alba Cutler from Evanston, Illinois


And there's Tuesday, September 30. A day like any other day, except we are here.

mvs

La Bloga invites comments on this and any post. Simply click on the Comments counter below to share your views. La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. To seek your invitation to be our guest, click here and let las blogueras los blogueros know what you'd like to share.

La Bloga / Hachette Book Give-Away

All answers for today's book give-away questions were published in La Bloga during the week of September 21-27. Spelling counts, it always does.

1. The oldest known photograph of Los Angeles’ plaza dates to this year.

2. The four colors in the detective series The Havana Quartet.

3. She earned one of the 2008 Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Awards as well as the 2006 Colorado Book Award.

4. This writer’s story, Fence Busters, is set for publication October 14, in the Rocky Mountain News.

5. Marta Aponte Alsina published her first novel when she was 49 because...

Send your answers by clicking here.

The first response with correct answers to all four questions wins these eight titles, courtesy of the publisher:

Dream in Color by Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters by Lorraine López
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brownsville by Oscar Casares
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea
The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago

Review: Havana Gold, Leonardo Padura | Alltop | 8 Free Books

London: Bitter Lemon Press, 2008.
ISBN: 9781904738282

Michael Sedano

Publisher Bitter Lemon Press' temperamental webpage calls its offerings, "The best crime and romans noirs from faraway places." That's no idle boast. Mexico and Cuba, while not so far away from a United States-based reader, the publisher's London headquarters introduces a distinctively alien flavour to the pages of such novels as Rolo Diez' Tequila Blue and Leonardo Padura's Havana Gold.

Havana Gold is the fourth in a series called The Havana Quartet (Havana Black, Red, Blue), all published by Bitter Lemon. Leonardo Padura published several titles, including his Adios Hemingway with Canongate of Edinburgh, first reviewed at La Bloga by Manuel Ramos.

Padura is a superb writer and story teller.

Despite the relentless Britishisms of translator Peter Bush (or John King for Adíos Hemingway), readers who enjoy good detective tales will enjoy the story, the characters, and the small insights into today's Cuba. Unlike Padura's Hemingway mystery--also featuring Conde--and other Cuba-set mysteries, there is more story and less privation. For example, Skinny's mother always has a great meal featuring meat. As a side benefit, Padura describes the recipe with sufficient detail that an adventurous cook might lift the meal off the pages and onto a dinner plate.

The grim story casts Cuba in a no punches pulled framework. A high school honors teacher is murdered. A marijuana roach provides a clue to more far-reaching crime. The young teacher, it turns out, enjoys an active sex life with her students, petty street criminals, the headmaster, and uncounted others. Corruption doesn't creep in so much as it is taken for granted; the school's only half painted owing to someone stealing half the paint for personal gain, ho hum. Color lines remain in high relief, characters identified by skin color, or weaving it within the fabric of everyday conversation. Absence of consumer goods defines shopping--the teacher exchanges sex for a new pair of sneakers. These are the type of feature that make a work distinctively Cubano.

Padura's Conde character is a gem. Straight-arrow but driven to distraction by horniness. Conde's a writer who doesn't, and feels pangs of guilt and frustration about not writing. As a literate man, he sees his world through the lens of Shakespeare and other writers. Padura takes full advantage of his character to use allusion and literature-derived metaphor to describe the world while adding to the reader's enjoyment. Here a quick allusion to Prospero's revels speech, there something from Cervantes.

Although Havana Gold is not a travelogue like Martin Cruz Smith's Havana Bay, there's a rich sense of place infusing the novel with a sentimentality echoed by Conde's own sense of loss, his failure with women, writer's block, devotion to friends, both those still in Cuba and the ones who are "off". Still, I worry that too much might have been lost in translation.

Anglophone Americans laugh with the old saying about themselves and Britons being separated by a common tongue. Havana Gold strikingly reaffirms the truth of that, in some unpleasing reminders that this is a work in translation from Spanish into British.

Most readers have no difficulty looking past -our spelling where US English calls for simple -or. But how alien indeed to hear old friends--one a cop, one a doctor, one a paralyzed war veteran--remembering back when, as boys, they played baseball: the fresh air, a prized leather glove, striding out to take their position on the pitch. No, not the fastball, the field, the pitch.

The most strident idiomatic conflict develops out of the novel's key romantic interlude, the cute meet when Conde fixes a flat tyre for a beautiful woman. He makes a pass, she takes it for a quick six. She's just playing him along but he's head-over-heels in love. When she dumps him, his bittersweet farewell loses its tender reminder of their meeting, when our separate tongues get in the way:

He held her shoulders, stroked her thick, damp hair and kissed her gently on the lips. "Tell me when you need a tyre changing. It's my speciality."

That variant spelling leads me to hear the broken-hearted Conde pronounce four syllables, "spe-shee-all-i-tea," and the charm evaporates. Sadly, this comes amidst a magical moment where Padura's writing approaches his most masterful. The author sets up a beautiful parallel of Conde and Karina with Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca. Bogie/Rick laments about all the gin joints in the world she walks into his and plays that song:

"Don't think ill of me, Mario," she replied, also standing up.

"Does it matter to you what I think?"

"Yes, it does. I think you're right, we should meet up in another life."

"Pity about the mistake. But don't worry, I'm always getting it wrong," he said opening the door. The sun was disappearing behind the old Marian Brothers school in La Víbora and the Count felt like crying. Recently he'd wanted to cry a lot. He looked at Karina and wondered: why? He held her shoulders, stroked her thick, damp hair and kissed her gently on the lips. "Tell me when you need a tyre changing. It's my speciality."

And he walked down the porch towards the garden.

He was sure she'd call out, tell him to hell with everything, she'd stay with him, she adored sad policemen, she'd always play her sax for him, he only had to say "play it again", they'd be birds of the night, hungry for love and lust, he heard her run towards him, arms outstretched and sweet music in the background, but each step he took in the direction of the street stuck the knife in a little deeper, quickly bled dry his last hope. When he reached the pavement he was a man alone. What a load of shit, he thought. There wasn't even any music.

Conde's tough luck is the reader's gain. An inspired character from a masterful creator, even when read through the fog of the mother tongue. This definitely is a quartet well worth following for the full spectrum.

Internet Search News - Alltop, Chicano, La Bloga

Futurists in the 1970s predicted that (print) media would become so diverse and far flung that people would need to hire the services of media sifters who would consume voluminous amounts of information, filter it through the sieve of topicality, and pass digests along to consumers hungry for specialized knowledge. Fast forward to the 21st century and the world of RSS feeds and the Google.

La Bloga friend and compañera Sol Ruiz, alerted me to Alltop. This service is something like the filtering service those futurists were describing. Navigate to Alltop, type in a few key words, like chicano, and click: a page of chicana chicano blogs, including above-the-fold, La Bloga.

Alltop has a few kinks to work through; type "chicanas" and get no result, "mexican american" to produce "all the top Mexican news." Still, the chicana chicano page contains a wealth of fun, so happy browsing!


Hachette Give-Away for Fiestas Patrias Month

Here's how to enter La Bloga's give-away of this exquisite list of highly thought-of titles, and some great discoveries:

Dream in Color By Linda Sánchez , Loretta Sánchez ISBN: 0446508047
Gunmetal Black By Daniel Serrano ISBN: 0446194131
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters By Lorraine López ISBN: 0446699217
Bless Me, Ultima By Rudolfo Anaya ISBN: 0446675369
Brownsville By Oscar Casares ISBN: 9780316146807
The Hummingbird's Daughter By Luis Urrea ISBN: 0316154520
The General and the Jaguar By Eileen Welsome ISBN: 0316715999
Tomorrow They Will Kiss By Eduardo Santiago ISBN: 0316014125

Each Saturday at noon Pacific time, La Bloga will post a set of questions related to the week's / month's La Bloga columns. Attentive readers will know the answers, capable researchers will quickly teclar a few key words in the blogger search field to produce the answers. Click the entry button, fill in your name and mailing address, and the first entry with all the right answers will receive in the mail the set of 8 titles. Note, the noon Pacific time gives coast-to-coast readers the same chance to win.

Sample question: What Leonardo Padura novels have been reviewed at La Bloga? Click here for your answer.

That's September's penultimate Tuesday. Fall has fell, Californians will dine al fresco one last time then we move inside. Time to chop down a few orange trees and eucalyptus, get that cozy fire going.

La Bloga welcomes your comments on this or any column. Simply click the comments counter below. Remember, too, La Bloga welcomes guest columnists. To inquire about topics, or to submit a fully developed review, announcement, other idea, click here.

See you next Saturday for our first quiz. We're giving away 5 sets.

mvs