Dark Lit of the Suburbs

Review: David A. Romero and the Dark Lit of the Suburbs in The Enemy Sleeps

Margaret Elysia Garcia

Noir is having its Latino/Chicano moment, and I am here for it, and I hope it lasts decades to come. Historically, noir centers around a main character who is usually a white guy of some moral ambiguity; there is also a damsel of mystery who we never know until near the end whether she is a victim of circumstance or the orchestrator of downfalls. It’s always been a fun genre of murder and intrigue. But noir has its limits in character development and motivation.

While Walter Mosley has certainly been able to turn the genre on its head for the last few decades—noir is experiencing now what I would like to call its Latino emergence. 

Gabino Iglesias' third, and award-winning novel, The Devil Takes You Home with its follow up, The House of Bone and Rain, explore a new take on the genre of noir. 

Iglesias coined the term barrio noir to describe his characters and stories. In his books, the Latin American tradition of magical realism, American racism, and the desperation of impending contemporary poverty (lack of health insurance or a giant medical bill rather than a get rich quick scheme, for example) combine to make noir more relevant than ever. The Texas-based Puerto Rican author has moved the goal post in a literary direction for the genre.

Likewise, debut novelist David A. Romero takes the dark mystery story out of the easily identifiable and ethnic urban environment and into the assimilating suburbs. Romero provides an exciting new take on both the genre and expands the notion of what the Latino/Chicano story can entail with his novel The Enemy Sleeps. 

To remain relevant, noir and mystery must change and adapt to fit a more contemporary ethos and Romero’s novel certainly provides that. The cover art by Art Carrillo exemplifies this beautifully. For what is the southern California suburb if not one of pushing social order and ignoring the history of the landscape? Here we have a row of trash, organic waste, and recycle bins, ubiquitous in suburban life, the coyote of wilderness and conformities encroachment, and the bloody handprint. Perfect.

This makes the novel absolutely delicious to me, a connoisseur of the dark.

My grandfather, a gardener all this life, used to warn us that the ones most likely to stiff a gardener are never the rich or poor, but the precarious middle-class suburbanites who are just one step up from where they began. He had plenty of evidence over the years to the point where he would just not accept jobs in up-and-coming suburbs. In the suburbs, the component of danger is the precariousness of the newly arrived who climbed out of the urban landscape with aspirations of a higher economic status, but whose bank account has dwindled in making that down payment for the better life. It’s a haunting lifestyle change. Or more bluntly: you can take the Latine out of the city, but the moral fight might be remembering who you are in the new landscape.

David A. Romero, Martillo

I sat down with Romero recently to talk about The Enemy Sleeps. Romero, a well-known spoken word performance artist and poet from Diamond Bar accomplishes a challenging goal. Not everyone can make the jump from poetry to prose. Writing stories was Romero’s first love and poetry—what he’s known for—was the dalliance. He loves the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and the use of colloquial language in a story of Kurt Vonnegut, themes of pre-destination and all roads leading to a bad end. True crime, after all, is now mainstream.

Not unlike myself, he’s been inspired by film and music—I’m finding more often that is the case with millennial and gen x writers, especially those of us who grew up in the bleak shadow of Hollywood. The book is intentionally cinematic, inspired in part by noir films like Double Indemnity. Think too in terms of modern horror and noir like Get Out.

The hills surrounding Diamond Bar seem the perfect setting for the unraveling of a story with murder. Ominous dry hillsides, long stretches of highway, and frontage roads at night, that perfect mixture of urban meets wilderness. Anything can happen. A body can easily be dumped. 

The long form of a novel gives Romero a chance to play, including the joy of going off on tangents—like how to set up a tent. But he also has intention with the style of his writing matching the main character. It was also fun for him to write. A murder mystery must have intention, red herrings, and a sense of foreboding. Literary fiction must have philosophical themes it is pre-occupied with, and social commentary must have its scapegoats. And twilight is when it all goes down. To get into the mind of the killer is exciting and thrilling and fun to write—and it speaks to America’s fascination with its macabre and serial killers (Netflix anyone?).

But Romero also touches on something often missing in Latino/Chicano literature that’s near and dear to my own heart: the relationship between Latinos/Chicanos to suburbia. Suburbia always seeks conformity, shared bland capitalistic values and a pretense of safety. Putting Latino/Chicano characters in the suburbs means a discussion on what it means to be Latino/Chicano in the upper working class/lower middle class. 

The pressure for assimilation is huge in the suburbs—it’s a question that is always looming and can be oppressive. Resonating with me is the subtlety of what it is to be Chicana/o and Latina/o—moving beyond the immigration tale and pushing back with our own expectations. I liken it to how, say, Chicano Frankenstein hits, or the Spy Kids franchise, or the Netflix series Wednesday--placing Mexican Americans in stories that humanize and find commonality rather than set us apart with the trauma porn of immigration/narco stories/poverty. Do we not deserve stories that go beyond that? Falling for our own stereotypes, writing with white progressives in mind, trap us in our own cliches.

Romero used his own family’s experience in the suburbs for some of his characters and descriptions. Authentically Latina Gabriela and Xochitl he bases on a cousin’s wife. His first version of the story was front loaded with local history and interspersed with a character who knows the history, the fauna and flora of the region –coyotes always an omniscient presence. The author explodes the prejudice against the undocumented. Romero’s favorite character is Michael Martinez, complex and prideful. Not having a perfect and noble character has always been a part of noir.

A story like this is hard to publish due to agents' and publishers' largely stereotypical expectations of what a Latino story will be. Often, it’s only acceptable to be set in Boyle Heights or East LA with a gang component or immigration story in the mix. We need more stories telling the plurality of what is, and is not, assimilation, and how assimilating does and does not work.

Perhaps, however, Southern California will always be the perfect setting for the murder mystery and the noir. Consider how our history and myth fit snuggly into the genres. We have a mostly mild climate and stolen water. We have the myth of the Californio Spanish period of romanticism. We have the tenacity and exploitation of the robber barons whose names still line our streets and institutions. There is the cinematic aspect to such novels that signify we are—if nothing else—a giant company town of lies and storytelling.

Romero, after much consideration of other presses and acquiring an agent ultimately decided to place it with El Martillo Press—where he is the co-founder and editor-in-chief. The press, while continuing to publish internationally renowned poets and Chicano poets closer to home, has moved into publishing fiction and plays, such as Herbert Siguenza’s Anthology of Latino Plays and my short story collection, Chicana Noir & Other Stories.

Romero is now writing a prequel to The Enemy Sleeps.

 

Noir day or night

Special Dispatch for Labor Day Weekend: A Pre-Order Opportunity

La Bloga columnist Margaret Elysia Garcia sends this video for your appreciation. Garcia is author of the El Martillo Press collection, Chicana Noir and Other Stories,"> coming October 2026. Pre-order at the publisher's website (link here).

Chicana Noir might not be familiar to some readers, whereas "noir" has long been a staple of publishing, and a La Bloga favorite genre, e.g. Akashic Books' cityname noir series: https://labloga.blogspot.com/2015/10/review-chicago-noir-classics-news-on.html

Preview readers lavish compliments upon the writer and her stories. For example, Jesus Salvador Treviño observes, ""Margaret Elysia Garcia’s writing is enthralling, introspective and honest. In Chicana Noir and Other Stories, she elevates commonplace people and events and infuses them with metaphoric and, at times, horrific meaning."

Ariel Gore shares her view that ""In Chicana Noir and Other Stories, the real horror isn't supernatural—it's adjuncting without health insurance. From the fever dream of "Chicana Noir Story #1" to the revenge fantasy of "The Last Cruise," Margaret Elysia Garcia writes with the urgency of someone who knows that survival itself is resistance. Garcia's narrators exist in the margins"

From El Martillo's website, "Macondo fellow Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the poetry collection the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023), of the short story collection Graft (Tolsun Books, 2022), and the poetry chapbooks Iconistas!, and Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2025, 2022). She’s the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country (AK Press, 2025). Her second short story collection Chicana Noir and Other Stories will be published in 2026 by El Martillo Press. She's the recipient of Chapman University's non-tuition fellowship for Creative Writing."

Orlando Ortega-Medina, in conversation with Daniel Olivas, discusses "The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants" at Book Soup on April 27

DATE: Thursday, April 27, 2023 - 7:00 p.m.

ADDRESS: BOOK SOUP, 8818 W Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

DETAILS: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Orlando-Ortega-Medina

“A riveting yarn with a charismatic tempter.” –Kirkus Reviews

ABOUT THE BOOK: Attorney Marc Mendes, the estranged son of a prominent rabbi and a burned-out lawyer with addiction issues, plots his exit from the big city to a more peaceful life in idyllic Napa Valley. But before realizing his dream, the US government summons his Salvadoran life partner Isaac Perez to immigration court, threatening him with deportation.

As Marc battles to save Isaac, his world is further upended by a dark and alluring client who aims to tempt him away from his messy life. Torn between his commitment to Isaac and the pain-numbing escapism offered by his client, Marc is forced to choose between the lesser of two evils while confronting his twin demons of past addiction and guilt over the death of his first lover.

Inspired by events that forced the author and his partner to emigrate from the United States because of marriage inequality, TheFitful Sleep of Immigrants is an extraordinary and timely tale about the value of family and friendship, loyalty, and love in the face of adversity.

And check out my Los Angeles Times interview with Orlando Ortega-Medina that was published online on April 18.

***

IN OTHER NEWS...

I am delighted to announce that Forest Avenue Press has acquired my novel, Chicano Frankenstein, for publication in fall 2024. This is a description of my book:

Chicano Frankenstein addresses issues of belonging and assimilation through a modern retelling of the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley classic. An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a near-future world that both needs and resents him. As the United States president spouts anti-reanimation rhetoric and giant pharmaceutical companies rake in profits, the man falls in love with lawyer Faustina Godínez. His world expands as he meets her network of family and friends, setting him on a course to discover his first-life history, which the reanimation process erased. With elements of science fiction, horror, political satire and romance, Chicano Frankenstein confronts our nation’s bigotries and the question of what it truly means to be human.

You may read the official announcement here. 

Chicanonautica: Mexico City in Shades of Noir

by Ernest Hogan

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has all my respect. She is one of the most successful Latina writers of her generation. Her knockout novel Mexican Gothic was a New York Times bestseller, and is being developed for television. Everything I've read by her is great.

She's also prolific. Her books come out so often I can't keep up with them. Please forgive me. I live under a monumental mound of books and am easily distracted.

I deliberately tried to get ahead of the game with her new one, Velvet Was the Night. I got me an electronic ARC from NetGalley. It's not coming out until August, so this is a chance for you to pre-order it to make for a grand finale for your summer reading binge. 

Yes, it's another winner.

Charging further into bestseller/big-time territory, this one leaps out of the sci-fi/fantasy/horror megagenre into the more mainstreamy noir. It transplants the genre to Mexico City, which I suppose would make it negra (that translates to black for you Spanish-impaired out there), which creates some problems. The French started calling Hollywood crime films with dark attitude noir since the Fifties. Maybe we need a new term for what’s going on now--I suggest ultraviolet: the invisible light that makes scorpions glow in the dark.

 

Velvet Was the Night takes the noir tradition to new places besides CDMX. It takes place back in the Seventies, the time of hippies, and commies, and gangsters getting mixed up in dirty and deadly Cold War politics. But this isn’t a literary history lesson. The real-life nightmarish situation is the background for the story of two young people: a young thug who goes by El Elvis, and a thirtyish secretary who likes American pop music, movies, and Mexican romance comics.

Yes, we have a Tarantino-esque mix of old-time pop culture along with the sex and violence.

The characters are great, and a bit larger-than-life. The setting gave me Mexico City flashbacks--I could smell the streets . . .

It’s just the thing to take you away from the dwindling pandemic and current political shuffle to deal with the new situation. And not just for the Latino lit crowd. Recommend this to your Anglo friends as a page-turning beach read.

If they like it, recommend Mexican Gothic. Also, her earlier books are being rereleased.

Who knows, maybe after a few years New York publishers will stop thinking that books by and about Latinxes won’t make money.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Ernest Hogan’s work will be in two upcoming anthologies: Nuestra Realidad Creativa / Our Creative Reality and El Porvenir, Ya! Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl: A Chicano Science Fiction Anthology.

Havana Libre Noir. Facebook Clunk. News 'n Notes. On-line Floricanto.

Patriots, Terrorists, Médecin-Spy Malgré Lui 

Review: Robert Arellano. Havana Libre. NY: Akashic Books, 2017. ISBN 9781617755835 1617755834
Michael Sedano

“Gusano” is one of those cuss words that sounds as ugly as the odio it expresses toward upper- and middle-class Cubanas Cubanos who fled Fidel’s revolution. Gusanos got out with burning resentment and all they could carry off the island. They landed in Miami and turned South Florida into the richest city in Latin America. That burning resentment led some to finance terrorism back on the island. And they call themselves gusanos, like that’s a good thing.

Back on the island, the abandoned gente adjusted to decades of hard times. A materialist would say a medical doctor in Havana earned less than a Miami taxi driver. That doctor might be an entitled pig like the director of a certain pediatric clinic, or a dedicated medical professional working at street level, seething at rationed medical supplies, lazy colleagues, an uncaring government.

That’s background for the events that unfold in Havana and Miami in 1997. Manolo, the doctor with the red lunar and open heart, is the main character of Arellano’s arresting Havana Lunar. Reading that one enhances reading Havana Libre, since the narrator alludes to information from that book multiple times. Ni modo. Read Havana Libre then read Havana Lunar. The two are equally fun, and isn’t that one reason to read espionage thrillers?

Other reasons to seek out your local bookseller, or the publisher direct route, include Havana Libre’s employment, with attribution, of a James Bond trope requiring capture torture hopelessness, followed by a deus ex machina escape and rescue. Despite its excitement, Arellano’s moments of brilliance will slow down appreciative readers. The writer’s landscapes make for superb experiences in irony and sardonic wit. Arellano grows especially evocative capturing the astonishment of an FOB, a rube in wonderland, that no one else notices the quotidian excess in la Yuma.

Readers need to be on their guard not to miss Arellano’s metaphor comparing liberation from abusive marriage to joining the gusanos in la Yuma. One of the supporting characters, Mercedes, a beauty from Manolo’s own rural hometown, threw herself into the wilds of the big city. When Dr. Manolo helps her get a job at the Havana Libre hotel, she reflects on her state.

Had she made a difficult choice? Yes. Did it involve what might be seen as a betrayal? Maybe. She was not able to conceive it but otherwise. It was a sacrifice for the well-being of the child. If she had not been in love with him once, she would not be here now. If he had not become abusive and that as such unrecognizable from the man she once loved, she could not have made the decision. But that did not mean that she couldn’t tell her daughter someday about her father. She could tell her about the one that her mother had loved. 235.

There’s purity in Mercedes’ spirit and appreciation of Love. Substitute “Cuba” for “him” and Arellano is arguing that defection makes a perversion of patriotism, yet the abusive power of the state and its endless “special periods” of deprivation influence a desperate person’s justification to abandon  home, family, friends. Mercedes looks to birth and motherhood, the old and new Cuba. The gusano looks to blow up buildings back there.

Betrayal, treachery, patriotism, loyalty, these are the coin of exile and the underpinnings of many novels of the Cuban diaspora. Arellano uses them without naming them, building a plot mixing the doctor's defection in Miami where he will infiltrate the terrorist organization bombing tourist places in Havana. One is Manolo's father, a gusano who fled alone decades before. Son intends to betray the father. The father has already betrayed la patria and la familia, now his betrayal of the stranger-son will cost lives.

Readers may be cruising along through the pages--Havana Libre is an engrossing story--thinking how you gonna keep him down on the farm, now that he's seen Miami? There’s lots of envy in that cynical eye the doc casts on aisles packed with merchandise, the money thrown down for lunch that would feed a neighborhood for a week back on the block, the existence of food. In Miami, Mercedes waits an hour for a scoop of low-grade vanilla ice cream.

Why go back to that crap, especially since Cuban secret service set Manolo up such good cover documents that defecting-in-fact would be a walk in the park, for a traitor.

But just as that unspoken plot twist seems imminent, Arellano pulls a fast one and has the terrorist Mendoza easily discover Manolo’s deception. He's not a spy, he's a sucker. And naive. No one is anonymous in this neighborhood, especially the new guy on the block identified in the chisme stream as the defecting homeboy.

Wrapping the novel in a James Bond secret agent pastiche propels the reader through the plausible and implausible, stupid captors, pain thresholds, the rescue and debriefing back in Havana, sans a roll in the saddle with some jinetera. But then, the alluring shrink makes an offer Manolo won't refuse.

Thousands of lives could have perished along with the Havana Libre hotel, but thanks to the doctor's patriotism, the plot failed. The perverted patriotism of the gusano foiled, the Salvadoran bombers captured, and in his wake, a large ambiguity back in Miami, the father-son plot in abeyance. Could be worth a third novel in the series. I'd like to see it.

I have one problem with the novel, its indecision on what expressions to translate and what to let speak for themselves. I hope it’s a heavy-handed mildly xenophobic editor insisting on these dilatory impositions on the flow of the story. They do nothing to build ambience and ethos. Code-switching has uses in the community that a novel ought to respect consistently. While there are some expressions that can be said only in the one language, Arellano or the faceless editor need respect other expressions and let them be. Whomever does it, there's preference for appositional translation, saying something in Spanish then a comma and the equivalent in English. Gente talk like this, but there's a grammar to it that does not demand automatic immediate translation.

But then, the imposition of English upon the Cubano's Spanish thoughts and encounters, is far from consistent.

In one case, the bomber speculates on glitches in his effort. If confronted he plans to leverage intimidation, useful with battered employees like these in Castro's showcase tourist hotel. The plan is wreak emotional terror by “exhibiting the usual signs of a burgeoning complaint. ¿Como te llamas? ¿Hace cuánto trabajas aquí? ¿Quien es el manager?” 243

Back in Miami, a few pages on, Manolo’s gusano father code-switches a farewell, but the editor or writer doesn’t trust the reader to survive without translation, electing instead of apposition, as if the character code-switched in conversation, we get a separate sentence. Because the reader wouldn’t get it otherwise?

I am going to speak with the American doctor and explain how you defected and chose not to go to the conference. Y quiero que sepas algo antes de irme.” I want to tell you something before I leave.245

The tactic makes little sense considering a putative readership. Gente interested in Cuban literature are gente in all likelihood with linguistic resources equal to the sentences provided. For the yanqui reader slumming in unaccustomed literature, foreignness is what they seek, foreign is what they get. Missing a phrase here or there adds to the ambience of the novel and a reader's understanding of  characters. Arellano's pointed descriptions of how crummy conditions are in Vedado, his elegant expressions capturing the immigrant’s disgust at consumerist excess, are bonuses. Even if you hated Fidel, you will be happy you read Havana Libre and will seek Arellano's two other novels.

Don’t come to Havana Libre expecting a thorough bashing of the Cuban revolu, though the title is a backhand of sorts. The rum coke and lime drink is called a "Cuba Libre," except in Cuban bars where it's called "Una Mentirita." But this novel isn't about a political Havana libre, nor an eponymous hotel. El pueblo keeps Manolo going, it's an evocation of revolutionary zeal but also the doctor's commitment; things are tough, but they're equally tough for us all. Keep going.

For soft-pedaled bashing, visit Miami. It's a disgusting culture which the denizens--exiles, gusanos, second generation--don’t see it anymore, they don't see much, whizzing past in their SUV. The cultura of Manolo’s neighborhood is warm, human, time-immemorial, and Mercedes might be in his future, he can take her for a ride in his Lada. Who wouldn’t go back?

Not that Havana Libre is for the quotidian reader. Reading it is reserved for people seeking interesting information about Cuba and insight into an immigrant’s culture shock upon landing on dry land. Robert Arellano writes for people who like excellent writing, who prefer a writer delve into important ideas rather fluff up a novel with a lot of bang-bang padding.

Brooklyn's Akashic Books is taking discounted orders (link) for the book in anticipation of a December release. Early December arrival will be just in time for the stocking stuffers your loved ones so enjoy, that you're known for. Havana Libre is sure to become the hit of the season's loot for those certain readers on your list.



Facebook & Things That Go Bump In the Night

I suppose I should track it for frequency, but Facebook has been declaring itself convinced that links to daily La Bloga columns are verboten potted meat product and erased from the entire universe that is Facebook.

This has been going on for months, so it's not a perverse social media version of "trick or treat." Notices arrive in spates. One week is wiped out. Then another, another, until a month and a half disappears from La Bloga's postings on Facebook. Everyone's silenced, La Bloga, the individual writers, Friends and Friends of Friends who attempt to share the post. Banned.

There's a process. I read the manual. I say "no, La Bloga is not spamming its Friends and Friends of Friends." El Faisbuk thanks me for letting Fb know and promises to investigate.

A few days later a slew of Fb notifications scolls down my screen. Click the link. Absolution, the only Penance is we'll go through the same rigmarole next month.

Odd, que no?

La Bloga approaches our fourteenth year of regular dispatches to millions of eyes over those years. Gente worldwide interested in Chicana Chicano, Latina Latino Literature, Cultura, y más find La Bloga useful. Facebook regularly says we're spam.

Facebook is not La Bloga. The "F" word owns social media; its penetration of the churn of ideas makes it important, but merely a place to share links to La Bloga dailies. It's irritating that a central hub of exchange operates clunky, but so it goes.

Gente who share La Bloga with friends get the same "you're blocked, pendeja pendejo" message. It's not you, it's them. Use the process. Click the link and tell the Face you don't share spam.

I hope you have a bookmark (Command + D / Control + D) making La Bloga a click away on a regular basis, a useful pause on your daily trip along the information highway. If not, te invito.


Mail Bag
Chicago • This Week, Wine Snacks and Gente
La Bloga featured New Mexico sculptor Luis Tapia in August (link), a month before his survey show Borderless closed in Long Beach. A thematic assemblage of of Tapia's work is on display in Chicago through April 15. Don't think that's a lot of time to get to the show. Tempus fugit. And if you have time this week, attending a gallery opening will liven up anyone's day.

Luis Tapia: Sculpture as Sanctuary Opens on October 27th

You're invited to the opening reception of Luis Tapia: Sculpture as Sanctuary on Friday, October 27, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm at the National Museum of Mexican Art.

For many, sanctuary can signify a holy place, a refuge, a ritual, a haven, or an oasis. It can also mean home, family, community, religion, and identity. The exhibition, "Luis Tapia: Sculpture as Sanctuary" engages and critiques contemporary global themes of Sanctuary and highlights the hand-carved masterworks by Luis Tapia (b.1950), a Chicano artist from Nuevo México.

Tapia and Tey Marianna Nunn, Ph.D. and curator from National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM, will be joining us for the evening for an artist talk and tour in the Torres Gallery. Plus, Tapia will be signing his book, "Borderless The Art of Luis Tapia".

RSVP for the opening reception via Facebook (link).

Exhibition continues through April 15, 2018.


Chicago Chicano Shakespeare Theater Closing Amarillo Soon

Last Chance to See Amarillo

Chicago Shakespeare Theater is proud to present one of México's most celebrated theater ensembles, Teatro Línea de Sombra, as part of the inaugural Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, Destinos.

A man departs México for a land of dreams: Amarillo, Texas-but vanishes before reaching his destination. Far away, a woman reconstructs his journey, imagining what might have transpired not only for him, but for the thousands of other faceless men and women who have taken the same path-and for those who were left behind. Combining stunning multimedia projections, visceral imagery and poetic storytelling, the production is a rich theatrical meditation on the harsh realities faced by immigrants and their families. This production is presented in Spanish with projected English subtitles.

Playing in The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare, October 17-29, 2017, on Navy Pier (link)



Los Angeles
Los Angeles Theater Center Launches Encuentro De Las Américas

In a massive undertaking, Los Angeles' raza teatro brings top American theater to eager audiences. Fourteen productions across three weeks in the high-tech auditoriums of the LATC. Here's a link to the playbill. The festival includes several performances by Culture Clash, always a highlight of any theatre season.

Click here for details on the festival and tickets to Culture Clash. (link)


Penultimate Week of the Year's Antepenultimate Month On-line Floricanto
Txai Frye , Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Paul Portuges , Andrea Mauk, Garrett Murphy

“Cultural Awakening” By Txai Frye
“Painted Face” By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
“Gun” By Paul Portuges
“The Complete and Utter Failure of CNN” By Andrea Mauk
“WHY WE CALL THEM THE BLUE ANGELS” By Garrett Murphy



Cultural Awakening
By Txai Frye

Yesterday was the 49th anniversary of the iconic Black Power salute protest in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympics by John Carlos and Tommie Smith (10/16/68) …reminded me of this poem I wrote a while ago.


Fist held high
above my nappy head
like John Carlos
at the Mexico City Olympics
promulgating my defiant stance
refusing to goose step to your
non-rhythmic beat
taking one last look around
at the rapidly shrinking world
blinded by whitewashed sensibilities
the nostrils of my broad nose
flare angrily and my full lips
draw sneeringly back as my mind
prepares to regurgitate
the venomous poison
you forced fed me
in your second rate
excuses for schools
deciding that I shall no longer be
the sycophantic drone
that you want me to B
I am going 2 B the weak link
in your chain of fools
unleashing my warehoused aspirations
by embracing the knowledge
I culled from reading

...an activity you once labeled illegal
for me to do...
No longer will you B
able to hide anything
from me by putting it in a book.
I and so many like me
have stealthily entered
thru the hallowed portals
of Garden of Eden like
bibliotecques snatching down
the forbidden fruit that dangles
invitingly...voraciously
biting into it and allowing
the juices to saturate my mind
as the figurative fig leaf
falls away revealing what
was always there for me to see.
I realize that this is one appetite
that will never be sated
as the world opens up
and I travel through time and space
experiencing the mysteries of Egypt,
the vast riches of Africa...the pain
and suffering of my ancestors...
and so many other things...
As I cloak myself within my own proud
cultural coat of Black heritage.

h. Txai Frye - is a poet/open mic artist, whose passion is to write and read his poetry at various open forum venues. He is unpublished but currently working on a collection of poetry entitled, “Funk Epiphanosis.” Some of his poems have been featured on online poetry sites, and he was included in an anthology, “The Bronx Files, Contemporary Poetry from the Bronx,” with other poets whose lives were affected by growing up in the Bronx.
He has been involved with Green Earth Poets Café, a Brooklyn, NYC based nonprofit poetry organization promoting literacy, self-confidence, communication, community, and educational development among young people since its inception in 2013. h. Txai Frye has also participated in panel discussions involving unjust incarceration of our youth and other minorities. He is currently counseling a small group of aspiring poets on performance techniques in association with the NYC Queens Library – Lefrak City branch.




Painted Face
By Odilia Galván Rodríguez

dedicated to the women of Juarez who’ve lost their lives at the hands of monsters who think women are objects to be owned, used, and abused. Ni Una Mas!

She no longer paints her face
no foundation
no new love blush
she's even stopped
tweezing her eyebrows
lipstick an occasional
smear of lip-gloss
she wears for protection
on those devil desert nights
when the cold wind kicks up
the fecal speckled dust
that turn her eyes
angry-red and teary
as she walks home from work
at the maquila in the FTZ*
tumbleweed and trash passes
her on the streets
while the bitter winds
seem to slash up the town
she is alone and hurries home...

She no longer paints her face
because he always wanted her that way
never wanted her
to leave the house with him
without being bien arreglada
he’d admire her and say,
so feminine ~ so beautiful
this mask he loved so much and
wanted only for himself

The first time he slapped her
they were in the street outside
the restaurant where he’d taken her
for some drinks and a good dinner


The owner, who said his name was Manuel
had come over to their table
to say hello and make small talk
he’d addressed most of his words to her man
but had politely gazed over at her and asked,
como estas señora?
she’d responded with a faint smile
a subtle nod of her head

Then, after he left, her man asked
How do you know him?
Why do you think he came over to our table?
Did you motion him over?
Are you sure you don’t know him?
You did pick the restaurant ...
Is that why?

She had been too shocked to respond
all through the interrogation
all she’d wanted
was for him to stop
to eat their meal in peace
to converse about their day
to stop embarrassing them
who was this man anyway?

When Manuel brought over the check
instead of their server
her man looked at her,
the devil in his eyes
then said, go and wait for me

Outside

she couldn’t really hear what was being said
the owner’s face got very red, his hands
desperate fists at his side, then gesturing
for this crazed man to leave
his place of business

while other patron’s eyes
followed him as he stalked off
through the door
he kept shouting, This, isn’t over yet
when he got out to the sidewalk
where she was waiting
he slapped her so hard
she not only saw stars
but his hand
left an ugly tattoo
on her beautifully
made up face.

*FTZ: Fair Trade Zone

http://www.coha.org/worker-rights-and-wrongs-fair-trade-zones-and-labor-in-the-americas/

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hate-femicides-plague-mexicos-largest-state-50429405

Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet, writer, editor, educator, and activist, is the author of six volumes of poetry, her latest, The Nature of Things, a collaboration with Texas photographer, Richard Loya, by Merced College Press 2016. Also, along with the late Francisco X. Alarcón, she edited the award-winning anthology, Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, University of Arizona Press, 2016.  This poetry of witness anthology, the first of its kind, because it came about because of the on-line organizing work of Alarcón, Galván Rodriguez, and other poet-activists which began as a response to the proposal of SB 1070, the racial profiling law which was eventually passed by the Arizona State Legislature in 2010, and later that year, HB 2281which bans ethnic studies. With the advent of the Facebook page Poets Responding (to SB 1070) thousands of poems were submitted witnessing racism, xenophobia, and other social justice issues which culminated in the anthology.

Galván Rodríguez has worked as an editor for various print media such as Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, and Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She is currently, the editor of Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal online; facilitates creative writing workshops nationally, and is director of Poets Responding to SB 1070, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and wellbeing of many people and encouraging people to take action. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline.

As an activist, she worked for the United Farm Workers of America AFL-CIO, The East Bay Institute for Urban Arts, has served on numerous boards and commissions, and is currently active in Women’s organizations whose mission it is to educate around environmental justice issues and disseminate an indigenous world view regarding the earth and people’s custodial relationship to it. Odilia Galván Rodríguez has a long and rich history of working for social justice in solidarity with activists from all ethnic groups.

Gun
By Paul Portugés

the bullets had his face in the dove of his blood he begged God to take the
soul from his body so he wouldn't cry about his exile from time
he thought of all the empty shoes in his closet

all that was left were the ashes of a solitary bird he worried they wouldn't spell his name right feared forever and the shattered light without love
while bullets crushed their sorrows into stones into dust

he couldn't feel his face as they joined the club of funerals all the cells became embers as he saw a star in his hand
he thought about his mother whom he loved like a mountain
he'll never forgive the shooter for forcing them past the door of chains

he swore he could smell snow as he watched his garden green heard mourning doves cry out his name on a t.v. screen

Paul Lobo Portugés-- Taught creative writing at UCSB, UC Berkeley, USC, SBCC, Cuesta College,, and the University of Provence. Books include Sorrow and Hope, Breaking Bread, The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg, Saving Grace, Hands Across the Earth, The Flower Vendor, Paper Song, Aztec Birth, The Body Electric Journal, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, and Ginsberg: On Tibetan Buddhism, Mantras, and Drugs. Poems are scattered in small magazines (Hambone, Chelsea, River Styx) and anthologies (El Tecolote, Overthrowing Capitalism, The Asian Writer, Naropa Anthology, Spectrum--So Cal Poets Anthology), across the Americas, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Wrote a few films including The Look of Love. Behind the Veil, Shakespeare's Last Bed, Fire From the Mountain. Poetry videos include To My Beloved, Kiss, The Lonely Wind, Lovers, Of Her I Sing, Fathermine, Stones from Heaven, The Killing Fields of Darfur, Who on Earth. Received awards from the National Endowment, the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Commission.




The Complete and Utter Failure of CNN
By Andrea Mauk

Almost a day like any other
In a city built on top of another
Civilization,
The novelist sits at his desk
In his 4th floor apartment
Stuck for a word,
The reporter takes notes for his story
Over pan y cafecito, strong with canela,
As he watches college students with
South African accents
Practice their Spanish and
Dance down the street
Towards the Frida Kalho.

Church bells compete with
The traffic that rattles and honks
Without rest,
As voices rise up asking
The question of the day.
Do you remember?
¿Te recuerdas?
It depends on a person's age,
I've found,
As to whether they have
Their own memories or
Recollections borrowed from
News clips
And retellings.

The domestic workers
Return from the markets
With bags of fresh frutas y verduras.
To the buildings on the plaza,
Where they will turn on
Their novelas and begin to
Prepare la cena
For their employers who
Work in the tall office buildings
En el Distrito,
A place they almost never go.

The tourists take pictures
of pre-Colonial art and
Archetypal colonial architecture
With long-lensed Nikons,
Their appreciation unaware
Of charged politics and
Bloody history.
They only see the beauty
Of things, but seem
Oblivious to the people,
The foot traffic of everyday living.
The workers with lunch pails,
The woman hawking tamales,
The children's voices
carried from the playground
Across the boulevard.

The siren sounds
And the first reaction is to freeze,
Then to panic,
Then to reason,
They've already completed the drill.
It must be a mistake.
Then the blindness, the blur
Running for the street
As the sound of the rumbling
Rises up from the deep.
Maybe it is our fault,
We are being punished
for our corruption
In the government,
For those that worship
Narco saints,
A wake-up call to the world,
History does repeat itself,
Or maybe it is
the ancestors,
Tall and strong and
Very angry,
Trying to rise up through
the rubble...

Oh, the rubble,
The rocking ground,
The roar below,
The buildings crashing to the ground,
The CNN reporter
Uses the phrase, "Pancaked."
And suddenly I realize
Not everyone exited.
There are mattresses
Tumbling down,
And it's worse in Puebla,
Devastation in Oaxaca,
Still shaking in Chiapas,
Which I understand
At some peripheral level,
But I realize in that moment
That I am the most selfish person
In the world
Because you are supposed to be
In Mexico City,
And amongst the nine million,
The shrieks and wails and terror,
CNN has not managed
To pick you out of the crowd
And train the camera
On your face.

Andrea García Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She calls Whittier, CA. home. She sells real estate, fights against gentrification, and teaches theatre there. She has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, writes and produces plays for children, and has completed two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality, and her poetry ishas been featured in Hunches de Poesia and in several issues of Mujeres de Maiz “‘Zine.” Her poetry is also published in Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice and Sonadores: We Came to Dream. She has also been a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry. She has a cookbook project on the back burner. When she is not writing, she loves to take road trips, sing in front if an audience, and spend time with her dogs and horse.




WHY WE CALL THEM THE BLUE ANGELS
By Garrett Murphy

Showoffs display in-air hubris.
They hijack the skies
for the usual egomania
of the ugliest of US
while they fancy themselves starring
in some remake of Top Gun.
All sane moods end up feeling
many shades of…
…blue.
So why the name of “Angels?”
Really!
What did you expect
for them to dub themselves?

Garrett Murphy is well-known in the Bay Area poetry scene as a political and human nature satirist. He lives in Oakland, CA, and has written several chapbooks of poetry and prose, The Ugly Salon and Other Stories(short fiction), Now Showing (poetry and fiction), the novel Yang But Yin: The Legend of Miss Dragonheel, and, most recently, What We Claim...What We Are (poems and stories, in which "Why We Call Them the Blue Angels" also appears). He has also had works published in theSacred Grounds Anthology, the New Now Now New Millennium Turn-On Anthology, Street Spirit, and At Home in the Land of the Dead, among others.

Ramos' My Bad His Good. Veterans Day.

Review: Manuel Ramos. My Bad: A Mile High Noir. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2016.
               ISBN: 978-1-55885-833-6

Michael Sedano

They may not know it--not Gus, not Luis--but they are. Broken men. Gus, he’s broken from being locked up and now at the mercy of bullies. Luis, he’s gotten old, he knows it, but he hasn’t given in, yet. He will. Manuel Ramos, who wrote the characters, calls upon his long time companionship with Luis to put the Denver lawyer into dangerous territory Luis alone can’t handle. Ramos brings back Gus from an earlier novel, to tell half the story, to provide the vigor that escapes the aging hero. Together they heal.

My Bad: A Mile High Noir may have one shortcoming, but it’s one easily remedied. Only recently released by Arte Publico Press, this detective gem from Manuel Ramos might not be in stock at your local independent bookseller.

Not having a copy is the only reason a reader wouldn’t immediately devour this instant noir classic from razanoir master Manuel Ramos. My Bad: A Mile High Noir has everything readers seek in a novel: connections, action, irony, danger, wonderfully drawn characters.

Ramos has been following the adventures of Luis Montez since 1993’s The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz introduced the Denver Chicano lawyer as only the second Chicano detective in U.S. fiction. Not only is it entertaining to follow Montez’ career, there’s an extra reward for readers seeing the effect of age on the character’s energy and spirit. For an older reader, Montez is one of us. And as the reader ages, she or he may find themselves sharing Montez’ reflection of engaging “reminiscence that had no where to go but regret.”

Age doesn’t stop Montez from jumping in with both feet. Unlike a younger vato, the lawyer is less likely to put himself in harm’s way. For that, there’s Gus Corral. Action may as well be Gus Corral’s middle name. Gus can’t be a todo dar owing to the constraints of being a pinto on parole--a consequence out of Ramos' 2013 novel, Desperado: A Mile High Noir.

Readers who are meeting Gus for the first time owe it to themselves to go back and read Gus’ action-packed thriller of a debut, Desperado. Prison slows him but Gus is Gus, and nothing—not a horny cop, not a spiteful parole agent, not a pack of very bad hombres—will stop Gus from doing the right thing.

Irony defines the relationship between Luis Montez and Gus Corral. The pair identify with one another, the unintended consequences of an affinity between lawyer and client. Under different circumstances, Luis might have grown up puro street, Gus might have used his smarts to become an Esquire. Incipient humor lurks in the niches of barrios, as in the smile-inducing names of vatos like Shoe and Ice, the Mexican cop named Fulgenico Batista. A back story involving Gus’ parole agent,  Dirty Harry, and an unsavory bossman, rounds out Gus' independence. Then there’s the hard-ass Denver cop who invites Gus to her pad to discuss the case after hours.

Danger and action always form the center of attraction in a Manuel Ramos plot. A request from a client quickly elevates from quotidian lawyer stuff to murder, arson, police harassment, drug cartel assassins, and that ultimate show-down at the lake. In a wonderful bit of authorial elegance, Ramos starts My Bad with a prologue set at the moment of greatest lethality, shuts it down, then lets the story build to that opening narrative. It’s a lot of fun.

As the plot glides to that climax, Shoe, Ice, Gus, and Batista are four rubes ice fishing on a wind-swept lake, where they draw attention from a game warden who stops them in their tracks. It’s the pause that endangers. The bad guy with the gun from the prologue is up there on shore, with Luis in the thick of the action.

As with all of Manuel Ramos’ gems, the Montez series and the superb Moony’s Road to Hell, the  characters scintillate with interest with a depth unexpected when having so much fun. The dynamic between old and young undergirds this story to add a wonderful dimension to the novel, a kind of Sailing to Byzantium sense of hope, futility, and regret.

The bit players have a way of working their way to the spotlight, but they’ll inevitably take a back seat to Gus and Luis. These two are honest, good men, principled and notable for their positive ethos, while not being goody two-shoes about it. Age takes its toll with merciless inevitability, but broken men don't have to remain that way, what is passing or to come is in their own hands.

Aristotle might have pointed out had he been around today, all other things being only slightly unequal, good guys and their wits will always win out over bad guys with pistolas and malice in their hearts.

In a radio interview, Ramos summarizes what it means to be a “Chicano noir,” and in the phrase, captures the interest, and attraction, readers will find in My Bad: A Mile High Noir. This novel, the genre overall, Ramos tells the interviewer, brims with fatalistic cynicism in an angst-driven atmospheric tale. “The way chicanos are in general.”

Ask your independent bookseller to order it, or buy copies publisher-direct from Arte Publico Press. My Bad: A Mile High Noir is a perfect companion before the fireplace on a cold winter night, and a great holiday gift. Don't miss the soundtrack of 35 tracks listed in the afterword. Light the fire, spin the discs, treat yourself.


Veterans Day 2016
And Then I Became A Veteran

It was the kind of dream you don’t want to have, and when you’re in it, you want to wake up. But you can’t wake up, and there’s a reason for that.

My fiancé sits on the couch, eyeing the television set. Flag-draped coffins arriving at Andrews Air Force Base as they do every grim day. She turns to watch me on the rug, in the front leaning rest position, counting. One, two, three, four, five…

“What are you doing?”

“six, seven, push-ups, eight, nine… push-ups.”

“What are you doing that for?”

“nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five. Because I need to get in shape for when I’m drafted.”

I’ve been doing 25 twice a day since we moved in together. The first time she hears the answer she gets angry and stomps outside into the beautiful Santa Barbara summer. Today, she asks, just to see if I’ll change my answer. I don't and she doesn't get mad. She sits there and says with emphasis, “you’re not getting drafted.”

I roll over onto my bare back. The thick-pile white wool carpet feels soft as I stare up at the water-stained ceiling. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. In the distance, tambourines, shouting, and singing filter in from The Powerhouse Church of God in Christ across the empty lot behind the house.

I open my eyes, disoriented, as if from a dream, this July of 1968. In early September, a few days after our wedding, I will be drafted. Ordered to report before Thanksgiving, I manage to postpone induction until mid-January 1969.

At Ft. Ord, much to my chagrin, I learn the Army does four-count push-ups. One, two, three, ONE, Drill Sergeant! One, two, three, TWO, Drill Sergeant. One, two three…

Put on a happy face, Ft. Ord, February 1969

Review: Desperado. On-line Floricanto

No Hope Vato Turns Hero in Noir Novel

Review: Manuel Ramos. Desperado. A Mile High Noir. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2013.
ISBN 9781558857704

Michael Sedano

"Desperado" doesn't have much meaning in English. The bad guy in cowboy stories is a desperado. The 494th most popular song in Rolling Stone's 500 best songs is "Desperado." Thus, when Manuel Ramos names his newest crime novel Desperado. A Mile High Noir, some might miss how Ramos extracts every etymological nuance from the term in crafting an ethos and landscape for Gus Corral. Gus is a person from whom all hope has been ripped from his alma, a guy with no plan, no accountability, a guy sitting around waiting for something to come his way, while the neighborhood around him goes away to loss and ruin by development.

More painfully, Gus Corral has a keen mind. He recognizes and accepts his lot, as if being des esperanzado comes with being Gus Corral. He's the innocent bystander. Then next thing Gus knows, he's locked in a hopeless situation threatening to kill Gus, his sister, a girlfriend, and a casi innocent bystander buddy. That's Gus' luck.

Ramos introduces Gus at a nadir of existence: divorced, homeless, getting by on the charity of his ex-wife, getting the sharp end of chisme for it. Constantly broke, when Gus does get a little coin he blows it in sleazy bars. The landscape echoes Gus' trouble. His desperate segunda sits in the path of neighborhood transition from barrio to hipster haven.

Gus' homeboy from high school, Artie Baca, now a big-time real estate developer, uses Gus' desperation and contempt bred of familiarity. He targets Gus to be the fall guy in a stupidly lethal scheme because he knows Gus can't resist the carrot even if it's at the short end of the stick.

It's grand having Manuel Ramos mystery novels back in play. The master of chicana chicano noir hasn't lost a step in the hiatus between 2013's Desperado and 2003's Brown on Brown, with a pitstop in 2010 for the nostalgia-driven King of the Chicanos. Ramos uses a deft hand to juggle the novel's two murders, the murder of Artie Baca and the metaphorical murder of the lost and ruined homeland.

Desperado, as the subtitle says, is puro noir. Lots of danger. Heaps of irony and atmosphere. Blood, sex, Juan Diego's tilma, Pancho Villa's skull; Ramos has a way of keeping readers on their toes. Everything's changing except Gus Corral, he's stuck in the same place out of time.

Gus Corral is one of those vatos who can't catch a break. Maybe it's the tipos he hangs with, maybe it's the way he looks or the way people respond to his style, maybe it's something else outside of him. For his part, Gus Corral makes crappy decisions that put him and his friends into situation after situation.

Of course, situations are what make the novel a fun read. Just turn the page and observe his pendejadas.

When Gus' old pal dangles a dangerous deal in the air in the form of a $1000 check, Gus knows it's fishy but he decides to accept. When a couple of Denver dicks slap Gus around, he doesn't tell the truth from the git-go and gets brutalized for his decision. But then, if he'd come clean the outcome would have been death by torture from a vicious narcotraficante named Carne. That's the type of no-hope, lose-lose predicament Ramos likes to put his characters, then write his way out of them.

Once the characters are hip deep in caca, the fun multiplies and comes fast and heavy. Gus gets tangled up with the two dicks and an underage sex slave, a one-nighter with a then-out-of-reach high school crush that turns nightmare when the butcher takes her hostage. Talk about getting lucky, eh?

Along the way, Gus mixes it with monied urban developers, his pal's engañosa wife, hooks up with old pals from back in the day, makes you antojado for a cup of coffee, and wraps up a busy day sucked into a suicide mission, guns blazing.

Gus survives, mostly by his own wits, emerging a hero. But Manuel Ramos' noir always comes with a few surprises, like a deus-ex-badguy you had to see coming, a judge to take the luster off Gus' heroism you didn't, and a final flashback to catch readers off guard.

Desperado A Mile High Noir is a lot of fun to read, plus it leaves you weighing how one person's change is another's decay. That the theme of a lost and ruined homeland is among the dominant motifs of chicanarte. How place mirrors and helps define a person's opportunities and satisfaction. In the end, Gus proves the general shape of an outcome is up to the actor, but external factors make one hunker down and deal with what circumstances dish out.

Gus is another character gem, like Ramos' Luis Montez, who makes a pair of cameos in the novel. Ramos knows how to turn a self-admitted pendejo like Gus Corral into a sympathetic and heroic pendejo you're pulling for, even if, at the last page you shake your head that after all this adventure, Ramos leaves Gus in the same boat. Can't catch a break, and in his own mind, feels one notch lower now because of the secret Ramos holds in reserve for his final irony.

But lessons learned, maybe a little esperanza has creeped into Gus' outlook and we'll see Gus Corral making a comeback in a second novel. The vato earned a second chance.


La Bloga On-line Floricanto May’s Penultimate
Christopher Carmona, Edward A Viduarre, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Héctor Rojas, Vanessa Bazzania Becerra-Bautista

“Check|Point by Christopher Carmona”
“Chicano Blood Transfusion” by Edward A Vidaurre

“The Proof is in the Food” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
“Indocumentado” by Héctor Rojas
“Sobreviviré” by Vanessa Bazzania Becerra-Bautista


Check | Point
Christopher Carmona

idling at Sarita checkpoint
Anzaldúa in my backseat
dogs with jobs sniff my tires
men in green eyes and tired uniforms wave carson through
they know only one question
toughest to answer…
I am leaving what I thought was America
but was really something else
the question burns me up
U.S. citizen?
there are only two answers
yes, sir… no, sir
but Anzaldúa in my backseat whispers truths in my ear
truths that I may have been born in this country
it does not belong to me
I belong to the land and its hodgepodge of peoples
mixed together in the great genocide soup
existing together in a land so hot it has burnt my memory
U.S. citizen?
simple answer: yes, sir… wrong answer: no, sir
where do I exist? what do I answer?
somewhere… in-between
pinned to a dissecting tray
sliced into little pieces
how do I work? how am I put together?
analyze me… label me… name me
my tongue moves too much
I will not be pinned
I want to say that I am not a U.S. citizen
I am not a citizen of any nation
I belong to this land and its people
no fences to divide… only bridges to cross
but I can’t say that
as I inch closer I need to remember
take sunglasses off
turn off radio
practice answer… yes, sir
don’t want to be pulled over
don’t want to be searched
just want to go on through
no hassles… no poetry… no confrontation
nothing to delay… nothing to arouse suspicion
1100 undocumented aliens seized to date
am I one? oh wait, I am a U.S. citizen!
then what is this fear that creeps through me?
I will be caught… I will be deported to a land I don’t know
I will be detained… accused of being a terrorist and sent to Gitmo
I will be forgotten… locked in a hole forever
I am not a U.S. citizen…. citizens have rights
waived away when planes crashed into buildings
we are just as brown as any Muslim/Mexican/Mojo
we are all the same… not U.S. citizens....
we are suspicious characters
we need to carry papers
prove we are not that kind of brown
we do want to overthrow the government so we can be equal
we do want to blow it all up
not with bombs and bullets
with marches/poems/Spanglish
we want democracy not built on the backs of people
we want democracy built for the least privileged
we don’t want to be subject to a checklist
Chican@ isn’t even an option
have to check Hispanic
even closer… I’m the next car in the line
what do I say?
can I answer, I don’t know?
can you tell me? I was never really clear on that one…
how do I determine if I am a U.S. citizen?
is a birth certificate all I need?
what about Obama?
They still don’t believe he is one and he’s the president
I don’t even know what a long form birth certificate is…
is that the one with a printing of your feet?
can you tell me officer? please?
what if he doesn’t know?
what if he is just like me?
trying to work… raise a family… just survive
do not ask questions!
what if he breaks protocol… declares everyone… illegal?
what do we do then? do we resist? do we cry out in protest?
but what if he lets his guilt get the better of him?
he stops doing his job and lets everyone through… no questions asked?
is that possible? wouldn’t that be something? la migra taking a stand?
but here I am…I pull up and lower my window
U.S. citizen? he asks
Yes, sir.


CHICANO BLOOD-TRANSFUSION
by Edward A. Vidaurre

I got shot in the gut
and now I need
a Chicano blood transfusion.
Make sure the vials come from the underground.
Quick!
Alurista is coming down the corridor and wants my hat for his collection

What for the rush and bloody pain
What for the blooming and the rain

Close the door! Put a sheet over my body and tag my toe.
My brown skin is hindered by the loss of blood.

Help! Minute men are looking for me,
La migra is banging on my door!
La chota has me surrounded
In hand, pistolas with hairline triggers,

I can hear them approaching with
their steel- toed boots crushing
the concrete up the piss stained staircase.
breaking out the chalk, ready to outline me
for being a Voice

Where’s the sangre?
I’m losing consciousness
strap Juan Felipe Herrera down
-take it from him
cause’ I can only come up with 180 reasons why a Guanaco can't cross the border.

Look for the descendants of
“Corky” Gonzales
who also is the blood,
the image of myself.

Ask a Chicana in the Midst
with beautiful brown eyes,
to hold my hand during the
mezcla of Pipil y Maya

I can't write anymore, my pen is missing
along with my grandma's recipe for champurrado y chiles rellenos.

I need those to help me break
through the concrete wall mierda stretching from Califas to Tejas.

I worry about my citizenship/permiso para jalar/needing a haircut on Sundays I worry about people that drive small cars/con placas vencidas/con placas behind them

STOP!
Alright I think it’s done

I feel the same
Chingón!
Guanaco!
Chicano!
Angeleno!
Tejano!

With the blood of
Mi gente del barrio


The Proof is in the Food
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

Great-granma Pepa sat on the edge
Of the bed stricken by a stroke,
Unable to walk or speak,
Her eyes flashed stories
I wished I could read.

Like a mime, not speaking,
Like a statue, not moving,
Only her daughter, mi abuelita,
Interpreted her wants,
Understood her grunts.

I dreamt Granma Pepa came to visit me,
Entered my kitchen, opened the cupboards,
Said to me, “Mija, ¿para qué necesitas todo esto?
Tantos platos, tantos vasos, tantos sartenes.
No necesitas tantas cosas para cocinar
Buena comida.

Y este ‘microwave,’
Para qué necesitas cocinar algo rápido?
La mejor comida se cocina
Con tiempo.”

I lovingly prepare dinner for Granma Pepa.
Mole de pollo, arroz, frijoles
Con nopalitos y tortillas de harina.

Mole de chile colorado grown
By Papá in his garden.
Red chile so hot, it makes your eyes
Water and sweat pour from your brow
Like in the hottest of Tucson summers.

The chicken, freshly killed by Mamá
Like she did so many years ago,
Wringing its scrawny neck
Until it stopped struggling,
Then dipping it in boiling water to loosen
Its feathers for plucking.

Arroz—long grained white rice like
The kind Papá bought in burlap sacks
To feed the family during the strikes.
The rice that filled us, sustained us,
Made us less hungry.

Frijoles de olla con nopalitos
Like Abuelita used to make,
Picking fresh cactus pads
From her garden, the ones
Without espinas that the Spanish
Miners brought from their country,
The nopales that Mama
Saved from Old Morenci
Before it was destroyed and
Now grow in my own garden.

Tortillas de harina made with lard
Rendered from the hogs Papá
Raised and slaughtered,
Rolled out with the glass alka-seltzer
Bottle Mamá used as a palote,
Cooked on the placa she gave me
When I got married,
The placa from Granma Pepa’s
Cast iron wood-burning stove.

Granma Pepa scoops mole with a tortilla,
Chews slowly, nods, and tears off
Another piece of tortilla
For frijoles y nopalitos.
I wait, not touching my food,
Holding my breath.
“Mija,” she says in English for the benefit
of my husband, “You haven’t forgotten
how to cook our food in spite of all
the fancy things in your kitchen.”


INDOCUMENTADO
por Héctor Rojas

Los Estados Unidos dan oportunidades
A millones de gentes
Que no podrían obtener en su propio país
Por eso esta tierra es bendita
Para nosotros los latinos
Mojados que buscamos mejor vida
Trabajo cualquiera
Nosotros lo haremos
Piscar, Limpiar, cocinar
Solo será un oficio temporal

La tierra pertenece
Al ser quien la trabaja
Esta tierra fue nuestra
Antes de la llegada de los europeos
Pero poco a poco la recuperamos
Tras el sudor que nutre nuestro pastor
Tras la agonía de abandonar nuestro hogar
Para correr al otro lado
De la frontera brutal
El titán que trata de detener a la gente

Indocumentados, ilegales, mojados
Sea como nos veas o nos llames
Aquí no venimos a robar
Nos rompemos la espalda
Por una oportunidad a estudiar
Porque la educación es la llave
Que abre las esposas de la pobreza
Nos libera de la cárcel que es opresión
Cura nuestra enfermedad de ignorancia
Y nos mantiene unidos


SOBREVIVIRÉ


por Vanessa Bazzania Becerra-Bautista

No me mires con esos ojos hijo mío
Que tu padre no es ningún criminal
Me vine persiguiendo un sueño
Que ahora es tu realidad

No me mires con lágrimas en los ojos hijo mío
¡SOBREVIVIRÉ!
Pues fui entrenado bien
Crucé una frontera con valentía
Dejé mi cultura
No por falta de amor
Si no porque mi amor por ti fue más grande

Ahora que me llevan preso por imigrar y trabajar
Te pido que not haya lágrimas
Ocupo tu esperanza
Ocupo tu paciencia
Ocupo tu amor
Ocupo tu fe

Tu papá volverá
Si así tú lo crees
Así es que por ahora
Sueña conmigo
Que tu padre
Siempre estará contigo


Bios
“Check|Point by Christopher Carmona”
“Chicano Blood Transfusion” by Edward A Vidaurr
e
“The Proof is in the Food” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
“Indocumentado” by Héctor Rojas
“Sobreviviré” by Vanessa Bazzania Becerra-Bautista

Christopher Carmona is a Chicano Beat poet from the Rio Grande Valley of Deep South Texas. He was a nominee for the Alfredo Cisneros de Miral Foundation Award for Writers in 2011 and a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2013. He has been published in numerous journals and magazines including vandal., Bordersenses, and The Sagebrush Review, and tecolote. His first collection of poetry called beat was published by Slough Press and his second book, I Have Always Been Here is due for publication late 2013 by Otras Voces Press. He is also editing a Beat Texas anthology called The Beatest State In The Union: An Anthology of Beat Texas Writings with Chuck Taylor and Rob Johnson and is working on a book called Nuev@s Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue about New Chican@ Poetics with Isaac Chavarria, Gabriel Sanchez, & Rossy Lima Padilla to be published by Slough Press in 2014. Currently he is the organizer of the Annual Beat Poetry and Arts Festival and a member of the Nuev@ Chican@ Poetics Coalition.

Born in East L.A., CA in 1973, Edward Vidaurre writes poetry about his upbringing and experiences of living in the barrio. Raised in Boyle Heights in the projects of Aliso Village, his poetry takes you through his memory of La Lucha. Known to his friends as Barrio Poet, Vidaurre says:” Sometimes the barrio claims us, holds us by our feet like roots in its field of chalk outlines closed off by the screaming yellow tape being pulled from its soul.”

Vidaurre is the founder of Pasta, Poetry & Vino and Barrio Poet Productions. He has been nominated for a pushcart prize for his poem, "Lorca in the Barrio" and also is co-editing an anthology called "Twenty" for Newtown, CT through El Zarape Press with Daniel Garcia Ordaz, Katie Hoerth, Jose Chapa V and Rene Saldaña Jr.

A writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Elena writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. She co-edited Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems, anthologies written by her writers collective Sowing the Seeds.

As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena has performed as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation and done presentations about Morenci, Arizona for twelve years. In 2012 she received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the 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. She was nominated for Tucson Poet Laureate in 2012. She is one of the moderators of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070.

Her website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/.

My Name is Hector Rojas. I was born in Mexico city, Mexico in 1991. I came to the United States when I was 8 years old. I was raised in Salinas, California. In 2009, I became the first in my family to graduate from High School and the first to attend a University. I'm currently in my fourth year at UC Davis studying mathematics and Spanish. While at Davis, I've been involved with a student group named Scholars Promoting Education Awareness and Knowledge (SPEAK), which supports undocumented students academically, psychologically emotionally, financially and raises awareness within the community. After graduation, I plan on pursuing my teaching credentials and a masters in education.

My name is Vanessa Bazzania Becerra-Bautista and I have a passion for writing poetry. I find it therapeutic to express my feelings and thoughts through my poems. Poetry comes from the heart where love grows and blossoms into words. I am a humble immigrant to this country; my family immigrated to the U.S. when I was only three years old. My father and mother had a dream; a better life for their four daughters. My parents believe in the American Dream and want us to succeed in this country. My father always emphasized the importance of education to me and my sisters; he always made sure our homework was done. In 2008, I completed my Bachelors Degree in Psychology at California State University, Sacramento (C.S.U.S.) and became a “Dreamer”; an immigrant in higher education. During my time being a student at C.S.U.S. I volunteered in healthcare fairs as a translator for Spanish speaking families; where I informed many women about Breast Cancer Awareness. I maintained myself active in on-campus organizations where I had the opportunity to participate in cultural events like “Dia de los Muertos” where I put together an altar on college campus and talked about my cultural heritage which I am very proud of. I am currently a graduate student in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (U.N.L.V) where I am pursuing my Masters Degree in Clinical Mental Health. In 2012, I became a small business owner for the first time; I hope my business can help our economy grow. My American Dream includes helping others, who like me came from distant lands to make this country stronger and more diverse. We are not alone in our journey, we have each other.