Happy Veterans Day 2022

 Melinda Palacio

My father-in-law's medals. 

My grandmother lined a whole wall with portraits of her six veterans. She was grateful her husband and sons returned home alive. She was proud of them. My mother was so patriotic, her one regret in life was not enlisting. I've never had such a wish. The fact that I am married to a veteran is incidental. When I think about Veterans Day, my mind remembers the wall of veterans, my mother's brothers and a folded flag belonging to the family friend who didn't make it back. Was it too painful for his own mother to look at the carefully folded flag?

Veterans Day 2019: If they listened.

Michael Sedano

Don’t cry when you look at the intensity in the eyes of that young true believer Chicano G.I. He knows better; he's just pretending. I cry anyhow, but I'm a softie. I knew him.

It’s his squad’s turn for QRF, Quick Reaction Force duty. If there’s a riot at the main gate, or if the North Koreans are attacking from the river, we seven clerks will be first on the scene. Not that there's a chance anything’s going to happen. We bear arms, fix bayonets, act fierce. Pretending fights boredom until we get the call near midnight.

This guy's no kid, a 25 year-old among teenagers. He has rank, a Specialist Fourth Class. Life is easy, he considers himself the most powerful Spec 4 in the U.S. Army. With good reason.

Propinquity.

He works in the Colonel’s office and is good friends with Sergeant Major. Officers and NCOs know who he is, gatekeeper, with friends in high places. When the Specialist growls, the Major barks. 

He works independently, coming and going, summoning the Colonel’s jeep and driver to tour the outlying missile sites to take pictures, gather material for hometown newspapers. The troops love that. The Army loves that. 

My driver is a vato from Berdoo, a downer freak hiding out from the Army behind shades as the BC's driver. I'm the XO's driver, so when the Major goes out to inspect the batteries, the Specialist is there in the background, a presence during the ordeal of a CMMI.

Life is, más o menos, good. The occasional QRF, or random armed encounter, go with the life. That hard guy face again.

Appleton and Grant need to be court-martialed and rousted dishonorably out of the service. That was the word that came down from Camp Red Cloud. There’d been a race riot at the Infantry post where we had Alfa Battery. Appleton and Grant had burned down the library.

The Major handed me the reports to read, and opine. Appleton and Grant hadn’t done shit. Maybe they’d started a fire that burned a wall of the library, maybe someone else lit the trashcan. For sure Appleton and Grant were two of numerous Soul Brother GIs, Infantry and Air Defense, pissed off at racist crap in the Ville that spilled over to the Post. The wall was repainted and everything was copacetic at Camp Red Cloud. A lot of that wasn't in the report.

The Colonel and the Major were reasonable men. The Commander was a “light bird” or Lieutenant Colonel, and a math professor at West Point, doing an active duty turn. The XO was a CPA reservist, doing his active duty turn. They heard me out and agreed, Appleton and Grant would pay a price but not the full extent of military umbrage. We would give them an Article 32 discharge. That was a big win for the Specialist from Isla Vista.

The Military Police brought Appleton and Grant in handcuffs, released them to me. I placed a holstered pistol on my desk where it sat loudly next to the wall and the crossed flags of the United States and the United States Army. 

The two afro’d GIs looked exhausted and dirty after the hour ride from confinement at CRC. Their wrinkled green fatigues gave them a disreputable look and they knew it. They sat hangdog at my deskside. I gave them confidentially the news the Major would officially relate.

You’re not getting court-martialed. Their eyes widened. I’m sure they’d expected the worst, 20 years in Leavenworth busting rocks eating bread and water. I explained to dull eyes and probable incomprehension, the shiny black leather holster on my desk making a lot of noise. 

“You’re getting an Article 32."

Blank stare.

"Go to the VA when you get back.” 

They were from LA and Compton, and would be on the block next week. 

“You can get GI Bill benefits if you follow the program.”

GI Bill benefits. That had been the clincher with the Major. It convinced the Colonel, too. The two black guys from L.A. had been convenient, not guilty, certainly not Dishonorable. 

Fact is, the mercy shown to Appleton and Grant made the Colonel look bad to higher-ups. The Lieutenant Colonel went back to West Point a LTC, probably never making Full Bird--a Colonel--because he was soft on discipline. But that’s speculation. The Colonel and Major were good guys and they did the right thing while screwing those two soldiers.

So every Veterans Day, among myriad thoughts and emotions that course through me, I wonder if Appleton and Grant heard that guy with the pistol? 

Is it "happy Veterans Day" for Appleton and Grant? Did they go through the process, petition the VA for help, get that discharge softened up? 

It was an automatic change if you applied, just know the system, work the system. 

What if Appleton, or Grant, or Appleton and Grant, got the GI Bill of Rights they’d earned, found magic in school, got certificates and Union jobs, or sheepskins like AA, BA, went on to comfortable satisfying lives? 

Meanwhile, West of Korea...

Read! Raza. Chicana Chicano Literature-Vietnam & Movimiento Novels 

Michael Sedano

*Written in 2012, this bibliographic essay needs to be updated with Alfredo Véa's Mexican Flyboy.

There's a unique affinity between military recruiters and teachers. The new school year brings fresh prospects and unlimited potential. In a few months, both will have their targets. The eager reader, the easy mark, the scholarship winner, Officer material. Some students will make the choice. "No." Other students will say, "Sign me up." Others will waver. Reading a novel-- who knows?-- could inform a student's decision-making process, a recruiter's drive for a promotion and a bonus.

Every good teacher reads widely, files away impressions of authors and titles, to be ready to recommend the right title for a particular student. Book groups, too, seek that little-known novelist, the quondam gem none of the reader's acquaintances had known. To be ready for just that occasion, or a book group's find of the year, add Stella Pope Duarte's Let Their Spirits Dance, to your "to-be-read" list . The novel introduces a new author whose entertaining style and intensely moving emotional experience offers a reward in itself. But here is an important novel for teachers with Chicana and Chicano students because Duarte's novel informs these kids' oft-neglected and mistold history through an historically accurate portrait of anti-war organizing in the Chicana Chicano movement. Readers with a personal commitment to peace and justice will find this a work to urge upon young people to read. The President-select's wanton urgency to make war brings youth into the administration's cross hairs. Youth--particularly the poor and non-white kids whom undeserving politicians look to in times of sacrifice--need to know about peace organizing, need to give humane consideration to the cost of war on themselves, their families, and the nation's values. Let Their Spirits Dance opens doors to these vitally important considerations.

Background on Chicana Chicano Literature and the Movement
Although la Chicanada has populated the United States since before there was a United States--we knew we were here--but until the late 1960s, a broader cross-section of a United States public had little appreciation for our history and culture. Then, as el movimiento Chicano splashed across the news, dramatic images of farm laborers, antiwar students, and hosts of community activists began to substitute in the public's mind for the little-regarded 'invisible minority' or 'sleeping Mexican-American giant.' On August 29, 1970, the movement climaxed when 50,000 Chicanas Chicanos and supporters massed in East Los Angeles as the Chicano Moratorium, to demand cessation of the war in Vietnam and its outrageously disproportionate killing of Chicano youth. Rioting Los Angeles police agencies gassed and bludgeoned the protestors, and in separate incidents, murdered three Chicanos.

Sadly, although many cast the movement in revolutionary terms, the results of the Chicano Movement did not produce revolutionary change, neither among Latinas and Latinos, nor among that broader cross-section of Unitedstatesians. For example, even today, there remains little agreement on what we call ourselves'Chicana Chicano, Latina Latino, mestiza mestizo, india indio, Mexican. And, although there appears a plurality who rejects "Hispanic" as inappropriate, that odious term has governmental sanction and is used here and there across the Chicano diaspora. A glaring example of this was the Chicano Moratorium 2002 panel of social science researchers. The public discussion quickly devolved into irate declarations of competing Peoplehood terms''Mexican' 'indio' 'American' 'I don't care.' The 'battle of the name' swept away any productive discussion of the history, sociology, and political science texts the experts had presented.

Despite persistent community division, a strong Chicano literary movement endures as one significant cultural change produced by the activism of the 1960s and 70s. The first anthology of poetry and short fiction bearing the title Chicano Literature saw print from Berkeley's Quinto Sol Press in 1969'its first edition in 1968 was titled "Mexican American" literature--signaling what some critics inappropriately termed a 'Chicano renaissance.' From that initial anthology, hundreds of titles, dozens of competing journals and small presses, and eventually major east coast publishers have created a rich, if still difficult to access, literature of the Chicana Chicano experience. An excellent body of Chicana and Chicano detective mysteries is available, but the finest work is belletrist novels and short fiction, essays, written by Chicanas. Ana Castillo, Graciela Limon, Sandra Cisneros, for instance, if better known, would readily become essential to the canon of the well read.

Putting Let Their Spirits Dance In Perspective
Oddly, until Duarte's Let Their Spirits Dance, Chicana and Chicano writers had produced no novels featuring the movement itself, and only Chicanos had published Vietnam War novels. Duarte's novel, thus, stands as a landmark in US fiction as the first novel of the Chicano Movement and the first Vietnam War novel written by a Chicana. Owing to its uniqueness, readers will profit from placing Let Their Spirits Dance into the rich literary context of Chicano fiction and war writing.

Chicano Literature hasn't ignored the movement. In several works, the movimiento features as significant background. Manuel Ramos' absorbingly exciting Luis Montez detective series set in the 1990s, for example, regularly weaves into his plots Montez' background as a 70s Denver movimiento activist. Guy Garcia's 1989 mystery, Skin Deep, is one of two novels to mention the August 29, 1970 events at Laguna Park. In a deeply moving scene that symbolizes the character's distance from his Chicano roots, Garcia draws a chilling picture of repressive violence by police angered at the antiwar protest. Lucha Corpi's 1992 Chicana detective novel, Eulogy for a Brown Angel, opens shortly after the police riot at Laguna Park. The character, fleeing bloodthirsty cops, turns a corner to safety only to discover the murder that launches the mystery. For many, Oscar 'Zeta' Acosta personifies the early Los Angeles movement, so Acosta's two biographical works, Revolt of the Cockroach People and Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, stand as landmarks of movement and Chicano writing. In tributes to Acosta, noted Mexican author Ilan Stavans has collected Zeta's unpublished work, and Ramos' Blues for the Buffalo takes off on the Zeta legend. Ironically, Acosta also exemplifies Chicano invisibility. Hunter S. Thompson's drug-swilling "Samoan lawyer" in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is, in actuality, Oscar Acosta. (It was Acosta, by the way, who coined the term 'Gonzo Journalism,' Thompson's erstwhile claim to fame.)

Unfortunately, many of the noted works are now out of print, so a library search will prove well worthwhile. There may indeed, however, now be a 'renaissance' in store for readers of Chicano literature, as a number of titles are being reprinted today. For instance, Corpi's Eulogy was recently reprinted in paper, as was Blues for the Buffalo, and Ramos has a new novel and character, Moony's Road to Hell. See booklist at the bottom of page for details.

During the Vietnam War, Chicano casualties occurred far out of proportion to our numbers in the US population. According to social scientists, a diversity of factors influence the large numbers of Mexican kids who find themselves in uniform, medalled, and, inevitably, dead. Perhaps kids see the military as their only exit from endemic poverty, so they enlist. Perhaps the Selective Service found easy pickings among a large population of 18-year olds not in college and thus eligible for the draft. Whatever the causes, Chicano veterans give voice to their experience and in the process create a noteworthy body of work.

Charley Trujillo's oral history, Soldados, sparkles with authenticity while offering the author's personal tribute to these men, everyday kids from campos and urban barrios who keenly understand their role: stay alive. Trujillo's novel, Dogs From Illusion, paints a grim picture of small town boys caught helplessly in a terrible spiral of loss. We meet them as stoop labor picking melons and being ripped off by a greedy farmer. A few months later, they're surrounded by other hostile forces, friends dying all around them, heads literally rolling. Each man is badly wounded, but far worse is the moral loss they suffer, turning into murderous monsters. The novel closes as it opens, the guys back in the fields picking fruit, getting ripped off by their employer. Trujillo, in addition to character and story, adds linguistic and cultural interest capturing conversations of his Califas characters with Puertorrique'o and Indio soldiers, helpfully translating the warriors' cal' and Spanish phrases. I wonder how many young readers will miss subtle cultural data an older reader will enjoy, as when a vato greets his buddy with 'What's in the bag, goose''

In a superb book, Daniel Cano's Shifting Loyalties intertwines stories of members of a field artillery unit in Vietnam, black, brown, white. Cano keeps the reader on edge, wondering which of these guys will die. Structure highlights the senseless tragedy of these warriors' lives and deaths through contrasting stories of youthful innocence when, as children, the soldiers play Little League, struggle with family matters and other mundane details of' life not being soldiers. Cano then yanks the reader out of reverie, his characters acting out the silly bravado of young men at war, laughter turning without warning into tragedy. Two stories stand out. One tells of the expatriate who discovers his own anomie and self-destructiveness reflected in the person of a US tourist whose acts make even less sense than his own; perhaps this ex-artilleryman finds a cure in that. An especially poignant story recounts one soldier's attempt, as a way of healing his deep emotional wounds, to talk to the parents of his long-dead Anglo friend, to explain, apologize, confront that painful moment. But he so long delays that, when finally he confronts his past, the mother has died and the father's disassociation make the character's healing problematic and the story closes ambiguously, maybe hopeful.

The best written and stylistically most interesting of the Chicano Vietnam war novels is Alfredo Vea's Gods Go Begging. A polished writer of several novels, Vea's Vietnam novel mixes horror with humor and contemporary social commentary. His lawyer character, 30 years past Vietnam, suffers' bloody wartime nightmares relived in gruesome though excellently written war scenes. Nightmare emerges to actuality onto a bizarre present day San Francisco, turning the novel into an unconventional and thrilling mystery. Vea's closing scenes are at once hilarious and surreal, and one closes the cover smiling, hoping the character has found a cure for his war-borne disaffection.

Two Chicana Vietnam War Novels
War is the province of men, or so it would seem in any consideration of war literature. From Homer or Caesar through Crane or Remarque to Uris and Mailer, men tell war's stories, and the focus is on the men. A woman's role, the war at home, its impact on mothers, sisters, wives, is only lightly touched on by the warrior writer. Women cannot be content that such images as the Dear John letter, the tearful airport farewell, exotic bar girls have constituted a woman's war story. Thus a pair of 2002 publications, Stella Pope Duarte's Let Their Spirits Dance, and Patricia Santana's' Motorcycle Ride On the Sea of Tranquility, bring welcome perspectives to readers of Chicana Chicano Literature, and the Vietnam War novel.

Santana's Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility opens in April 1969. Fourteen-year-old Yolanda's revered older brother comes home from Vietnam to San Diego. Physically sound, Chuy is broken, badly. Chuy's a monster, but never loses the loving support of his hero-worshipping kid sister. As if Chuy's destruction isn't earth shattering enough, Yolanda comes of age all at once. Her own sexual awakening turns from innocence to confused mad passion in the aftermath of Chuy's escape into the arroyo behind the family home. Then Yolanda suffers a base' indoctrination to man-woman sexuality, hiding in a closet listening to a brother seduce an unwilling virgin, perhaps one of Yolanda's own friends. The scene is a feminist highlight that boys and girls alike should read, think about, and discuss in an open classroom.

Confronting the brother, Yolanda tells him, "Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe I don't know shit, but I can't help asking myself, hermano, why shouldn't Tito and Tom, Dick and Harry think like you, try to get a piece of ass any chance they can' Pop someone's cherry and promise her she's gonna fly high with him. Why should the next guy be any different from you, Octavio'" Then older sister Ana Maria jumps in, "Leave her the fuck alone," she said to Octavio, staring at him hard and determined. "Leave all women the fuck alone unless you're going to treat them with respect‑‑the way you'd like to have your sisters be treated."' (235)

The August 29, 1970 Chicano Moratorium march marked the high point in the movimiento, the massed protestors validating the wrongfulness of the devastatingly disproportionate numbers of Chicano war dead. Duarte weaves the historical context of the police attack that day into her entertaining novel about a community devastated by that war, a novel of grieving mothers, peace organizers, broken veterans, sons who arrive home in aluminum cases, and the role of today's aging activists still seeking healing from those now long-ago wounds.

Duarte has a storyteller's sense of action, using a heroic journey structure to caravan her pilgrims from Arizona to The Wall, stopping along the way to collect Jesse's war buddies, themselves on lifelong downward spirals. Along the journey they meet other families with names on The Wall and promise to touch their Names, too. Let Their Spirits Dance has romance, fantasy, spiritualism, patriotism, and adventure wrapped around a challenging gender- and cultural nationalism sure to sponsor lively discussions. La Manda to The Wall to touch Jesse's name animates the spiritualism that drives the action. Duarte gives the mother a Guadalupana's faith but indigenous faith comes to the daughter. Some readers may find the author's spiritualism challenging; they should simply recognize the curandero hermit's vision of a Chicano Eden'Aztlan constitutes a cultural difference; they should reflect on the cultural origin and uses of faith such as motivates a Guadalupana.

A reader feels the writer's energy in a number of ways. The burlesque opening with Teresa jumping a rival in the middle of a dance floor puts an absurd overlay across the grimness of the quest. The author's humor, timing, and sense of surprise should delight most readers. I hope they enjoy the surprise ending as magical delight, understanding how its miracle of regeneration validates the curandero's insight and how this informs Teresa's understanding that cultural differences are valuable, and True.

Readers will appreciate the research that informs the novel's authenticity. The Gold of Asia chapter feels of a writer who walked in a Vietnamese rice paddy to pull off a handful of seeds. Duarte's fictive Laguna Park scene, like Guy Garcia's before her, makes an outstanding highlight of the work. Duarte's chillingly realistic scene speaks as someone standing on the podium overlooking the panorama of fleeing families pursued by club-swinging uniforms emerging from swirling clouds of gray-white tear gas. The book is worth reading almost for that chapter alone.

Duarte writes with a beautiful sentimental regard for mothers of dead sons, for long-suffering women. Male readers may have difficulty with the writer's low regard for and small trust in men. Despite the hero worship of a brother or a dad, according to Duarte's women, relationships fail because men generally are worthless louts. Women staunchly withstand philandering men, but tragically faithful in their love, dauntless in their strength, must find ways to ensure not merely survival but satisfaction. Still, threatened men will appreciate the youngest pilgrim, the neglected son, is himself a miracle worker whose efforts are instrumental in bringing about the novel's culture-bridging healing.

Jingoistic readers might resent Duarte's Chicana nationalism, the indigenism of Aztlan, or the roll call at The Wall of only the Spanish-surnames. But these emotions mask an important distinction. Let Their Spirits Dance is a patriotic Chicana novel. This at first might seem contradictory given the outspoken bitterness of movement protest, but where comprehension of patria includes Aztlan as much as the conventional homeland, Duarte's journey across the United States reaffirms the novel's conviction that Chicanas and Chicanos, like Jesse and all the other dead, are "Americans" too.

Like Moses nearing the promised land, it's a foregone conclusion the mother isn't going to make it. But the other pilgrims do:

"Priscilla is next, then Paul, Thom, Lam, and Joshua held in Lam's arms, reaching up to touch his grandfather's name. Then Chris, Gates, Willy, Manuel, Tennessee, and the kids touch Jesse's name. All around me everyone else is touching their man's name. The Wall is reflecting our faces like a mirror. We've journeyed through Aztlan to the place where our warriors are immortalized in stone, their names, their stories hidden in atoms of granite. We've crossed paths with them, exchanged orbits, let their spirits dance." (309)

The novel ends here in catharsis, in remembrance of 55,000 GIs and uncounted Vietnamese dead. At the end of the pilgrimage begins a healing of long festering wounds. But can readers here find psychic energy to power a new journey, a pilgrimage of prevention' I hope you will pursue wider reading to place Duarte's novel into perspective as the first movement novel, and as part of the fabric of Vietnam War writing. More than simply a pursuit of reading, like the journey in Let Their Spirits Dance, the reader will find it a rewarding quest.



Chronologically Sequenced Bibliography of Chicana Chicano Vietnam and movement novels. (back)

Duarte, Stella Pope. Let Their Spirits Dance. NY: Harper Collins, 2002.

ISBN 0-06-018637-2.

Santana, Patricia. Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility. Albuquerque, 2002.

ISBN0-8263-2435-5.

Corpi, Lucha. Eulogy for a Brown Angel: A Mystery Novel. Arte Publico. 2002.

ISBN: 1558853561

Ramos, Manuel. Moony's Road to Hell. University of New Mexico Press. 2002.

ISBN: 0826329497.

Ramos, Manuel. Blues for the Buffalo. iUniverse.com. 2001.

ISBN: 0595200664

Alfredo Vea. Gods Go Begging. E P Dutton. 1999.

ASIN: 052594513X.

Ramirez, Juan A. A Patriot After All: The Story of a Chicano in Vietnam. University of New Mexico Press, 1999.

ISBN: 0826319599. ( You can read this as a free trial subscription at http://www.questia.com/aboutQuestia/eventsg.html)

Rodriguez, Michael W. Humidity Moon. Pecan Grove Press. 1998. ISBN: 1877603546 (Some list this as nonfiction.)

Vazquez, Diego, Jr. Growing Through the Ugly: A Novel. Henry Holt. 1998. (Narrator is voice of dead Chicano soldier. Not a war novel per se.) ISBN: 0805057447

Stavans, Ilan. Ed. Oscar 'Zeta' Acosta: The Uncollected Works. Arte Publico. 1996.

ISBN: 1558850996.

Cano, Daniel. Shifting Loyalties. Arte Publico.1995.

ISBN: 1558851445.

Trujillo, Charley. Dogs from Illusion. Chusma House. 1994.

ISBN: 096245365X.

Trujillo, Charley (ed). Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam. Chusma House.1993.

ISBN: 0962453609.

Garcia, Guy. Skin Deep. Farrar Straus & Giroux. 1989.

ASIN: 0374265739

Acosta, Oscar Zeta. Revolt of the Cockroach People. Vintage Books. 1989

Reprint edition ISBN: 0679722122

Acosta, Oscar Zeta. The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo.Vintage Books. 1989

ISBN: 0679722130

Romano, Octavio and Herminio Rios (Eds). El Espejo: The Mirror, Selected Chicano Literature. Berkeley, Quinto Sol, 1969.

Two Years For a Free Meal

Michael Sedano
Formerly of the 7th of the 5th Air Defense Artillery (HAWK) Battalion
Eighth U.S. Army, Republic of Korea

I claimed my first Veterans Day free meal. Every year I would read this or that chain restaurant's ad offering ex-GIs some free chow. Just prove you're a Veteran. There's the rub. They don't take your word for it.

Every year my mouth waters for free chow, but I would say to myself, "Self, where did you put that DD-214?" And Self had no idea where he'd put that form, the Armed Forces of the United States Report of Transfer or Discharge.

I know its real name because I found that darn thing the other day, just in time for Veterans Day. My own DD-214. Not a lot of people own one. Once a year it gets any Veteran who has one, a free meal. My Great Uncle Joe earned a Congressional Medal of Honor. I asked him one time, I must have been 10 or 11, if he got any money for it? Twenty-five bucks a month, he informed me. Uncle Joe had a lot of other stuff to say, too. His DD-214 probably has two pages for his medals from Korea.

A sleepy clerk at Ft. Lewis mistyped my unit as the "15th" 

This time of year I get to behold e-mail from places I frequent, like Central Grille in Pasadena,  promising me a free meal up to $15.99 because 50 years ago I gave the United States of America my body to do with as it pleased for one year, seven months and five days. Not quite two years, but they said that's what they were taking from me as they dragged me onto that bus.

According to the DD-214, this soldier was a piss-poor shot with an M14, he is a Marksman. Below that you have to take the test again. On the M16, however, he's deadly, awarded a Sharpshooter badge. It's silent on the day he had M60 machine gun training for the heck of it. He was Signal Corps, served with the Air Defenders. Had he died the Army would have given his wife $10,000. His Character of Service: Honorable.

That's all in writing. I welled up at the table reading the boxes. Sneaky quiet tears I shed for stuff the DD-214 doesn't say. That young fool with the new wedding band used to sit behind a couple of steel barrels overlooking the invasion route, armed with a field phone, a book, an M14, and one magazine of 7.62mm bullets. Had he spotted something like an enemy tank coming 'round the mountain, he would have emptied that magazine at them then scurried down the open field of fire to leap into the last jeep hightailing it to safety.

John McCrae. In Flanders Fields. click for full poem 

Even when it rained. Even when it snowed. That young fool sat up there waiting to be cannon fodder. And it rained a lot. And it snowed a lot. The book got soaked and he sat there miserably, hunkered down in mud. For hours.

Some people in our nation shirk duty when it rains.

Taking it, that's what Duty looks like, when you mean it. The pendejo named in the DD-214 raised his hand like all Veterans did, swore the same Oath every other man and woman swore, repeated the same Creed every man and woman in uniform spoke aloud their first day of training:

Excerpt, Soldier's Creed. Link in text above to full Creed.

The fellow in this DD-214 was one happy G.I. when Hq called him off the mountain to come down to civilization to run the unit propaganda mill. The DD-214 doesn't say anything about that, in fact, it says he's a Radio Operator, a Morse Code guy, not the Information Specialist in the Colonel's office. This guy got a fancy certificate from the General for his work--the DD-214 doesn't say that, either. So it goes.

I felt guilty, taking the free meal. I don't need a free meal because I was a soldier. That's not why I did that, for recognition, to be heroes like my uncle Joe and my cousin Vince--same war. If you got a medal, that's different. Otherwise, none of us merits any special treatment because we did our Duty with a capital "D". There are thousands of guys who share my good fortune, the values to aguantar and do the Duty. Then there are the people homeless, strung-out, cardboard-sign-Veterans with their hands out and getting in return an American back.

I ordered an eleven-dollar salad and the check credited $15.99. That's cool, the restaurant is giving away the max no matter what the Vet orders. If we can prove it, we're worth the cost. Barbara's entrée was list price even though she was Drafted when I was Drafted, and was just as much in the Service as I was. Peor, she suffered plenty while I had the time of my life.

Thank you, Central Grille. Ordinarily this dinner would have set me back 40 bucks with propina. So that's what I left. The workers can share the 80 percent tip.

Happy Veterans Day. I mean that.

75 men stationed on Bravo Battery did two nights up on the mountain, one day down in the Admin Area enjoying amenities like hot chow, houseboys and KPs, recreation like cheap booze and traveling USO shows.

It rained a lot. foto: Dean Moler, "Arky".

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

Veterans Day 2014 • Review: Take This Man • On-line Floricanto Eleven Eleven

Veteranspeak, or 5 Questions To Ask a Veteran

Michael Sedano

MiG Alley below, Homing All the Way Killers above

I’ve been a Veteran since August 1970, forty-four years since I walked away from Ft. Lewis Washington, discharge in hand but still in my Class A uniform. In a curious parallel, that was early in the predawn darkness, just like that January day in 1969 when my busload of inductees stood in the predawn fog of Ft. Ord.

Ever wonder what to say when you learn someone was once boots on the ground? Veterans of my era will spin you some memories to one or more of these conversation ice-breakers. I was Army, other services have similar answers. Kids from Bush and Obama’s Iraq and Afghan wars are likely to understand the questions--the answers are the cement that links a majority of Veterans with one another.

What was your MOS?
Military jobs have code numbers, the Military Occupational Specialty, M.O.S. The best known is eleven-bravo, 11B, Infantry. Me, I was trained as an oh five bravo intermediate speed morse code radio operator, a defunct trade in military communications, even then. Assigned to a rugged anti-aircraft missile site guarding MiG Alley at the Korean DMZ, I worked an oh five charlie field wireman's job. Mid-tour I lucked out and took a job in the Colonel’s office, writing military propaganda as an acting 71Quebec Information Specialist.

Short and Shorter. Sedano 3d from right, with shades.

When did you DEROS?
Short, short-timer. We counted the days until we would “get back to the world.” Upon arrival overseas, clerks calculate your Date Estimated Return from Overseas. If all goes as planned, you’ll be heading for the airport on your "dee-rhos" date. Not every Veteran served overseas. A stateside post meant serving the full two year hitch. Draftees doing one of the hardship tours—Vietnam and Korea—often put in a thirteenth month in order to earn discharge upon DEROS. I put in thirteen months, two weeks, three days, seventeen hours seven minutes and thirteen seconds in Korea, but who’s counting, que no?

RA or US?
Did you sign up, or were you Drafted? Draftees were assigned US serial numbers, volunteer tipos were Regular Army. On the sidelines were ER and NG, Enlisted Reserve and National Guard. The latter pair did Basic Training then went home. Everyone in today’s military are RA, or in barracks vernacular, Lifers. For a long time I knew my serial number by reflex. It was stamped on the dog tags to identify our bodies. I've forgotten the number now, and that's a good thing.

Would you want to see your grandchildren in uniform?
Not involuntarily.

Would you do it again?
Gente I know, to a man and woman say, Yes. I told an Army recruiter friend that I would go if I could take the place of one of the kids he was signing up. No way in Hell would I volunteer for the Draft, but if they called me again, I'd go.

Veterans and active duty wearing a uniform get free chow at  a number of chain restaurants today. A DD214 gets you fed, too. So there's that.

Veterans get to understand important yet amorphous concepts like Duty and Honor. I remember telling a friend about my cannon fodder post had the north invaded. The friend asked why I would hold my ground instead of running before it was too late? I told him it was my Duty. His eyes told me I was a fool. Así es.

Not short.

Take This Man Grossly Captivating Memoir

Review: Brando Skyhorse. Take This Man. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2014.

ISBN 9781439170878

Michael Sedano


Take This Man, along with its author Brando Skyhorse, occupy a unique spot along the continuum of U.S. ethnic literatures. These people, Brando and his mother, aren’t chicanos, but could have been. And they aren’t Indians, but they’re passing. His mother prefers fantasy history and invented Indianness, she becomes Running Deer Skyhorse, her son Brando Skyhorse, son of a chief. This is Identity run awry.

Take This Man revolves around Maria Skyhorse’s story, but at the memoir’s core lives a boy looking for a father in the men his mother regularly brings home. They all leave. Then she finds a replacement. Herein lies a challenge for readers: don't judge.

Maria’s acts gouge with such ferocity they steal the spotlight from Skyhorse’s more intimate explorations, overwhelming the author’s memories in his struggle to sort out identity and family and fatherness from his mishmash of an upbringing.

Skyhorse engrosses his reader with sordid details that make it tough to like that woman, Brando’s mother. While disgusted readers will grow furious at events, the author denies them an ally in their feelings. Skyhorse's tone is nearly emotionless, he refuses the reader's escape valve for the horror. The only release is turn the page, there's more.

It’s hard not to judge the people Skyhorse had in his life, not to want to spread chisme about those lowlife fathers, so consistently awful the child’s memory of fathering is a guy ferreting out hiding places, robbing piggy banks to buy a night’s drinking and gambling. Mother's not dumb but the easy way out is her route, such as her work-at-home telephone sex worker job. It brought in good cash and she didn't have to give up her food stamps. Marie laughed, ate well, and grew fat.

The little boy’s life is so gutwrenching I find myself wondering that people like this live among us, asking myself, he can’t be making up this stuff, can he? Skyhorse pulls off a tour de force voicing  disarming neutrality. Animated wit and punch-line paragraphs add depth to the mostly fast-moving account. It’s a challenge separating the creative from the nonfiction. Just turn the page.

The crud just piles up for this boy. Five husbands, lots of boyfriends, flings on the road, Vegas, Reno, Tahoe, ritualized humiliations. One example suffices to illustrate the savagery of Brando’s mother, her insanity, and Skyhorse’s own neutrality as he recounts a time he couldn’t produce some coupons to pay for a bus.

The mother shouts, I’ll just leave you here! You’ve taken enough of my life from me! Mother’s fury and hatred for men finds at-hand Brando easy pickings, normally with her mouth. In this instance, however, Maria gets lethally physical.

My mother grabbed my throat. Then she pulled me across the trailer the way a girl would drag a lifeless doll up a flight of stairs. She threw me shivering onto the bathroom floor and then snatched one of Nakome’s leather knife holsters and stabbed at my neck with it…. My mother wrapped her hands around my neck again and pushed my face in the toilet water while I flailed my short arms trying to reach the flush handle.

After Maria locates the boxtops she explains to the son how his carelessness led to the bathroom incident. Skyhorse matter-of-factly clarifies her logic for the reader, Not being given the box tops wasn’t an excuse; I should have asked for them.

The slight bitter aftertaste here is among the few instances where the memoirist’s otherwise controlled voice deviates from its straightforward, low-affect style. This son does not judge his mother. The author, ever a good son, won’t have readers criticize her, either. That’s just the way she was, this is what is available to remember.

Which, of course, is not what happens. Brando Skyhorse, the writer, isn’t disingenuous in what he’s chosen to recall and detail. That mother so burdens his life it takes over the book. The son-writer runs out of room for his main goal, and only skims the surface of the boy’s understanding of fathering and his relations with his biological father and daughters. Then again, the author notes, he hasn’t got this worked out yet.

With Take This Man, Brando Skyhorse should have exorcised the demons of his mother and fathers. He said good things about most of the men. He was kind to his mother and in that way gets back at her. Now the author can rekindle the spark seen in Madonnas of Echo Park, and hinted at in the Bukowski homage of this memoir, to drop the "creative non-"and get on with it.

On-line Floricanto for November 11, 2014
Elizabeth Cazessús, Henry Howard, Ashley, Jackie Lopez, Iris De Anda

Los Rehenes, Elizabeth Cazessús
Guilty of Being Brown (Showdown in Arizona), Henry Howard
Illegal, Ashley
Blessing for James' Place, Jackie Lopez
#bringbackourgirls, Iris De Anda


Los Rehenes
Por Elizabeth Cazessús

…el viento del crimen a la altura del delirio.
Rodolfo Hasler

es la hora de escribir un poema acerca del mundo
de diagnosticar las formas en que amedrenta
con su odio y deslava el rostro de la sinrazón
para justificar mil malabares políticos

es hora de escribir que estamos al acecho
de ladrones, de gangsters, de la avaricia
de la falta de libertad y la zozobra
de la mezquina relación de las entelequias

es hora de callar lo escrito
aquello que no tiene razón en la sobremesa
congestionadas las entropías mediáticas
ante verdades telúricas y tan llanas

es hora de nombrar en lo oscuro
la íntima ejecución de los días
la denuncia, el porvenir y la esperanza
con un silencio atroz que no deje dudas

es hora de contar metrallas, muertos, a los que corren,
de ver la película en las calles y al desnudo
dilucidar acaso en la espesura
de ciertas e inexplicables densidades

es hora de escribir un poema acerca del mundo
de éste y no del otro repleto de metáforas
ya no podemos escapar, no hay letras de salva
Somos rehenes de la impunidad que nos cohabita.

(del libro Hijas de la Ira)



Guilty of Being Brown (Showdown in Arizona)
By Henry Howard

I had a nightmare the other night.
I dreamed I went to buy the morning paper,
And the headline screamed
For all the world to see,
“SB1070 Declared Fully Legal!”
And I cried, because I knew
I was now legally unwelcome here.

My mother took the paper and milk from me
With trembling hands,
And told me in her soft Mexican voice
That Papa had been arrested on his way to work.
For the crime of driving without a Green Card,
He was found Guilty of Being Brown.

We did not have time to kiss him goodbye,
Or even make him a sandwich
On his way back to a country he had not seen
In twenty years.

I woke with my heart pounding,
And my eyes full of tears.
I slowly relaxed,
Realizing it was just a dream.

Then I drove to the store in my first car,
And the morning paper screamed
For all the world to read,
“SB1070 Declared Fully Legal!”

It was my 16th birthday,
and now I, too,
Had been found Guilty of Being Brown.



I am a Los Angeles activist and Peace Poet, whose literary focus has been on human rights since 2001. Published most notably as a featured writer on Quill and Parchment.com, and the legendary Sam Hamill's global anti-war poetry protest, Poets Against the War (beginning in February, 2002), my most recent work was published as a full-length compilation of peace and justice poetry called "Sing to Me of My Rights: Poems of Oppression and Resistance" (editor/publisher Mark Lipman, Vagabond Books 2014). Immigrant rights have been a focus of my street-level activism since 1980, when I learned in college of the murder of El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero--followed, of course, by the rape/murder of the four U.S. churchwomen that December. I was active in the Sanctuary Movement from 1984-98, and a member since 1986 of Refuse and Resist! and La Resistencia. I have never been to our Southern border, but it looms large in my consciousness. The horror of our country's involvement in the collective Central American slaughter, and the residual xenophobic policies towards immigrants, both documented and undocumented, reflected in legislation such as SB1070, haunts me to this day, and inspires me to take to the streets. I have one philosophy that sums up all my activism, including my writing: NO HUMAN BEING IS  ILLEGAL!

Contact me about the poem or order my book. I am also available for readings at public and private events, and will travel to Arizona, Northern California or Nevada to share my work at open-mic events. EL PUEBLO UNIDO! JAMAS SERA VENCIDO!




Illegal
By Ashley

You say I am illegal because of my flesh,
Racism-pigmentocracy,
Separation-marginalization,
Apartheid, a race apart.
Even after the laws change,
Discrimination still exists
Cradling fear and fight of flesh-hood
Same flesh, different color.
Illegal,
So is it my flesh, my body, or my being?

You say I am illegal because of the land I stand on.
I do not belong here.
The land sits underneath the sky,
Shall we fight over clouds?
However, this is no different than the land I was born from.
Migration to illegal immigration,
I am, me, the im- in immigration,
The prefixed knot in the rope,
The prescribed not of ‘im’ and ‘il’
Illegal,
So is it the land, my body, or my being?

You say I am illegal because of love,
An endearing criminal at best,
Same heart, different passion,
Love is not a crime.
What matters is within:
not the shape of our skin
377: I went sleep in 2013 and woke up in 1860,
Illegal,
So is it my heart, my body, or my being?

You say the I of me, the me of I is- Illegal.
The law versus: Land, love, and life,
No! No being is illegal,
Neither my body, flesh, nor heart,
Not even my soul,
It is time,
To set my soul afire and let it free.

This poem was first published on Orinam on Dec 20, 2014 at http://orinam.net/illegal/ and is being republished with permission of the author


Ashley was born and raised in Southern California. Her parents are from Mexico. Ashley has been published both online and in-print. A poet, aspiring writer, and is currently learning classical dance. This poem "Illegal" was first published on Orinam on Dec 20, 2014 at http://orinam.net/illegal/ and is being republished with permission of the author

Blessing for James' Place
By Jackie Lopez

James, I bless you from the tip of my hat to the bottom of your feet.
James, never covet another’s house because your place is blessed for having feasted.
I do believe you are entitled to a blessing.
I do believe you become disjointed at the ends when I don’t come around.
Don’t worry.
I will come around every Thursday night at 7 in between meals.
I happen to have happiness around.
I happen to have a misnomer claiming that I am “mad,” but that is how it should be
because I am quite the crazy little pajama party girl.
The mockingbird is singing outside of your studio.
The melancholy moon is twisting in her bed.
She heard you have blasted fun.
The pavement to your studio has been watered by daffodils.
The encouragement of the nonchalant is ever present.
There’s an artistic renaissance running around naked in your studio.
There’s a show girl at your doorstep.
There’s a criminal lurking around, but you know better, there is never a love that can be considered a crime.
If you watch your watch words, you will find me misbehaving.

When I was lost and had no matrimony to offer,
you took me in.
When the painters, poets, musicians, prophets, dancers, and one-night-stands came by,
you gave them an apple dessert to eat.
It so happens that I have come a long way from my home,
and I am able to salute you on a happening basis.
When the ticket to the train I was going on fell through,
I took to hiding in between the sheets.
Now I have you to call friend.
If ever you need a helping hand, if ever you are lonely and blue, call me telepathically.
I shall send the angels to rescue you because you deserve it, James Watts-and you, too, Juan Pazos.
Thursday night dinner is for dancing and being ludicrously in love.
It is for harnessing a misbehavior and going about town.
It is for the young at heart and for the philanthropists.
I summon all the powers of the Universe Complete to bless your studio now
and forevermore or for as long you endeavor to stay home.
When I saw your rocket scientist artwork, I became a lucid woman.
Simple things mean so much more when they are shared with friends.
So, keep on trucking.
I shall meet you on the other end of a transcendence.

Jackie Lopez is a poet and writer from San Diego. She was founding member of the Taco Shop Poets and has always pursued a study of history of which has influenced her writing. She has taught in San Diego City Schools and has been published in several literary journals. She has just finished her Magnum Opus titled “Telepathic Goodbye” described as a long poem of 25, 333 words. She is now looking for a publisher for this. You can catch her work on facebook under “Jackie Lopez Lopez” where she shares her work with a daily poem. She has a radio interview that will come out later this year. Her email: peacemarisolbeautiful@yahoo.com






#bringbackourgirls
By Iris De Anda

ruby rage shouts escape
as our young girls disappear
there is no sleep
when night falls without them near
days and days and days have passed
can you remember their bright eyed brilliance
forsaken flowers with petals that wither
under boots of beatings and men with guns
they are killing them softly
raping them daily
silencing their spirit
every time one of them dies
can you feel it in your body
walk around so heavy
carry unseen sadness
on the bridge of our backs
they are our future failing
mountains crumbling
deserts flooding
stars extinguished after lightyears of shining
blood moon tainting the night sky
mothers wailing to the goddess
bring back our schoolgirls
bring back our daughters
they are the martyrs of this modern plague
where men get away with murdering women
while the world looks away
closed eyes to our girls plight
makes the whole world blind
you do not want to see
what you would rather neglect
because it’s not your daughter, sister, or niece
you pretend to respect
can you protect morning dew from the blazing sun
the young woman from the older man
a system that teaches a girls life is worth less than his pen
there is no gentle here where our daughters cry
only rivers of pain
flowing back to the Niger
years of disdain
growing darker by the hour
bring back our sisters
bring back our feminine
bring them back
backdrop of africa
blackout of femicide
backbone of generations
backyard of transgressions
giveback our girls
payback our pain
paperback our stories
comeback our angels
we are waiting
arms wide open
feet tired from running with you and for you
tongues chanting
all the ways we could pray for you
hearts broken
night and days we wait for you
bring back our girls
bring back our girls
bring back our girls

Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A womyn of color of Mexican and Salvadorean descent. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, Seeds of Resistance, In the Words of Women, Twenty: In Memoriam, Revolutionary Poets Brigade Los Angeles Anthology, and online at La Bloga. She is an active contributor to Poets Responding to SB 1070. She performs at community venues and events throughout the Los Angeles area & Southern California. She hosted The Writers Underground Open Mic 2012 at Mazatlan Theatre and 100,000 Poets for Change 2012, 2013, and 2014 at the Eastside Cafe. She currently hosts The Writers Underground Open Mic every Third Thursday of the month at Eastside Cafe. Author of CODESWITCH: Fires From Mi Corazon. www.irisdeanda.com

Review: Villanueva Magic. Veterans Day. On-line Floricanto with Nancy Aidé González.

Review: Alma Luz Villanueva. Song of the Golden Scorpion. San Antonio:Wings Press, 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-60940-346-1

Michael Sedano

After a seductive flirtation on a Vallarta dance floor, the aroused thirty-four year old rich Mexicano
doctor bangs on the hotel door of his quest, a fifty-eight year old Chicana celebrating her birthday.
“”What do you want?”
“Tu sabes, you know.”
“You’re old enough to be mi hijo…”
“Qúe rica”

Xochiquetzal opens the door to a dozen pages of puro passion that climaxes with feverish screams and mangoes.

And magic. With their union, a spark of life forms in the woman’s spiritual womb. She gives birth to her soulmate. Their love gestates, grows, explodes with eros and graphic sexuality without being too lurid, then succumbs to the test of time.

The Song of the Golden Scorpion reaffirms author Alma Luz Villanueva’s position among the best U.S. novelists. She elects challenging themes. Young/old eros, freedom and liberation, indigenous spirituality, multiculturalism. The eros sets convention on its head, the predator male carried beyond his own sexual boundaries, confusion wrought in intersections of sex, love, custom, and culture. Culturally, Xochitzalita as her doctorcito calls her, stands out in the Mexican ambiente for her indian name and indigenist traje, for her liberated spirit. She’s rich, and that helps.

There’s a sadness about the text, however. Villanueva, or her editor perhaps, doesn’t let the characters speak in their own voice. In nearly every speech where there’s a Spanish language phrase, the text includes a translation as an apposition. Code-switching speech, including appositional translation, reflects an emotional state or some other conversational strategy. Crafted authentically, the style enriches a novel and character. But drat, translating almost every single Spanish word brings narrative flows to screeching halts. Makes characters dunces. For one awful example, Javier and a man exchange insults on the street.

“I’m going home to my old lady, where else?”
“Qué te vaya bien…May it go well!” Pablo yelled.

No he didn’t. Chicana Chicano writers need to recognize they cannot write for the entire English-speaking world and a Chicano or chicanesque reader either understands the Spanish or accepts outsider status in the spirit offered. There's never a need to translate code-switched or Spanish phrases in Chicano Literature.

Four hundred pages of that stylistic flaw grate on a reader. However, for certain, readers will admire Villanueva’s blazing new trails for women characters. Xochitzalita is a completely free soul who’s bringing her body along for the journey. The challenge, which Villanueva pulls off with dexterity, is keeping the story from becoming the lurid romance that onlookers see when the much younger man is tonguing the older woman in public.

Gritan.

“And my men had to carry you to Xaochitzalita’s tent, doctorcito!” Pompeii gave a sudden grito of such joy, every man in the room responded, including Justin, Hank, Ari, as well as la bonita macha, Muriel.
(The Energy Child trembled, surrounded by such joy—than (sic) added her/his own grito that sounded like tiny, golden bells.) 384

The young man older woman relationship is complicated, to observers. And a source of chisme. And here is where author Alma Luz Villanueva injects the magic. Xochitzalita and Javier live in a world within a world where those rough-edged real world things have silk-cushioned impact. The free spirit who is Xochiquetzal could not survive the harsher realities of public scorn and stand-offish strangers. In a world where her lover has bedded most of the women in his social circle, protective men and women buffer the claws and the world is filled with benevolent gente.

Readers will either love the woman or be confused. Xochitzalita is an ex-patriate artist and professor who pulls a potlatch of sorts in the US and sets to wandering from Santa Fe to San Miguel de Allende, New Mexico to Oaxaca. In her world, a chance encounter becomes a lifelong friendship; a Huichol craftsman strikes up instant carnalismo with a Hopi tourist, they exchange indian names, and sing songs of mutuality.

Villanueva is careful not to go all breathless on the indigenism, although she likes to push its limits. In the novel’s most magical moment of pan-indianism, the Huichol explains the ancient symbols in his textile and the professional photographer Xochiquetzal starts snapping her shutter. The Huichol asks her to email him copies.

Villanueva has the luxury of time and space. Her publisher, San Antonio’s fabulous Wings Press, allows the author 450 pages to populate a novel rich with confluences among lovers, mothers, sons, parents, peers, children, wives. There’s also the unspoken issue of time. In any relationship, at 58 and 34, the gaps are easily filled. He’s a tigre with a willing serpent, she’s an orchid with multiple orgasms. Gente age fast. In thirty years, she’s going to be 88, and he a still robust 64, with a wife and children.

Villanueva goes there with her story. Every great love affair ends in death, so must we all. And beware the evil twin. Song of the Golden Scorpion has dozens of interesting threads jostling one another for a reader's attention.

Sex, passion, love--especially love—aren’t bounded by age, nor time. Javier and Xochiquetzal’s union came as no spontaneous assignation but the recrossing of soul paths. In other lives, they had been together, as children. In this life, they are together until as the aged crone, her soul precedes his into the next cycle.

Veterans Day On-line Floricanto

Twice a year the U.S. whips out a ritualized but sincere day of recognition for members past and present of our armed services, Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

"Thank you for your service," gente say to me and my friends who are Veterans. I went to a Korean mountaintop. To those who went to Vietnam, I say not only thanks but I'm damned glad you made it back."

And to the men I trained with, in Basic and Radio School, I hope you made it back. That day the Army ordered me to Korea every other man in line got orders for Vietnam.

Winter 1969,  Hwaak-ni Korea

The most remarkable difference between soldiering and civilian life is following orders. Tell a soldier to cross that Italian river in the face of impregnable Nazi defenses, and that soldier will jump in the water against all odds. And thousands of Texas soldados razos died. Incredible bravery in the face of callous stupidity, one Texas historian writes .

An unknown Chicano wrote this about that WWII action:

To brothers dead crossing the rapido river…194?
in a day
in an afternoon
in a night
in years of fury
and tears
alone and far from home
away from familiar sounds
tender arms
you fell on the earth of italy
blood of mexico
blood of the northern
deserts
blood of the bitter border
spilled on earth of italy
on the earth of italy
hope of america
the vain hope of america
never realized hope of america
against a wall of teuton steel
you waded the chilling river
waters tasting of death
far from home
tasting of sudden death
left your dead on the river banks
tears of mothers on the river banks
hopes of sweethearts on the river banks
left tomorrows on the river banks
bitter yesterdays on the river banks
for a hope
vain hope

Anonymous pp 42-43 in Antonia Castañeda Shular, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Joseph Sommers. Literatura Chicana. Texto y Contexto. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1972.


November On-line Floricanto: Nancy Aidé González

Nancy Aidé González is a Chicana poet and educator. She graduated from California State

University, Sacramento with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature. She attended Las Dos Brujas Writer’s Workshop in 2012. Her work has appeared in Mujeres De Maiz Zine, Huizache The magazine of Latino literature, DoveTales, Tule Review, Seeds of Resistance Flor y Canto:Tortilla Warrior, La Bloga, and several other literary journals. Her work is featured in the Sacramento Voices: Foam at the Mouth Anthology (2013). She is a participating member of Escritores del Nuevo Sol, a writing group based in Sacramento, California which honors the literary traditions of Chicano, Latino, Indigenous and Spanish-language peoples.





La Virgen de Las Calles
Pink Sentinels
Mujeres Del Maíz
Kites
La Pulga
Tapestry of Dawn


La Virgen de Las Calles

She stands on the
busy street corner
selling delicate red
and white roses
hugged by baby's -breath
and luminous cellophane
resting in a
once discarded
plastic bucket.

She understands the innate
beauty of roses,
their fragility
their fragrant hope
as they grow slowly
from bud to
emerge
embracing change,
as they flush into
full bloom.

She knows of
piercing thorns
and truth,
of crossing
barbed wire
borders.

She understands
the prickling sting,
the aculeus
of being an outsider.

She wears a large
sweatshirt with USA
emblazoned in block
print across her chest
but she misses
Mexico and the
small town she was
raised in .

A red and green
rebozo hangs down
upon her head shielding
her from the flugent sun,
a gift from her mother,
a reminder of home.
People stride past her
lost in their own thoughts
hustling to work,
on pressing errands,
wandering down the tangle
of the Los Angeles
landscape.

She is La Virgen de las Calles,
waiting with a
heavy heart,
full of yearning,
dreaming of
new horizons,
a fountain of
humble tenderness
and abounding love.

La Virgen de las Calles
comprehends the
nature of roses,
their vulnerability
their need for nettle.

Pink Sentinels

Smoke stack emissions rise contaminating the atmosphere
jackals roam looking for las hijas de México
one more female homicide increased body count
no one knows exactly how many  500   1,000  5,000

silent screams
fill the night in a fallow
cotton field from catacombs
cries of women that have disappeared
into the twilight
give testimony to the smoldering moon
in low tones they beseech that we not forget the transgressions of those that took their lives
they request tangible justice while mocking rebuke
for crimes overlooked for a price
dust-covered case files piled on disarrayed desk
the spider web binding them together

mothers hold signs take to asphalt
march, weep, light candles that illuminate twinge wounds
 pink splintered crosses stand as sentinels
for the abomination mire entwines.

( Sacramento Voices:Foam at the Mouth Anthology 2013)

Foto: Andrea Mauk

Mujeres Del Maíz

Somos las mujeres del maíz
we are the women that
walk among
the mazes
of corn,
crisp green
leaves moving
swaying
like arms
embracing.

Somos las mujeres del maíz,
we watch the pollen swirl
as the whispers of the ancients
echo in our ears.

We were shaped from maíz,
the staff of life
breathed into our lungs.
Somos las mujeres del maíz,
we touch the verdant stalks
with our brown fingers,
kiss the apex of the
stem that ends in
a silky tassel,
our feet leave footprints
on the fertile soil.

We harvest
the mother grain,
utilize its medicine
to heal,
we grind the kernels
in our molcajetes,
kneading the masa
to make tortillas,
tamales,
that nourish,
sustain our families.

Somos las mujeres del maíz,
we are the women that
return the corn
to the earth
at sunrise,
cycle of life
reborn.

("Tortilla Warrior" Seeds of Resistance Flor y Canto Issue no. 1,2013)

Kites

The forgotten rust colored key
fit in the palm of my hand
its ridges would unlock a door
leading elsewhere.

The key could open a
door to a place with green fields
where sorrows are laid to rest
and wildflowers grow without weeds
a spot where we could speak of things
that will never make sense

There we could whisper the desires in our hearts
we could laugh, and laugh
and kiss
and fall asleep .

There we could spin all the things that
weigh us down into satin ribbons
weave the ribbons into kites
fly the kites
and let them drift
away into the wind.

(Tule Review, Fall 2013)

La Pulga

Vibrant Dora and
Spongebob piñatas
sway in the wind
ready for a fiesta,
Vero Mango lollipops,
De la Rosa Peanut Mazapan candy,
and spoon suckers made
with Tamarind and chili,
wait patiently on tables
a taste of Mexico,
of home.

Ripe oblong
watermelons
red juice dripping,
Large strawberries
seeds smiling,
Fragrant papaya
mustard yellow,
Red and green
chiles dancing
in their bins
ready to be
made into
savory salsa.

Imitation Gucci
and Coach purses
placed among tables,
later to be filled with lipstick,
wallets, and keys.

Bumpy leather
alligator boots
lined in rows
no teeth ,
await the warmth of
macho feet.

Cumbia, salsa,
old school ,
hip hop,
rap beats,
a fusion of
sounds
meshing into
a rhapsody.

Aromas of
churros,
carne asada ,
pozole,
menudo,
barbacoa ,
gorditas
and carnitas
tantalizing
and delicious
offerings from
food trucks.

Tricked
out bikes
with low seats
and high
handle bars
gleaming
chrome grips,
seats carefully covered
in plush velvet
on display
ready to
glide down
the boulevard.

Framed pictures
of Emiliano Zapata,
Pancho Villa, and
La Virgen de Guadalupe
Mexican symbols
to be remembered
revered.

Little girls with
black pony tails,
small boys with
toy trucks,
wrinkled
women with
colorful house
dresses,
men with
large silver belt buckles,
women with
silver high heel
shoes,
men with
tattoo
sleeved
arms,
all looking for
small treasures,
a slice of happiness.

Flea market
smells,
sounds,
objects,
to be experienced
and enjoyed on
Sundays
after church.

(Huizache The magazine of Latino Literature, Fall 2012)

Tapestry of Dawn

Sun, summoning dawn
truth will come with portraits of consciousness
narratives of shelter

interlocked woven fabrics
find equilibrium
strings of transcendence in cosmos

beyond ancient knowledge alive
planets orbit echoing memory of universe
saffron stars manifest wholeness

nimbus treasures – rain
jaguars roam spirit realm
leave prints where

trees take root
in tierra firme
drawing humanity closer.

foto:Andres Alvarez

Poetry Journal Features 43 Poets, More Poems

Poet and La Bloga friend Richard Vargas comes to market with his seventh issue of The Más Tequila Review. It's a worthwhile acquisition and ideal for a stocking stuffer at only 7 dollars with another three for postage.

Featuring 43 poets spanning 115 pages, Vargas ordinarily prefers one poem per page. This septimo piece departs from that standard. In some cases a poet like E. A. Mares writes a memorably evocative poem covering several pages, "As I Walk Through La Plaza Vieja,"or like David Roskos, writes short, pithy pieces that don't take up much room so there's room for one more. For the most part, the poems are laid out one per page to allow focused satisfaction on the single work.

Of special note is the ample white space the one-per-page rule allows. Even better, TMTR elects 12 point lightly serifed type so every page is a reading pleasure simply owing to its readability. The bios come in hard-to-read 10 or 9 point type.

The Más Tequila Review is one of those old-fashioned literary mags. You get lots and lots really good stuff for your money, but you buy it the old fashioned way. Send a check for $10 Richard Vargas, ed. 1717 Gabaldon Dr NW, Apt B, Albuquerque NM 87104. You can order TMTR via internet distribution channels. Visit the #6 website for further details.