New Awards for Cinco Puntos Press Books!

A big congrats goes out to Cinco Puntos writer Benjamin Sáenz!

 YALSA  named Sáenz' raw, poetic novel, Last Night I Sang to the Monster as one of the year's Top Ten Best Fiction Titles for Young Adults. The award comes with good reason— Monster is not your everyday YA novel. 17 year-old Zach awakes in residential rehab, with no memory of how he got there.  This evocative, honest story doesn't pull any punches when it comes to dealing with addiction, abuse and recovery. 



This is a powerful and edifying look into both a tortured psyche and the methods by which it can be healed. —School Library Journal 



Zach is eighteen. He is bright and articulate. He’s also an alcoholic, and he’s is in rehab instead of high school, but he doesn’t remember how he got there. He’s not sure he wants to remember. Something bad must have happened. Something really, really bad. Remembering sucks and being alive—well, what’s up with that?

I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes Happy and on some people’s hearts he writes Sad and on some people’s hearts he writes Crazy on some people’s hearts he writes Genius and on some people’s hearts he writes Angry and on some people’s hearts he writes Winner and on some people’s hearts he writes Loser. It’s all like a game to him. Him. God. And it’s all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. When it came to my turn, he wrote Sad. I don’t like God very much. Apparently he doesn’t like me very much either.


Also, Tim Tingle's story Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness into Light has been named a Notable Children's Book. Saltypie is a heartfelt story gleaned from Tim's own growing up, and his family's migration from Oklahoma Choctaw country to Pasadena, Texas. 

Publisher's Weekly called it a "quietly poetic story about dealing with adversity."

Bee stings on the backside! And that was just the beginning. Tim was about to enter a world of the past, with bullying boys and stones and Indian spirits of long ago. But they were real spirits, real stones, and very real memories…

In this powerful family saga, Choctaw author Tim Tingle tells the story of his family’s move from Oklahoma Choctaw country to Pasadena, Texas. Spanning fifty years, Saltypie describes the problems encountered by his Choctaw grandmother—from her orphan days at an Indian boarding school to hardships encountered in her new home on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Tingle says, “Stories of modern Indian families rarely grace the printed page. Long before I began writing, I knew this story must be told.” Seen through the innocent eyes of a young boy, Saltypie is the story of one family’s efforts to honor the past while struggling to gain a foothold in modern America. More than an Indian story, Saltypie is an American story, of hardships shared and the joy of overcoming.

Readings at City Lights Books Tonight!

261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA
Time: 7pm

Deborah Treisman, fiction editor of The New Yorker

Readings by Chris Adrian, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li
celebrating the release of 20 under 40: Stories from The New Yorker, published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux

Chris Adrian is the author of two novels, Gob's Grief and The Children's Hospital, and a collection of short stories, A Better Angel. FSG will publish his third novel, The Great Night, in May of 2011. He lives in San Francisco where he is a Fellow in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at UCSF.

Daniel Alarcón is the author of two books of stories, and the novel Lost City Radio, which won the 2009 International Literature Award. He lives in Oakland, California.

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, China, where between age 12 and 16 she was trained as a mathematics prodigy. In 1996, she came to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology but left the field in 2000 to become a writer. Her books, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Vagrants, have won Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway award, Guardian First Book Award, and other awards. Her second story collection, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, came out in September 2010. She teaches at University of California, Davis.

Deborah Treisman has been the fiction editor of The New Yorker since 2003, and was deputy fiction editor for five years prior to that.
 

Latinopia: New arte and cultura website ready for prime time. On-Line Floricanto.

Review: Latinopia. A website dedicated to chicana chicano latina latino arts and culture. http://latinopia.com/

Michael Sedano


Combining the best of broadcasting and glossy magazine layout, Latinopia brings visitors a trinity of appealing features. The site is: visually accessible, content driven, resonates culturally. These values will draw visitors into the site repeatedly, to explore a subject more fully, to browse for new knowledge, to revisit a happy link.


Latinopia’s Home page features a slide show of Latinopia topics. Positioned against a background of neutral brown and deep blue, the slide show’s text-heavy images are easy on the eyes.

Home is a launching pad into Latinopia’s extensive array of written and videographed interviews with an ever-growing lineup of noted artists. Find the thumbnail and click. The text menu in the header bar features drop-down lists for shortcuts to Latinopia’s content index pages.

First-time visitors to Latinopia will find the Home page provides a grand introduction to Latinopia’s omnibus of interests that include Art, Cinema/TV, Food, History, Literature, Music, Theater. After enjoying Latinopia’s panoply of selected features, a visitor will want to choose a field, spend time consuming Latinopia's offerings, left to right and top to bottom.

Latinopia’s creator, Jesus Treviño, adds content weekly, making keeping current with the site something of a memory challenge. There’s a signup ritual that puts registrants on a newsletter maillist, making staying current a matter of checking the inbox.

Treviño, a lifelong documentarian and chronicler of la cultura chicana, is drawing from his archives as well as conducting ongoing interviews and videography to provide quality content. In Art, for example, Latinopia’s interview lineup features a who’s who of artists from Magú to the venerable Museo del Barrio.

One of the best reasons to become a Latinopia regular is the site’s dedication to younger writers and artists. In music, for example, Latinopia introduces Los Angeles’ conjunto Los Pochos, singing a toe-tapping original number. In literature, Latinopia showcases youthful Austin poet Mónica Teresa Ortíz, from Mónica’s reading at Festival de Flor y Canto Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow.

But the best reason to spend time at Latinopia is its invariably informative and entertaining approach. Because of that, one visit will never be enough.


On-Line Floricanto

Last week’s assassination of a little girl and several other Arizonans sent tremors of rage and despair throughout Unitedstatesian media.

“Vitriol” became a polite word for hate speech. One politician denied she had put cross hairs on anyone. Still, gente know exactly what tea baggers like her stir up among their birther crackpot and knucklehead ilk. Latinopia is probably illegal in Arizona classrooms.

The Facebook group Poets Responding to SB 1070 received a flood of contributions, as if the week’s upswelling of despair and outrage found release in poetry. Thus, this week, La Bloga’s On-Line Floricanto doubles its offering, presenting the work of ten poets responding to all the crud that is the worst of Arizona the worst of our nation, on this penultimate Tuesday of January 2011:

1. "Awakening at Night" by Carmen Calatayud

2. "Angels and Arizona" by Andrea Hernandez Holm

3. "Anger Management" by Diana Joe

4. "Let Us Be Gandhi / Seamos Gandhi" by Francisco X. Alarcón

5. “La Ultima Palabra" by MamaCoAtl

6. "To Be a Storm" by Susmita Paul

7. “Today We Will Plant Chia” by Doug Patzkowski

8. “Burn Brightly” by Tim Wozny

9. "Borders" by Sharon Elliot

10. ”Sophist Game” by Ricardo Villalobos

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Poem:
Awakening at Night
For Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
(And All Who Want Humane Immigration Reform)

By Carmen Calatayud

Anger creeps
through my fingers
to tips that buzz
with frustration.
Marigolds pop
and wither,
turn into crust.

Under the gypsy moon
I witness my heart
of coal grow tentacles,
reach out to strangle
the pain my people hold.

Flamenco ancestors
play castañets,
express their rage
through the heels
of their shoes.

My stomach kicks
as Venus appears
in the red wing sky
and I feel the wise
child of belonging
who reminds me

That time has always
been on our side.

That our hands
protect the land
That our souls collide
moment to moment
That our sleep has been
disturbed for centuries
but we are never too tired
to speak the truth.



Angels and Arizona
by Andrea Hernandez Holm


Turn, open your eyes
See the angels falling
Pummeled in mid-flight
by invisible fists
knuckles
that must have been beaten raw
by frantic wings.

Turn, arch your neck
So you may see the top of the wall
And watch the angels
Break under the weight
Of a young man
Plummeting to the desert floor.

Turn, quickly
And you will see a child
Who the angels stole away
From a world that did not deserve her.

Turn, listen closely
So you can hear the heavens weeping
As the angels turn their backs and walk away.


ANGER MANAGEMENT AFTER A SHOOTOUT
*in honor of the deceased for Tucson's Giffords. (poets responding To ESE-1070)
By Diana Joe


PRIMERO QUE NADA MIS RESPETOS A LOS FINADOS.
BEFORE ANYTHING RESPECT FOR THE DECEASED ONES .
AYER POR LA MANANA WHEN

EVERYBODY THOUGHT IT TO BE A REGULAR MORNING
A CONGRESS WOMAN OPENS HER ARMS TO HER CONSTITUENTS.
A LITTLE NINE-YEAR IN CROWD DESIRES TO LEARN ABOUT POLITICS AND THE POWER OF HER VOTE IN THE FUTURE THAT WILL NEVER MEET HER.

I WANT TO BE CALM.
I WANT TO NOT SCREAM.
I ALREADY CRIED YESTERDAY.
I AM NOT FROM ARIZONA BY WAY OF BELLY BUTTON CEREMONIAL RITES.
I AM FROM TEJAS INDIGENOUS COUNTRY NOT OIL MANS.
I AM NEW HERE IN ARIZONA NEAR 15 YEARS NOW.
MOUNTAINS,VALLEYS,FEDERALLY MANAGED LANDS CALLED SOVEREIGN.
LATELY IT IS HARD TO NOT BECOME ANGRY.
IT IS HARD TO NOT SENSE THE PROVOCATION OF MY PERSON OF MEXINDIN DESCENT.
I AM ONE PERSON ALONE IN THE DESERT HOMELAND OF MY PATERNAL CLAN THE YAQUI MAN!
I AM NOT A REGULAR AMERICAN.
I DO NOT HOLD ON TO THE FLAG OF THIS LAND I HOLD ON ONLY TO THE EARTH LAND.
I AM NOT A REGISTERED ONE,AN RECOGNISED MEMBER IN BOUNDRY MARKED LAND.
I AM NO LONGER ANYTHING ACCORDING TO THE POWERFUL MANS PLAN.
A TREATY CALLED GUADALUPE HIDALGO GIMME A PINCHI QUEBRADA MAN.
AIN'T ALLOWED TO TEACH THE CHILDREN THE PLAN, THE TREATY , THE SCAM.
ETHNIC STUDIES REMOVED IN TUCSON WHERE THE YAQUIS CAN CROSS THE BORDER HAND IN HAND WITH THE AMERICAN THAT HATES THEM?!
ANGER MANAGEMENT.
ANGER MANAGEMENT?!
I AM UNDER ANGER MANAGEMENT,YOU HATER BETTER BE GLAD THAT I COME WITH AN ANCIENT MEDICINE!
A MEDICINE THAT SERVES THE EARTH!
A MEDICINE THAT SERVES ONLY THE ONE THAT WILLS TO REMAIN ALERT.
NOT YOUR FAKE SCHOOLING IDEALS, OR YOUR THIS LAND IS TAKEN DEALS,OR THIS LAND IS MY LAND DEALS.
ANGER MANAGEMENT.
I AM MEXICAN !
I AM BENITO JUAREZ!
I AM DOROTEO ARANDA IN THE NEW MEXICAN WITH BIGOTES AND PICHES PISTOLAS STILL SMOKING.
I AM THE TRUE STORY OF GERONIMO..NOT THE US.MOUNTED GIDDY UP VERSION!
I AM THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE BODIES BURNED IN PILES OVER AT..THE BLOODY ALAMO!
I AM UNDER ANGER MANAGEMENT.
LOOK AT ME!
HOW I CAN USE THE WAY YOU TAUGHT ME, TO DEFEND MYSELF!
THIS LANGUAGE THAT WAS FOREIGN JUST A FEW HUNDRED YEARS AGO,I PERFECTED IT!
I AM MIXED.
I AM PROUD THAT I AM MIXED,BECAUSE I AM ABLE TO SAY I AM WHITE,YELLOW,RED,AND BLACK ALL TOGETHER JUST LIKE THAT..A PERFECT MIXTURE WITHOUT BATTING AN EYE!
LOOK AT MY ANGER MANAGEMENT.
LOOK AT MY DISCIPLINE ALL OVER THE EARTH I AM!
I AM THE BAKER,THE SHORT ORDER COOK,THE WAITRESS,THE WINDOW WASHER,THE SHOE SHINER,THE SHOE MENDER ,THE MIND BENDER ,THE WIND, THE FIRE,I AM THE NEXT IDEA BUILDING A WHOLE NEW BARRIO DESIRE.
ANGER MANAGMENT IS NOT SOMETHING I HAD TO GO LEARN,IT ISN'T SOMETHING I GOT FROM A BOOK,OR AN OPRAH EPISODE ON THE TUBE,YOU TUBE..IT IS ANCIENT MEDICINE..INSIDE OF ME.
IT IS THE TIP OF MY SPEAR.
ANGER MANAGEMENT IS MY WAY OF WATCHING THE HATERS CRASH AND BURN.
IT IS A COLLECTION OF ARROWS GIFTED TO ME IN A BUNDLE FOR TIMES LIKE THESE.
MY ANGER MANAGEMENT IS MY SHADOW.
MY SHADOW IN FULL REGALIA IN TIMES OF MISERY IN A STATE SURROUNDED BY HATE SHARKS IN THE DESERT THAT FLY IN AND OUT IN AIRSHIPS WITH MINUTEMEN WANTING TO PRETEND THEY PATROL THE GATES OF HELL THEY CREATED.
I AM UNDER ANGER MANAGEMENT.
I WILL NOT TELL YOU THAT YOU PRAY WRONG!
I WILL ONLY WATCH YOU THROUGH THIS STARSCOPE WATCH YOU BECOME INTOLERANT OF MY PEOPLE AND WATCH YOU BECOME IMPATIENT WATCH YOU COME OUT RUNNING WITH YOUR SILLY GUNS AND YOUR LOUSY MILITARY TACTIC..KILLING LITTLE CHILDREN.
PASS ALL THOSE LAME LAWS THAT FLY OFF IN THE WIND..GUADALUPE HIDALGO DIED IN THE DESERT YESTERDAY.
IN THE DESERT BONES BECOME A PART OF THE COYOTES,IN THE DESERT THE ONLY THINGS THAT TRAVERSES IT ARE THE DISCIPLINED.
THROUGH PRAYER,MEDITATION AND ANCIENT ANGER MANAGEMENT.

All Rights Reserved
Diana L.--joe
Tsaile ,Az
the navajo rez.
* I write in solidarity to those persecuted all over Az. ppl that have a treaty,that they know nothing about. teach our children anyway!
journey well to those that were massacred yesterday in Tuscan in pursuit of JUSTICE!
Adelante!






LET US BE GANDHI
by Francisco X. Alarcón

let us be Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.
Nelson Mandela

bearers of peace
reason, tolerance, good will
not hatred, anger

let us never be
bullets but true healing hands
pressing bleeding wounds

run away from lions
and eagles, always content
to be butterflies—

from complete despair
sorrow, fear, pain, let us draw
new joy, trust, faith, hope

January 9, 2011

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SEAMOS GANDHI

por Francisco X. Alarcón

seamos Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.
Nelson Mandela

enviados de paz
razón, tolerancia, bondad
no odio, coraje

nunca seamos balas
sino manos que curan
heridas que sangran

huyamos de leones
y águilas, contentos siempre
de ser mariposas—

de la desesperanza,
miedo, dolor, saquemos
nuevo gozo, fe, esperanza

9 de enero de 2011





Wisdom
A common Gmc. compound (cf. O.S., O.Fris. wisdom, O.N. visdomr, O.H.G. wistuom "wisdom," Ger. Weistum"judicial sentence serving as a precedent"

La Ultima Palabra

by MamaCoAtl


Because I am sick with words.
I am sick of the truth,
I am sick of concepts and designations,
Status and jurisdictions,
Sick of economics and psycho spiritual jargon.
I am tired of numerology, revolutions, the Zodiac, the Bible,
The English week, the constitution, the Gregorian year, the Cross and the Rose, the sacrificial goat…
I am sick and tired of the program; of killing to eat, to shop, to invest, to survive, to forget.
I am running out of words and I am running out of time,
And at the same time
I feel so paranoid about mass destruction, you know?
I feel the urge to run
It’s hard for me to look up when I daily see the streak of metal
The man made cloud
I suspect poison in everything.
How can one take a deep breath after fumigation?
Why do we keep shiting in clean water?
Where is the end of this occupation?
What kind of world will there be for my daughter?
While a cabal of incestuous predators
Rotting in historical plunder
Gamble with total impunity
The destiny of human kind
We’re down here
Standing in line for the newest vaccine
In total passivity swallowing the mortal lie
Sacrificing our sons
Dropping bombs in the name of a flag
We are down here
The highly educated cultural creature
Subject to the royal book
All we can do is repeat since
We can’t understand the sounds we emit
We can’t figure out the source of our pain
We are perfectly incapable to see
This prison is made
Out of language
Out of words like LOVE and LIGHT
Master terms crafted to convert us
Into FAITH, into FUEL, into FILES.
This prison is made of angular mirrors
Out of angels and lords,
Electrical shocks, the bugles of war,
Democracy heroine for the soul
This prison is made of gold.
And we are in here
Bewildered in perpetuity
Betraying our own descendants
Worshiping the executioners
The dazzlers, the wizards,
With their Adams and Eves,
Their pyramids,
Their 360 degrees,
Their little piece of the sky,
Their color, their crown,
Their mining civilization,
Their parasitic nature,
Their plans of extermination,
This prison is made out Roman-tic Law and language
And like romantic love the end is always tragic.

How does your mouth sing when you got nothing left to prove, nothing left to gain?
Where can our steps take us on this civilized race to self destruction?
How high can we get? How far? What is really the end? The promise to ascend?
To be saved by the same king, by the same thing?
We are nothing but steam for their engines, you know?

But we are sold on the idea of becoming what they want us to be,
Citizens, patriots, entrepreneurs, intellectuals
In the pursuit of profit we believe
Therefore we can’t help but to continue to weave
The veil that blinds us.
And we celebrate it as a holiday
As identity,
We sincerely pretend
We hide our real names, we evolve to the level
Of predator, polluter, population
And we never question the basic assumption.

Ay de mi mis hijos llorona!

Why don’t we question the basic assumption?
Why don’t we examine the root of despair?
Why don’t we break the mirrors, face the demons,
Claim our lives again and again?
Have we not had enough
Deception, oblivion, damnation?

Let us awake then!
Let us unwind, let us unbind!
Let us un-become all the way to the 20 moments of creation
The four winds and all the directions.
Let us then, call our mind back from the dungeons of imperial thought!
Let us be here now!
Firmly planted in the body of the ONLY ONE
Let’s be ONE down deep under
Beyond idiolect
Beyond the world of the dead,
Let us feel, let us know that we feel,
The heart beat
Of the only one who truly exists!

Because we in here
Are nothing but a handful of dirt
And a piece of time, you know?
A whisper in the empty space
Of the only one, of the all that is.

Despues del amor la tierra, despues de la tierra nadie

Our Mother already cured us yesterday and the day before
Our Mother already gave birth to us
Our Mother, our source, our sustenance
That from which we are made
Is the ONE we’ve been looking for
In spells and numbers,
In reflection, in theory…

Let us collapse this edifice
Let us begin sweeping the path
Let us walk back until we become
Medicine
In the open mouth
Of the Living Water.



MamaCoAtl ©


To Be a Storm
by Susmita Paul


the wind plays merry-go-round,
the grass bows near your feet,
clearing the streams,
making pathways to somewhere

you feel the bending wind
rushing through your veins
the madness of life
straining through the thumb
that press down the eye of the tornado-

it is dreadful to be there alone.
you may be brushed from the soil
and piled at another place, in another din.
the bones may rattle
with the newness of the blow,
and guard you into a shell ...

and yet,
the storm brews something in you
something with flavours.
something, you can feel.

you've never seen the skies so drunk,
you gesture them to calm down
but sobering seems a strain.

cut out the past in cardboard shapes
hang it in loose circles near the window
open the panes-
you may be the eye for a while.

From my blog




Today We Will Plant Chia
by Doug Patzkowski


Today we will plant chia,
those crisp little seeds
that are not all alike:
dark, light, or mottled,
yet they fall from the same
blue desert flower.

Food of the Aztecs
for centuries,
they gave strength
on long journeys,
retaining water
in the traveler's body
until the next spring
offered a transparent trickle
of liquid sustenance.

Today we will plant chia,
like the Tohono O'odham
who live in a desert cut in two
with a line drawn in the sand
between two young nations
that measure land by area alone.

The chia shares the life of the land
with those who live upon it.
It does not fear
thunderstorms
or drought,
but yields its seed in season
for a new generation of its own
and for other species to thrive.

There will be enough for all.



Burn Brightly

by Tim Wozny


While I stand
I know I'm not alone
While I stand
I bow down to no throne
While I stand
I see the first glance
While I stand
I now that there is still a chance
While I stand
I give voice to my beliefs
While I stand
I give notice to the worlds grief

Burn brightly
This candle of peace
Burn brightly
To touch the heart of all your reach
Burn brightly
To show we care
Burn brightly
to comfort those that dare
Burn brightly
To relieve the worlds stress
Burn brightly
To light the darkness

Stand with me my friends
Against war and hate
Stand with me my friends
Now before its too late
Stand with me my friends
To right what is wrong
Stand with me my friends
Before freedom is gone




Border Crossing

by Sharon Elliot

A umba wa ori
A umba wa ori
Awa osun
Awa oma
Leri oma
Liki awo
Ara Orun
Ka a we*

*traditional Lukumi (African-Cuban) chant to call the ancestors

I am going back before the funeral
the crossing brings me to the land of my ancestors
before the singing starts
the banshee wails
the pipers float their cries upon the wind

I look at all the borders
crossed or left alone

who is dragged there
who comes willingly
who is ready
who is not

I have been here all my life
standing at the invisible line
between being
and not being
between this world and the next

next
next door
neighbors

As I prepare to cross
I know that it won’t be a crossing
it will be an acceptance
flowing
flowering
embracing

Ten thousand feet
have walked this path
been thrown across that line
that lie

few chose it
their homes reduced to rubble and smoke behind their backs
their farmer’s hearts
forced to the sea
to sit on rocky wasted land
or on the boulders of the shore itself
forced to exchange their meat and wool and milk
for unfamiliar fish
that don’t come easily, if at all
to nets cast by untutored hands

Weeping accompanies their journey
out of the green and fertile highland valleys
into the lairs of other clans
tribal people who will not yield easily
until they too are forced to join the march

and what new border can they visualize
how can they keep each other straight
they learn to pull their plaid garments up around their
shoulders
over their heads
the threads and colors creating small visual borders on the cloth
screaming THIS IS ME!
my identity
my land
the place I long to lay down to rest
I carry it with me in sacred cloth

and when I am ready
when I have reached the road’s ending
and the last border stands before my feet

I will cleanse and wrap my body myself
before the ministrations of loving hands can do it for me

and I will go back
I will be back
I will smell the peat and heather
I will hear the birds and pipes
The laurel tree and hazel hedge will welcome me

And the voices that I hear shall speak all the languages I have
gathered
and sing to me in one I do not know
but carry always in my heart.






Sophist Game
by Ricardo Villalobos


Talking heads
PC TV
“both sides are responsible”

but who’s spewing the hate
disagreements one thing
vitriol another

the new hate words
immigrant
hitlist
lock n load
un-american

can’t speak the truth
w/o un-deciphered code

the tea party isn’t
a party
or about tea

who will talk freely
no mask
or PC code phrases

instead
heads spin
competing facades
the elephant
in the room
uses all the oxygen

we are all in the crosshairs
truth at stake
genuineness becoming extinct
knowledge irrelevant
greed and power


the only board game







BIOS

1. "Awakening at Night" by Carmen Calatayud
2. "Angels and Arizona" by Andrea Hernandez Holm
3. "Anger Management" by Diana Joe
4. "Let Us Be Gandhi / Seamos Gandhi" by Francisco X. Alarcón
5. “La Ultima Palabra" by MamaCoAtl
6. "To Be a Storm" by Susmita Paul
7. “Today We Will Plant Chia” by Doug Patzkowski
8. “Burn Brightly” by Tim Wozny
9. "Borders" by Sharon Elliot
10. ”Sophist Game” by Ricardo Villalobos



Carmen Calatayud is a poet and psychotherapist in Washington, DC. Born to a Spanish father and Irish mother in the U.S., her poetry has appeared in journals such as Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, and PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art. Her poems are anthologized in four collections, including DC Poets Against the War: An Anthology (Argonne House Press). Calatayud won a 2003 Larry Neal Poetry Award. She lived and wrote in Tucson in the 1990s, where she worked as a literacy advocate. She is active with the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in Washington, DC and is a poet moderator for the Poets Responding to SB 1070 Facebook group.



Andrea Hernandez Holm writes from the desert, where she lives among the beauty and pain that is Arizona.

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


MamacoAtl
Mission district Poet, Songstress, Healer, cultural and spiritual activist. She has curated ceremonies to heal the Amazonia River Mother of God at the border of Bolivia-Brazil-Peru, concerts for peace on places desecrated by femicide in Mexico’s highways and periodically organizes healing days (called LIMPIAS) in public plazas in the United States. Blessed by a mayoral proclamation, MamaCoAtl began curating the first International Day for the Elimination of Violence toward Women and Girls in San Francisco, and the 16 Days of ARtivism for the Healing of Violence.

She holds a MA degreee in Women Spirituality and and MFA in Creative Inquiry.



Susmita Paul has done her Masters in English Literature from University of Calcutta in India. Writing is her passion. She works as an Independent Scholar, is a poet and a translator. Studying history, symbols and culture interest her.


Doug Patzkowski began the journey of learning the Spanish language and understanding more of Latino cultures as a teenager growing up in the San Joaquín Valley. He entered the field of education as a bilingual teacher, working with Spanish speaking children for many years. He now teaches English learners with diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds in Monterey Park, California. He writes stories, poems, and essays with and for the children. Doug strives to understand and share the connections between the earth, human cultures, and the foods that the earth gives to sustain life.


Tim Wozny is a northern California poet and cyber activist who originally started fighting on behalf of the oppressed in his home state of Illinois. His proudest achievement are his three sons who have continued his legacy of making the world a better place for all people. He currently pays the bills by working a 9 to 5 but spends his off time creating music videos for rising musicians and bands, while also spreading the truth, as he sees it, to the world through cyberspace. His poetry is what he calls his "therapy", his way of venting his frustrations, sharing his passions and spreading his love.


Sharon Elliott is an Iyalocha, initiated priest, in the Lucumi (African-Cuban) tradition. She was born and raised in Seattle, WA, among the evergreens by the sea. She lived in Nicaragua for 2 years and worked with groups of teenage girls como Voluntaria del Cuerpo de Paz, during the Somoza regime, and it is still the home of her heart. Ecuador was also her residence for 2 years. She is a member of her ancestral clan, the Elliot Clan, in the Borders of Scotland. She’s an activist, writer, musician (violin and mandolin), singer of Orisha chants, folkloric dancer, loves yoga and contact improvisation dancing. She fights for love, peace and justice in her life and for the world. She lives in Oakland, CA.

I Have a Dream

By Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

[To watch a film of this historic speech, please visit American Rhetoric - Top 100 Speeches.]

Together We Marched

Olga Garcia Echeverria

Below is a short fiction piece that was written for the New American's Museum (http://www.newamericansmuseum.org/index.htm) as part of a curriculum project for young adults on the subject of civic engagement. The piece was inspired by my goddaughter, Leonor Bautista, who marched against the Sensenbrenner Bill in 2006 in downtown Los Angeles, a historic protest that sent a loud, clear message to legislators and the nation. I share the piece in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday and in light of the continued resistance to the anti-immigrant climate and legislation that continues to plague the nation.
_______________________________________________________________

My sister Gladys and I were eating a tlayuda covered in black beans and Oaxacan cheese when we first heard about Senator Sensenbrenner and his immigration bill on Univisión. I almost choked when I heard the senator from Wisconsin wanted to get rid of all the “illegals aliens.” What would he think of me? Would he see America in my face? My hair is black. My skin is cacao-colored. I have my great grandmother’s Zapotec eyes, slanted slightly at the edges.

My family is originally from San Pedro Cajonos, a small pueblo in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, where I visit once a year. Even though I was born in Southern California, in the city of Huntington Park, San Pedro is always with me. It is the land where my parents and sister were born, where my grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins live. San Pedro is a town full of colorful houses on steep slopes. In San Pedro windows have no screens, children wearing thick huaraches wander free, and toasted corn tortillas are as big as pizzas. The people in San Pedro always know when someone is coming or going because there’s only one main road, and dust clouds rise like smoke signals with each moving car. When you meet adults in San Pedro, they say things like, “Oh, yes, I know you. You are the daughter of so-and-so.”

On Univisión, the newscaster explained how the Sensenbrenner bill would build a fence at the border, all the way from California to Texas to keep undocumented immigrants out of the country. “Don’t you have better ways to spend our tax dollars?” my sister asked. Gladys always talks back to the TV when things on the news upset her.

The fence was only the beginning. The Sensenbrenner bill would make crossing the border without papers a felony and punish anyone who helped or sheltered the undocumented. This meant a lot of people would go to jail. I thought of Yolanda who lives with us and my throat tightened up like it does when I want to cry. Yolanda doesn’t have papers. She cleans houses fives days a week and takes English classes at night. The Sensenbrenner bill would make her and my family criminals.

Then I thought of my friend Martha at school. She doesn’t have papers either. Her parents brought her to the United States when she was just a little kid. Nobody ever asked her if she wanted to cross the border. Huntington Park is her home now. This is where she grew up, where she goes to school and where she has all her friends. Would she be deported? My sister must have seen the look on my face because she leaned over and hugged me tightly. “Don’t worry, Leo,” she said. “A bill isn’t a law. This is wrong and we’re going to fight this Sensenbrenner!”

But how do you fight a bill? I went to bed that night imagining my loved ones in prison. I had to do something. I remembered how back in San Pedro, before I was born, my mother was a school teacher. She taught us that education is the most important thing. “Inform yourself,” my mother always says. That night I made a plan. I would ask my parents, my sister, and my teachers questions. I would read the paper, listen to the radio, surf the web, and watch the news.

During the following weeks, I learned that the immigration bill had many names: H.R. 4437, Sensenbrenner, and The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. I had a hard time pronouncing Sensenbrenner, so I looked up the name on the internet. I found out it originally came from Germany. Maybe Senator Sensenbrenner and I had something in common. His ancestors had once crossed the Atlantic. They were immigrants too.
I also learned that the Sensenbrenner bill was passed by the House of Representatives on December 16, 2005 by a vote of 239 to 182, but it hadn’t yet been passed by the Senate. People across the country were speaking out against the bill to prevent it from becoming law. My sister and I tuned in daily to El Piolin’s radio show because he gave updates on what was happening with the immigration bill. Through El Piolin we learned that in February, nearly 2,000 demonstrators marched in Philadelphia in support of immigrants, and in early March, about 100,000 people protested H.R. 4437 in Chicago.

At Gage, my junior high school, everyone was talking about the Sensenbrenner bill. Students throughout Los Angeles were planning walk-outs for the following week. School administrators scared us with suspensions and sent us home with warnings for our parents. But the student organizers said we needed to send a message to the politicians, even though we weren’t old enough to vote. “Write to your Senators! Write to your representatives!” They passed out flyers for a big demonstration on Saturday, March 25th. I went home with the flyer in my hand, eager to share the news with my family. Although my parents forbade me to walk-out, I didn’t have to convince them to participate in the demonstration. They were outraged at the Sensenbrenner bill just like I was.

On March 25th, my family and I joined hundreds of Oaxacans on the corner of Normandie and Pico in Los Angeles. We carried huge “¡OAXACA PRESENTE!” banners and made our way towards the demonstration. I had never participated in a demonstration, but I had been following the news and I knew Los Angeles was only one of many cities speaking out against Sensenbrenner. Two days before, 15,000 people marched in Milwaukee, and on March 24th, 20,000 marched in Phoenix.

I knew something incredible was happening as we approached downtown. At every block our numbers grew. By the time we reached the Staples Center, we were surrounded by a sea of people. U.S. flags flapped alongside those of Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, and many other countries. Thousands united on this day to protest the Sensenbrenner bill. Latinos, African Americans, Koreans, Chinese, Whites, and Middle Eastern people carried signs that said:

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL.
IMMIGRANTS ARE NOT CRIMINALS.
MIGRATION IS A HUMAN RIGHT!

I marched with my family, my heart swelling with pride as the three of us chanted as loud as we could: “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido! The people united will never be divided!” I thought of the people of San Pedro, of Yolanda, of Martha, of my parents’ and sister’s journey to this country. I thought of Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. They had given their lives for civil rights. I knew in my heart if they were alive, they would be marching with us. I didn’t know yet that we would never make it to city hall that day because 500,000 protesters jammed the streets. I didn’t know that on that same day 50,000 were also marching in Denver, Colorado and hundreds more in Cleveland, Ohio. Or that in the following months demonstrations would spread to more than 100 cities throughout the nation: San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Las Vegas, Charleston, Oklahoma, Indianapolis, Washington, Memphis, and even cities I had never heard of, like Pensacola, Florida and Grand Junction, Colorado. I didn’t know that these national demonstrations would later defeat the Sensenbrenner bill. But already there was a feeling of triumph as we marched and raised our voices.

MLK answered Obama about Tucson

With Martin Luther King Day approaching, and the Tucson shooting and its aftermath in the news, I thought it appropriate to provide La Bloga readers with excerpts of President Obama's Tucson speech to compare to MLK's "A Call to Conscience."

Note that, while the times have changed, the wars and enemies have different names, what the two men speak to hasn't. I leave it to readers to make your own connections and draw your own conclusions.
RudyG

Barack Obama, 1/12/11
at a Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Ariz.

There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: The hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy will pull through.

These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, all around us, just waiting to be summoned -– as it was on Saturday morning. Their actions, their selflessness poses a challenge to each of us. It raises a question of what, beyond prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

[A]t a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized -– at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -– it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath. For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind. Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future.

As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.

Perhaps we question whether we're doing right by our children, or our community, whether our priorities are in order.

We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -– but rather, how well we have loved -- (applause)-- and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.

And that process -- that process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions –- that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires.


The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better. To be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.

They believed -- they believed, and I believe that we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved life here –- they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that’s entirely up to us.

And I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us -– we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.

May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.
_________________________

MLK {& Vincent Harding]
Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence
Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal."

Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.

And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be -- are -- are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing -- in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon, the only solid -- solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the -- for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

[W]e in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.

These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala -- Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when "justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

[You can read the full text of MLK speech by going clicking here.]

Spotlight on Luivette Resto by Melinda Palacio

Luivette Resto

I have yet to meet Luivette Resto in person. We spoke on the telephone and I instantly knew her unique and lively name matched her persona and poetry. She seems very humble, but anyone with endorsements from Martin Espada, Helena Viramontes, and Luis J. Rodriguez deserves much attention and recognition. However, in her new role, as hostess for La Palabra at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, Resto puts the spotlight on other poets. “I’m not really good with compliments,” she said, “I love to read to become a better reader. I’m totally appreciative of compliments. It’s a new concept for me to get recognized.”

As a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Resto worked closely with Martin Espada. After reading his work, she knew she wanted to learn more from the award-winning poet and lawyer. “When I read his book, I fell in love with his poetry. I had an appreciation for his images and works. I love that he is funny with a serious and hardcore theme.” Like Espada, Resto is also a Puerto Rican poet. She was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, and was raised in the Bronx. She is the first in her family to get a college degree. She learned from El Maestro how to write sociopolitical poems and infuse her poetry with humor. In 2008, Tia Chucha Press published her first collection, Unfinished Portrait. The book was also a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, an award Espada won in 2008 for his book Alabanza: New and Selected Poems 1982-2002. Of Unfinished Portrait, Martin Espada writes:

“The poetry of Luivette Resto is a revelation: brave, honest, angry, intimate, political, irreverent. The poems burn with a clarity born of experience, vivid and tactile as a Taíno tattoo on the shoulder. The poet insists on her unique humanity and her Puerto Rican identity in the same breath, the girl from the Bronx with a Cornell education, demolishing the ignorance of professors who condemn bilingualism or intellectuals who want to learn new Spanish commands for the housekeeper. Resto translates untranslated lives, which she recognizes as the stuff of poetry: the immigrant, the farmworker, the dancer, the unborn child. But these are more than barrio broadsides. Here we find sonnets and odes in praise of enchiladas and cuchifritos, the echoes of poetic ancestors from Pablo Neruda to Julia de Burgos. This is a memorable and timely debut. Welcome, Poet.”


Resto has completed a second book of poetry, Ascension. She’s also an instructor at Citrus College. However, for Resto, her most important job is not poet, but mother to her three children, ages 2, 4, and 6. Having a more than full schedule means she has trouble finding time to write, but she fits it in, publishes her work, and makes time for the occasional speaking engagement.

“My full-time job is being a mom. I’m not a poet, I’m Mommy. My kids keep me realistic.”

I had to ask Luivette about her name because it sounds fashionable and fun. Her grandmother, an executive school board secretary in Puerto Rico named her. Had she been born a boy, she would’ve been named Omar. Her grandmother combined her father’s name, Luis, with her mother’s middle name, Ivette, to come up with Luivette, a fitting name for a memorable poet.

I’ll have the chance to meet Luivette Resto at Avenue 50 Studio when I join the poets prison panel next Sunday. Poetry Behind the Fence: Poets Prison Panel, Sunday January 23 at 3pm, Avenue 50 Studio, 131 North Avenue 50, Highland Park, CA 90012, 323-258-1435. The poetry panel features Robert Juarez, Rolando Ortiz, Hugo Machuca, Melinda Palacio, and Luis J. Rodriguez.

Luivette shares her poem, "Ascension," first published in Poetry Superhighway and the title poem from her second poetry collection.

Ascension

by Luivette Resto

We lay on the hood of your ‘96 Tercel
watching the planes land underneath
an unusually clear L.A. sky,

imagining heading off to lands
where money is abundant
like sand and possibilities.

And when “Love Song” by The Cure played on the radio,
you dragged the tops of your fingernails
up and down my forearm,

as we shared the same early memories of
smoking bidis for the first time
in your step-mom’s basement,
watching 1970s porn like it was a documentary,
reciting each other’s fortunes from our Chinese takeout.

Logic dictated that you wouldn’t like me,
allow me to touch the scar on your right eyebrow
and ask for its story.
But you did.

You confessed to enjoying the silence of
libraries, funeral homes, churches.
Became an atheist when your parents divorced,

left you wondering if you would ever be a good father.

Feeling the coldness of metal on my back

I inched closer to your side of the car,
listened to the unevenness of your breath
between the sounds of jet engines.

They Never Knew What Hit Them: A Love Story

by Lisa Alvarado

And in the fey light of morning, I pulled the T-bird into the alley and Rachel and Zoie slid into the back seat after a night with the two men they met on the train. "They're still asleep?" I clocked them in in the rear view mirror.

"Believe me, " Rachel laughed, "it'll be quite a while before those two are ambulatory."

"Any problems getting here from the station?"

Rachel shook her head, smoothing her skirt into place with a deliberation worthy of a priest wearing vestments.

Zoie just shrugged, dressed that full mouth of hers with crimson lipstick and lit a Gauloise. The smoke was a lazy snake caressing the side of my face. "It's all good," and patted the suitcase between the two of them.

Rachel held up two wallets, pouting a little. "They were fun, you know. Sweet."

Zoie threaded her fingers through her thick, midnight hair and sighed, "Good in bed, too."

Rachel giggled, "Lots of energy...Lovely, really."

"Yes, I know," I said. "But you know how I am about money."

I turned around and leaned toward them. Rachel's mouth was warm and soft, and Zoie's fingers found my nipple.

I pulled away and started the ignition, checking the alley. "Hungry are we?"

I looked up in the rearview to see Zoie smiling like a cat. "Famished. You know how it is after work."

Rachel scooted forward, leaned close, breathing in my ear, her blond hair spilling like a veil. "Baby, we missed you."

I hit the gas. L.A. was at least six hours away. There were passports and the plane tickets waiting. And five years ago, it was the boys and I making the same pilgrimage. They knew I'd done everything and anything for them, and it had been good, very good, for a long time. But they lied, and there was the money after all.

I wondered how soon I could get to a motel.

______________

Lisa Alvarado is a poet, novelist, and installation and performance artist. Her novel Sister Chicas (along with Ann Hagman Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston in 2006) was praised by Julia Alvarez, Pat Mora and Luis Rodriguez, and her book of poetry Raw Silk Suture (2008), garnered acclaim from Juan Felipe Herrera and Rigobero Gonzalez. Her one-woman show, The Housekeeper's Diary, focused on her life as a maid for one of Chicago's wealthiest families for sold-out audiences in Chicago and Washington DC. Her installation, Mexican Maid's Toolkit, toured the U.S. as part of Reimagining the Distaff Toolkit. She is Chicana, Jewish, working-class and devoted to writing about those identities, celebrating the body, the spirit, and the working life. She is a La Bloga contributor.