La Bloga

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Remembering Frida. Not Forgetting Fukushima: On-line Floricanto.

Scholars Reaffirm Frida
Michael Sedano

The reading from the 2013 anthology Remembering Frida featuring editor Roberta Orona-Cordova, contributors Lara Medina, Maria Elena Fernandez, Sybil Venegas, Antonia Garcia-Orozco, and Marisa Garcia Rodriguez, moves along steadfastly in La Plaza de la Cultura y Artes gift store. Seated at floor level with sunlight pouring in from a storefront window behind them, the scholars read from their chapters. One musician performs at the gathering on International Women's Day.

The pace is appropriate to prose, particularly the dry, lulling syntax of academia, so the audience is doubly delighted when Sybil Venegas semi-dryly propounds her theory that a Chicana from South-Central taught Frida her look. Venegas enjoys the irony that the wild popularity of cosas Frida Kahlo reflects not a discovery but a style come back home. It’s the conceptual highlight of an afternoon that at first seems conventional. It was fabulous.

Roberta Orona-Cordova. Cover foto licensed from Vogue Magazine.

Orona-Cordova frames the anthology as a personal manda honoring the professor’s mother, who, like Kahlo, lived in physical pain and marriage to a mujeriego. After the reading, Orona-Cordova distributes a copy of her text, a useful tactic academics might elect when reading in a popular setting.

The Editor's introduction challenges gente to think critically about the Kahlo ethos and iconography. Fans soured on Frida Kahlo owing to commercialization and image saturation, a painful injury in a still-evolving raza aesthetic. Orona reminds that during the movimiento Chicanas struggled to discover powerful mujer images to celebrate, to bestow widespread recognition and acceptance of a distinctive ethos. Why reject Frida, now that her image and the whole FK thing is the cat’s meow? The idea of Frida retains its inherent power, gente need to re-think.

Lara Medina

Lara Medina enlarges popular knowledge through historical research and criticism. Medina’s critic’s eye discerns issues of patriarchy, fashion, identity choice, and appropriateness in Kahlo’s style and its adoption by women over recent years. Medina points out that fashion, not indigeneity, motivates Kahlo’s favorite style, la Tehuana. Kahlo had little personal experience nor knowledge of the Tehuantepec region. It's a key point that reinforces the view that clothing speaks to identity choice in reaffirming an American culture in a pointed exclusion of Eurocentricity.

Medina observes how indigenous couture features soft, loose garments that hide a woman's body. The fashion lets color and style be the expression of her identity, the Look not her looks. It's an extension of the critic's focus upon women making strategic identity choices on their own terms.

Marisa Garcia Rodriguez

Marisa Garcia Rodriguez travels from New Mexico to share the stage with her colleagues. Garcia studies media and reads today from her Master’s thesis, a section on the movie, Frida. The critic finds the Frida of the movies one-dimensional. The portrayal of the artist as driven from outsiders, as needing validation by Diego Rivera and art critics, misserves the passionate artist by mischaracterizing Kahlo’s self-motivating creativity.

Orona-Cordova takes a moment to acknowledge Marisa’s position as a young scholar. The only non professor on the panel, Garcia Rodriguez represents an emerging generation of chicano studies scholars. Assessed on the basis of Garcia’s presentation—she summarizes and adapts to the situation superbly in a solidly argued analysis—the field will be in top hands. The next generation of C/S scholars will no longer remember the movimiento. Like Marisa, they'll develop their understanding and subject matter by reading the research, consuming and creating the arts, and sitting on panels with Veteranas like today's.

“Who knows who Miguel Covarrubias was?” Show of hands: zero. Sybil Venegas is indomitable. “Who knows Rosa Covarrubias?” No hands. “Who knows Frida Kahlo?” A few hands.

Sybil Venegas with foto of Rosa Covarrubias on Caramelo

It’s a tough house that melts in Venegas’ hands when she holds up Sandra Cisneros’ novel Caramelo. The face on the cover is not Cisneros, it’s Rosa Covarrubias, Venegas tells the mystified audience. Demystifying, Venegas explains Rosa Covarrubias grew up in South-Central Los Angeles before moving to Mexico City, where she marries Miguel.

A dancer and actor, Covarrubias favors indigenous clothing that make her a standout in the artistic world of Mexico City of the roaring twenties and thirties. Rosa may be the first primera clase woman to dress like her maid servants, but with sincerity. She’s the subject of a traje tipico photographic suite by notable U.S. photographer, Edward Weston.

Young Frida, a woman in her twenties like the college women emulating the look today, marries Diego Rivera, artist and mujeriego, and moves into his social circle of bohemian artists and patrons. Forty-something Rosa Covarrubias, a social maven of the clika, who's been everywhere and done everything twice, befriends the blushing bride. The inexperienced woman looks up to this swashbuckling bohemian Veterana, maybe like a madrina, maybe like a favorite tia, maybe as the sine qua non of young Frida's aspirations.

I'll leave the speculation to Sybil Venegas. Venegas cannot connect with an historian’s accuracy her ratiocination that Frida picks up Covarrubias’ liberated actitud and fashion sense, but the argument has rich speculative ground to back it up.

Venegas presents the argument with a happy and understated Chicana nationalism, and the audience eagerly accepts the scholar’s position that Mexican American Rosa is a proto-Chicana. Thus, Venegas reasons, the style that birthed a Salma Hayek movie, an endless stream of artwork featuring Frida iconography, and a hagiography surrounding Kahlo’s beauty, is a Chicana Thing. No wonder it works. ¡Ajua!

Maria Elena Fernandez

Leave them laughing is a useful strategy when a reading is running long. A final reader doesn’t want to be “more of the same." Maria Elena Fernandez’ piece, FK Nopal en La Frente, is tailor-made for last position on a two-hour panel. It would be a good closer to the book, but it’s the third essay in the twelve chapter collection. Click here for Table of Contents of the $65 book, $52 ebook.

Fernandez crafts a funny, manic monolog that begins as a woman in the midst of a Frida Kahlo breakdown, streams through a consciousness of news, myth, fashion style, feminism, winding its way into a solid mujerismo that reconciles itself to various status quos. The monolog parallels Orona-Cordova’s introductory reminder that this popularized image is what you wanted. Use it. Don’t let it be exoticized nor trivialized out of your control.

Antonia Garcia-Orozco

Control is what one hears in a virtuoso musician’s fingers, especially when striking a superb instrument like Antonia Garcia-Orozco’s guitar. A musicologist, Garcia-Orozco’s rich mezzo articulates words and phrases with crystal precision, despite the hollow space that swallows her voice. She closes the reading playing and singing her composition for the anthology.

The LA Plaza space is not a presenter’s favorite spot. Only the first few rows get good views of readers. Folks beyond see bobbing heads accompanied by amplified voices. Yet, here is good/better/best news. The good news is the reading is an element of a new spoken word program in town, Platicas at LA Plaza. Better, this one’s on the eastside, east of Silver Lake even. Best, the crowd filling the space reflects the effective work of Ximena Martin, Curator of Public Programs, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. Institutions grow because they have capable people like Martin, who was eager to talk about her upcoming native ingredients cooking talks.

The gift shop space isn’t going to grow a platform, so in future, folks need to get to the museum early enough for favorable seating. Photographers are going to live with that bright window, the gallery needs that light.

Presenters are going to want to stand up and project to the groundlings. Remembering Frida readers worked collectively, one holds the microphone so her neighbor can read from her manuscript. Poets could work from memory, or Martin probably has a lavaliere mic; the sound cart is excellent. The absence of a lectern doesn't mean a reader shouldn't stand, and I hope there won't be one in future.

Academic presenters will want to remember it’s a public audience, not inured to the ritual of the academic conference. Relax, personalize, and keep it shorter.

A public reading of difficult prose in a gift shop should not exceed five pages to seven pages--think about two minutes a page. Listeners count pages so presenters benefit from a folder or notebook. Any reader will do well to remember a dictum for meeting planners: a person’s brain can absorb half what their nalgas can tolerate.

LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. 501 North Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 • 888 488-8083 • M,W & Th, 12–5 pm, Fri-Sun 12-6 pminfo@lapca.org

Remembering Frida. Roberta Orona-Cordova, Ed. Kendall-Hall, Dubuque IA, 2013.
ISBN: 978-1-4652-2911-3 print
ISBN: 978-1-4652-3573-2 ebook

On-line Floricanto For the Gente of Fukushima and All of Us
Iris De Anda, Sharon Elliott, Red Slider, Francisco X. Alarcón, Res JF Burman, Suzy Huerta, Odilia Galván Rodríguez

Curator's statement by Odilia Galván Rodríguez

~ A special feature floricanto to commemorate the third anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and subsequent aftermath at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. ~

On March 11 2011, the Tohoku earthquake devastated northern Japan and less than an hour after it hit, tsunami waves crashed Japan’s coastline. The tsunami waves reached run-up heights, which is how far the wave surges inland above sea level, of up to 128 feet and traveled inland as far as 6 miles. The tsunami flooded an estimated area of approximately 217 square miles. The number of confirmed dead surpassed 18,000, with more people still reported as missing. In addition to other very serious damage, the tsunami caused a cooling system failure at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which resulted in a level 7 nuclear meltdown and release of radioactive materials. About 300 tons of radioactive water continued to leak from the plant every day into the Pacific Ocean, affecting fish and other marine life.

In response to the devastation, in addition to calling for material support, assistance, and prayers, Poets Responding to SB 1070 asked the world community to join them in an offering to the people of Japan of condolences and hope, in the form of poems.

Poets Responding to SB 1070 moderator, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, took on the task of gathering people’s work and subsequently, on April 19, Michael Sedano collaborated in this tribute and produced a special edition of La Bloga. Like today's column, that La Bloga featured Frida Kahlo.

http://labloga.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-frida-kahlo-her-photos-on-line.html

Three years later the nuclear crisis continues to threaten more lives. While we are told that the clean up at Fukushima Daiichi is ongoing and that we have nothing to worry about, with regard to the radioactive water that is spewing into the Pacific Ocean daily, everyday we hear of more people becoming ill and dying of cancer. We hear reports of dead birds falling from the sky, marine life perishing en masse, and know something is amiss even though we are told otherwise.

This year, to bring attention to the situation at Fukushima and other global environmental concerns affecting our earth, Poets Responding to SB 1070 and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, a Facebook page started by Odilia Galván Rodríguez, called for poems for a special remembrance of what happened three years ago in Japan and to honor all those who lost their lives, and for their families and friends.

We know that we are but a tiny part of this grand web of life, that we are all connected, and what has happened to Japan affects us all. Some of the poems included here are new and some from the original tribute. United in struggle ~

Wednesday Prayers for Fukushima
by Iris De Anda

Something is happening
Something is happening in our ocean
Something is happening to our pachamama

we must come together and do something about it
I ask that we gather our intentions
wherever you find yourself on Wednesdays
I ask that you pray for our water
that you pray for our earth mother
that you pray

this prayer can be a simple word
a closing of your eyes
a wish
a thought
a song

you can meditate
visualize
dance
shout
listen

she is asking for us to hold a space
a healing space
a whole space
a tranquil space
a space within

at night or early morning
I send her my prayers
in the middle of the day
I send her my prayers
as I breathe air & drink water
I send her my prayers

alone I create a little ripple
together we can create a wave of love

Wednesday Prayers for Fukushima
Wherever you may find yourself

When birds fall from the sky and the animals are dying, a new tribe of people shall come unto the Earth from many colors, classes, creeds, who by their actions and deeds shall make the Earth green again. They will be known as the Warriors of the Rainbow.

Doom Tears
by Sharon Elliott

for Fukushima and the rest of the planet

doom cries
dragon tears
molten lava
drips from eaves
wet with
sorrow

leather wings
beat against
brutal
loss

claws wipe
hot
red
drops
sprinkling fire
against the mountain top

wailing grows
louder than the
breaking sea

9 years
90 decades
900 centuries
of unremittent
suffering
under a
carnelian sky

green growing things
crouch
beneath dirt
baked by
shameless
arrogance

waiting
for a blue sky
that does not
show itself

hidden by smoke
and fire
indelible
illegible

burning down
that
which should be prayed for

Born and raised in Seattle, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Lukumi priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scottish history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong.

She has featured twice in poetry readings in the San Francisco Bay area: at Poetry Express, Berkeley, Ca. in 2012 and La Palabra Musical in Berkeley, CA in 2013.

She was awarded the Best Poem of 2012, The Day of Little Comfort, Sharon Elliott, La Bloga Online Floricanto Best Poems of 2012, 11/2013, http://labloga.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-poems-of-2012.html

She has a book: Jaguar Unfinished, Sharon Elliott, Prickly Pear Publishing 2012, ISBN-13: 978-1-889568-03-4, ISBN-10: 1-889568-03-1 (26 pgs)

The Fearful Symmetry
by Red Slider  

They say it didn't happen that way, 
that some died quick and others not at all. 
They say it was all in the sway of "necessity,
" Called down from the sea to wash away our sins,  
yet even now burns brightly, beneath our skins.  

They say it didn't happen that way. 
It was worth the price, "necessity," 
They say. "The survivors heal in time. 
Those that don't survive, quickly die. 
Their silence said as much," they said, 
"It was necessary to end the war,"

they didn't suffer.  
Somewhere, deep in the skin of their ghosts, 
hubris burned brightly, renewing the curse 
of Prometheus, plucking our livers from 
the ashes of Fukushima-Daiichi. Once again 
they will say, "It didn't happen that way, 
It is the price of success and necessity," 
burning brightly, beneath our skins. 

They say, to end a war we must light up the day or,
to light a lamp, place a speck of sun upon a coastal ledge
where ashen ghosts are still at play among the ruins,  
their shadows lengthened into rays of paper, fan and broom.
By fire or by sea are the sins of ignorance swept clean  they say, while a thousand folded paper cranes pass by  in lingering review, they spin eternities in hubris gray;  they calculate the half-life of a day burning brightly,  
beneath our skins.  

Urgent Nuclear Prayer
by Francisco X. Alarcón

disarm these ticking
bombs called reactors, Mother Earth,
have mercy on us!

we foolish children
who recklessly play with fire
are getting all burned

Toci Tonantzin!
Citlacueye! Tlazateotl!
tla Tlatecuhtli!

© Francisco X. Alarcón
March 24, 2011

Urgente plegaria nuclear
por Francisco X. Alarcón

desarma las bombas
de reactores, Madre Tierra,
¡tennos piedad!

como niños tontos
jugamos con el fuego,
hasta quemar todo

Toci Tonantzin!
Citlacueye! Tlazateotl!
tla Tlatecuhtli!

© Francisco X. Alarcón

24 de marzo de 2011

Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, born in Los Angeles, in 1954, is the 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), Sonetos a la locura y otras penas / Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts Book Company 2001), De amor oscuro / Of Dark Love (Moving Parts Press 1991, and 2001).
His latest books are Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun / Poemas para el Nuevo Sol (Swan Scythe Press 2010), and for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú/Animalario del Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008) which was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association, and as an Américas Awards Commended Title by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together/Poemas para soñar juntos (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award.
He teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program. The issue of eco-poetics and xenophobia are a the core of three upcoming collections of poems, Poetry of Resistance: A Multicultural Anthology in Response to SB 1070, Borderless Butterflies: Earth Haikus and Other Poems / Mariposas sin fronteras: Haikus terrenales y otros poemas. He is the creator of the Facebook page POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 where more than 3,000 poems by poets all over the world have been posted.

Japanese Earthquake Haiku
by Res JF Burman

I first heard of the Earthquake whilst listening to a Music Programme from Vancouver. A frequent listener posted from Tokyo that she could feel earthquake tremors. The following collection of haiku (isn) verses followed from that.

I hear from Vancouver
Of Tokyo quakes... small world
In peril

Sitting safe at home
My heart goes out to all at risk
In quaking Tokyo

Man is so small
When the Dragon shrugs it's shoulders
Playthings of the gods

Japan lies bleeding
Scattered across her farm land
My heart bleeds for her

Ships take to the land
And cars take to the water
Racing to destruction

After the quake… the waves
So many lives turned upside down
Reduced to mud and matchsticks

Our thoughts and prayers
Are with you all in Japan
Living in harms way

Every child I see
Rescued... saved from the wreckage
My heart swells.... tearful joy

I see the loving care
As a boat load of children
Are passed hand to hand

Save them all.. Dear God..
Or Goddess.. save all of them
They need your mercy now

How strange to fear the rain
Or the gentle breeze blowing
From Fukushima

Snow falls on the scene
Of Japan’s great disaster
Gently… like a kind touch
Bestowed too late

Shunbun no Hi
A day for admiration
Of nature… cruel jest

But despite it all
In a Tokyo park today
Cherry Blossom hope

Old Soldier, disabled Vet, War Pensioner, reformed, well mostly!

Ex-traveller, builder, carpenter, cabinet-maker, wood-turner, forester & silviculturist, herdsman and cow-lifter! Ex-donkey driver too! Lots of ex’s due mostly to age and disability but a bit of all of them still leaving their mark!

Now a long time practicing Taoist. (I’ll get it right some day!)

Into music, poetry, Oriental art, religion and philosophy. Photography. Beauty in all it’s forms; landscapes, seascapes, forests & mountains. And, of course, beautiful people, especially the ladies!
I am not a good walker nowadays but I still love wild places & the wild side. Love trees, bamboos, beautiful women and all with beautiful souls, animals and old dogs and children and watermelon wine!

After Shock~
by Suzy Huerta

Tonight, prayers the people of Fukushima
will escape the unnatural breath

of radiation. Four burning reactors and acid
rains hang overhead. Together, we walk this coastline

of nuclear meltdown. The living cry for having outlived
tsunami explosions, and I decide I won’t cry death

that can, at the whim of wind and
ocean currents, take over, seep slowly

into expectant lungs and belly. Before the final seizure,
cancer born of hyper-energy and fabricated sun, I declare

my right to battle. 50 plant technicians stay behind
when levels spike into dangerous territory, more dangerous

than centuries of plate tectonic tension, and surging waters.
Like them, I focus on the fixing. I will not spend energy

this night at my desk, eyes on screens, on newsreels
of broken spirits: mothers to new babies,

70 year old husbands who couldn’t hold on
to waterlogged, drifting wives. I take their gaping wounds

like a bullet in protest, demand something better
and walk with their torment like a lover, saying goodbye

in this balmy, California sunset. Loose steps glide on
downtown, potholed pavement. Returning home, I discover

purple and yellow bulbs, ripe and blasting brilliantly,
growing spring into dying, winter skies.

Suzy Huerta was born and raised in San Jose, California.

She currently teaches English composition and literature at Foothill Community College where she also coordinates the Puente Program.

Suzy Huerta's poems have been published in The Packinghouse Review, El Coraje, La Bloga and other journals.

✿

Five Senryū
~ an offering to Ocean
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez

on wings of ocean
water gives life or destroys ~
they were carried skyward

ocean endless
with no bottom to speak of
she cannot be blamed

for mysteries of life
painful as they are deep
clouds without answers

mighty ships sinking
as if gravity were no more
a chasm

earth-water fissures
a breach in reality
our safety lost

©Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2011

Author Odilia Galván Rodríguez, is of Chicano-Lipan Apache ancestry, born in Galveston, Texas and raised on the south side of Chicago. As a social justice activist for many years, Ms. Galván Rodríguez worked as a community and labor organizer, for the United Farm Workers of America AFL-CIO and other community based organizations, and served on various city/county boards and commissions. She is the author of three books of poetry, of which Red Earth Calling ~ Cantos for the 21st Century ~ is her latest publication. Her creative writing has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies such as, The En'owkin Journal of First North American Peoples, New Chicana / Chicano Writing: 1& 2, Reinventing the Enemy's Language: Contemporary Native American Women's Writings of North America, Here is my kingdom: Hispanic-American literature and art for young people, Zyzzyva, The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, La Bloga as well as other online sites. She most recently worked as the English Edition Editor for Tricontinental Magazine, in Havana, Cuba under OSPAAAL, an NGO with consultative status to the United Nations. She is one of the facilitators of Poets Responding to SB1070, a Facebook page dedicated to calling attention to the unjust laws recently passed in Arizona which target Latinos, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima. She also teaches Empowering People Through Creative Writing Workshops nationally.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Tree of Sighs in Kansas City y más

By Xánath Caraza

Award winning author, Lucrecia Guerrero will be in Kansas City on Monday, March 24 at 7 p.m. at the Greenlease Gallery, Rockhurst University. This event is sponsored by the Rockhurst University International and Global Perspectives Committee, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and Sigma Delta Pi: Hispanic Honor Society. Bienvenida Lucrecia!

Lucrecia Guerrero has lived in the Midwest for years but grew up on the U.S./Mexico border in a bilingual and bicultural home with a mother from Kentucky and father from Puebla, Mexico. Guerrero's background is often reflected in her stories and fictional characters. Her short stories have been published in literary journals such as the ANTIOCH REVIEW and anthologized in FANTASMAS and BEST of the WEST 2009. CHASING SHADOWS, her collection of linked short stories was published by Chronicle Books, and more recently Bilingual Press/Arizona State University published her novel TREE of SIGHS. TREE of SIGHS was the recipient of a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship and the Premio Aztlán Literary Award.

Also in Kansas City, a controversial poetry reading:

Poets, Norma Cantú, Hadara Bar-Nadav, Nicole Higgins and Xánath Caraza will read poetry for the Women in the World, a Poetry Reading Celebrating International Women’s Day on Tuesday, March 11, 2014 from 3 – 5 p.m., Student Union Room 401B, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Be our guest and join us if you are around. This event is sponsored by various UMKC offices, departments and programs: Latina/Latino Studies Program, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, English Language and Literatures and the Division of Diversity and Inclusion.

Otras noticias:

I will be reading at Emporia State University (ESU), Emporia, Kansas on Friday, March 14 at 7 p.m., Preston Family Room in Memorial Union. This event is sponsored by the ESU Creative Writing Program, the Performing Arts Board, and the Special Events Board. Here is a link to the event, https://www.facebook.com/events/629341587115601/

For another upcoming event, Bloguero, Daniel Olivas, will be part of the Tucson Festival of Books next weekend! Click here for his full schedule: http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?action=display_author&id=1729

What is more, congratulations to María Miranda Maloney, her manuscript has found a home! THE UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF MILEVA will be published by pandora lobo estepario press out of Chicago. I’m looking forward to seeing it on people’s bookshelves soon, María.

Yet another good literary resource is here. You don’t want to miss this new website, 46 Clubhouse, A Place for Writers, aquí está el enlace, http://46clubhouse.com/2014/02/26/the-persistence-of-a-poet/

Finally, I want to thank Tumblewords Writing-Project workshop, "Minerva's Daughters", (part of Verbal Intoxicants), led by Donna Snyder. She used some of my fiction, Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings (Mouthfeel Press, 2013) and poetry for her writing workshop on March 8, 2014, along with the poetry of Dale Winslow. Gracias Donna y a todos en el taller. Peace and Creativity.

Es todo por hoy. Ciao, chao

Sunday, March 09, 2014

VIVAS: Mujeres in the Mail

Olga Garcia Echeverria

Real, old-fashioned mail can brighten even the gloomiest of days. The parcel that arrives is the size of a record album, the weight of a sturdy book. It’s traveled all the way from Mexico City to Lincoln Heights. It’s littered with cool rows of orange Día de Muertos stamps and numerous black postal seals, faded and smeared. The envelope is made of brown paper bag, its edges beaten and gnawed. It's obviously been "manhandled" on both sides of the border. The calendars inside, though, are remarkably unscathed.

This is Rotmi Enciso and Ina Riaskov’s 2014 calendar project, VIVAS, where women who love women and women who love words are featured in every month of the year. The cover of the calendar is a lucha-libre-masked mujer running in a blur. She's zooming by in a white nightie, hot pink fishnet stocking, a black and gold cape, matching botas and fingerless arm-length gloves. Me gusta. Run, Lucha Libre Mujer, Run!

I open up the calendar to February. A black and white profile of an older woman stares back. There is some kind of fierceness in her face. No Botox. No airbrush. No commercial standards of youth and beauty. Yet, she’s beautiful, her skin weathered and sculptured by time--the same way wind and sun carve out the face of the earth.

When I turn to March, I see that my friends in Mexico have gifted one of my poems a page, “Vuelo.” It’s a poem close to my heart, about my maternal grandmother, who many moons ago in Mexico is said to have lost her mind. “Perdió la razón” is how the story goes. I like to envision it as a wondrous flight instead of madness. Vuela, abuelita, vuela!

In August, cumulous clouds and a poem by tatiana de la tierra greet me, “Prisionera de tu perro.” My heart warms and I laugh aloud, remembering this querida amiga, bloguera, escritora. It’s a true story, the poem. tatiana once got dumped for a dog. She was indignant when it happened. “Can you fucking believe it? A dog! A cat maybe, pero un perro comemierda?” Her revenge was to write a poem-song (with a loud barking chorus) to the ex-lover. “You don’t seem too heartbroken,” I said to her once while she was practicing the poem with a yowling gusto. She barked, and then kept on singing.

Gracias Ina and Rotmi. Your international parcel is greatly appreciated. Las mujeres en este calendario están VIVAS.

Calendario de mujeres opportunity: I have two extra VIVAS calendars to share. It's bilingual queer word and mujer visual art to hang on a wall porque every day is a good day to celebrate International Women's Day. If you'd like a calendar, email me at mariposa@datapillar.com and I'll send the first two people who respond a cool parcel in the mail.

Rotmi Enciso & Ina Riaskov: Artistas, Activistas, Femenistas, Revolucionistas, Lesbianistas, Internacionalistas.

To learn more about VIVAS contact Rotmi and Ina via Producciones Y Milagros Agrupacion Femenista, A.C. proyectos.prodymil@yahoo.com or on twitter: @prodymil

Saturday, March 08, 2014

Quiñones. Teen on privilege. Legacy of intolerance. New MA studies.

Sam Quiñones

New paths for a great journalist

Sam Quiñones, author of one of my favorite books, Antonio's Gun, is leaving the L.A. Times for other adventures. La Bloga wishes him well with his old and new endeavors. Read the whole story here.

American teenager explains white privilege

If you need material to explain white privilege to an Anglo, or just want to check your own understanding of it, then check this American teenager's cartoon. She's not just a breath of fresh air; she's a windstorm leaving the cities sweet.

Artist Jamie Kapp, 19, calls herself IgnorantTeenager; she's anything but. Here's her first cartoon, but enjoy them all.

U.S. legacies of intolerance

Jimmy Franco Sr.'s post this week on LatinoPOV, The Enduring US Legacies of Discrimination and Intolerance, should be read by all. Here's a taste:

"This present-day type of systematic ethnic intolerance and governmental restrictions on specific sectors within our society are becoming somewhat reminiscent of a similar trend in 1930′s fascist Germany.

"The ideological basis of our society was founded upon the four legacies of white supremacy, male dominance, class bias and religious sectarianism.

"This upsurge in ethnic hatred and divisive behavior needs to be actively confronted and not avoided nor shrugged off. Hiding our heads in the sand instead of standing up and speaking out for correct principles and norms of mutual respect and behavior only encourages these hate-spewing bullies."

Go here for the full text.

A new Center for Mexican American Studies

From Juan Tejeda comes this:

"Colegas y Camaradas: On behalf of Alamo Colleges and Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Tejas, we invite you to this special Ceremonia and Grand Opening Celebration of the Palo Alto College Center for Mexican American Studies on Thursday, March 20.

"Many colleagues have been working on this initiative for over a year and now the dream is becoming a reality. Come on out to the Southside and celebrate with us. It's free and open to the community and we'll have free food and drinks for lunch, plus some very special cantos and performances. Feel free to invite friends and familia. We give thanks for the blessing of this center and may it serve to inspire and help our children and students succeed in school and in life, for generations to come."

Denver's best Tex-Mex

During The Rick Garcia Band's performances on April 12 and 13 at Denver's Oriental Theater, you have a chance to own one of the framed posters and artwork that were displayed at Rick's Tavern!

Rick Garcia Band website: www.rickgarciaband.com

Oriental Theater website: www.theorientaltheater.com

Rick Garcia Band 24-hour line: (720) 855-8166

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG

Friday, March 07, 2014

Writing Opportunites. Guest Opinion on Latin America and the U.S. Drug Wars. More AWP

Writing Opportunities

American Short Fiction - At AWP I talked with Rebecca Markovits, one of the Editors at American Short Fiction. She let me know that they are actively looking for fiction from any and all writers, and they would love to have more Latino/a submissions. And they pay. Here's the blurb from their website, which is at this link.

"American Short Fiction has published, and continues to seek, short fiction by some of the finest writers working in contemporary literature, whether they are established, or new or lesser-known authors. In addition to its triannual print magazine, American Short Fiction also publishes stories (under 2000 words) online. Submit here."

University of Hell Press - Also from AWP: "Seeks and promotes artists who are creating irreverent and thought provoking works in quiet corners of their worlds. ... We pride ourselves on being different and irreverent, and we expect your work will embody the same." Open submissions will start in "early spring." Go here for more.

What Books Press - "An imprint of the Glass Table Collective since 2009, What Books Press publishes innovative poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, books that defy categories, genres, and established marketing parameters. What Books covers feature the art of Gronk, a Glass Table member, and reflect the high standards of the books we publish." What Books normally considers submissions by nomination only. However, it announced an Open Submission period for the month of July 2014. Contact the press for info.

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Guest Opinion from Clark Lohr

Latin America and the U.S. Drug Wars

Writing in The New Republic (January 1st, 2014: Is the U.S. the Last Country Still Fighting the Drug War? Uruguay’s new pot law is a big blow to Washington drug policy), Russell Crandall notes that a succinct pro-legalization argument can be found in The Economist: “Making drugs illegal encourages organized crime, clogs the prisons (especially in the Americas), increases corruption everywhere from Mexico to Afghanistan, and ignores the inexorable law of supply and demand.”

It’s not news to Latin Americans or to many who read El País, or the Guardian, et cetera, that Latin American nations are bowing out of, or blowing off, the longest war in U.S. history, the drug war, declared in June, 1971, by U.S. President Richard Nixon, a war that is used today, in my opinion ( as an Anglo American observer), for the same general purpose that Honduran and Guatemalan human rights workers and politicians complained about when I toured their countries with the Veterans for Peace (VFP) in the 1980’s: hegemony -- undue influence.

It was Nixon, Russell Crandall writes, who established counter-narcotics campaigns in Southeast Asia and Mexico.
On that same VFP study tour, the Sandinistas spoke about U.S. hegemony as well, but focused on the Somoza regime and their overthrow of it, mindful, meanwhile, that voting for a Sandinista government was essentially a vote against the U.S. government. Rather a quaint historical footnote I’m making here in 2014 since bucking the U.S. resulted in the Sandinistas going down, either under the guns or the money of the Contras and the United States, which brings us to the Iran-Contra scandal, broken publicly by Senator John Kerry in 1986, wherein it was eventually proven that U.S. covert operatives helped run cocaine into the U.S. to help fund the Contras -- drugs for guns. Meanwhile, in 1984 and 1986, the U.S. passed additional mandatory sentencing laws, aimed at crack cocaine users (read African-Americans), which were thrown out, in part, in 2010, by the Fair Sentencing Act.

Although the history of U.S. drug legislation reaches farther back than the establishment of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), created in 1930 -- headed, famously, by Harry Anslinger, who established the self-serving fiction that marijuana is a gateway drug -- it is the FBN that ushered the U.S. into the modern phase of a profitable war on drugs, wherein crooks, cops, banks, lawyers, politicians, and even some of the rest of us, can make money, not so much off drugs, but off the fact that drugs are illegal. The FBN produced films linking marijuana use to violent crime, but Reefer Madness, the propaganda film U.S. hipsters love best, was produced by a church group. The racial/ethnic prejudice aspect of U.S. drug legislation has been a thread in the weave since at least the 1850’s (read opium and Chinese immigrants). The Boggs Act, increasing mandatory sentencing, passed in 1951, and aimed principally at marijuana (read Mexicans), is said to have served as a convenient adjunct to the deportation of Mexicans from the U.S.

For nearly four decades, U.S. taxpayers have funded the exportation of the U.S. war on drugs into Latin America. The cost has run into the trillions and the meter is still running. In Mexico, in particular, U.S. funding and U.S. training have only made matters worse. Many examples exist, but the Zetas, founded by Mexican Special Forces troopers trained by the U.S. for the express purpose of busting Mexican drug operations, are perhaps the best example. These guys deserted the Mexican army and set up the most brutal, efficient (and probably the most profitable) drug cartel in Mexico.

In my view of present-day drug war politics, prejudiced, mendaciously ignorant U.S. citizens still cling to their self- righteousness, despising those in their own country for using any kind of drug, and despising Mexico for its tenacious tradition of corrupt and ineffective government. In my view, federal government drug warriors are clinging to their prestige and their big salaries, rallying the ignorant and the right-wing religionists, and pressuring everyone, from the President on down, to keep funding and fighting the U.S. war on drugs. To me, these drug war bureaucrats and their legal and law enforcement entourages resemble, collectively, a huge, violent covert operation that won’t be shut down by their nation’s popular will, or by its elected officials.

The truth is, the international illegal drug business is too big to fail and the U.S. demand for drugs has continued to grow. Many Mexicans and many Latinos living in the U.S., particularly the young, see, in narco cultura (see the documentary Narco Cultura, released in 2013, and directed by Shaul Schwartz), as the way up and out, a means of moving financially and socially up the ladder, out of the humiliation of poverty, and into positions of power and respect, just as the more fortunate and cunning U.S. bootleggers quietly diversified into legitimate businesses and came out of Prohibition to live their lives as respected citizens of mainstream society. U.S. citizens only have to look at themselves to see the logic of narco cultura. Even if a self-styled narco fails to make the transition to the straight world, he can live on in legend. Every American knows about Al Capone, a vicious Prohibition-era gangster who was ultimately dealt with by law enforcement, not for his many murders but for income tax evasion. He did prison time, but was paroled. He died at his home in Palm Island, Florida.

Uruguay’s road to legalization of marijuana began, Russell Crandall notes, in 2009, when three former Latin American presidents came out against the U.S. war on drugs. In 2011, Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, also came out against the war on drugs, along with former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Crandall reports that President Barack Obama “received an unexpected earful from some of his Latin American counterparts” upon arriving at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena in April, 2012. Obama responded by acknowledging that the drug war was “a legitimate topic for debate.”

Crandall concludes that “…we…need to think carefully before we condemn every aspect of the drug war, or choose to abandon it altogether...all eyes will be on Colorado, Washington, and Uruguay to see how the baby step of pot legalizations turns out.”

--Clark Lohr is a crime writer living in Tucson, Arizona, a drug war battleground where live ammo is in use. He has written two novels in which the drug wars play a decisive role in the lives of the characters: Devil’s Kitchen, first published in 2010, and The Devil on Eighty-five, published in 2013.

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Shots and Comments From This Year's Conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).

[click on photos for larger image and slide show]

Immediately I noticed two things - the participants were of all ages but youth certainly prevailed (not surprising,) and it was nice to see so many faces of color in the crowd and on panels. As others have noted, the agenda included a good representation of panels and readings relevant to the Latina/o attendees and presenters. The ones I managed to catch were well-attended and I have to say that the speakers exhibited a high quality of expertise and passion for writing.

Checking In On The First Day

Certain highlights stick out, of course. Naturally I enjoyed the events where I was a participant. On Thursday I gave a reading celebrating Arte Público Press along with two other AP authors - Alicia Gaspar de Alba and J.L. Torres, who organized the reading. I felt honored to be in their company as they are excellent writers and their readings genuinely moved the audience. I forgot to take pictures of this panel but later I got a pic of J.L. staffing the booth for the Saranac Review.

J.L. Torres

I also sat on a panel entitled Chicana/o Noir: Murder, Mayhem and Mexican Americans. Must say, we had a good time with this one. My partners in crime were Daniel Olivas (facilitator who put the panel together), Lucha Corpi, Michael Nava, and Sarah Cortez. It had been years since I'd seen Lucha and Michael (Sarah and I did an event in Houston last year, I also saw Daniel last year), so this panel felt like a reunion of sorts. We propped up crime fiction and read short pieces from our work that showcased the diversity and uniqueness of our various books, striking a blow for genre writers everywhere.

Lucha and Carlos at the Con Tinta Reception

Daniel and Sarah Prep for the Panel

I managed to attend events that talked about unsympathetic characters in fiction, Chicano artist Gronk and the Glass Table Collective, William Burroughs, the 25th anniversary of Tia Chucha Press, and the short story collection ¡Arriba Baseball! I heard readings from Richard Blanco and Cristina Garcia as well as several poets representing Tia Chucha, What Books, and others. I thought the panelists tried too hard to deify Burroughs; it would have been great to have Gronk in person at the panel that showcased his work; Blanco is an excellent reader of his poetry; and there were several other panels I wanted to attend but just couldn't fit in.

Speaking of Gronk, one of the gems I discovered at AWP is a book of science fiction poetry illustrated by Gronk for What Books Press. The book, Tomorrow You'll Be One Of Us, written by Chuck Rosenthal and Gail Wronsky, is described as "a humorous tribute to sci-fi movies from the 1950s and early 60s. It is a book of poetry and an art book, with over 70 full-color drawings/paintings by Gronk. Written using surrealist techniques to arrange lines of actual dialogue from the films, the poems are experimental yet eminently readable, asking questions such as, Will anybody ever really know what happened here? The book is published in a limited edition of 300 copies." I have my copy and I'm hoping to get author and artist autographs.

A panel I enjoyed immensely was ¡Arriba Baseball! featuring Kathryn Lane, Thomas de la Cruz, Norma E. Cantú and Robert Moreira, the editor of the collection. The four selections I listened to were all superb. I recommend this collection to one and all, you don't have to be a baseball fan to appreciate the humanity of the characters and the resonance of the settings in these stories. Other writers in this collection include Dagoberto Gilb, René Saldaña, Jr., David Rice, and Christine Granados.