Gabi, a Girl in Pieces

By Isabel Quintero

Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press (October 14, 2014)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1935955942

ISBN-13: 978-1935955948

July 24

My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn't want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore living in sin. My mom has told me the story many, many, MANY, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with me, her mother beat her. BEAT HER! She was twenty-five. That story is the basis of my sexual education and has reiterated why it's important to wait until you're married to give it up. So now, every time I go out with a guy, my mom says, "Ojos abiertos, piernas cerradas." Eyes open, legs closed. That's as far as the birds and the bees talk has gone. And I don't mind it. I don't necessarily agree with that whole wait until you're married crap, though. I mean, this is America and the 21st century; not Mexico one hundred years ago. But, of course, I can't tell my mom that because she will think I'm bad. Or worse: trying to be White.

Gabi Hernandez chronicles her last year in high school in her diary: Cindy's pregnancy, Sebastian's coming out, the cute boys, her father's meth habit, and the food she craves. And best of all, the poetry that helps forge her identity.

Isabel Quintero was born and raised in Southern California. Her love of reading and writing comes from her mother reading to her before she went to bed, and from the teachers and professors who encouraged her to keep writing. Her love of chorizo and carne asada tacos comes from her dad grilling on Sundays during summertime. She is an elementary school library technician and loves sharing her passion for the written word with students. She also teaches community college part time and works as a freelance writer for the Arts Connection of San Bernardino. Quintero works as events coordinator for Orange Monkey Publishing and assistant editor for Tin Cannon, a literary journal. She still lives in SoCal and enjoys going on adventures with her wonderful husband, Fernando.

"In writing Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, I felt that music was important to the narrator because she is a poet, and poetry and music go hand in hand." From Lupe Fiasco to Bob Dylan to Cornelio Reyna, Isabel gives Laregehearted Boy's Book Notes her ultimate Gabi playlist here and offers readers an inside look into her personal connection to her main character: "I wrote this book because some of it is my story. In a lot of ways Gabi and I share the same issues; we both had (have) body image problems, a bicultural experience, a natural distaste for imposed gender roles, and confusion about sex and its role in our life. As I grew older, I realized I wasn't alone, and that the women who had had similar experiences, also felt alone throughout their teenage years.

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

Veteranspeak, or 5 Questions To Ask a Veteran

Michael Sedano

MiG Alley below, Homing All the Way Killers above

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not short.

Take This Man Grossly Captivating Memoir

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

ISBN 9781439170878

Michael Sedano


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Los Rehenes
Por Elizabeth Cazessús

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(del libro Hijas de la Ira)



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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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




Illegal
By Ashley

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

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

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

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

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


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

Blessing for James' Place
By Jackie Lopez

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

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

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






#bringbackourgirls
By Iris De Anda

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

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

A short interview with Ilan Stavans and Lalo Alcaraz regarding their second collaborative effort, "A Most Imperfect Union"

Fourteen years ago, Ilan Stavans and Lalo Alcaraz had a surprise hit on their hands with Latino USA: A Cartoon History (Basic Books). It was a strange alchemy: Stavans is a prolific writer and editor not to mention the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst, while Alcaraz is the creator of the first nationally-syndicated, politically-themed Latino daily comic strip “La Cucaracha” that is syndicated in many newspapers including the Los Angeles Times. A strange alchemy, yes, but it worked judging by critical response as well as sales.

The Stavans/Alcaraz team is back with A Most Imperfect Union: A Contrarian History of the United States (also published by Basic Books) and they have another hit. With raves from such respected voices as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Martín Espada, Gary Shteyngart and Noam Chomsky, this new illustrated history is a New York Times Best Seller, not to mention a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.

A Most Imperfect Union is as edifying as it is entertaining—a must-read for those who have come to realize that what was taught in history class is not the whole story. Another triumph for Stavans and Alcaraz. 

The team agreed to answer a few questions about their latest joint venture.

DANIEL OLIVAS: This is the second time you’ve collaborated after the well-received Latino USA. Did you approach this book any differently?

ILAN STAVANS: With Latino USA, I learned two lessons: the first one is that collaborating with Lalo Alcaraz is lots of fun; the second is that he can drive me insane. So I approached A Most Imperfect Union with an altogether new ingredient: patience. And guess what? It worked… The endeavor took a while to be assembled: three years. But what is that in the span of a nation’s history? A burp! Readers seem to have liked that we took our time because they have put the book in The New York Times best seller list.

Ilan Stavans

LALO ALCARAZ: I had to switch to digital drawing, as the workload seemed bigger than previous projects with Ilan. If you knew how old school I vowed to keep my work, then you would understand how much this switch in mediums was revolutionary for my process. Otherwise I continued the same work methods as before, which is to physically avoid Ilan for the duration of the project. The guy drives me crazy!

Lalo Alcaraz

OLIVAS: What historical revelation do you think readers would find most surprising in this contrarian history of the United States?

STAVANS: To be a contrarian is to approach reality with a skeptical eye. People believe—foolishly—that the present is malleable, the future unknown, and the past unchangeable. False: the present is rather inflexible, since things happen in it rather tyrannically; the future is the only dimension where all things are possible since nothing has yet happened in it; and the past…well, the past is always changing because it depends on interpretation and interpretation is never static. Now to your question, Daniel: well, to be honest, I don’t like the word “revelation,” not in this context—it smells of religion. What I want readers to come away with in A Most Imperfect Union is doubt: that exceptionalism makes the United States superior; that this is a truly compassionate country; and that our society is made of individuals working together for a higher goal. Truth is, we’re Darwinian to the core. American society is cut-throat. ¡Sálvese quien pueda!

ALCARAZ: I don’t know about what the readers are going to learn about, but I am always amazed at how much more history there is to continue digging into every time Ilan and I do this book thing. Oh, and I always learn about legions of authors and bits of their personal histories because Ilan has a thing about “literature.” Who knew? But, en serio, this time around I was fascinated to learn about the stories of early slave authors. You don’t usually pick up info like that in many US history classes.

OLIVAS: Has A Most Imperfect Union been banned yet?

STAVANS: Yes, in my house. Ask Alison, my wife. Or better, don’t ask her! You’ll be better off.

ALCARAZ: Nah, but it should be banned from the List of Books that you have not bought!

***

IN OTHER LITERARY NEWS...

Pasadena City College School of Humanities and Social Sciences Presents

A Reading by Author Susana Chávez-Silverman

WHEN: Monday, November 17, 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: Circadian, Pasadena City College, 1570 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena

COST: Free!

Susana Chávez-Silverman is a professor of romance languages and literatures at Pomona College in California. She is author of Killer Crónicas: Bilingual Memories and Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters and co-editor of Tropicalizations: Transcultural Representations of Latinidad and Reading and Writing the Ambiente: Queer Sexualities in Latino, Latin American and Spanish Culture. She will be reading in Spanglish from her books.

For more information, please contact Pilar Ara at (626) 585-7435 or email pxara@pasadena.edu.

IN MORE LITERARY NEWS...
In case you missed it, KCRW’s Madeleine Brand interviewed me on her radio show, Press Play, about my most recent book,  Things We Do Not Talk About: Exploring Latino/a Literature through Essays and Interviews (San Diego State University Press, 2014). You may listen to it here.

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of _Massacre of the Dreamers_: Interview with Ana Castillo

Ana Castillo, a Midwest born and raised Xicana (from Chicago, Illinois), has been writing novels, poetry, and prose since the 1970s.  Her accomplishments are many (click here!).  This year she has two publications recently released:  the novel, Give It To Me, (which our own La Bloga writer, Michael Sedano reviewed--click here for review) and this month, a new edition of Massacre of the Dreamers.  

Let me take you back to 1994:  With Massacre of the Dreamers, Ana Castillo creates a linguistic visual link between our Mexican and Indigenous antepasados when she takes the capital “C” from Chicana and replaces it with a strong, decisive “X”:  Xicana.  The "X" is the prominent letter in  Nahuatl, the Uto-Aztecan languages representing various dialects and variants of indigenous peoples that populated and migrated in what is now the United States as well as Mexico.  By using the "X," then, the indigenous becomes privileged. This new concept of Xicana becomes a pivotal point in cultural and literary history and theory.  For example, while working on my dissertation two years after Massacre of the Dreamers is first published, (at the University of California, Santa Barbara), I notice a number of Xicanas changing their names to indigenous names: Xochitl, Xandra (for  Alexandra), Ximena.  Their reading of Castillo's work marked a transformation.  Castillo’s book provided Xicanas the necessary historical and cultural background to broaden and deepen their understanding of identity, and to encourage their participation in the world as a politically active and socially conscious mujer. 

2014:  University of New Mexico (UNMP) publishes a 20^th Anniversary Edition of Massacre of the Dreamers and we are again reminded not to forget our antepasados, our complex background that brings to bear the indigenous and the colonizer.  Ana Castillo's interview today on La Bloga takes a renewed look at the concientización of the Xicana.  

Amelia Montes: Felicidades, Ana, on this important 20^th anniversary edition of Massacre of the Dreamers. How did this anniversary edition come about with University of New Mexico Press?

Ana Castillo in San Francisco, 2012
Photo by Lisa Paul Streitfeld

Ana Castillo: Gracias.  UNMP published the original edition.  I had asked if they were interested in a new edition.  (I felt the impulse to update for some time.) As it turned out, the book came out exactly twenty years after the first publication.  Therefore, it is updated and a 20^th anniversary edition.

Amelia Montes:  There are so many reasons why Massacre of the Dreamers was an important read twenty years ago.  I also see how it is important today. What is it about this historical moment that brings us back to your book?  

Ana Castillo:  I began to work on the project, Massacre of the Dreamers, in the mid-80s.  Latinas, specifically Chicanas, weren’t embracing the term feminism then.  Therefore, I came up with a relevant term:  Xicanisma.  By this example, you may see how the work and challenge was there for such a study.  So much material, theses around the world, have flourished as a result of  such works.  I thought the task of updating would be tremendous.  The good news was that it wasn’t.  (To some degree because of the Internet.)  The bad news was that there wasn’t all that much to update and the premise of the book still held up.

Amelia Montes:  ClarissaPinkola Estés writes the introduction to this new edition.  Tell us about Clarissa and her relationship to this book. 

Ana Castillo:  La Dra. Pinkola Estes is a brilliant Jungian feminist.  She has been very affirming of my writing since my early poetry in My Father Was a Toltec.  I’m touched and privileged to have her friendship and endorsement.

Amelia Montes:  The first part of this book is about feminism, activism, and the roots of machismo.  What has changed in twenty years regarding these three areas in our culture.

Ana Castillo:  As for the “Roots of Machismo,” they are much what they were in the first edition.  The updates I made in the new edition were mostly related to some new laws to protect women around the world.  Do they truly protect women?  It’s difficult to say. 

Ana Castillo, 2013 "in the Valley"

Feminism over all has morphed in various directions.  But, (and not just in “Western” society), capitalism has usurped much of it.  We have new generations, (they go by five year increments in my estimation now), that enjoy the benefits of earlier women’s struggles to full advantage as they engulf lives that perpetuate the notorious feminist arch-enemy:  patriarchy.  Do I consider Beyoncé a feminist because she calls herself that?  Not so much.  But it was due to feminist struggles that she is where she is and has what she has.

There is still great need in the world for selfless activism on many fronts.  Communication has advanced so that we can and do a lot of it on computers but that in and of itself is not the thrust of the work.  Information is now made available so that hopefully many of us with conscientización see the social and political connections that affect the lives of the majority in suppressive ways.  Anyone with conscientización can decide which of the many areas that negatively affect communities s/he may support.  It is crucial to know how you best can do that so that you don’t get frustrated or burnt out. 

Amelia Montes: In the sixth chapter, you use C.G. Jung's idea of the “animus” to have readers think of the feminine and masculine as one.  How are these descriptions important for us today? 

Ana Castillo:  Without formal study in the field, I nevertheless have been partial to Jung’s ideas.  One reason is that I come to my scholarly investigations from the perspective as a poet.  A poet, a brown woman from a modest background who has lived her life that way, a brown woman proud and intent on demonstrating the worthiness of her indigenous ancestry.  The studies of Jung and Joseph Campbell, both white men who approached their curiosity about humanity through mythology, connect with me through my own fascination with my rich ancestry.  We can apply Campbell’s hero’s journey to a girl’s journey into womanhood.  We can apply Jung’s studies about archetypes to those of our Mexican antepasados. 

Ana Castillo in Silver Springs, New Mexico.  2013 photo by Robert A. Molina

A long, long time ago as any feminist worth her salt knows, woman’s power in society began to be taken away.  Maybe not everywhere in the globe but it is fair to say, in most places where civilization was ‘advancing.’  This incessant pattern of splitting the consciousness seems, at least, on an emotional level.  I’d like to think we can work on unifying the feminine/masculine split. 

I do believe there are physiological differences between men and women, and I do believe that they do affect our behaviors and emotions.  I think that more understanding of this is coming about with sex re-assignment. 

Amelia Montes: The Brujas and Curanderas chapter is updated to include twenty-first century discussions.  Today, such as UC Berkeley, there are curandera course offerings for students, when in the 1980s, this was not possible.  Comments?

Ana Castillo:  I was in the Bay Area in the 1980s (when I began work on this book) and spoke several times at UC Berkeley.  The groundwork was being laid then by the Chicanas.   We must never lose track of how these things are a continuum.  They don’t naturally evolve.  For that continuum to have ‘legs,’ those who do “the work matters” must be tenacious.  Apparently, it has been.

Amelia Montes: In your last chapter, “Resurrection of the Dreamers,” you write:  “When we profess a vision of a world where a woman is not raped somewhere in the United States every three minutes, where one of every three female children do not experience sexual molestation, where the Mexican female is not the lowest paid worker in the United States—we are not hating, but trying to change the facts of our conditions.” So true.  What are some strategies twenty-first century Xicanas have done to “change the facts of our conditions.”

Ana Castillo:  “Conscientización,’ a term brought to us primarily today through the strength of Paulo Freire’s book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (by the way, the foremost book that has provoked the notorious case of the Tucson school book ban) is everything.  Because of conscientización we have the courage to act.  Because of it, we communicate.  We have entered fields where we were rarely, if at all, seen—medicine, law and of course, letters.  With this courage to act, we make change.  We are going against not just a thousand-year-old grind, but one that is in full swing now so it isn’t as evident or at the speed of what some of us would wish to see in our lifetimes.

Amelia Montes:  What is most interesting to you about the process in re-publishing a twenty-first century edition of Massacre of the Dreamers?

Ana Castillo in Silver Springs, NM, 2013
Photo by Robert A. Molina

Ana Castillo:  Interesting is a word I like to use when suggesting some reservation.  Today, twenty years later, it is interesting how little has changed for the majority of the women of color in the world.  It is interesting that today, like then, the book comes out and is welcomed first by women like yourself, a Chicana with concientización.  I’m grateful and am deeply touched to know of the women the book has affected, but it is interesting how in 2014, the second decade of the twenty-first century, the majority of Chicanas, Mexicanas, and Latinas are living the lives they might have led not just twenty years ago, but two hundred years ago.

Amelia Montes:  Is there anything you would like to add?

Ana Castillo:  Today, thankfully, we do have many more women studying and pursuing degrees.  They know they must publish.  I’m sure your readers know these studies don’t make anyone rich or (necessarily) famous as it was once thought about publishing a book. The motivation is to get the word out, to hopefully give others encouragement to move forward. Thank you for the opportunity to let your readers know of my humble efforts.  I hope it speaks to the new generation of Dreamers.  Gracias Amelia, and to La Bloga.