La Bloga

Monday, December 25, 2017

WOMEN, MUJERES, IXOQ: REVOLUTIONARY VISIONS

WOMEN, MUJERES, IXOQ: REVOLUTIONARY VISIONS
Xánath Caraza

Bloguera invitada: Claudia D. Hernández

WOMEN, MUJERES, IXOQ: REVOLUTIONARY VISIONS is a photography book that will be published by Conocimientos Press by the end of the year. This book depicts stories of resilience by artists, activists, writers, and poets from across the United States. The book aims to empower and inspire women, especially young women.

I began this project on October 11, 2012. I was a thirty-four-year-old navigating through the roughest phase of my life. At my lowest point, when I was scraping my knees off the floor, women came to my side—my mother, my sisters,This is when I realized that when women experience life challenges from discrimination, inequality, misogyny, abuse, abandonment, postpartum depression, or other life difficulties, we forge sisterhood. Inside the trauma of our lives we seek each other out for comfort inspiring and encouraging one another along the way. It was then that I committed to document women’s lives. I have amassed over fifty interviews and now the project has given birth to this photography book in color.

Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color Project has taken me on a journey of which I never dreamed. I consider it a gift to photograph and gather together these women’s poetry, prose, and paintings. Replete with stories of hope framed inside narratives of sexism, racism, sexual molestations, harassment, incest, domestic violence, bigotry, mental illness, immigration, motherhood, language, gender and identity issues, through their stories they contest the adversities that women experience. These women are survivors who have endured many hardships, but have found ways to heal through their art and community service. Their stories of resilience truly reflect the human condition.

This project has given me the opportunity to meet more than fifty community leaders who make a difference with their art. These are everyday women who are successful and whose very existence is revolutionary by their accomplishments and experiences. They are not perfect, but I consider them the fiercest warriors I have met; they are agents of change whose art empowers young women; they are influential, creative women whose art has inspired me; their vision and art healed my heart, soul, and mind when I most needed it.

WOMEN, MUJERES, IXOQ: REVOLUTIONARY VISIONS will publish forty revolutionary women including a powerful forward by Norma Elia Cantú. The book will be available to purchase on Amazon and www.conocimientospress.com

Claudia D. Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She’s a mother, photographer, poet, translator, and a bilingual educator residing in Los Angeles. She writes short stories, children’s stories, and poetry in Spanish, English, and sometimes weaves in Poqomchiʼ, an indigenous language of her Mayan heritage. Hernández holds an MFA in Creative Writing for Young People, with an emphasis in poetry from Antioch University Los Angeles. Various online literary journals and anthologies throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico, have published her work. She was named a finalist for the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize in 2017. She is the founder of the ongoing project: Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color

http://www.todaysrevolutionarywomenofcolor.com/news-and-events.html

https://www.facebook.com/TodaysRevolutionaryWomenOfColor/

https://www.facebook.com/Conocimientos-Press-1541699272509777/

Sunday, December 24, 2017

Poesía y Lectura: Diciembre en Novi Sad, Serbia

Downtown, Novi Sad, Serbia (in the Plaza)

There is a beauty to Novi Sad that reminds me so much of La Placita in Los Angeles; or La Plaza en Guadalajara, Mexico; or even La Plaza in Salamanca, Spain -- a place where people walk, gather, sing, enjoy each other's company late into the evening: children and their guardians, young and middle aged groups, the elderly-- all out for a stroll, or for a concert, or to ice skate at the plaza rink. People are talking to each other (not buried into their I-phones) in animated conversations, or sitting leisurely for a good long meal. I already know that when I return to the U.S., I will miss these evening walks, evening gatherings so typical of many places in Europe.

Visnja Vujin and Amelia Montes at The University of Novi Sad, Serbia

Tonight in Novi Sad, I strolled with friends at the plaza downtown after having taught my graduate course. Here in Novi Sad, the class I am teaching always meets on Saturdays from 4 - 7p.m., which emphasizes how the European system can be quite different. The university schedules graduate courses on Saturdays because graduate students (1) work during the week, and (2) often live far from Novi Sad. I have one student who travels by bus from Nis to Novi Sad -- a 5-hour bus ride. Also-- we do not meet every Saturday. This kind of schedule allows for the working student to manage a class schedule and it also demands much more self discipline and independent study. Because of this, I make sure to carefully plan our 3-hour seminar meetings.

Tonight was special. First, my graduate student at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), Visnja Vujin, was with us. She is from Serbia and received her MA at The University of Novi Sad before moving on to doctoral studies at UNL. She had arrived last week from Nebraska to visit her family for the holidays. It is because of Visnja and her Novi Sad professor (Dr. Aleksandra Izgarjan) that I am here. When Visnja entered our classroom and heard me greet the students with "Dobro Vecer!" she told me it felt really "surreal." She said, "I was in this very classroom 10 years ago and to think that sometime in the future, I would be studying in the U.S., and that my U.S. graduate advisor/professor would be in this same Novi Sad classroom greeting the students in Serbian-- well it's just surreal." For me-- it was also an amazing moment--to stop and contemplate how connections are made-- how we can come together in friendship/community, to witness, "be a crossroads," by understanding and enlarging each other's worlds. I am profoundly moved even while typing these words, while also knowing that at this moment in our history, we are facing continued as well as new ruptures/global crises. But here, in this Novi Sad classroom on a Saturday late in the afternoon, we gathered as a community of intellectual learners/discussants.

Amelia Montes teaching Chicana literature at The University of Novi Sad, Serbia -- photo by Visnja Vujin

Our class meeting focused on Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, and Eden Torres's theoretical text, Chicana Without Apology. Similar to the way I fashion my classes in the U.S., I work toward presenting and involving students in intellectually rigorous discussions, by making sure we connect the cultural, aesthetic historical, political relevance of the text to where students are in order to offer them various avenues "into" the work. Because Anzaldúa's Borderlands has been translated in over 30 languages, I already knew that this book has made connections with a multitude of communities/cultures. Yet tonight, listening to students making connections to their country-- listening to the painful history they have experienced in one way or another was profound for me. They are teaching me so much, helping me deeply contemplate-- at a most visceral level, their personal stories connected to their nation (once called Yugoslavia), stories about being torn apart in the most heart wrenching way in the name of nationalism. I heard a multitude of stories which all pointed to the consequences of adhering to a nationalist agenda.

Graduate Students at The University of Novi Sad discussing in pairs an aspect of Borderlands/La Frontera

At times, the energy in the room created by the intellectual and emotional import of the discussion was powerfully evident. Toward the end, I included a picture (see above on the screen and a close-up below). This is a picture that was taken by friend, colleague, and fellow La Bloga writer, Olga García Echeverría in her own classroom at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA). Last week, she had her students create cardboard books with creative covers that reflected what they had learned in her class (click here for her La Bloga posting on her classroom work!). One of her students, Nancy Flores, re-created the Aztec mythological goddess, Coyolxauhqui (click here for more information), the moon goddess. Olga's student writes, "Even in Pieces, I Exist."

Hearing student stories tonight of dislocation, migration, a tearing apart of the home, of the heart-- I kept thinking of this important cardboard artwork a student had made in Los Angeles, how these resilient students from the "Former Yugoslavia" are still in the process of making meaning from so many pieces.

Artwork by Nancy Flores

I also think of Yesenia Montilla and her poem "Maps." And this I leave with you, dear La Bloga reader-- Montilla's poem, "Maps" and the hope that we can overcome and cross what separates us so that we may inhabit "La Conciencia de la Mestiza." Wishing all of you paz, fuerza, y luz!

Maps
by Yesenia Montilla

For Marcelo

Some maps have blue borders
like the blue of your name
or the tributary lacing of
veins running through your
father's hands. & how the last
time I saw you, you held
me for so long I saw whole
lifetimes flooding by me
small tentacles reading
for both our faces. I wish
maps would be without
borders & that we belonged
to no one & everyone
at once, what a world that
would be. Or not a world
maybe we would call it
something more intrinsic
like forgiving or something
simplistic like river or dirt.
& if I were to see you
tomorrow & everyone you
came from had disappeared
I would weep with you & drown
out any black lines that this
earth allowed us to give it--
because what is a map but
a useless prison? We are all
so lost & no naming of blank
spaces can save us. & what
is a map but the delusion of
safety? The line drawn is always
in the sand & folds in on itself
before we're done making it.
& that line, there, south of
el rio, how it dares to cover
up the bodies, as though we
would forget who died there
& for what? As if we could
forget that if you spin a globe
& stop it with your finger
you'll land it on top of someone
loving, someone who was not
expecting to be crushed by thirst.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

The Public Library Today

Books & Reading: An Interview with Luis Herrera

Recently I had an opportunity to spend a weekend with my former classmate and friend Luis Herrera, City Librarian, for the San Francisco Public Library, a position he’s held since 2005.

In 1976 Luis and I were two of fifteen students recruited by Dr. Arnulfo Trejo, Professor of Library Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson, as part of an innovative program to train Spanish Speaking Librarians. Dr. Trejo, born in the same Tucson historic barrio as Lalo Guerrero and the writer Mario Suarez, was aware of the great inequality of Library services to Spanish Speaking communities, a situation he wanted to improve.

The focal point of Dr. Trejo’s ideas was to graduate Librarians of Spanish Speaking backgrounds that would work in these underserved communities, be they school or the general public. His strategy was three pronged: to advocate, to educate and to serve as models.

Several of those fifteen students went on to have librarian careers with a great degree of responsibility: Jose Aponte a Puerto Rican became head of the San Diego County Library System, Martin Gomez, a Chicano, became City Librarian for the City of Los Angeles and then became the Vice Dean of Libraries for the University of Southern California, Orlando Romero, a Manito, in addition to being a Santero and author of Nambe, was the Director of the Palace of the Governors Museum of New Mexico. Luis Herrera, a Chuqueno from El Paso, before going to San Francisco was City Librarian for Pasadena.

Antonio-Luis this interview is about books and libraries, so we'll ease into it by each of us telling a story that's relevent.

Luis. To tell you the truth my first experience with the public library was not very good. When Iwas a young boy my mother took my brother and me to the El Paso Public Library and we checked out some books. I was really happy with my books until we were notified by the library that the books were a loan and that if they were not returned they were sending a "book cop" to collect them. So all summer I lived in fear whenever someone came to the door. Heck we were just kids and didn't know any better.

Antonio- My best story about books is about my grandmother, who was a maid at the Sheraton town House. She and the other women who cleaned the rooms were allowed to keep stuff left behind by the guests if it was not claimed within three months. Thus she would bring home lots of paperbacks, pulp fiction mostly with racy sex scenes and fortunately for me my grandmother couldn’t read and never knew what she was giving me. But sometimes the books were best sellers like Marjorie Morningstar, Studs Lonigan and The World of Susie Wong.

Luis-You had your own special library.

Antonio- That's right. Ok Luis, you’ve been the mero mero for 20 years and when you finally retire I’ll have to telephone you so you can give me orders. It’ll easy the pain of not being the boss anymore.

Luis- No it’s not like that he answers laughing. Now a days you don’t order people, it’s more like saying can I suggest that you consider….

Antonio –Besides having to relate to staff differently, what differences do you see in librarianship from when you started forty years ago?

Luis- Libraries are so changed Tony. When I started one couldn’t say library without conjuring up an image of a book. It’s not like that anymore. Libraries are so much more.

Antonio- Talk about how that happened?

Luis Herrera December 2017

Luis- It was a process. But the big changes began when the Internet burst on the scene around 1994 and libraries had to respond to the public demand for computers.

Antonio- I’ll share something that’s related. I was working at the Kellogg Foundation at that time and we had a dual concern, one that the digital divide that was developing between well to do communities and those that weren’t so well off was a threat to our democracy and the second concern was that public libraries, the institution that has always had a role in providing information, was not going to be able to make the transition to the information age that was emerging.

Luis- Well that fear certainly didn’t manifest, evidenced by the fact that 20% of our circulation is electronic material.

Antonio –That much?

Luis- Yes and I tell you that the library is so much more now. Libraries are just a microcosm of what is taking place outside in the rest of the world.

Antonio- So tell me.

Luis-Well for example, San Francisco like most cities has a large population of homeless people and we took the step of having a social worker on site to attend to their needs. Another thing we do is to partner with a nonprofit agency that parks a bus in front, outfitted with showers and a barber.

Antonio-That is quite different from the traditional public library.

Luis-It is. And those two services take place outside our walls but we have also changed what goes on inside. For example we had a good sized area for old periodicals that we converted it into a teen area that we call The Mix.

Luis Herrera December 2017

Antonio- Taking the room away from periodicals must have ruffled some feathers?

Luis- It did Tony but all of those periodicals are available online and the teens really needed their own space. It’s incredible what goes on in there. We have a 3D printer, audio recording equipment, film making equipment and all sorts of creative projects take place. And the teens really own that place and run it.

Antonio- Wow! Sounds pretty nice. And for adults do you have something special?

Luis –We do. One really neat thing we offer are spaces for the Career Online High School that allows a person to get a fully accredited high school diploma, not a GED. And for those that need it, we can provide a laptop and something called a MeFi which is a device that allows them access to the Internet. It’s like WiFi except it can work from their home.

Antonio-And I’m certain that you have all sorts of ebooks and audio books and online databases.

Luis- Oh of course and we continue to have regular books.

Antonio- I’d like to switch topics, knowing that you have served in national organizations and that you’ve had some recognition for your work. Can you tell me about that?

Luis –Sure, there are a couple that I feel especially proud to have been associated with. One of them is The Digital Public Library of America that is now online and providing access to several large digitized collections, like the Smithsonian, The New York Public Library, Harvard, the University of Virginia and others.

Antonio- And a person can search those collections.

Luis- Absolutely. It’s an amazing resource.

Antonio- And the other one?

Luis- I was appointed by President Obama to the board of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, whose mission is to provide federal support to 120,00 libraries and 35,000 museums. We considered proposals and made grants.

Antonio- Before we bring this platica to a close, can you talk about how you have been involved in continuing or even expanding the presence of Latinos in Libraries.

Luis-Gee Tony there are now so many in the library field. One of the ways we have promoted their entry is through Reforma the national organization whose mission is to promote library services to Spanish Speaking communities and of course we push librarianship as a career whenever we can. We even have scholarships for that purpose. And for several years I have been a board member of Knowledge River, The University of Arizona's Masters program in Librarianship for Latinos and Native Americans.

Antonio- Knowledge River follows up on what Dr. Trejo started so many years ago.

Luis- Yes he was a visionary.

Antonio- Luis I appreciate the time you've given for this little chat. It's nice to know that the public libraries are keeping up with the times.

Below some of the original fifteen individuals selected for the Master program in Library Science by Dr. Artnulfo Trejo in the back row with the red vest.The two women in the front row L-R Amanda Castillo, Laurita Moore. In the back row L-R Antonio SolisGomez, Francisco Avalos, Luis Herrera, Dr. Arnulfo Trejo and Alberto Villegas, taken a few years after graduation.

Add caption

Friday, December 22, 2017

I'll Be Homie For Christmas

Flo's Latest Creation

Flo, the brains of the outfit, is also a very creative person. Many of you have appreciated her annual Día de Muertos altars and cakes at KUVO and here at our little casa on the Northside. Some of you have seen her collection of folklore, and others know that her garden is loaded with color, gizmos and art. She also designs some of her clothes, organizes elaborate celebrations for grandchildren birthdays, decoupages, experiments with cookies and cakes, produces books and, on the side, keeps me in line. Life around Flo is never dull, sometimes dizzying, and always interesting.

Her latest creation can be seen in the photo above -- a Christmas village with a twist. For some close-up views of the diorama, I've attached a few more photos and a video (please excuse the shakiness of my 69 year-old hands.) She calls it Homie Christmas.

And here's the story of Homie Christmas ...

Once, in the Land of Make Believe (cue Chuck Mangione and Esther Satterfiel) a vato named Chuy the Cholo had serious doubts about where he was headed in his "so-called life," as he put it. In his search for truth, he traveled from a street corner to Chubby's to the pool hall to his favorite bar to his AA meeting, and everywhere he went, he asked, "Is this all there is?" People just looked at him -- he had a reputation, you know. He kept on, straight up 38th.

He became more and more frustrated, not because no one knew the answer, but because no one took him seriously. At least not until he stumbled across the Christmas Pot Luck Dinner and Bingo Tournament in the basement of old St. Dominic's church. He'd heard about the pot luck but he always figured that it was for viejitas and their grandchildren, and people who had nothing better to do on a snowy night a few days before Christmas. But, he realized he was hungry, and he had nothing better to do on that snowy night a few days before Christmas, and although he didn't have any pot (and not any luck, for sure) to contribute, he did have half of a bean and beef special in his jacket pocket that he'd forgotten about. So, maybe he could trade a cold and stale half burrito for a warm fresh tamal?

He walked into the basement and was immediately met by his old pal Sapo. But Sapo looked different -- more in control of himself, more at peace, which was really a surprise because Sapo was crazy, man, if you know what I mean.

Sapo and Chuy bumped knuckles. Then, Sapo accepted Chuy's offering of a burrito half. The two walked to a large table in the middle of the hall. Sapo placed the burrito on the table. Chuy had no explanation for what happened next. By this time, the dry and stale half burrito had turned into a greasy bag of about a dozen steaming burritos that Sapo spread on Gloria O'Hara's pink glass serving dish. Chuy couldn't believe his eyes.

"What the ...?" Chuy said.

"It's Christmas, dude," Sapo answered. "And you're in the basement of St. Dominic's, and you gave what you could, and in case you hadn't noticed, you're right in the middle of Homie Christmas."

Chuy blinked his eyes. "What the hell is that?"

"Easy, dude. You're in a church."

"Sorry. I'll re-phrase. What the hell is a Homie Christmas?"

Sapo smiled. "Take a look, bro. It's all around you."

And sure enough --- the basement had become a wonderland of sights and sounds that Chuy had never imagined, much less seen. Over in the corner was a living nativity, with some of his old posse acting the parts: Chula as María, Dreamer as Jesús, Sleepy as José and Peewee as the Angel. The wise guys bearing gifts were neighborhood fixtures: Oranges Vato, the paletero and the panadero. Padrecito played the Shepherd, along with a pack of street dogs.

There was more. A couple of ex-cons watched a cockfight (no animals were harmed in this production.) A band of young priests played the greatest hits of José Alfredo Jiménez. Officer Placa ate doughnuts and no one cracked a joke. At the other end of the basement, summer had returned and adults and children mingled among grass-thatched huts where vendors sold fruit, hats, flowers, pots, or bread. Chuy could've had a haircut, if he wanted one. Or, he could've bought a fine piece of wood furniture from the carpenter's shop.

And there was more.

He kept looking and what he saw ... well, to get an idea, check out Flo's Homie Christmas display.

And Chuy? Well, he never quite got an answer to his question. ¿Sabes qué? When he sat down and ate his tamal, which turned out to be exactly like the tamales his abuelita used to make when he was a child and which he never had his fill of, he realized that as long as he had a warm tamal, and he was surrounded by friends, and everyone was laughing or singing, and no one cried and no one made any pedo, then he really didn't need an answer, and he forgot the question.

And he had a very merry Christmas.

_____________________________________________________________

Thanks to Rudy Ch. Garcia for the gift of his homie art commemorating KUVO.

Feliz Navidad by the Barrio Boyzz.

Later.

Manuel Ramos is the author of several novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction books and articles. His collection of short stories, The Skull of Pancho Villa and Other Stories, was a finalist for the 2016 Colorado Book Award. My Bad: A Mile High Noir was published by Arte Público Press in 2016 and was a finalist for the Shamus Award in the Original Paperback category sponsored by the Private Eye Writers of America. He is hard at work on his next Chicano Noir crime novel.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Chicanonautica: High Aztech News

by Ernest Hogan

High Aztech is alive and well, and rampaging through the world. Really. I have to check Google to keep up.

Reviews keep coming, and not all of them are good. I don't despair over them. It's a diverse world, dissenting viewpoints happen, and deserve attention. Besides, it get suspicious if they're all good reviews.

This one gave is from a Carol Evelin, who gives High Aztech one star, and headlined it “Don't waste your money.” It's also now the first review you see on the Amazon.uk. Like others, she objects to the Españahuatl slang. She quotes a paragraph as an example:

My Aztec calendar bedsheets still smelled like Cóatliquita. I kept thinking about that as I had sex with Patiyonena. The muchacha - yeah, I know, she's over twenty, but I can't really think of her as a full-grown woman-must have been good; I remember gozoaing, but I don't remember much about the act, except that I forgot about the desmadreization of my life. Also, I kept opening my eyes, to remind myself of who the Mictlán I was patchioaing, and somehow I managed not to forget and cry out "Cóatliquita!"

Not bad, if you ask me. Could even arouse some people's interest.

She goes on to say: It's not the sex that bothers me, it's the continuous use of words that I don't know nor understand. . . I want a story that flows without being constantly jarred to a stop by gibberish.

Even in this century, there are still a lot of monolinguals with limited vocabularies out there who get upset by languages—and other things--that they aren't familiar with. They shouldn't read my books.

They probably shouldn't read books at all.

Facing the unfamiliar is what SF/F is all about. Escapism is a mere side-effect.

I go through the world, merrily encountering strange new words, and adding them to my vocabulary. It makes life interesting, richer, more fun.

Or, to use the quote from the book that's posted on Goodreads:

They jabbered amongst themselves in a bizarre jibberish that sounded like Spanish gone wrong: maybe gringo Spanglish, some kind of Españahuatl that I hadn’t decoded yet, or a dialect of Spanmayan, Zapotecnish, Spanotomi, Mixtecnish, or some other new native language; or Japanish, Spanorean or…I’m getting carried away. You need a talent for picking up new words and grammars these days-it’s become an obsession with me, someday I’ll probably write a book about it, but in what language?

As for it not being worth your money, if you have Kindle Unlimited you can get the High Aztech ebook for free—a great deal for those of us who read to encounter and explore new things.

Also, royalties keep coming in. It's not going to make me rich, but it indicates that some folks like it, like the at students at School of the Art Institute of Chicago that Josh Rios recently introduced to the book.

And it was called “the seminal Chicano science fiction novel” in an article about Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in Americas at the University of California's ARTSblock. Not to be confused with the book Altermundos, where its praises are sung in essays reprinted from the journal Aztlan.

And High Aztech will be soon be discussed as part of Sal Herrera's “The Force of Teotl: Deriving Change From Chicano/a Futurisms and Indigenous Philosophies” at the 2018 Native American Literature Symposim.

So, I'm boogieing into the new year with a smile on face. I'm a cyberpunk/Afrofuturist/Xicanxfuturist/Chicanonaut, intruding my way into science fiction, comics, fine art, and Latinx/Native American Literature. My virus is spreading. ¡Ticmotraspasarhuililis!

Ernest Hogan is also busy drawing a lucha libre comic strip, and is determined to finish his insane Victor Theremin novel in 2018.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

La Noche Buena: A Christmas Story

Written by Antonio Sacre

Illustrated by Angela Dominguez

Age Range: 5 - 7 years

Grade Level: Preschool - 3

Hardcover: 32 pages

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0810989670

ISBN-13: 978-0810989672

Nina is visiting her grandmother in Miami for Christmas. Usually she spends it in snowy New England with her mother and her family, but this year is different. She isn’t certain what to make of a hot and humid holiday, until she learns the traditions of her father’s side of the family from her Cuban grandmother. She helps prepare for the evening and takes part in all their traditions—the intricate cooking for the feast, the dancing, the music, and the gathering of relatives and neighbors. It all comes together for a Noche Buena that Nina will never forget.

Antonio Sacre and Angela Dominguez have created a wonderful story that everyone who celebrates Christmas will enjoy. The book includes a glossary of Spanish words.

Reviews

Dominguez's bright acrylics convey calm and joy, while Sacre's visceral prose captures the voice of a child gaining assurance, as well as the kindness and mutual respect of a loving extended family. –Publisher Weekly

A warm bit of holiday diversity. Diane Olivo-Posner, Los Angeles Public Library - School Library Journal

A memorable celebration, equally suited to reading alone or aloud, and rich in joyful, intimate family feeling. Grades 2-4. --John Peters- Booklist

Antonio Sacre is a Cuban-American writer, storyteller, and performance artist. He lives in Los Angeles. Visit him online at www.antoniosacre.com.

Angela Dominguez was born in Mexico City and lives in northern California. She illustrated Ava Tree and the Wishes Three and Carmen Learns English. Visit her online at www.angeladominguezstudio.com.