tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370517222024-03-05T16:24:19.597-08:00American Latina/o Writers TodayLatina/o poets, story-tellers, novelists, and others who labor to add their voices to the tapestry of our United States literature need to be recognized and nurtured. This blog focuses on male and female Hispanic writers, either born and raised in the United States, or Hispanics who came from elsewhere and have become Americans. Some are established writers, and some are emerging. But they are all Americans staking a claim in our world of letters.Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-15442436454170284512014-08-25T11:01:00.001-07:002014-08-25T11:05:02.742-07:00INAUGURAL POET RICHARD BLANCO: Historic American Latino <div style="text-align: left;">
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This book review was originally posted in <a href="http://www.labloga.blogspot.com/">La Bloga</a> on August 22, 2014. It is republished here with the permission of La Bloga.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Review of <i>For All Of Us, One Today</i></b></span><br />
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<b><a href="http://richard-blanco.com/book/for-all-of-us-one-today/"><i>For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey</i></a><br /><a href="http://richard-blanco.com/">Richard Blanco</a><br /><br />Review by Thelma T. Reyna</b><br />
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When Richard Blanco stepped to the podium on January 21, 2013 at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I rose from my sofa in the living room and stood enthralled as I watched the TV screen. Along with hundreds of thousands of people in the Washington DC mall that day and millions watching this special event around the world, I witnessed history in the making--and this history was made by a poet!<br />
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Richard Blanco became the fifth Inaugural Poet in our nation's long history, joining the ranks of such literary greats as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou, two prior Inaugural Poets. But Blanco was more historic than even these venerable giants. He was:<br />
• America's first-ever Latino Inaugural Poet.<br />
• The first immigrant.<br />
• The first openly gay poet.<br />
• The youngest ever, at the age of 45.<br />
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His memoir, <i>For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey </i>(Beacon Press, 2013), gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the impact that being brought out of relative literary obscurity (nothing new for poets anywhere in America!) has on an author and how bestowal of a high honor can change a life in the proverbial blink of an eye. But Blanco’s memoir does more than this: it shows us the character and passion of an American rising star against the backdrop of inauspicious beginnings.<br />
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<b>Reflection and Introspection</b></div>
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Blanco's memoir captures in a mere 112 pages the roller-coaster ride of being selected by the President to address the nation and the world as a poet, and of his preparation for this momentous honor. We learn of Blanco’s disbelief and joy when he receives a phone call on December 12, 2013, from the Presidential Inaugural Committee notifying him of his selection. To this day, Blanco does not know how or why. The important thing he recalls from that life-changing call is that he has three weeks in which to write and submit three new poems to the Committee, one of which will be chosen by the President to be read at the inauguration.<br />
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In the memoir, Blanco details the doubts and false starts he has as he creates his poems. Part of this stems from his lifelong struggle concerning his place in America and what it truly means to "be an American." He refers to it in his memoir as "sorting out my cultural contradictions and yearnings" (p. 25). Conceived in Cuba, his parents' homeland, Blanco was born in Spain as an immigrant. He emigrated to the U.S. as an infant and grew up in Florida. He now lives in Bethel, Maine. Blanco's love of country was never in doubt, but what exactly America represents to the huge diversity of people calling it home is a conundrum he's often dissected, and now he is forced to dig even more deeply within himself to find answers.<br />
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"Do I truly love America?" he asks (p. 31). "It was a question I had to answer honestly if I was going to write an honest poem. I began thinking of my relationship with America and how it had evolved through different phases, just as my consciousness of love had evolved....I saw parallels between a loving human relationship and the love we hold for our country."<br />
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<b>Blanco's Story of His Cultural Roots</b></div>
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In the memoir, Blanco cycles back and forth between his feelings and reflections in writing the three inaugural poems; and memories of his family life: his childhood, his parents' sacrifices for him and his brother, his experiences growing up in two cultures. Blanco describes how his personal life story sometimes parallels that of President Obama: navigating two worlds on a daily basis as a person of color, and overcoming tremendous odds to be successful. He believes these similarities may have resonated with the President and affected his selection of Blanco.<br />
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Blanco’s immigrant parents left their loved ones in Cuba to start a new life with no resources other than their determination and hard work. They purchased a modest home in Florida in a Cuban-American neighborhood after years of labor and thrift. Though Blanco never lived in Cuba, he was surrounded most of his life by neighbors and friends who had, and who blended their new life in America with memories, rituals, foods, and festivities rooted in their native land.<br />
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Blanco's image of what it means to be American came from re-runs of popular television shows from his childhood--sitcoms like "Leave It to Beaver," "My Three Sons," "The Brady Bunch"--and the standard history lessons in school about Pilgrims, Washington's cherry tree, and patriotic songs: all packaged, glossy representations. It is not until Blanco is selected as Inaugural Poet that his soul-searching enables him to authentically articulate what America--the only country he has ever known and loved--means to him and to the world.<br />
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As the days pass, Blanco decides to weave his personal story only briefly in his new poems because he feels that an autobiographical poem, or a political one, is not appropriate for the occasion. He states: "I came to understand my role--the historical role of the inaugural poet--as visionary, and the poem as a vision of what could be..., reaching for our highest aspirations as a country and a people" (p. 27). The thrust of his message to the world needed to be: "What do I love about America?" (p. 60). "My initial answer was simply the spirit of its people."<br />
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<b>Speaking To America About Love Of Country</b></div>
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For three weeks, Blanco reads favorite poets, meditates, writes and rewrites, working long into the night. He carefully reads the Inaugural Poems of his predecessors. He seeks feedback on his three poems from poets he knows personally, including his professor and mentor at Florida International University, Campbell McGrath; Sandra Cisneros; Julia Alvarez; Nikki Moustaki. As he states in his book: "Most writers I know rely on someone they can trust with their work, which essentially implies someone we can also trust with our lives" (p. 57). This, says Blanco, is also how his career as a poet has been: not as an "all artists work alone" (p. 57) phenomenon, but as "teamwork, ...a reflection of unity and togetherness" (p. 58).<br />
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It is this spirit of collaboration and unity that expresses itself robustly in the poem ultimately selected by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and by the President, as Blanco’s Inaugural Poem: <b>One Today</b> (pp. 87-91). This poem, says Blanco, was born of his personal life experiences watching people helping one another, in good times and bad, always focused on community. Blanco’s love of country, it turns out, is one that "demands effort, asks us to give and take and forgive and constantly examine promises spoken and unspoken" (p. 32). <b>One Today</b> acknowledges this.<br />
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Standing at the podium on that chilly day in January 2013, facing an endless sea of humanity silent and waiting, and with the most powerful leaders of America seated onstage behind him, Richard Blanco feels that what he is about to read is his “ gift to America." The purpose of his Inaugural Poem, he states, is to "transcend politics and envision a new relationship between all Americans....I wanted America to embrace itself and...feel how we are all an essential part of one whole."<br />
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He succeeds, as thousands of letters show him in the days and months to come, and people's reactions at his subsequent readings, signings, interviews, and travels demonstrate. His message in <b>One Today</b> resonated across the land.<br />
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<b>A New Mission: Poetry As A Force In Society</b></div>
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Blanco realizes after the inauguration that his life will never be the same again. "The days ahead proved to be abruptly life changing," he writes (p. 75), "filled with unexpected experiences and realizations that were...unique parts of my journey as inaugural poet." Always concerned that poetry in America is not "part of our cultural lives and conversations; part of our popular folklore as with film, music, and novels" (p. 101), Blanco fondly recalls children's elation at his poetic readings throughout years of sharing his poetry with them. He must build on this.<br />
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Touched deeply by people’s reaction to <b>One Today</b>, Blanco relishes the publicity and nationwide exposure that envelops him, sensing a mandate from the people. He states: "The messages from my country speak clearly to me of the great potential and hope for poetry in America... to keep connecting America with poetry and reshape how we think about it....to explore how I can empower educators to teach contemporary poetry and foster a new generation of poetry readers" (p. 102).<br />
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On Blanco’s return trip home, he felt "a responsibility to dare and dream up a new chapter that will rekindle poetry into a continuing American folklore--a folklore that would include the stories of gay America, Latino America, and immigrant America--everyone's America" (p. 108). He envisions a resurgence of poetry as a magnificent vehicle "to continue writing together until we are not just one today, but one every day" (p. 108).<br />
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If anyone can do this, Richard Blanco can. With his keen intelligence, egalitarian heart, boundless love for his fellow human beings, and a disciplined, devoted poetic soul—all of which gently suffuse his memoir -- Blanco shows us that he has the gifts to do this. It's not immodesty on his part that has convinced us, but rather his modesty and commitment to digging for truth and authenticity. Let us hope his journey promoting poetry for the sake of enriching our lives is long and successful.<br />
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[Blanco’s two other poems submitted for consideration were <b>What We Know of Country</b> and <b>Mother Country</b>. These are both included in his memoir.] </div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being selected as Poet Laureate of Altadena Library District in California. My term goes from 2014-2016, during which I'll edit an annual poetry anthology and promote local and regional poets in various literary events.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My new book (my 4th), <i>Rising, Falling, All of Us, </i>which I introduced in Lake Como, Italy at an international writers' conference this month. I conducted my "debut" reading from this book at the conference in front of an audience including Pulitzer Prize winners.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking workshops from Pulitzer Prize winning authors at this conference for an intensive week alongside published authors from throughout the United States, as well as one from Italy and another from Australia.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My thanks to Maria for her kindness in interviewing me. You can read the interview at this link:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.latinabookclub.com/2014/07/interview-with-poet-laureate-thelma-t.html?m=0">http://www.latinabookclub.com/2014/07/interview-with-poet-laureate-thelma-t.html?m=0</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you for checking it out, for "liking" it on Maria's blog, and for re-tweeting it if you'd like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll soon be updating this blog with information about new authors, established authors publishing new work, and upcoming events. I had fallen behind, and I apologize to my readers for this. Thanks for coming back, or for dropping by on your first visit here. I hope you'll become a fan and learn alongside us. Best wishes to you!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* * * * *</span></div>
Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-54765658539412339632013-07-01T17:14:00.000-07:002013-07-01T17:14:07.237-07:00THE BOOK REVIEW SERIES CONTINUES: MODERN LATINA AUTHORS<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Welcome back, readers. I took some time off from blogging but have continued to read outstanding books by our American Latina/o authors and write book reviews. For new visitors to this blog, I've been focusing on modern American Latina authors who "broke the glass ceiling" in literature, whose books have won notable awards, whose works are often taught in literature classes in the United States, and who are often considered to be among our best.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The series--which I call "Pioneering Modern American Latina Authors"--reviews books published in the U.S. in the 20th century, from 1974-1996. These reviews include novels, poetry, nonfiction, and mixtures of these. Most of these books were "break-out" books, or books that brought recognition to the authors. Almost all of the books won the prestigious American Book Award, or at least one other award similarly important in the literary world on a national level.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So far, the ground-breaking books reviewed here were written by these authors, in this order: <strong>Nicholasa Mohr</strong> (1974); <strong>Estela Portillo Trambley</strong> (1975); <strong>Lorna Dee Cervantes</strong> (1981); <strong>Cherrie Moraga</strong> (1983); <strong>Sandra Cisneros</strong> (1984); and <strong>Pat Mora</strong> (1986). Included in today's post are three others: <strong>Gloria Anzaldua </strong>(1987); <strong>Ana Castillo </strong>(1987); and <strong>Alma Luz Villanueva </strong>(1989). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Many of these women authors were, or are, considered "feminists" because of their advocacy of women's rights and their speaking out against the discrimination against and devaluing of women in the U.S., especially Latina women. The writings are often taught in light of the women's rights movement in America, but continue to be universal in their depictions of Latina/o characters in our country. These books appeal to men and women across cultures and across the generations. Let's enjoy them again!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">[<em>All these book reviews were originally posted in a prior version in </em></span></span><a href="http://www.latinopia.com/"><em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.Latinopia.com</span></em></a><em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> , owned and hosted by the author, director, and filmmaker, <strong>Jesus Salvador Trevino.</strong>]</span></em><br />
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<strong><em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">BOOK REVIEW #7:</span></em></strong><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong sizcache="5" sizset="1"><em sizcache="5" sizset="1"><img alt="Borderlands Book Cover" height="216" src="mhtml:file://C:\Users\Thelly\Documents\BOOK REVIEWS, MINE, OF OTHER AUTHORS' BOOKS\MY LATINOPIA.COM BOOK REVIEWS, 2012\LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW “BORDERLANDS” BY GLORA ANZALDÚA latinopia_com.mht!x-usc:http://latinopia.com/wp-content/uploads/Borderlands-Cover_300.jpg" style="border: 5px solid black; float: left; margin: 5px;" width="140" /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BORDERLANDS: LA FRONTERA</span></em></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">, <em>THE NEW
MESTIZA</em></span></strong></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">by Gloria Anzaldúa (1987)</span></strong><br />
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</span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">203 pages</span></strong><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">_____________________________________________________</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This book is written by a deeply wounded soul, an author whose pain and grief
are almost palpable from start to finish. <em>Borderlands: La Frontera, the New
Mestiza</em> is a powerful, highly polished collection of cultural and personal
essays, mini-memoirs, and poetry that prick and prod our emotions and makes us
think deeply on all the borders Anzaldúa deftly describes to us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It<em> </em>is a dual story of traumatic conflict told in parallel tracks:
the borderland assaults on Mexican and indigenous peoples by the White culture
throughout recorded history; and the cultural assaults that Anzaldúa, as a woman
of color, and as a representative of women generally, endured in establishing
her autonomy and worth as a human being in a chauvinistic world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Born in Texas just north of the Mexican border, Gloria Anzaldúa was a
sixth-generation American, “a border woman,” as she calls herself, someone never
comfortable with the American culture but who was instead keenly bonded to her
identities as Indian, Mexican, <em>española</em>, Chicana, <em>Tejana, </em>and
<em>mestiza.</em> Her usage of code-switching throughout this book, as well as
entire portions written in Spanish, reinforces this cultural split—between
American and Mexican, English and Spanish primarily—that consumed and defined
Anzaldúa till the day she died in 2004 at the age of 61.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Borders and Their Pain</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“I have been straddling that <em>tejas</em>-Mexican border, and others, all
my life,” she says in the Preface to her book. “It’s not a comfortable territory
to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the
prominent features of this landscape.” Toward the end of the book, after we have
seen the immensity of her cultural turbulence, she states in a poem: “To live in
the Borderlands means you/…are carrying all [the] races on your back/ not
knowing which side to turn to, run from;/….you are at home, a stranger,/…you are
wounded, lost in action/ dead, fighting back” (p. 194).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Added to these complex mixtures of identities are Anzaldúa’s lesbianism
and—according to some reports, bisexuality—as well as her staunch rejection of
male dominance. Anzaldúa writes: <em>“I made the choice to be queer </em>(for
some it is genetically inherent)” (p. 19, Anzaldua’s emphasis).” The book
examines these sexual and gender conflicts at length. Anzaldúa’s poem, “Creature
of Darkness,” describes the personal yet universal battles that rage inside her
as a “deep place/ this underplace/ this grieving place/ getting heavier and
heavier/ sleeping by day creeping out at night….I want not to think/ that stirs
up the pain/ opens the wound” (p. 186).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A rebel since early childhood, Anzaldúa straddled symbolic borders even
within her family, as she renounced expectations handed down through generations
of women: that she do domestic chores instead of studying, that she marry and
demur to her husband and males in general, that she live and work in Texas.
Instead, she earned college degrees, remained single and childless, and became
the first person in her family’s history “to leave home so I could find myself,
find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed
on me” (p. 16). She lived life on her own terms, moving to California and the
east coast, but paid dearly with rejection by her mother and others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Racial Conflicts: Natives vs. Encroachers</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong></strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><em>Borderlands </em>is heavy on history. It recounts how
the ancient ancestors of Mexicans and Texans—the Cochise, Aztecs, and
others—peopled the Southwest for centuries, only to have White “invaders” steal
their lands, terrorize, expel and defeat the native peoples, and institute
oppression that continues to this day. The border fences built by Whites between
the United States and Mexico starkly symbolize the separation of races and
relegation of Mexicans to undesirable, inferior status. Anzaldúa describes the
border as “<em>una herida abierta</em> (an open wound) where the Third World
grates against the first and bleeds” (p. 3).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The theft of lands is personal to Anzaldúa, since her own family and
neighbors, who had owned ranches in the Rio Grande Valley for many generations,
lost theirs to greedy White encroachers. Anzaldúa decries the <em>gringos</em>’
“fiction of white superiority” (p. 7) and recounts how her people were “jerked
out by the roots, truncated, disemboweled, dispossessed, and separated from our
identity and our history” (p. 8). In the poem, “We Call Them Greasers” (p. 134),
she describes the brutal rape of a Mexican <em>tejano </em>rancher’s wife by a
White man who stole the ranch, assaulted the woman in front of her husband,
brutally killed her, then lynched her husband.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anzaldúa’s clear-eyed but mournful retelling of her antecedents’ history
represents a deep cultural trauma to her and the <em>Tejanos</em>, who have
never recovered their sense of belonging in their own ancestral lands. Her
inability to identify as “American” is unquestionably linked to this. In the
poem “Don’t Give In, Chicanita,” Anzaldúa says: “yes, they’ve taken our lands./
Not even the cemetery is ours now…./ where they buried your
great-great-grandfather./ Hard times like fodder we carry/ with curved backs we
walk…./ But they will never take [our] pride/ or our Indian woman’s spirit” (p.
202). The author’s voice is grieving but defiant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Being “Queer,” and Other Inner Struggles</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anzaldúa’s exploration of gender and the subjugation of
women may seem like a tired topic in the 21<sup>st</sup> century; but in 1987,
iniquities against women were more pronounced, and Latina voices writing against
this were rare. The author discusses female archetypes familiar to Latinas—La
Malinche, Coatlique, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and La Llorona—and she lashes out
against being boxed into any of these or any other stereotypes by chauvinistic
expectations of men and Mexican tradition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anzaldúa also discusses the loss of native spirituality among her people and
others of color. She takes organized religion to task, especially the Catholic
Church, as vehicles of oppression, primarily toward women, and as denouncers of
any spirituality besides their own ideology. She also decries “machismo” as
representing men’s fear of tenderness and their excuse to abuse and demean
women. Mostly, however, Anzaldúa delves into her own fears of inadequacy, of not
being “normal.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Many other writers have explored these issues, as well as the ostracism of
homosexuals and “others”—but hardly anyone has done this more eloquently, more
passionately, and with greater poignancy and genuine pain than Anzaldúa does.
She is a complex woman who <em>lived</em> these subjugations and
marginalizations, beginning her life with medical and physical deformities, skin
dark like an Indian’s, and culminating in her decision to be “queer”
(lesbian).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The New <em>Mestiza</em></span></span></strong><br />
<strong><em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></em></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The 25 years that have passed since this book’s publication
have not diminished its relevance. This is a sad statement to make, but the
issues Anzaldúa rails against are still raw and present, especially for
contemporary women. In her lengthy discussion of “the new <em>mestiza,</em>” the
author depicts this racially mixed woman (part Indian, part Hispanic), her hero
and savior-to-be, thus:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“The new <em>mestiza </em>copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions,
a tolerance for ambiguity….She learns to juggle cultures. She…operates in a
pluralistic mode….The future depends on the breaking down of paradigms,…the
straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new mythos—that is, a change
in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we
behave—<em>la mestiza </em>creates a new consciousness” (p. 80). This
description sounds like the multi-tasking career woman of today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The new <em>mestiza</em>, through centuries of cross-breeding, has the best
of many different genes, is stronger, and thus better able to survive. Anzaldúa
confers her surest bets for a more enlightened, progressive society on this
Latina, who can effectively navigate different cultural environments and who
“could, in our best hopes, bring us to the end of rape, of violence, of war” (p.
80).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anzaldúa’s Place in Literary History</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><strong></strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Better-known as the co-editor of the ground-breaking
<em>This Bridge Called My Back </em>: <em>Writings by Radical Women of Color
</em>(1981), (with another pioneering Latina author, Cherrié Moraga, previously
profiled in this series) Gloria Anzaldúa was one of the first feminist, lesbian
Latina authors published in the 20<sup>th</sup> century. <em>This Bridge</em>
won the prestigious Before Columbus American Book Award in 1986. <em>Borderlands
</em>was named one of the best 38 books in 1987 and one of the 100 Best Books
of the Century by three prominent literary organizations. Anzaldúa also won
other awards for her literary accomplishments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A university professor on the east and west coast, Anzaldúa influenced
generations of young thinkers for over 30 years and contributed significantly to
academic theories regarding Chicanos, feminism, homosexuality, racism, and
multiculturalism, especially regarding <em>mestizaje</em>, or the state of
thinking in dualistic rather than unitary terms due to mixed heritage. She was
awarded a doctoral degree posthumously by the University of California, Santa
Cruz, in 2005.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;">---- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong><em>BOOK REVIEW #8</em></strong></span> <br />
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<!-- Start Shareaholic LikeButtonSetTop Automatic --><!-- End Shareaholic LikeButtonSetTop Automatic --><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong><img alt="Mix Letters cover" height="233" src="http://latinopia.com/wp-content/uploads/Mixquiahuala-letters_300.jpg" style="border: 5px solid black; float: left; margin: 5px;" width="150" /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Mixquiahuala Letters</span></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">by Ana Castillo (1986)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">138 pages</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img alt="Ana CAstillo headshot" height="216" src="http://latinopia.com/wp-content/uploads/Ana-Castillo3_300.jpg" style="border: 5px solid black; float: left; margin: 5px;" width="150" />ANA CASTILLO is one of those rare authors who makes a name for herself across genres. She has published well-received poetry, short stories, essays, novels, a play, a children’s book, and a memoir. She defies categorization primarily because of the high quality of her work, with admirers in each genre claiming her for their category above all others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But the truth is, despite poetry being her first love—with her first publication being a collection of her poems in 1977—Castillo’s fame has been cemented more by her novels than by any other work she has done. She was asked by an interviewer once how she saw herself: “As a fiction writer who also writes poems? A novelist or a short story writer?…an essayist who writes plays?” She replied simply: “Writer.” Yet it was her first novel, <em>The Mixquiahuala Letters,</em> which catapulted her onto the literary radar. It received the prestigious American Book Award in 1987 and set Castillo on her path to fame.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The book is an epistolary novel (one told through letters), with the letters all written by one of its two protagonists. The letter-writer, Teresa, is a poet, an American Latina of Mayan descent, a young woman accustomed to discrimination based on her dark skin, slanted eyes, and humble roots. The recipient of her letters is Alicia, a pale, evanescent woman of mixed heritage, with Spanish gypsy blood in her, but basically considered an Anglo from a privileged background. Alicia is an artist who loses herself in her watercolors, other artwork, numerous doomed love affairs, and long stretches of silence and withdrawal in which she sometimes appears disembodied.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Plot and Characters</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The two women are 20 years old when they meet in Mexico City in a summer cultural study program sponsored by an American group. The six women in the program are basically “California blonds and eastern WASP’s, instructors who didn’t speak Spanish” (p. 24), so Teresa—with her “Indian marked face, fluent use of the language, undeniably Spanish name” (p. 25)—soon absconds and chooses to absorb and learn Mexico on her own. Alicia, immediately attracted to Teresa’s earthiness, goes with her. The two vagabonds, low on cash but high on living life on their own terms, traverse Mexico, off the proverbial beaten path, to savor the rusticity and authenticity of the nation’s past and its unpredictable present.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Their encounters in that summer of wanderlust might prick the sensibilities of conservative readers, especially mothers, as the two young women are verbally and physically accosted, sexually harassed, almost raped, robbed, and humiliated. Yet Teresa and Alicia manage to hang on to their dignity, starting with a memorable weekend in Mixquiahuala, an ancient village of Toltec ruins, no street lighting, lamb barbecues, and pushy men who promise marriage in exchange for sex. The young women live meagerly among peasants and native women washing clothes in streams, fishermen battling elements, and a motley crew of men indistinguishable one from the other for their ingrained belief in female inferiority. Yet the elemental aspect of life in untouched nature, the kindness and generosity of strangers, the fluidity of time, the solitude and introspection that their journeying evokes, feed the women’s spirits sufficiently to keep them trekking despite hardships.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Teresa and Alicia return to their colleges and turbulent lives after that first summer, Teresa facing a disastrous marriage and Alicia a tormented love affair. Throughout the decade spanned by <em>The Mixquiahuala Letters</em>, the women stay in contact with one another as they battle societal expectations they cannot accept and struggle to find a balance between what’s in their hearts and what the world dictates they must be. Teresa describes it thus:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“I was no longer prepared to face a mundane life of need and resentment, accept monogamous commitments and honor patriarchal traditions, and wanted to be rid of the husband’s guiding hand, holidays with family and in-laws, led by a contradicting God, society, road and street signs, and, most of all, my poverty.” (pp. 28-29)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The novel is not linear. Though the letters are presented in a semblance of chronology, from 1-40, they swoop in and out of time, taking the women from Mexico to Chicago to California and New York, and back to all these places again, from lover to lover, from crisis to crisis, with highs and lows. The women travel to Mexico again a year after their first trek, with Mexico seemingly their touchstone as to who they really are, and how they are fully authentic with one another only in that ancient land, though Mexico is a “country where relationships were never clear and straightforward but a tangle of contradictions and hypocrisies.” (p. 60) Ultimately, these contradictions color these women’s friendship as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The women are constant, though antithetical to one another. They complement one another: the yin and yang, strength and frailty, with Teresa strong, defiant, coarse, courageous; and Alicia “mystical….the ocean, immense and horizontal, your hair the tide that came in to meet the shore,” as Teresa described her. (p. 27) It is a friendship deeper than marriage, stronger than blood, yet more painful than star-crossed lovers. Teresa and Alicia are an odd couple embodying the dynamic tension that prevails, ironically, even in a relationship of equals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Themes and Historical Significance of the Book</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The American feminist movement was still toddling when this book was published in 1986. Though readers today, especially Latinas, might feel that the themes of male oppression and suffocating Mexican traditions are passé, we must keep two things in mind: (1) oppression still exists, and (2) it’s a matter of degree. When Castillo’s book emerged, the issues the author railed against were more immediate and raw. Still, we are sometimes amazed at the relevance today of Castillo’s comments in her book, such as:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“When a woman entered the threshold of intimacy with a man [marriage], she left the companions of her sex without looking back. Her needs had to be sustained by him. If not, she was to keep her emptiness to herself.” (p. 35)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“Love…describes in one syllable all the humiliation that one is born to and pressed upon to surrender to a man.” (p. 117)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">“I had left [my husband] because I thought I was fighting a society in which men and women entangled their relationships with untruths.” (p. 133)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Throughout the novel, Teresa and Alicia, but especially Teresa, fight to maintain their humanity, their uniqueness as women, apart from men in their lives. Teresa aborts her baby rather than be under the thumb of her oppressive lover and risk never being rid of him. Alicia’s resistance to the parasitic clinging of another lover ends with his suicide. Both women are traumatized by these events, but the episodes were inevitable in the toxic ambience of their relationships. When this book was published, Castillo was hailed as a feminist, and her book continues to be read in women’s studies classes throughout the U.S.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Castillo’s Inspiration and Tribute to “the Master”</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The book was inspired by the brilliant Argentinian author, Julio Cortázar, who wrote the 1963 “interactive novel” <em>Rayuela (Hopscotch)</em>, an experimental 500+ page masterpiece whose chapters and sections can be read in different sequences for different effects and interpretations. Cortázar’s book was a tour de force, with its integration of stream of consciousness, philosophy, music, art, politics, and existential threads questioning “the conundrum of consciousness,” as one reviewer has called it. Cortázar’s cast of characters spanned two continents, with most of the interactions set in Paris and Buenos Aires. It is often considered an intellectually heavy, pioneering novel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Castillo’s novel, on the other hand, is more modest in scope. It centers primarily on the two women, and their “conundrum” is one of sexual/gender identity amidst misogyny and social barriers. Teresa and Alicia are predictable in the traps they fall into: pushing back against machismo, yet succumbing again and again to the same brand of male—entitled, arrogant, dismissive toward women. One wonders when each woman will learn from past errors and make better choices. But perhaps Castillo’s message in 1986 was that there are no men available outside this chauvinistic mold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">At times, Castillo’s epistolary structure is too contrived, too stilted to be believable, and some letters, such as Letter 30, interminably recounts the meeting between Alicia and her last lover, something which the letter’s recipient (Alicia) of course knew already. Serving as the driver of the novel’s plot, the letters must, of course, provide details and conversations. Sometimes this seems authentic (e.g., Letter 39), primarily when Teresa, the letter-writer, focuses on her own events rather than recounting what Alicia had experienced.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Like <em>Hopscotch</em>, Castillo’s novel can be read as the author organized the chapters, or the reader chooses to sequence the chapters, with the author’s suggestions. Another similarity in the two works is the vivid language. Castillo’s birth as a poet is clear in her descriptions, be they images of feelings, conflicts, events, or landscape. Her language is often powerful, as in Teresa’s description of her abortion: “I erupted, a volcano of hot wine, soft membrane, tissue, undefined nerves, sightless eyes, a miniscule, pounding heart, sightless flesh, all sucked out in torn, mutilated pieces. How long does death take? My drugged head was heavy and oblivious to time.” (p. 114) Some of the letters are actually poems.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Castillo’s Legacy</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Born in Chicago in 1953, Ana Castillo continues to be an active, highly influential writer. She lives in New Mexico after having resided in California, New York, and other states. She has published 7 novels, including the famed <em>So Far From God</em> (1993), and <em>The Guardians</em> (2007); a short story collection, <em>Loverboys</em> (1996); 6 volumes of poetry, including <em>Women Are Not Roses</em> (1984); a play, <em>“Psst…I Have Something to Tell You, Mi Amor”;</em> and a seminal nonfiction work, <em>Massacre of the Dreamers</em> (1994), which she created in lieu of a dissertation for her Ph.D. degree.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Of her future, Castillo said in an interview in 2008: “Our generation [the Baby Boomers] fought the establishment and saw us through extraordinary times. We most assuredly won’t simply go off into the good night without a whimper….So, as a writer, I continue to portray unprecedented literary characters, independent, fiery Latinas….I am also able to write cross-generationally.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It is precisely these attributes that maintain Ana Castillo in the top tier of American authors today and will hopefully continue to do so for many more generations. Visit her website at </span><a href="http://www.anacastillo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">www.anacastillo.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"><strong><em>Book Review #9 </em></strong><br />
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<!-- Start Shareaholic LikeButtonSetTop Automatic --><!-- End Shareaholic LikeButtonSetTop Automatic --><strong><img alt="The Ultravioletn SKy book cover" height="269" src="http://latinopia.com/wp-content/uploads/The_Ultraviolet_Sky2_300.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 5px;" width="160" />THE ULTRAVIOLET SKY</strong><br />
by Alma Luz Villanueva (1989)<br />
379 pages<br />
From the outset, defiance runs through this book—not like a thread, but like a surging river. It is a stubborn defiance, rock-hard and take-no-prisoners style. It’s also vulnerable, collapsing in tears and castigations. It’s a defiance that stabs us with discomfort, that makes us see ourselves in painful recognition, or that makes us weep to remember the times we wrestled with those demons, too. It is a defiance built of granite and wolves, built of clouds and angels. But it is a defiance that has no choice but to exist.<br />
<br />
<img alt="Alma Villanueva" height="169" src="http://latinopia.com/wp-content/uploads/Alma_Villanueva2_300.jpg" style="border: 5px solid black; float: left; margin: 5px;" width="150" />What else could we expect of <strong>Alma Luz Villanueva,</strong> one of the first prominent Latina feminist authors in the U.S.? A poet, essayist, and short fiction writer as well as a novelist, Villanueva has devoted her artistic life to exploring and exposing the ugly terrain of misogyny, of misguided oppression and abuse of women, of the destruction of our planet by militaristic patriarchies, the violence of war, and the obliteration of spirituality that springs from connection to natural life and the forces of the earth. Villanueva is the voice of the voiceless, and defiance in the face of destructive forces is her weapon.<br />
<strong></strong><br />
<strong>Rosa, the Novel’s Hero, and Her Battles</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
When we first meet Rosa Luján, we recognize her immediately as a woman who will not be subjugated. She’s arguing bitterly with her husband Julio regarding their infant daughter, car repairs, schedules, and typical trivia that unhappy couples often quarrel about. The first few dozen pages of the novel are saturated with her fury and defiance against Julio’s attempts to impose his will upon her. Her stubborn resistance is, in fact, too heavy for a contemporary reader, with Rosa baring her teeth like an animal, clutching a knife, threatening her reclining husband with a sharp fireplace poker, and risking her safety by sleeping outdoors late at night when even she realizes it’s dangerous. Whatever she can do to resist Julio, to make him squirm, to show him that he doesn’t own her, she does. In the beginning, being sympathetic toward Rosa is a bit difficult. The reader wonders if she can tone it down, if she can be less domineering herself, less preachy about female oppression and machismo, and if she can get that gigantic chip off her shoulder.<br />
<br />
But then we learn more about this 35-year-old artist, teacher, and mother of a teenage son. We learn that she was abandoned by her mother as a young child and raised by an aunt and grandmother. We learn that Rosa became pregnant as a young teen, that she is half-German and regrets this heritage because of what Germans did to humanity, that she raised her son Sean alone and has struggled mightily to survive. All she has known is barriers and male expectations that she bow down to stereotypical roles and that she—especially as a Latina—must accept her status in life. We see how her aunt and grandmother were trapped thus in servitude to the dominant men in their lives.<br />
<br />
Rosa describes the “Mexican Man,” or “M.M.,” (p. 243) as she sometimes jokingly refers to him, an archetype she has vowed never to marry: “He’s the man I’ve seen women make the endless piles of tortillas for, as he grows fat and stupid while his brain shrinks to fit his narrow mind that dictates boys are better than girls, boys become men, girls become wives, men have moments of freedom, release, women count the tortillas and the children. Men have affairs, women become whores. Puta. La Puta. You know, that word used to send shivers down my spine.” Rosa tells her husband about M.M. and why she fights for her freedom and independence. Julio is no M.M., but he often seethes against her stubbornness to do things as her soul dictates, such as when she leaves him to go live alone in the mountains.<br />
<br />
<strong>The Mountains and Their Symbolism</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
Rosa’s spirituality and connectedness to nature, to Earth, is a theme throughout this book. She is part Yaqui and also knows about the history of the ancient Mexican people: their gods and goddesses, especially “the infinite, ever-present Quetzalpetlatl,” whom she often invokes. Rosa’s dreams elucidate many of her struggles, with goddesses and animals often the source of revelations for her waking life. It is in a dream that Rosa “sees” a cabin in a remote part of the mountains six hours away, surrounded by wolves and other creatures. Rosa seeks that mountain, that cabin, and finds it.<br />
<br />
She realizes that she must sever all tethers to status quo: leave Julio, leave the city, leave the trappings of civilization to find her inner core, to establish her independence fully, to allow her art to flourish unbounded. She wants this need to be understood and accepted by people close to her—her husband, son, friends—and is disappointed when their concerns for her safety and their ties to stereotypes trump their embracing of her journey. But her power struggles with Julio, his jealous possessiveness of her, especially regarding her platonic male friends, overwhelms her spirit, and she buys the cabin and moves alone to the mountain.<br />
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She wonders: “If he loves me, why does he continue to insist that I relent and relent and relent. As though that would be proof that I love him. This is why people kill each other….This is why nations war.” (p. 286) But Julio—a Vietnam War veteran often tormented by his experiences, a Nativist with Mayan roots, and a polished professional—is yet too bound by his culture to understand Rosa’s rebellion and support her quest. Though he, as well as Sean and Rosa’s friends, visit her at the cabin, maintaining their ties to her, each of their visits is a battle to make Rosa return home. Rosa feels alone and fights even harder to prove them wrong.<br />
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<strong>Rosa’s Evolution</strong><br />
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Some of the most important events in Rosa’s evolution as an independent human being occur in the mountains: giving birth to her and Julio’s unplanned baby, raising her alone, having her first extramarital affair after she and Julio agreed to an open marriage while Rosa decides whether or not to return to him. But most important: Rosa’s art flourishes, and the title of the novel comes into play: Rosa’s most cherished painting, one in which the exact color of a lilac sky long eluded her, is completed, with “an ultraviolet sky.” In a flash of insight, Rosa says: “That’s the color of the lilac sky. That’s why I can’t see it. I’ll never be able to see it. I can only witness what it does. The way it births us, the way it kills us…the ultraviolet light, like love.” (p. 378)<br />
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One particular incident captures Rosa’s soul and view of life. While her neighbor and son are visiting her one day, an immense hawk accidentally flies against a window of her cabin. Stunned, the hawk lies on the ground, and Rosa instinctively goes toward it. Both men shout at her to stop, saying the hawk’s talons will rip her apart. Still, Rosa slowly picks up the hawk, its talons jabbing against her palms, and she speaks soothingly to it, carrying it gently to a hollowed stump, where the hawk slowly gathers itself, looks at Rosa, and flies away. Later, Rosa admits she had been afraid, “but I had to pick him up anyway.” (p. 368) Rosa’s life has been a continuous battle against her own fears as well as dangers, but it is a fight she faces, with a faith in the life forces of nature and her own instincts.<br />
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<strong>The Importance of this Novel and Villanueva</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
Besides Julio and Sean, almost all the male characters in this book hew the line regarding the subjugation, overt or subtle, of women: the husbands and lovers of her friends, the men who live in the remote mountains near Rosa, and even the doctor charged with saving Rosa’s premature baby’s life and Rosa herself. Rosa therefore has ample, recurrent confirmation of how women must fight for their identities and self-esteem. The female characters, with few exceptions, are connected to one another through their love of nature, of being together in natural elements, and believing in their dreams.<br />
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The sociopolitical flailings against male chauvinism in this book thus sound overwrought at times. But readers must read Villanueva’s words in their historical context: The modern American feminist movement was relatively young, and the cultural shifts that have enabled many attitudinal and social changes regarding women at this point were hardly in sight in 1988. Also, Latinas openly embraced the feminist movement later than their non-Latina sisters, so the issues Rosa faces were raw and hurtful ones when this book was published. A winner of the prestigious American Book Award in 1989, The Ultraviolet Sky is still considered significant in feminist fiction and is often deemed Villanueva’s most popular work.<br />
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Alma Luz Villanueva’s focus in almost all her writings has been giving women a voice, shining the spotlight on “poverty, the mistreatment of women…painful issues in women’s lives, such as drug abuse, rape, incest, prostitution, and murder.” (p. 1607, Norton Anthology of Latino Literature) Having had a traumatic childhood and highly difficult, turbulent adolescence herself, Villanueva often interweaves autobiographical elements into her poems, stories, and novels. She writes from the heart because her heart has experienced much of what she describes.<br />
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Villanueva’s body of work includes seven collections of poetry, with her most recent, <em>Soft Chaos</em>, published in 2008; one short story collection, <em>Weeping Woman: La Llorona and Other Stories</em> (1994); and three novels, with <em>The Ultraviolet Sky</em> being her first. Prior to this award-winning book, Villanueva, first and foremost a poet, had published four of her poetry books. Testimony to the pre-eminence of poetry in Villanueva’s arsenal of talents is the poetic language that is often interwoven into the descriptions in <em>The Ultraviolet Sky</em>. When we read this novel, we know we are in the presence of a mighty poetic soul.<br />
<br />Alma Luz Villanueva has taught in various colleges and universities, the latest one being Antioch University in Los Angeles. Villanueva has won numerous other literary awards, including the PEN Oakland fiction award; the Latino Literature Prize, New York; the Best American Poetry Award; and the 1976-1977 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize. Her website is <a href="http://www.almaluzvillanueva.com/">http://www.almaluzvillanueva.com/</a> <br />
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Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-83456164076006787322012-10-07T15:44:00.002-07:002012-10-07T15:44:17.738-07:00BOOKS #5 AND #6 IN MY BOOK REVIEW SERIES<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>Series Continues with a Novelist and a Poet</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">For those of you new to my blog: In March 2012, I began writing a series of reviews of famous books written by modern American Latinas. The series was designed for <strong>Jesus Trevino's</strong> outstanding blog, <strong>Latinopia</strong> (www.Latinopia.com). With Jesus' permission, the reviews are then cross-posted here. We call the series "BOOK REVIEWS: MODERN AMERICAN LATINAS' ICONIC BOOKS."</span><br />
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These books are all award-winning, trailblazing books written in the 20th century, starting in 1974 and continuing into 1996. There will be a total of 12 reviews. The selected authors are highly regarded and have won numerous honors, most of them being recipients of the vaunted American Book Award, a prestigious prize. The books I review are considered to be modern-day classics in ethnic and American literature, many of them taught in schools across America. These Latina authors were pioneers in various ways, and they serve as role models, inspirers, and standard-bearers for millions of people across our nation and in many parts of the world.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On this blog you can read the first four of my reviews. These are as follows:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Nilda, </em>by Nicholasa Mohr (published in 1974)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings, </em>by Estela Portillo (1975)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Emplumada, </em>by Lorna Dee Cervantes (1981)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>Loving in the War Years, </em>by Cherrie Moraga (1983).</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Numbers #5 and #6 highlight a Chicago writer now living in Texas (<strong>Sandra Cisneros</strong>, author of the breakthrough novel<em>, House on Mango Street</em>) and <strong>Pat Mora</strong>, an El Paso native now living in New Mexico and the author of <em>Borders.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Please feel free to leave a comment after each review. I hope you'll be stirred to read the books featured in this series and to learn more about each of these authors. (Books are available through your favorite bookseller or amazon.com). Also, please spread the word to your friends, colleagues, classmates, and neighbors about these inspirational women. Tweet, post to Facebook, or use any other social media...or good, old-fashioned conversations to bring attention to our authors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>BOOK REVIEW #5:</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong><em>THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET</em>, by Sandra Cisneros</strong></span></div>
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“La Sandra,” as Sandra Cisneros has sometimes been called by her fans, is perhaps the most famous American Latina writer alive today and possibly of all time. Her books have been translated internationally and are taught in grade schools and universities across our nation. As a multiple award-winner in her long, distinguished career, Cisneros has had a tremendous influence on the contemporary renaissance and evolution of Chicano/Latino literature in the United States.<br />
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Born in Chicago in 1954, Cisneros created stories and poems since elementary school. She knew early on that she wanted to be a writer and, as a young graduate student in the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the late 1970’s, already had a vision for her work: “to write stories that ignore borders between genres, between written and spoken, between highbrow literature and children’s nursery rhymes, between New York and the imaginary [Mexican] village of Macondo, between the U.S. and Mexico.” <br />
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This she wrote in her eloquent “Introduction” to the 25th anniversary edition of her break-out classic, <em>The House on Mango Street</em>. And this—all of this—she accomplished beautifully in her book.<br />
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<strong><em>A Book ‘Between Genres’</em></strong><br />
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This book is difficult to categorize. It’s called a novel, but it’s a collection of tiny vignettes, many of them barely a page long, most of them a snapshot of someone who lives on Mango Street, someone whom the book’s narrator, young Esperanza Cordero, knows directly or indirectly. Mango Street is in a poor section of Chicago (modeled after Bucktown pre-gentrification, according to Cisneros). The houses are cramped and rundown, with peeling paint and little or no yards. The children play on porches and streets, amidst a motley crew of poignant, disgusting, endearing, and enigmatic neighbors and storekeepers who run the gamut from drunken bums to nuns. <br />
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Unlike a novel, the book does not have a plot in the traditional sense. The thread that holds this book together is the recurrence of various characters—most of them Esperanza’s peers and family—from section to section, though many characters appear only once. Cisneros calls this “story cycles” and purposely chose “little stories...connected to each other.” Each “chapter” (not traditional chapters either, but “a little story” instead) can be read as a stand-alone. The vignette may be as simple as a child’s description of clouds, or as complex as girls mocking a dying woman.<br />
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Cisneros states in her book’s Introduction that she wants to make her writing accessible to all, wants her readers to see themselves in her writing. <em>The House on Mango Street</em> is formatted to be read in one or two sittings and is something that Latinos/as can indeed relate to. It deals with issues at the heart of many adolescents’ evolution—gender roles, family dynamics, biculturalism, sexual identity, social responsibility, prejudice, domestic abuse, and poverty. The narrator, Esperanza, in the space of one year, learns about these issues either personally or through the suffering of friends and neighbors on Mango Street.<br />
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<strong><em>The Simple Complexity of People</em></strong><br />
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Like a deft artist, Cisneros paints pictures of her characters in tight, economical brushstrokes. She says little about them in restrained, simple language, and picks unobtrusive details to show us their essence. Darius the fool chases girls with firecrackers and sees God in cloud formations. Marin sells Avon, wears tons of makeup, and dances alone under the streetlights when her family goes to bed. <br />
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There’s Aunt Lupe, crippled and bedridden from a diving accident or a fall (nobody knows), who lives an abysmal life lying limp, head tossed back, blind, waiting to die, yet nurturing Esperanza’s writing ambitions. Through Lupe, Esperanza learns about compassion and the frailty of life.<br />
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The many characters who appear only once are amazingly memorable. Often females young and old, they endure indignities and abuse at the hands of males who restrict and dominate them. Yet Cisneros describes these females as an unbiased journalist would, without judgment or anger. <br />
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We see Esperanza’s Mexican great-grandmother, her namesake, only long enough to know she was kidnapped as a young girl and forced into marriage, living out her life in bitterness toward her husband, who squelched her individuality and potential. She serves the young Esperanza as a symbol of what not to be.<br />
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Then there’s Esperanza’s incredibly beautiful classmate, Sally, who is beaten cruelly by a domineering father who fears she’ll run away like his sisters did long ago. After a while, Sally, stoic despite her bruises, defiantly engages in sex, knowing her father’s rage awaits her. She chooses a desolate path as an escape, teaching Esperanza the urgency of forging her own identity before it’s too late. <br />
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<strong><em>The Primacy of Poetry</em></strong><br />
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Those who didn’t know that poetry was a first love of Cisneros would guess this from the book’s imagery. The simplest things are endowed with little grace notes that surprise us, for Cisneros’ language is not what we ourselves would have invoked. Thus, the house on Mango Street has “windows so small, you’d think they were holding their breath.” Neighbor girls have “popsicle lips” and laughter “like shy ice cream bells.” A neighbor woman’s feet are described as “plump and polite, descended like white pigeons from the sea of pillow.”<br />
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But the most poetic portion of the book, near its end, is the chapter titled “Four Skinny Trees,” which is a prose poem from start to finish that symbolizes what Esperanza is and plans to become. A young woman about to embark on her own future, Esperanza describes “the four raggedy excuses planted by the city” thus: “Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They...grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.” The young girl’s final analysis of the trees is a description of her own resolve to follow her dreams and succeed: “Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach.”<br />
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<strong><em>Cisneros’ Place in Latina Literature</em></strong><br />
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As this series about pioneering, modern-day American Latina authors has shown, Cisneros was not the first to be published. She was not the first to receive a coveted literary award. She was not the first to be acknowledged by non-Latinos as a writer whose work cut across cultural groups. Other Latinas whose books have been reviewed here—Nicholasa Mohr, Estela Portillo, Lorna Dee Cervantes, and Cherrié Moraga—beat Cisneros to those accomplishments.<br />
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But Sandra Cisneros was the first modern American Latina to be published by a major mainstream publisher. She is thus often credited with opening the door to other Latina/o authors’ acceptance by the mainstream. So it is her name which oftentimes pops up first on the topic of Latina authors. It is Cisneros whose work is widely anthologized in multi-cultural books, whose work is selected for literature curricula across American schools. It is Cisneros who embodies the melding of two cultures, the Mexican and the American. With many prestigious awards for her talent, Cisneros has set a standard of excellence that awes. She is, after all, “La Sandra.”<br />
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Her other books include the novel “Caramelo” (2002); the short story collection “Woman Hollering Creek” (1991); the poetry books, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” (1987) and “Loose Woman” (1994); and the anthology of excerpts from her works, “Vintage Cisneros” (2004). Her website is www.sandracisneros.com .<br />
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<strong>BOOK REVIEW #6: </strong></div>
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<strong><em>BORDERS,</em> by Pat Mora</strong></div>
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Pat Mora’s poetry book, <em>Borders</em>, sets its tone immediately, with the title poem placed alone just before the thematic sections of the book unwrap themselves. Mora makes a distinction between men’s and women’s communication right off the bat, citing a researcher who says, “...men and women may speak different languages that they assume are the same.” <br />
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Thus, the first border is laid down by Mora: the line separating how the sexes communicate. “So who can hear/ the words we speak/ you and I, like but unlike,/ and translate us to us/ side by side?” the poet asks. She establishes a framework of contiguous separations—borders—where “like” is “unlike,” and we are “similar but different,” existing “side by side,” but still needing translations for comprehension. She’s speaking about all of us, of course.<br />
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Her book goes on to evoke and explore borders large and small, known and unknown, old and new, faint and glaring. The poet draws on her lifetime of living on and near borders, beginning with her birth in El Paso, Texas, her home for most of her life before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, Mora has straddled the border between cultures and languages, has navigated the “like” and “unlike” for her entire life. As her book depicts, borders can be cruel or innocuous, but they ultimately reveal us to ourselves.<br />
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<strong><em>Cruel Borders of Hardship</em></strong><br />
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Her book is filled with snapshots of people from all walks of life, people identifiable for their hardships as much as for their triumphs. Mora starts with the famous pioneering author and university leader, Tomás Rivera, whose hands “knew about the harvest,/ tasted the laborer’s sweat” but also “gathered books at city dumps...began to hold books gently, with affection.” Then, his hands “wrote the books/ he didn’t have, we didn’t have,” and hugged “the small brown hands” of children gathered round in admiration, “his hands whispering his secret/ learn, learn.” Rivera was the consummate cross-over, a migrant child of illiteracy who won prizes for his books and inspired legions of modern Latinos/as to demolish obstacles. Again, Mora establishes her framework with this, the second poem in her book, showing us how inhumane borders can be erased.<br />
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Other people, however, struggle with the limitations and discrimination imposed by borders. In “Immigrants,” Mora describes the lengths immigrant parents go through to “Americanize” their children, as they “wrap their babies in the American flag,/ feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie.” Always, the fear of rejection and marginalization haunts them. In “Echoes,” the poet practically speaks through clenched teeth as she recounts how a party hostess insisted that her guests “just drop the cups and plates/ on the grass. My maid/ will pick them up.” <br />
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In “The Grateful Minority,” the poet describes Ofelia “scrubbing washbowls.../ mopping bathrooms for people/ who don’t even know your name.” The poem’s narrator cannot understand how Ofelia, as well as other “brown women,” can “whistle while/ you shine toilets, smile gratefully/ at dry rubber gloves, new uniforms,/ steady paychecks...content in your soapy solitude.” These women “bloom/ namelessly in harsh countries.” Perplexed, the poem’s speaker says: “I want to shake your secret/ from you. Why? How?”<br />
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<strong><em>The Subtle Borders of Life</em></strong><br />
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But other borders—symbolic, emotional, or spiritual—are more subtle and often less painful. Section II (untitled) of Mora’s book speaks of family love, of the generations, and the passage of time. In “To My Son,” the border between childhood and adolescence is symbolized by the worn-down swing set, now sitting silent in the backyard, abandoned years ago. The border between doting affection and tough love is embodied in the word “no” repeated like a litany in “The Heaviest Word in Town.” The border between security and fear strikes the poet in “Waiting Room: Orthopedic Surgery,” as she waits nervously for her broken child to be made whole again.<br />
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Some borders transcend time, and Mora, particularly fond of elders, captures these poignantly. In “Pajarita,” the “small, gray Mexican bird/ brittle of bone, flutters at ninety/ through the large American cage/ all the comforts/ except youth.” The saintly grandmother straddles life and death as each day passes. In “Los Ancianos,” the poet describes an old couple holding hands as they traverse the plaza, “both slightly stooped, bodies returning to the land.” Walking the fine line between the present and eternity, “They know/ of moving through a crowd at their own pace.”<br />
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<strong><em>Our Individual and Collective Borders</em></strong><br />
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Since borders are demarcations, there are always two sides, and marginalization is unavoidable. There is “us” and “them,” “their way” and “my way.” With this duality, prejudice and stereotypes become fact, and it takes concerted efforts on each person’s part to blur the borders traversing our lands and our interactions, so people can become simply one huge expanse of humanity.<br />
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Pat Mora’s heartfelt, spiritual book is a paean to how these borders imbue our lives, but how hurtful borders can be eased, or removed, when we embrace how everything is interwoven and we are, ultimately, one. Mora the poet is the sum total of her parts. As she has said in interviews, she cherishes her cultural heritage and often imbues her writing with it. Her writing is her attempt to facilitate communication and understanding among diverse peoples. She communicates with evident warmth, love, and compassion.<br />
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Known nationally for more than 30 books of poetry, essays, and children’s writings, Mora has received numerous literary awards, including the National Hispanic Cultural Center Literacy Award, the Southwest Book Award (4 times), Premio Aztlán Literature Award, and the Pellicer-Frost Bi-National Poetry Award. She has also received two honorary doctoral degrees and is best-known for instituting the nationally-celebrated event, “El día de los ninos/El día de los libros” (“The Day of the Children/The Day of Books”). Advocacy for children’s literacy is an abiding passion of Pat Mora. Her website is <a href="http://www.patmora.com/">www.PatMora.com</a> .<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><em><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></em>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-45508523972505004452012-08-01T18:47:00.000-07:002012-08-01T18:47:08.984-07:00FOURTH BOOK REVIEW IN MY SERIES: ICONIC MODERN LATINA AUTHORS<br />
Dear Readers: <br />
<br />
As you know, in the past few months, I've been writing a series of book reviews of iconic, pioneering literature written by modern-day, American-born Latina authors. These were written, and are being written, as a guest reviewer on <strong>Jesus Trevino's </strong>dynamic blog, <a href="http://www.latinopia.com/"><strong>www.Latinopia.com</strong></a><strong> . </strong>Some of these reviews have also been, and/or will be, cross-posted on another awesome Latino literary blog, <strong>Mike Sedano's </strong>and <strong>Daniel Oliva's </strong><a href="http://www.labloga.blogspot.com/"><strong>www.LaBloga.blogspot.com</strong></a><strong> . </strong>I urge you to visit these two blog sites, bookmark them, "like" them, and keep up with them. It's a great use of your time!<br />
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With Jesus' kind permission, I've also been cross-posting my reviews on this blog as well. All of them appear below as prior postings.<br />
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As a recap: These are the iconic authors, their ground-breaking, award-winning books, and the year of publication of their books:<br />
<ul>
<li>Nicholasa Mohr: <em>Nilda </em>(novel; 1974)</li>
<li>Estela Portillo Trambley: <em>Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings </em>(short stories, one novella; 1975)</li>
<li>Lorna Dee Cervantes: <em>Emplumada </em>(poetry; 1981)</li>
</ul>
The fourth in this series, a look at Cherrie Moraga's barrier-breaking book, appears below.Writing as an openly gay Latina, Moraga opened the doors to debate and dialogue about homosexuality, but--more important--about women's issues more specifically, and about social justice and the oppression of people of color more broadly. Now out of print, the book is still available on amazon.com and through other online booksellers.<br />
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I welcome your comments on this. Thanks for dropping by!<br />
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<strong>BOOK REVIEW:</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Loving in the War Years,</em> by Cherríe Moraga (1981)</span></strong></div>
<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></strong>This is a brave book, of a type that had never before been published in the United States. This is a timeless book that has one foot firmly planted in the 1980’s and the other just as solidly rooted in 2012. This book could, in fact, have been published yesterday, for its pain and truth and observations on humanity ring just as true today as when it first saw the light of day.<br />
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This is a trailblazing work that dared give public voice to something lying dormant throughout the literary history of American Hispanics: Latina sexuality broadly, and Latina homosexuality specifically. But though this book deals in large part with a topic that is still taboo for many Latinos, let no reader shy away from Moraga’s work. Doing so would be a lost opportunity to open our eyes and souls to understanding humanity better. Through essays, poems, brief stories, and journal entries, Moraga forces us to think deeply on why men and women interact as we do, why we follow traditions blindly, why social injustice is so globally entrenched, and why we hardly ever stop to examine our lives to understand what it is that our spirits truly need.<br />
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<em>Loving in the War Years</em> is at once Moraga’s intimate, autobiographical reflection on love in all its senses and nuances; and a treatise on man’s inhumanity to man. It is at once yin and yang, at once left-brain, right-brain, at once heart-wrenching and coolly analytical. This book was written by a poet...by a scientist...by a spiritualist...by an atheist...by a heterosexual...by a lesbian. And yes, all of these are Cherríe Moraga. The book is such a pot of delicious stew, filled as it is with the flavors and aromas of multiple genres and perspectives, that it must have driven librarians nutty upon its publication. How to classify it? <br />
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Like Moraga herself—who is half-White and half-Mexican—<em>Loving in the War Years</em> is full of life’s contradictions. Moraga’s immigrant, farm-worker mother is the linchpin in her life, the one who taught the author everything about authentic love. It is she who insists on a strong education for her children, and who sacrifices mightily to enable Cherríe to attend top-notch schools and avoid the hardships and discrimination that she, an illiterate laborer, suffers. Yet the mother-daughter relationship is also tainted by the mother’s unpredictable aloofness and disregard for Cherríe’s individuality and worthiness as a woman. This tension sometimes leads Moraga to feel angry and hateful toward her, though she loves her mother above all. <br />
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Moraga’s White father is her ticket to a life among privileged people, the cause of her light skin, and ability to “pass” as White; yet his passivity and inability to love anyone render him irrelevant in her life. As Moraga evolves in her understanding, she realizes that it is her “Whiteness” that has spared her much of the prejudice and marginalization that her Latino schoolmates and neighbors endure. It is her “Whiteness” that got her into the best classes, the best colleges, and helped her rub elbows with the advantaged folks. But she also detests this Whiteness that made her an unwitting participant in the game of classifying people and thereby taking advantage of them. She feels like she betrayed her people.<br />
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This theme of being “la vendida” (“the sell-out”) runs through Moraga’s book and helps title its most compelling section: “A Long Line of Vendidas.” Moraga explores the various ways in which she was a “vendida”: leveraging her Whiteness for her academic and professional advancement; turning her back on schoolmates who weren’t in her elite classes; turning her back on lovers who created discomfort in her life; turning her back on Latino men as she defied her culture’s dictates. Her sell-out, however, is tempered by recollections of how her Latino culture turned against her throughout her early life: She wasn’t brown enough. She was half-White. She didn’t quite belong in their groups. Decreed guilty prematurely like an unlucky criminal, Moraga ultimately had no choice but to lean on her Whiteness as she became more independent, because her White half led her to greater personal freedom than her Chicana half did.<br />
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Freedom and oppression are major themes for Moraga. Her sexuality is an integral part of her identity, as she feels is the case for all women, especially Latinas. Yet it is her sexual identity as a lesbian that simultaneously frees and oppresses Moraga: she is freed from the Mexican culture’s mythical view of women as penetrated and depraved; and she is oppressed by society’s rejection (especially her Latino culture’s rejection) of homosexuality as depraved and “queer.” Through her poetry, essays, and heartfelt stories that lay bare her soul yet are not self-pitying, Moraga shares with us her painful journey in recognizing her “queer”-ness at the tender age of ten, hiding this part of self from her family, fighting it by engaging in heterosexual affairs for several years, then accepting her lesbianism as her authentic sexuality. It is a touching journey that meanders in non-linear recollections throughout her book in and out of childhood, in and out of adolescence and young adulthood. She finally settles on intellectual discussions of women’s issues delivered professorially toward the end of her book.<br />
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Women, she says, are defined by our gender, and sexual politics rule our lives, with male supremacy controlling our access to freedom. Moraga describes marriage as man-made for the purpose of controlling women’s sexual activity. She focuses laser-like on women’s reproductive issues and sounds amazingly like the women activists of 2012 in her denouncement of patriarchy: “Female sexuality must be controlled, whether it be by the Church or the State....Patriarchal systems...determine when and how women reproduce.” <br />
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Echoing current political campaigning, Moraga wrote in her 1983 book: “In the U.S., the New Right’s response to a weakening economic system...is to institute legislation to ensure governmental control of women’s reproductive rights.” She went on to condemn Conservatives’ “advocacy of the Human Rights Amendment, which allows the fetus greater right to life than the mother. These backward political moves hurt all women, but especially the poor and ‘colored.’” Crediting the Black Feminist movement’s Combahee River Collective for her inspiration and perspective on oppression, Moraga adamantly sees global oppression of any people as being rooted in a toxic mix of racism, sexism, and classism. We can’t address one without the others.<br />
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<em>Loving in the War</em> <em>Years </em>has ample artistic merit simply because of its poetic weaving of words and feelings. Moraga speaks from the heart. Its status is heightened, however, because this was the first book written and published in the United States by a Latina lesbian. Also one of the first modern American Latina feminists, Moraga’s career has been marked by university teaching assignments across the U.S., prestigious literary awards and fellowships, and solid recognition of her playwriting talents. Currently an Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University, California, Moraga is the author or co-editor of more than a dozen books, chief among them the prize-winning collection of feminist writings titled <em>This Bridge Called My Back</em>. Visit her website at <a href="http://www.cherriemoraga.com/">http://www.cherriemoraga.com</a> .<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>TAGS:</strong> Latinopia, Cherríe Moraga, Loving in the War Years, feminist writers, gay authors, Jesus Trevino, Nicholasa Mohr, Estela Portillo Trambley, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Daniel Oliva, Michael Sedano,Thelma T. Reyna.</span><br />
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<br />Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-42846777022330135392012-06-12T21:46:00.000-07:002012-06-12T21:46:57.949-07:00THIRD IN SERIES OF MY BOOK REVIEWS:<strong>This is the third book review in my new series spotlighting the works of modern pioneering American Latina authors. The 12 iconic works selected for this series cover the time span 1974-1996, beginning with the modern Chicano "renaissance" in literature, in which American Latinas/os began publishing in greater numbers than ever before in our nation's history. The other authors and their classic, award-winning books previously featured are Nicholasa Mohr's <em>Nilda </em>(1974), and Estella Portillo's <em>Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings </em>(1975) [see below]. </strong><br />
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<strong>These book reviews were originally posted in Latinopia (<a href="http://www.latinopia.com/">http://www.latinopia.com/</a> ) and are cross-posted here with permission of Latinopia's host, author Jesus Trevino. The fourth book review, to be published this month, is of Cherrie Moraga's ground-breaking <em>Loving in the War Years (1983). </em>Stay tuned!</strong><br />
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<strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">Emplumada</span></em></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>by Lorna Dee Cervantes </strong></span></div>
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Lorna Dee Cervantes (b. 1954) is a California native of Mexican-American and Native-American heritage. Her impact on Chicana poetry prior to and since the publication of her iconic, American Book Award-winning collection of poems, <em>Emplumada</em> (1981), has been tremendous. Her fellow Latino poet, Alurista, once referred to her as “probably the best Chicana poet active today,” and others consider her to be one of the pre-eminent Chicana poets of the past four decades. During the Clinton presidency, Cervantes was invited to a special White House event honoring the top 100 poets in the United States at that time.<br />
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Her path to fame began with the Chicano activism and literary movement of the 1970’s. In 1974, she began reading her poetry publicly and now counts over 500 readings, poetic performances, and lectures in venues including the top universities in America: Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Brown, Vassar, and Cornell. Besides the American Book Award in 1982, Cervantes has won over 20 notable prizes, fellowships, and other honors, such as the Latino Book Award, Latin American Book Award, Patterson Prize for Poetry, and two Pushcart Prizes. Cervantes is a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.<br />
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As an academic for most of her career, Cervantes continues to exert a major influence on American Latina poetry, despite authoring only three poetry collections besides Emplumada. These are: <em>From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger</em> (1991); <em>DRIVE: The First Quartet</em> (2006); and <em>Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems</em> (2011). She founded the literary review <em>Mango</em> in the 1970’s and was co-editor of the multicultural poetry journal <em>Red Dirt</em>. Her poems have been anthologized since the 1990’s and have attracted wide critical study since the 1980’s.<br />
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<em>Emplumada</em> –which means “feathered” as well as “pen flourish”—treats the social issues of Cervantes’ day that still rattle our sensibilities: poverty, domestic and drug abuse, sexism, racism, classism. We relive these through the eyes and heart of a 27-year-old Latina clarifying her place in life. Cervantes occasionally spices her 39 poems with Spanish words and phrases that resonate with her Hispanic readers yet do not detract from the universality of her clear-eyed observations.<br />
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Her poetry makes us weep in recognition. Or weep for the deep slashes to humanity that she lays bare in her unvarnished way, capturing the pain we often inflict on one another in unconscious or purposeful ways. Her book begins with one of the more powerful poems, “Uncle’s First Rabbit,” a compressed retelling of 50 years of misery. At the age of 10, Uncle is forced by his drunken, violent father to shoot, then bash to death, an innocent rabbit. The rabbit’s dying cries remind the child of the night his father kicked his pregnant mother till her aborted baby died, his tiny sister’s cries like the rabbit’s. Throughout his military years and his own marriage, the Uncle is haunted by his father’s abuse, and he can’t escape the “bastard’s...bloodline” within himself, a man tormented by demons who one night “awaken[s] to find himself slugging the bloodied face of his [own] wife.” The Uncle’s humanity gasps its last breath as he watches his dying wife in bed and thinks: “Die, you bitch. I’ll live to watch you die.” <br />
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The theme of abuse runs like an unavoidable snake through several of Cervantes’ poems. In “Meeting Mescalito at Oak Hill Cemetery,” a 16-year-old girl “crooked with drug” momentarily escapes her family life by drinking alone in a cemetery but then, at home, “lock[s] my bedroom door against the stepfather.” In “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway,” spousal abuse strikes multiple generations of a family: Grandma, who “built her house, cocky disheveled carpentry, after living twenty-five years with a man who tried to kill her.” Mama endures “glass bottles shattering the street, words cracked into shrill screams” when her man “entered the house in hard unsteady steps, stopping at my door, my name...breath full of whiskey.”<br />
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In “For Virginia Chavez,” one of the more gentle, evocative poems of the book, the speaker describes her loving relationship with a young woman, a kindred spirit whose path in life splits from hers. Years later, they reunite, and the speaker sees the abused Virginia “with blood in your eyes, blood on your mouth, the blood pushing out of you in purple blossoms. He did this.” Embracing, the two women, whose lives have evolved in diametric ways, lean on their bond of friendship for sustenance. As in other poems, it is the inner strength and solidarity of women that help them prevail. <br />
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Cervantes also celebrates love, often by weaving this with nature, with the natural rhythms of existence that are often overlooked in harried lives. For her, nature is a balm that opens eyes and rekindles the spirit. In “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway,” the speaker describes her partner thus: “Every night I sleep with a gentle man to the hymn of mockingbirds, and in time, I plant geraniums.” In “For Edward Long,” she salutes an old mentor, writing: “You taught me to read all those windsongs in the verses of Stevenson....I still gaze at the fall winds you once taught me to describe.” In “Como lo Siento [How I Feel It],” lovemaking becomes allegory: “[An owl] lifted from the palm. She showed me how I rose, caught in the wind by your skin and tongue. I feel scooped from the banks like clay....I’m paralyzed by joy....I’m a shell in the cliffs, a thousand miles from sea. You tide me and I rise, and there’s no truth more simple.”<br />
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<em>Emplumada</em> is timeless and will continue to be. Its strength flows from the beauty and unpredictability of Cervantes’ phrasing. She takes the ordinary and holds it up for us to see, dressed in descriptions that we ourselves could not conjure. Her language is simple, direct, deceptively unadorned, but it is disarming in its precision: “In rarefied air, absent as lovers, objects are blanched and peppered to gray” ; “I dust pebbles, turn them to sheen”; “our time was mooning away from us and leaving us in mudflats”; “the great peacocks roosted and nagged loose the feathers from their tails.” And always, Cervantes’ imagery enhances and drives home her points.<br />
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Cervantes is, in the end, a poet who prefers to see the proverbial glass half-full but whose life experience has shown her the half-empty part in sharp focus. In perhaps the most autobiographical piece in the book—“Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War Between Races”—she explains clearly how conflict indeed exists: “I’m marked by the color of my skin. The bullets are discrete and designed to kill slowly. They are aiming at my children. These are facts....I am a poet who yearns to dance on rooftops, to whisper delicate lines about joy and the blessings of human understanding....but the typewriter doesn’t fade out the sounds of blasting and muffled outrage. My own days bring me slaps on the face. Every day I am deluged with reminders that this is not my land and this is my land....in this country there is war.” <br />
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The passage of time will only cement Lorna Dee Cervantes’ place in the literary tapestry of America. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Arts from San Jose State University, and attended the Ph.D. program at University of California, Santa Cruz. You can learn more about her on her Facebook author page and on her website: <a href="http://lornadice.blogspot.com/">http://lornadice.blogspot.com/</a> <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"></span>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-60828802564841698292012-05-14T23:14:00.000-07:002012-05-14T23:14:14.012-07:00MY NEW SERIES OF BOOK REVIEWS--<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Starting a New Series for Multiple Blog Sites:</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">Reviews of Pioneering American Latina Authors</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Last month, at the invitation of <strong>Jesus Trevino</strong>, outstanding author and host/writer of the esteemed blog Latinopia.com (<a href="http://www.latinopia.com/">http://www.latinopia.com/</a> ), I began writing book reviews of modern American Latina authors who are now regarded as "pioneers" in modern American Latino/a literature. My intent is to write one book review per month for a 12-month period. These reviews are aimed for Latinopia.com and may be posted on La Bloga as well (<a href="http://www.labloga.blogspot.com/">http://www.labloga.blogspot.com/</a>) as on my site here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In choosing the Latina authors for this series, Jesus and I collaborated, starting with his recommendations. Then I reviewed lists of Latina winners of the famed American Book Awards beginning in the 1960's and checked other prestigious national awards given in the United States. Almost all of the women in this series received the American Book Award, with a couple of them winning other major awards instead. I shared this list with Jesus, and we agreed on the 12 books to consider. In the spirit of modern "pioneers," we also limited our list to the time period spanning the 1970's-1990's, when the impact of Latinas publishing in English began in earnest, prior to the year 2000. The reviews will be presented in chronological order according to the books' publication dates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The selected group of pioneer Latinas represents various genre: short fiction, novels, poetry, and nonfiction. Geographically, the authors come from across the United States: the Northeast, Southwest, the West, and other parts of our nation. All these women have one very important commonality: They blazed trails in bringing the Latina voice to the tapestry of our evolving Latino literature in the modern era. They have thus enriched our literature and expanded our horizons of human understanding. These women are artists in the greatest sense of the word.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It is Jesus' hope, as well as my own, that--after this series of pioneeer Latina authors--the spotlight can shift to contemporary American Latina authors; for, as the years pass, the list of top writers continues to expand. Book reviewing is fun and enriching for a number of reasons, and I hope to share my enjoyment with you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The first of the series was published last month (see below): Nicholasa Mohr's autobiographical novel, <em>Nilda</em> (1974). The second book review will be posted soon: Estela Portillo Trambley's <em>Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings </em>(1975). All the reviews will appear first on Latinopia.com, then possibly on La Bloga, then definitely on this blog. Thanks so much for tuning in each month.</span><br />
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<br />Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-38281234628962506002012-03-26T19:57:00.050-07:002012-03-26T20:24:53.841-07:00<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><u>BOOK REVIEWS</u>:</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large;">Two Iconic Authors: A Latina Pioneer; and </span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-large;">First Hispanic-American Pulitzer-Prize Winner</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><em>My two book reviews below first appeared in <strong>Jesus Trevino's </strong>amazing, enlightening blog, <strong>Latinopia.com</strong>. He granted permission for cross-posting these reviews here.</em></span><br />
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<div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">NICHOLASA MOHR:</span></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">Author of <em>Nilda </em>(1974)</span></strong></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nicholasa Mohr (b. 1938) has been described as the most prolific and renowned Puerto Rican-American novelist. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Mohr represents the “Nuyorican” writers (“New York Puerto Ricans”), a group that first rose to national prominence for their considerable talents in the 20th century and who continue to attract readers today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since Puerto Ricans officially became American citizens in 1917, Mohr’s antecedents, though strongly tied to their island culture, were not immigrants, but migrants rather, in the often-alien, unwelcoming American city. Mohr grew up in the 1940’s, with World War II a gauzy backdrop, and suffered the proverbial slings and arrows of prejudice and discrimination.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That Nicholasa Mohr became a published writer when she did is a stroke of luck for Hispanic-American literature. As a young woman, she was first and foremost a visual artist. By chance, her art agent once asked her to write 50 pages of childhood reminiscences for a possible book project. Although he subsequently rejected this writing in a humiliating critique, she shared this small manuscript with a chief editor who had solicited her artwork for someone else’s book. Mohr’s illustrations for that book were turned down, but the editor liked the 50 pages of reminiscences and contracted Mohr to write a novel based on those. Mohr completed the novel, NILDA, that same year. The rest, as they say, is history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the well-received publication of NILDA in 1974, Mohr cemented her place in American literature. She was one of the earliest Hispanic-Americans to publish her writings in English in the United States and one of the first to write a young adult book in English. Mainstream America at that time had little interest in publications about Latino people. But Nicholasa Mohr’s book successfully crossed the divide. Since 1974, she has been the most productive and most renowned Nuyorican novelist, earning numerous major awards and publishing in a variety of genres: novels, short stories, novellas, and nonfiction. Her influence in other authors’ development has been significant, not just through her 10 published books, but also through her workshops and university teaching.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em>Nilda</em> recounts the life of a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx from 1941 through 1945, as seen through the central consciousness viewpoint of the only daughter in the family and the youngest child, Nilda. Her family is poor, large, and as diverse in personality and outlook as her neighborhood. But these nine people, with their varying degrees of dysfunction and tension, are the source of stability and love that enable Nilda to navigate her childhood intact. She, as well as other Puerto Ricans, regularly encounters naked racism and marginalization, often at the hands of authority figures who should, paradoxically, be protecting and nurturing her: neighborhood policemen, nuns and priests at a Catholic summer camp, her teachers at school, and social service workers allegedly providing economic assistance for struggling families like hers. Worse, these perpetrators of racism are seemingly oblivious to their cutting words and actions. After policemen abuse her kind-hearted neighbor, Nilda notes that these cops “loomed larger and more powerful than all the other people in her life.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel begins when Nilda is 10 years old and ends when she is 14. In this span of time, World War II begins and ends. Also, Nilda finds and loses religion; loses her stepfather; learns that her beloved brother Jimmy has impregnated and abandoned a young woman who is then sheltered by Nilda’s mother; helps care for her mentally unbalanced aunt; witnesses a policeman falsely accuse her friend of a crime and almost beat him to death; and endures other calamities that would have destroyed a lesser child. Through it all, Nilda is alternately petulant and carefree, defiant and obedient, aloof and moved to tears, frightened and resolute. Her best friend becomes pregnant and drops out of school. But Nilda exhibits the resilience of her mother and moves forward despite the biggest loss of all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Ramirez family is the broad backdrop of this narrative. Nilda’s mother, Lydia, is the matriarchal rock, an interminable font of patience, practicality, and initiative. She shepherds her family through quarrels, sickness, and despair and somehow manages to keep food on the table and consejos always flowing. Her strength comes from a deep religiosity that she tries to impart to her children, especially to Nilda, and from an almost martyr-like acceptance of her hard life. Her dreams are pinned on her children, especially her daughter, whom she constantly exhorts to study hard and make something of herself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nilda is tugged between her mother’s spirituality and her stepfather Emilio’s communistic, nihilistic rejection of faith. The parents’ polarity symbolizes the contradictions in the family members themselves: There is Jimmy—handsome, dashing, and utterly charming—yet embroiled with drugs and thugs and breaking his mother’s heart. There is Victor, the scholar and gentleman most suited for success, who is first to enlist in war and dash his mother’s dreams. There is Aunt Delia—old, deaf, and caustic—whose obsession with ghoulish newspaper reports is trumped by her vulnerability, which engenders the family’s loyalty to her. In a poignant scene toward the end of the book, we learn that Nilda’s mother, whose devotion to her family was the engine that drove her life, had deep regrets that embodied the most heart-wrenching contradiction of all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People are the main ingredient of storytelling. People drive the plots and themes and embody the heart and soul of the structure we call literature. When people as literary characters are authentic and speak to us in voices we recognize, in voices that resonate with our own experiences, the written piece is successful. And if these characters engage in self-examination and reflection and share their insights with us, thus expanding our own self-knowledge as they reveal their own…well, the literature soars and takes us up with it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps because <em>Nilda</em> is a young adult novel, or perhaps because it is a debut novel, it falls short in the latter criterion of excellence. Although the child Nilda is sympathetic and authentic, she rarely engages in reflection, even as a teenager, and this renders her less multi-dimensional than she could have been. The central consciousness viewpoint of the book does not allow us to enter the minds of the other characters, but Nilda’s thoughts could have been explored further.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Literary critics of ethnic-minority works have pointed out that early writers often focus on their personal minority experiences, which often include prejudice and various levels of cultural and racial oppression. It is the evolution of these authors’ art that eventually expands their creativity outward, to broader, more universal themes. <em>Nilda</em>, as a pioneering novel, captures the unique cultural experiences of New York’s Puerto Ricans in the 1940’s and therefore secures a solid place in the history of our literature as such. It still resonates decades later because its cultural depictions of family, love, individual pride, and resilience in the face of hardship still matter.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">OSCAR HIJUELOS:</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">Author of <em>Beautiful Maria of My Soul </em>(2010)</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial;">Oscar Hijuelos, acclaimed Cuban-American author of eight books, wrote <em>Beautiful Maria of My Soul</em> (2010) as a prequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, <em>The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love</em> (1986). In the prequel, Hijuelos gives readers the back story of the supremely beautiful woman who broke musician Nestor Castillo’s heart in The Mambo Kings. And what a back story it is!</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The book covers 45 years, starting with Maria in Cuba at the age of 17 and ending with her in Miami, Florida, at the age of 62. In this span, we see the pre-Castro island nation in all its glory, beauty, and seediness. We learn about the decline of life for Cubans once Castro assumed power, and we follow Maria and her toddler daughter, Teresita, when they emigrate to America with hundreds of others and struggle to build a new life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this span, Hijuelos lays the seeds for his themes and slowly unwraps each one like gifts we anticipate but also dread: the fleeting nature and complexity of love, even true love; the losses and suffering that even the good endure; the seeming indifference and cruelty of God; the importance of memory in our lives; and the essential role of family. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beautiful Maria Garcia y Sifuentes is a 17-year-old naïve, illiterate country girl living in extreme poverty in a tiny village in western Cuba. Her two brothers, teenaged sister, and beloved mother have one by one died untimely deaths, leaving her broken-hearted and alone with her sometimes-abusive, sometimes-tender father. In 1947, Maria decides that she must seek her independence and leaves the only world she’s ever known to travel to Havana, a bustling, frightening city filled with goodness, coarseness, and evil. She becomes a dancer in a rundown nightclub and alone must navigate the dangers and temptations of the city’s night life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her gift—extreme beauty of face and body that draws barrages of attention—is likewise a curse. She tires of men trying to seduce her, trying to impose their coarseness upon her, and wonders if it’s possible to find a good man who can love her for more than beauty. She appreciates her gifts, however, and uses them to advance her career, rising to be the featured dancer in the club and working as a model.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Virginal Maria eventually takes up with an older man, Ignacio, who has a shady reputation as a small-time gangster but who is generous with his attention and money and provides her with respectability and stability. Like her father, however, he sometimes beats and denigrates her; and Maria decides to leave him. During a violent argument with Ignacio, she meets Nestor Castillo, a poetic, soulful, handsome musician who rescues her from Ignacio’s rage. Nestor’s humility and saintliness, as well as his physical beauty, immediately appeal to Maria; and she and Nestor soon become lovers. Their passion is intense and endless, depicted by the author in highly graphic, explicit detail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nestor, for all his talents in and out of bed, is poor and simple. His gifts—besides the anatomical ones well-documented by Hijuelos—lie in his songwriting and his undying commitment to Maria. But Maria, accustomed to luxury after living with Ignacio, can only imagine a life of poverty if she marries Nestor, who proposes to her repeatedly, each time being rebuffed. Although enamored of Nestor sexually, she is not sure she truly loves him, plus her financial comfort trumps life with Nestor. She thus returns to Ignacio, and the broken-hearted Nestor eventually leaves with his older brother, Cesar Castillo, for New York to start a new life. (The Mambo Kings depicts the brothers’ lives from this point forward.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maria takes pride in her rise from poverty and learns to read and write. As the years pass, her father, her last surviving family member, dies. Maria feels the loss of this last link with family very deeply. She also misses Nestor and realizes that she made a mistake in rejecting him. He writes her wistful letters of undying love, and reminds her of a song he’s perfecting in her honor: “Beautiful Maria of My Soul.” Regarding Ignacio, she discovers several secret affairs. Each loss oozes a layer of hardness on Maria’s soul. Once devout, she now questions God and mocks him. She realizes that even love is “ephemeral and useless....like air.” The sweet, soft-hearted girl has become taciturn, critical, and jaded. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maria comes to believe that having her own child will bring her happiness, and she wants Nestor to be the father. Although she learns that Nestor is now married and has two children, she believes Nestor still loves her, since he’s been writing letters to her since his departure to New York. She travels to New York to reunite with him and, hopefully, to be impregnated by him. Despite great qualms, Nestor agrees to meet Maria secretly and proceeds to ravage her like in old times. What happens after this secret reunion changes their lives forever and leads to great tragedy for both of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hijuelos’ book is beautifully poetic in language and insights. He writes in a conversational style, filled with Cuban dialect, slang, and code-switching (alternating between English and Spanish), which makes his writing full of color and authenticity. Hijuelos creates memorable characters who are imperfect, who fill us with admiration and with revulsion. We can admire the tender-hearted Maria, but we can’t admire the young woman who chose money over love, or who, at the age of 50 and 60, is vain and largely unemotional. Nestor’s modesty as a young Cuban fills our hearts with respect, but his sexual foray as a married man shows his weakness. Still, these characters are human, and we can relate to them and learn from them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hijuelos has been criticized in the past for filling his books with too much sex, oftentimes in crude depictions. In this book, he can indeed be faulted for this. Although some sex scenes are described in evocative, literary language, the book could easily be reduced by dozens of pages with the elimination of redundant erotica that sometimes seems gratuitous. Hijueolos can also be faulted for his relentless repetition of “beautiful” throughout the book, and his descriptions of Maria’s beauty so oversaturated to the point of caricature. Again, this book could have been slimmer and still have been convincing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No book is perfect. The importance of <em>Beautiful Maria of My Soul</em> is the author’s deft, unique treatment of how loss and unrequited love cut mercilessly into the human spirit; but also of how extremely humanizing family connectedness is, and how time and memories can mellow us out, if we remain open to possibilities, and we can find love in the most unexpected places. Hijuelos’ book expertly convinces us of this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TAGS: Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize, Cuba, Cuban-American, Mambo Kings, Beautiful Maria of My Soul, New York, Nestor Castillo, Cesar Castillo, musicians, Thelma T. Reyna.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-59421106779448954672011-12-12T16:22:00.000-08:002011-12-12T16:22:45.011-08:00<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Latinos to Be the Majority </span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">of U.S. Population by 2050:</span></strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Implications for Latina/o Authors</span></strong></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The face of America is changing rapidly, according to the latest U.S. Census data. If prognostications bear out, Hispanics (the term used in the Census) will be the dominant ethnic group in our nation by 2050. This would be a sea change for our country and one with many implications that we must seriously consider, as discussed below. (The article below first appeared in <strong>Aurelia Flores' </strong>blog, <a href="http://www.powerfullatinas.com/">http://www.powerfullatinas.com/</a> last month, and is posted here with her permission.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">One of the ramifications is the increased opportunities this new majority group could and should present to Latina/o authors nationwide. Modern Hispanic-American literature, as I've previously written about here, has grown significantly since the early 1960s. With a future nation whose majority is Hispanics, the demand for inclusion of our writings in America's English classes in kindergarten through the university level, in literary anthologies and textbooks, should be more pronounced. This, in turn, could and should have a ripple effect on the entire publishing industry, with its concomitant marketing programs, speaking engagements, and all the trappings that come with big publishing house releases. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">But we Hispanic authors must lay the groundwork for this new era of higher literary visibility and prominence. Not only must we continue to hone our craft and increase our productivity, but we must be sure to groom the new generations of writers. This will entail, as discussed below, investing our time and attention more heavily in our children's education. Not only as parents, but as participants in a democratic society, we need to insure that our educational system receives all the resources necessary to boost it, to make it a strong vehicle of growth and enlightenment for all our nation's children, and particularly for our Hispanic children, who often lag behind others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We need to keep abreast of educational issues and concerns more strongly than has been the case in the past. We need to monitor that educational programs are not the first tier of budget slashing as an automatic political response when economic times are hard. This has been the case this year and last, and most other times of crisis that I can recall. Cutting education is often a knee-jerk response by politicians; and, unfortunately, the citizens oftentimes just go along with it quietly. This must change.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Education in the United States is hurting a lot right now. Critics abound on the left and right of the political spectrum, and Congress often makes decisions that run counter to what educators know is the right path to take. Besides cutting education budgets, Congress, and many states as well, jump to charter schools, or vouchers, or other "silver bullets" that they mistakenly believe will result in better educational outcomes for our students. But--as a lifetime educator and school administrator--I can tell you that a good educational system is one that literally "takes a village": well-trained educators, devoted parents, and an engaged community. Let us work toward establishing this in each of our communities, and collectively, we can build an educational system that will prepare our children for the changes that we will all face in America.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As individual authors, we must engage with our reading public more than we now do. Can we mentor young writers? Can we visit schools and community writing groups to share our knowledge and inspire others? How can we individually and collectively pass our knowledge to aspiring writers and help a new wave of authors come to the fore? Yes, these are things we already do. But how can we expand these strategies? Again, we need to lay the groundwork for a broader pool of Latina/o authors to step up to the plate in the coming decades, to contribute greatly to the fabric of American Literature, and to expand the body of literature created specifically by Hispanics for the betterment of all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">The post from Powerful Latinas follows: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">LATINO VOTERS: INCREASING VISIBILITY, INFLUENCE </span></strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">by Thelma T. Reyna</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The face of America is undergoing vast changes, and most of these pertain to “Hispanics,” as the 2010 United States Census referred to the Latino population. Because the growth of the White population in our nation is very small (one percent) and is decreasing, Whites are predicted to be a minority in about 40 years. At that point in our nation’s history, Hispanics are slated to become the largest ethnic group.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The shift has been rather rapid, with much of the change occurring in the last decade alone, in which Hispanics accounted for more than half of our nation’s growth. One out of every six Americans—over 50 million people—are now Hispanic. Latinos are expected to comprise one-third of America’s population in 40 years. In other words, one out of every three Americans will be Hispanic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">We must all be highly aware of the ramifications of this sea change. Our American society has been predicated throughout our history on the pre-eminence of the White culture, largely because our White population has consistently been the largest demographic group. Along with our country’s historical beginnings and historical evolution, plus the establishment of English as our nation’s language, a Eurocentric culture has flourished, has led our nation in all aspects of life, and has been the face of America to the world. </span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Hispanics and American Diversity</strong></span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Diversity is one of our country’s greatest strengths, however, and the infusion of increasingly diverse populations through the centuries has caused other cultures to slowly take their proverbial place at the table. Traditionally, the Hispanic culture, the Hispanic people collectively and generically, have been more of an afterthought, however. There has been a diminished focus on the Hispanic peoples in the United States, and this oversight of Hispanics has often been linked to the public’s association of this demographic group with a foreign language, with Spanish. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Inclusion of Hispanics in the social, economic, and political fabric of American life has been slow, as data regarding Hispanic representation in many American institutions and endeavors have consistently shown: professorships in our universities, the halls of Congress, municipal governments, school district leadership, judicial posts, corporate board rooms, and so on. In fact, Hispanic representation in these and other significant areas of participation and leadership has lagged behind representativeness attained concurrently by other ethnic minority groups, even in areas in which competent Hispanics were ready and available to step up to the plate.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>Preparing for Future Influence</strong></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: small;">In a democracy, when a given group of people predominates in numbers, it is incumbent upon them to willingly take up the mantle of leadership, of responsibility for the well-being and prosperity of their society. Our White fellow Americans have done this throughout our history; they have led and shaped our society through crises, wars, immense change, and needed growth. They have predominated in government and in all our institutions, in public and private sectors, and have gone out into the world to represent our nation in good times and bad. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It goes without saying that none of this predominance would have been possible, or would have been effective, without perquisite education, training, and preparation for such roles. No society can flourish without its leaders being absolutely the best they can be in every facet of their work on behalf of the people they represent and are a part of. If indeed, Hispanics become the majority group in America by 2050, as the projections indicate, and if they are to have great, positive influence in the course and fate of our nation, there is much work that must be done.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>The Advocacy of Professor Pachón</strong></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: small;">If Hispanics needed to listen to any one individual regarding their future lives in America, it was Professor Harry P. Pachón, whom the University of Southern California’s Tomás Rivera Policy Institute called “among the most influential voices of his generation in public discourse about the Latino population.” Until his death earlier this month, Dr. Pachón was a USC professor of public policy and former Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Educational Fund. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Dr. Pachón researched and wrote about Latinos’ education, political participation, electoral practices, and racial justice. For 40 years, he examined how public policies affected Latinos and their roles in society. Not partisan or demagogic, he quietly advocated for Latinos and studied their voting patterns....He worked tirelessly to educate Latinos about the importance of voting, to register them to vote, and to promote naturalization. He also focused on public education, informing Latinos of scholarship opportunities and of how they could rise to the middle class. His influence was tremendous.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Who will fill Dr. Pachón’s shoes? This remains to be seen, but the reality remains that many Latinos are still not accustomed to being a part of the political process in America, of having a voice that will be heard and valued....</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>What Happens Next?</strong></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size: small;">The implication of Hispanics becoming a critical mass is even more compelling when we consider that they now comprise 23% of all people below the age of 18. In California, for example, 51% of all the children are Hispanic. Nationally, the average age of Hispanics is around 35. Consider how this Latino “population bulge”—when the present children become adults—might affect our nation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">There is time to prepare American Latinos for their future as the largest demographic group, but molding young Latinos to be good citizens in our democracy involves acculturating them and affording them ample opportunities for assuming responsibility in school and civic affairs, of training them to participate in democratic processes and decision-making. Our nation needs to understand census projections and to accept the reality, if it indeed comes to pass, that Hispanics will predominate demographically. It is in the nation’s interest that this large group of Americans no longer be treated as an afterthought.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Citizens of a diverse democracy should always learn about, respect, and appreciate the cultures of others. Only by understanding what other groups value and yearn for, what their goals, priorities, and needs are, can we assure that no group shall be left behind in our nation’s progress and prosperity. Knowing one another well serves as a deterrent to discrimination and exclusion. We must do this not only for Latinos but for all our people. Starting with providing the best education we can for all children, and holding high but reasonable expectations for them, we must involve parents in our schools and partner with them to prepare all our children to be bearers of the torch, to take our nation forward.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">As I said, we have much work to do, but let us engage in it with an open heart and mind willing to embrace change, because, surely, change will always keep us on our toes.</span><br />
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</span>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-49537226658433799072011-12-02T13:07:00.000-08:002011-12-02T13:07:52.785-08:00<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">44th Anniversary of Ground-Breaking Latino Book: </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><em>Down These Mean Streets, </em>by Piri Thomas</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Piri Thomas just died last month after a long, successful career as a novelist, poet, motivational speaker, educator....and very inspiring human being. He is best known for his memoir, <em>Down These Mean Streets, </em>one of the first books by a Hispanic author in modern-day American literature. His gritty, heart-wrenching memoir lives on in many languages all around our world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">My book review of Piri's book was first posted last week on <a href="http://www.latinopia.com/"><em>www.Latinopia.com</em></a><em> .</em> <strong>Jesus Trevino, </strong>editor of that blog, gave gracious permission for cross-posting it here.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>BOOK REVIEW:</strong></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></div><div align="center"><strong></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em>Down These Mean Streets</em>, by Piri Thomas</strong></div><strong><div align="center"><br />
</div></strong><div align="center"><strong>Reviewed by Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D.</strong></div><br />
Two milestone events regarding the vaunted Puerto-Rican American author, Piri Thomas, occurred recently: He passed away last month in Northern California at the age of 83; and his iconic memoir, <em>Down These Mean Streets</em>, celebrated its 44th birthday. Though the first event breaks our hearts, and the second uplifts us, both attest to the longevity of Thomas’ artistry and influence and the wonderful luck our society has had in having Piri Thomas in our midst for all these years.<br />
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He died an icon, a proverbial legend in his own time. When <em>Mean Streets</em> was published in 1967, Thomas was one of the first modern-day Latinos to publish a book in English. He followed this break-out with two novels, a collection of short stories, and many poems, which he termed “wordsongs” and performed in varied venues all over the world. Yet it’s Mean Streets, which has been continuously in print, that cemented Thomas’ reputation as a literary tour de force and which readers most associate with Piri Thomas.<br />
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The book’s enduring fame is strongly warranted. One reviewer calls it “three books in one”: a coming-of-age saga chronicling the tragedies, crimes, and entanglements in Thomas’ life; an examination of the identity crisis many disadvantaged, mixed heritage youths undergo; and a story showing readers the bristling underside of Piri’s six years in the infamous Sing-Sing Prison of New York. Yet the author expertly weaves these separate themes together in his fast-paced, brutally authentic recreation of his difficult life growing up poor, half-Black, half-Puerto Rican, in an era of entrenched racism uglier than it now is.<br />
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The book begins in 1941, shortly before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and dragged the United States into World War II. To 12-year-old Piri in New York’s Harlem during the “Great Hunger called Depression,” the big “rumble” means that his father now has a decent job in an airplane factory. Otherwise: “Life in the streets didn’t change much. The bitter cold was followed by the sticky heat....War or peace—what difference did it really make?” Indeed, there is no distinction between Piri’s world before and after the great rumble, because his wars with his family, peers, racism, violence, drugs, crime, and society in general are just beginning and will disrupt his world for decades to come. <br />
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Piri is a dark-skinned child in a bi-racial family where, other than his Black father, everyone is light-skinned and can pass for White. He frequently clashes with his father, who treats him with less love and harsher physical discipline than Piri’s four younger siblings receive. Convinced that his father doesn’t truly love him because of his darkness, Piri seeks solace in the streets, where he navigates the unwritten laws of survival in the barrio: Prove yourself to be tough. Survive beatings at the hands of racist kids and rival gang members. Fight back hard. Don’t rat out enemies, and be “cool.” Above all, be loyal to your friends, going with the flow, “playing it smooth.” He emphasizes: “Never punk out.”<br />
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So by the time Piri is 16, he belongs to a gang, beats up rivals, uses drugs, slugs a teacher, engages in homosexuality, and robs a store: all in the name of group loyalty. When his parents move the family to Long Island for “better opportunities,” Piri is reviled by racist schoolmates, and he drops out of school to return to Harlem, often living on the streets. It breaks his mother’s heart, but Piri yearns for the security of the old neighborhood. His life of crime in Harlem, filled as it is with hunger, poverty, drug addiction, and isolation from family, is nonetheless tied to camaraderie, to unconditional acceptance, and is a siren’s song Piri cannot resist. He states: “All for the feeling of belonging, for the price of being called ‘one of us.’ Isn’t there a better way to make the scene and be accepted on the street without having to go through hell?” <br />
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Piri undertakes a double-layered odyssey to discover who and what he is. On the one hand, it’s a physical journey that takes him, as a teenager, through the Deep South, around the world with the Merchant Marines, and back and forth between Harlem and Long Island. Outside of Harlem, he faces discrimination almost everywhere he goes. It seems that Piri seeks a place that will prove his worldview wrong, that he wants proof that his skin color does not determine his value as a human being. Unfortunately, in these journeys, Piri does not find such a place.<br />
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On another layer, his odyssey is highly personal and emotional as he struggles to believe that he is loved fully in his own family. He tries to reconcile his affection for his family with his bitterness toward their “whiteness.” It’s an eternal battle in his heart. His utter devotion to his mother opposes his antipathy toward his father, whom he sees as having rejected his own Black heritage with lies about his lineage. Piri’s hatred of Whites is profound, but this creates immense conflict. He says: “It was like hating Momma for the color she was and Poppa for the color he wasn’t.” He also states: “It ain’t just that I don’t wanna be what I’m supposed to be, it’s just that I’m fightin’ me and the whole goddamn world at the same time.” It’s one of the book’s great ironies that, as Piri struggles to win full acceptance from his family, he rejects them and ostracizes himself.<br />
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An armed robbery in which Piri shoots a police officer and is almost shot to death lands him in prison, where, with time, he finally finds himself—through carefully choosing his con friends, studying every major religion, attending classes, and eventually turning to writing. “Every day,” the author writes, “brought a painful awareness of the sweetness of being free and the horror of prison’s years going down the toilet bowl.” He sought “a release from the overpowering hatred against a society that makes canaries out of human beings.” In a heart-wrenching reflection, he adds: “I wanted to tell somebody I wanted to be somebody.” The peace and release he ultimately finds are an apt denouement to his evolution.<br />
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<em>Down These Mean Streets</em> is a gritty, unflinching portrayal of one man’s decline and renascence. Piri Thomas’ rat-a-tat-tat dialogue injects a sensual immediacy that grabs the reader and doesn’t loosen up. The economical descriptions of the people, good and bad, who cross Piri’s path and fill his life are true-to-life. But the greatest treasures between the book covers are Thomas’ thoughtful, lyrical passages that underscore his renown as a poet. When Piri most doubts himself, when he most fervently fishes in his mind for answers to his fears, when he most reflects upon his learnings in prison—and his realization that, as he says, “Nothing is run the same, nothing stays the same. You can’t make yesterday come back today”—the author’s poetic words soar through the air and lend a gentle, almost spiritual layer to his book.<br />
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# # # #Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-52413291893370892282011-10-04T00:50:00.000-07:002011-10-04T00:50:03.914-07:00<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>PART II: The Evolution of American Latina/o Writing: Some Current Authors</strong></span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Part I of this topic reviewed the early years of Hispanic literature in the United States, starting with one of the first books published in English, a novel printed in 1872 by <span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Estrangelo Edessa"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Mar</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">í</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Estrangelo Edessa"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">a Amparo Ruiz de Burton, </span>writing under the pen name C. Loyal. I discussed recurrent themes in previous centuries and focused on the "Chicano literary renaissance" of the 1970's and 1980's. Part II carries us forward into the latter part of the 20th century and contemporary times.</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><em>This article was first published recently in Aurelia Flores' blog, "Powerful Latinas," under a different title and in a slightly different form. </em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some of the best-known Latina/o authors today got their publishing start in the 80’s, 90’s, and in the early 2000’s. Many of these literary stars graduated from university creative writing programs, which afforded them better access to publishers and other influential contacts in the writing industry. Examples are <strong>Denise Chavez,</strong> actress, playwright, and novelist; <strong>Sandra Cisneros</strong>, whom many consider the best-known American Latina author today, and author of the iconic <em>House on Mango Street</em>; <strong>Julia Alvarez,</strong> author of the best-selling <em>How the García Girls Lost Their Accents</em> (1991); and <strong>Oscar Hijuelos</strong>, the first American Hispanic, male or female, to win the coveted Pulitzer Prize for fiction, with his sexy novel based in Cuba, <em>The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love </em>(1990). The prequel to this bestseller, <em>Beautiful Maria of My Soul</em>, was published this year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some modern authors have become national best-selling authors in the recent past, and their stars are rising fast. This includes New York attorney <strong>Caridad Piñeiro</strong>, author of the SIN Series of compelling paranormal romance books, including <em>Sins of the Flesh</em>; <strong>Daniel Silva</strong>, writer of the five blockbuster political thrillers starring Gabriel Allon, such as <em>Prince of Fire</em>; and <strong>Junot Díaz</strong>, highly lauded author of the short story collection, <em>Drown</em> (1996) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, <em>The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</em> (2008).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Other prominent Latina/o authors today, as was sometimes the case with our early literary pioneers, are college and university professors and thus perhaps have a more steady access to publishers. Examples are <strong>James Diego Vigil</strong> (University of California, Irvine); <strong>Susana Chávez-Silverman</strong> (Pomona College, California); <strong>Teresa Dovalpage</strong> (University of New Mexico, Taos); <strong>Mike Padilla</strong> (UCLA); and <strong>Sandra Cisneros</strong> (Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX).</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><em><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">THE TALENT AND PRODUCTIVITY CONTINUE!</span></em></strong></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There must be a new Renaissance going on! Here are some of the exciting, highly talented American Latina/o authors today who are winning awards, winning fans, and making their marks on our literary world in different genres. (This list is by no means comprehensive, and I apologize for my omissions. I plan to continue learning about as many of our Latina/o authors as I can and share information about them in future blogs here.) Authors’ names are followed by only one title, which is meant to be a sampling of their work. Many of these authors have published multiple works. Some authors appear in more than one genre, a testament to the versatility of our Latina/o writers:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <strong>MEMOIRS: David Pérez,</strong> <em>WOW! A South Bronx Memoirito of Growing Up in Catholic Schools</em>; <strong>Randy Jurado Ertll,</strong> <em>Hope in Times of Darkness: A Salvadoran-American Experience</em>; <strong>Susana Chávez-Silverman,</strong> <em>Scenes from La Cuenca de Los Angeles</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <strong>“CHICK LIT”: Marta Acosta,</strong> <em>Casa Dracula</em> series; <strong>Margo Candela</strong>, <em>Life Over Easy</em>; <strong>Mike Padilla</strong>, <em>The Girls from the Revolutionary Cantina</em>; <strong>Victor Cass</strong>, <em>Telenovela</em>; <strong>Sofía Quintero</strong>, <em>Divas Don’t Yield</em>; <strong>Marisa de los Santos</strong>, <em>Love Walked</em> <em>In</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>• NOVELS: Montserrat Fontes</strong>, <em>Dreams of the Centaur</em>; <strong>Reyna Grande</strong>, <em>Across a Hundred Mountains</em>; <strong>Chuy Ramirez</strong>, <em>Strawberry Fields</em>; <strong>Teresa Dovalpage</strong>, <em>Habanera: A Portrait of a Cuban Family</em>; <strong>Daniel A. Olivas</strong>, <em>The Book of Want</em>; <strong>Victor Cass</strong>, <em>Love, Death, and Other War Stories</em>; <strong>Melinda Palacio</strong>, <em>Ocotillo Dreams</em>; <strong>Raul Ramos y Sánchez</strong>, <em>América Libre</em>; <strong>Ana Castillo</strong>, <em>The Guardians</em>; <strong>Sandra Cisneros</strong>, <em>Caramelo</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <strong>SHORT STORIES: Stephen D. Gutierrez</strong>, <em>Live from Fresno y Los</em>; <strong>Mike Padilla</strong>, <em>Hard Language</em>; <strong>Stella Pope Duarte</strong>, <em>Women Who Live in Coffee Shops and Other Stories</em>; <strong>Daniel A. Olivas</strong>, <em>Anywhere but L.A.;</em> <strong>Toni Margarita Plummer</strong>, <em>The Bolero of Andi Rowe</em>; <strong>Daniel Alarcón</strong>, <em>War by Candlelight</em>; <strong>Sandra Cisneros</strong>, <em>Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <strong>POETRY: Luis J. Rodriguez</strong>, <em>Poems Across the Pavement</em>; <strong>Vanessa Libertad Garcia</strong>, <em>The Voting Booth After Dark</em>; <strong>Ricardo Lira Acuña</strong>, <em>Greetings from Heaven and Hell</em>; <strong>Yago S. Cura</strong>, <em>The Rubber-room</em>; <strong>Melinda Palacio</strong>, <em>Folsom Lockdown</em>; <strong>Luivette Resto</strong>, <em>Unfinished Portrait.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">• <strong>NONFICTION: Roberta Martínez</strong>, <em>Latinos in Pasadena</em>; <strong>Manny Pacheco</strong>, <em>Forgotten Hollywood, Forgotten History;</em> <strong>Alex Moreno Areyan</strong>, <em>Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles;</em> <strong>Sandra Gutiérrez</strong>, <em>Teatro Chicana: A Collective Memoir and Selected Plays</em>; <strong>Laura Contreras Rowe</strong>, <em>Aim High: Extraordinary Stories of Hispanic & Latina Women</em>; <strong>Mayra Calvani, </strong><em>The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing; </em><strong>James Diego Vigil</strong>, <em>Barrio Gangs</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>• CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: Daniel A. Olivas</strong>, <em>Benjamin and the Word</em>; <strong>Rene Colato Lainez</strong>, <em>Rene Has Two Last Names</em>; <strong>Amada Irma Pérez</strong>, <em>My Very Own Room</em>; <strong>Meg Medina</strong>, <em>Tía Isa Wants a Car; </em><strong>Mayra Calvani, </strong><em>Frederico, the Mouse Violinist.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>• YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE: David Bueno-Hill</strong>, <em>Mr. Clean’s Familia</em>; <strong>Gary Soto</strong>, <em>Dreams of the Onion.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>• MISCELLANEOUS (Humor, Graphic Novels): Gustavo Arellano</strong>, <em>Ask a Mexican!;</em> <strong>Philip Victor,</strong> <em>Jaguar Spirit</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is just a sampling of what our Latina/o literary landscape looks like at this moment in time. You can learn much more about the evolution of Hispanic literature in the lands destined to become the United States, and in the early centuries of our nation, by reading <em>Reference Library of Hispanic America (Chapter 16, Literature): Volume III,</em> edited by <strong>Sonia G. Benson<em>.</em> </strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Also, please visit my other blog, “The Literary Self,” where you can read my reviews and feature articles about other authors not mentioned here. Finally, my own two books—<em>The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories</em> and <em>Breath & Bone</em>—are reviewed by others on my website, on amazon.com, and in various other blogs. See the links below, and thanks for dropping by!</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.thelmareyna.com/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">www.ThelmaReyna.com</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.latinowriterstoday.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">www.Latinowriterstoday.blogspot.com</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.theliteraryself.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">www.TheLiterarySelf.blogspot.com</span></a><br />
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</span>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-13617523860401291982011-09-27T00:24:00.000-07:002011-09-27T00:51:26.589-07:00<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A Brief Overview: The Evolution of Hispanic-American Literature in the United States</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana;">In this posting, PART I, I'll briefly discuss the writings of early Latinas/os in the United States. PART II, soon to come, discusses contemporary Latina/o authors in our nation and lists their works by genres, with a bit of background about them and/or their writing. Today, let's go back in time to our beginnings as American writers.</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">[These articles were first posted this month, with different titles, in the blog, "Powerful Latinas,"</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana;">hosted by Aurelia Flores. Visit her dynamic blog at <a href="http://www.powerfullatinas.com/">http://www.powerfullatinas.com/</a> .]</span><br />
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<div align="center"><strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">PART I: THE EARLY WRITINGS OF HISPANIC-AMERICANS</span></em></strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">In 1872, a Hispanic author from Southern California, <strong>María Amparo Ruiz de Burton</strong>, published one of the first English-language books written by a Latino, man or woman, in our nation, a novel titled <em>Who Would Have Thought It?</em> She followed this up in 1881 with another novel, <em>The Squatter and the Don</em>. She used a pseudonym, <strong>C. Loyal</strong>, and funded the publications herself.</div><strong><br />
</strong><div style="text-align: left;">Her books were inspired by the experiences of “Californios”—native Californians of Hispanic descent—at the hands of greedy, land-grabbing politicians, corrupt officials, and squatters intent on claiming lands from coast to coast under the “manifest destiny” policy. In fact, many of the early writings by our Hispanics, both before and soon after the lands became part of the United States of America, were imbued with political, social, and cultural concerns about the role and place of Latin peoples in the new America. </div><strong><br />
</strong><strong><em>LATINO/A WRITERS IN THE 20TH CENTURY</em></strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">The Mexican Revolution of 1910 triggered tremendous waves of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., including upper-class, well-educated people who played critical roles in publishing and thus helped create a Latino literature. Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary themes prevailed in the journalism and passionate writings of these newcomers, but the groundwork was being laid—through their political consciousness and outspoken defense of the Mexican culture amidst a different “Yankee” worldview—for the literary “awakening” of American Latinos in the 1960’s and beyond.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">And what an awakening it was! Many factors contributed to this “renaissance” among Latino writers: greater college attendance rates; a sense of belonging spurred by Latinos’ brave, heroic fighting in World War II, where Latinos earned more medals for bravery than any other American ethnic group or race; the young generation’s wide participation in the civil rights movements, including those for farm workers and women’s equality; and involvement in social protests, such as against the Vietnam War. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">New generations of Latinos, in other words, were better-educated and more aware of social issues that caused them to examine and question the Establishment. This newfound awareness and courage affected Latinos’ ability to simultaneously be part of the system and, through their marginalization by certain forces, to be alienated by the system.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><strong><em>THE GROUND-BREAKERS: PIONEER STARS</em></strong><br />
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</strong><div style="text-align: left;">So early publications by American Latinos were often in English, Spanglish, and Spanish, or any combination thereof. Themes centered on cultural disconnects, prejudice against Latinos, inequalities, suffering and loss. Affinity with the Mexican culture were prominent in a number of early Chicano writings, such as by the poets <strong>Abelardo Delgado</strong>, <strong>Alurista</strong>, <strong>Luis Valdez</strong>, and <strong>Rodolfo “Corky” González</strong>, author of the hugely popular epic poem, <em>“Yo Soy Joaquín/I Am Joaquín.” </em>Poets, in fact, were the rock stars of the early Chicano literary movement.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Other literary pioneers of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s were the novelist <strong>Tomás Rivera</strong>, the first national award-winner among Chicano authors; <strong>Rudolfo Anaya</strong>, author of the internationally-acclaimed <em>Bless Me, Ultima</em> (1972), which ranks as the most-read Chicano book of all time; <strong>Estella Portillo de Trambley</strong>, the first American Latina author to win a national award for her writing. Her book, <em>Rain of Scorpions</em> (1972) championed women’s rights and encouraged a new generation of American Latina writers. Estella was the first modern Latina author to gain prominence. Finally, <strong>Cherríe L. Moraga</strong>, poet and essayist, was one of the first avowed gay authors to gain prominence in Latino letters. She is best known for the now-classic, <em>Loving in the War Years</em> (1983).</div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">Three early pioneers in poetry are still active and popular today: <strong>Patricia “Pat” Mora</strong>, also an essayist and children’s book author who has won numerous awards for her work. Author of <em>Agua Santa: Holy Water</em> and countless other books, she ranks as one of the most distinguished, best-loved Latina poets in America today. Also, <strong>Ana Castillo</strong>, author of 11 books, writes short stories, essays, and novels in addition to her poetry. Finally, another outstanding, highly lauded poet is <strong>Gary Soto</strong>, who is likewise known for his children’s and young adults’ books. In 2000, he wrote his first adult novel, <em>Nickel and Dime</em>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The impact of all these early authors cannot be overstated. They broke the glass ceiling, paved the road, opened the door. Clichés cannot do justice to the contributions of these and many other Latino/a writers of these decades that laid a strong foundation for a wave of authors to come as the 20th century drew to a close. A number of these literary trail-blazers were honored in the recent past by having their early works re-issued by mainstream publishers. Examples are <strong>Oscar Zeta Acosta</strong>, of “Brown Buffalo” fame; <strong>Richard Vasquez</strong>, author of the seminal novel, <em>Chicano</em>; <strong>Piri Thomas</strong>, <strong>Nicholasa Mohr</strong>, and <strong>Victor Villaseñor</strong>, author of the highly lauded <em>Rain of Gold.</em></div><strong><em>* * * *</em><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Soon I will post <strong>PART II: SOME TOP CURRENT LATINA/O AMERICAN WRITERS. </strong>You'll meet talented, dynamic, engaging authors in all genres who are definitely enriching our American literary landscape. Stay tuned!</span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
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</div><div align="center"></div>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-31456957681559492482011-09-07T10:50:00.000-07:002011-09-07T10:50:29.821-07:00TWO EXCITING CALIFORNIA POETS TO KNOW, READ, AND HEAR!<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><em>“Welcome Back, Thelma, to Your Blog!”</em></strong></div>
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Funny. This is what a friend told me recently when I mentioned that, after months of focusing on other writings, marketing my two books, and taking care of other commitments and NOT writing this blog, I would be returning to it. “Welcome back!”<br />
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And I’m glad to be back. In the time I’ve been away, I’ve read a number of outstanding, inspiring, highly engaging books by Latinas and Latinos that I’ve got to tell you about. This literary treasure I’ve discovered, or rediscovered, includes writings in all genres: poetry, short stories, memoirs, and novels. The authors span the United States and write with humor, pathos, and insight. What a mother lode of excellence!<br />
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<strong>TWO OUTSTANDING CALIFORNIA POETS YOU SHOULD KNOW</strong></div>
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In today’s blog, I’m focusing on poetry and have chosen two Latinos whom I have seen at readings and with whom I’ve shared the stage. These poets read with total passion and bring their audiences energetically into their work.<br />
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<strong><em><u>Meet Ricardo Acuña: Cosmopolitan Poet from L.A.</u></em></strong><br />
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You can’t see Ricardo at a reading, or listen to Ricardo, or read Ricardo’s poetry without being deeply moved. He’s all body language, fire and thunder, and razor-sharp insight. He tells it like it is, like his hero, poet Charles Bukowski, did: unvarnished truth, dark secrets, deep despair, brilliant humanity, and an unflagging appreciation for each precious or precarious moment of life. Ricardo speaks of everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly; but his optimism wins out every time, or at least by the end of his books.<br />
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Highly educated, with two college degrees (Stanford University in California and Columbia University in New York), Ricardo is truly bi-coastal in formal training and cultural experience. He was, as he says in his bio, “born and raised dirt-poor in Nogales, Arizona.” But he rose above such hardscrabble beginnings, winning a scholarship to a prestigious prep school as a teenager, and later living and studying in Paris, France. His artistry extends to photography, and his books are enriched with his photos from all over the world. Ricardo is the most cosmopolitan poet I know.<br />
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Yet his life has been filled with challenges that are amply reflected in his poems. In his book, <em>Greetings from Heaven & Hell</em> (Pichin Publishing, 2009), he speaks of “day jobs to pay for that high-faluting education.” He recounts mundane jobs he’s held, including working for farm workers and teaching high school English. But he’s never lost sight of his mission in life: “[I] know for certain that the only thing I need to do in life is write (or if not, I will drop dead.)”<br />
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Ricardo’s poetry is passionate and fast-moving, as this stanza from “let’s not argue, love” shows:<br />
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let’s not argue</div>
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love</div>
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let’s not dig the trenches</div>
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that turn into oceans</div>
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that turn people into their own islands</div>
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that turn lovers into enemy nations</div>
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for God’s sake</div>
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let’s not argue</div>
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love</div>
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let us go to sleep now....</div>
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that we may dream a good dream</div>
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when we awake together</div>
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Ricardo’s poetry speaks to today’s times, such as in “temp work”:<br />
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i fill out their applications take</div>
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their tests answer their</div>
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questions i watch them stuff</div>
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their faces at their desks joke</div>
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about birthday cake complain</div>
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about leaving early and</div>
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it reminds me of</div>
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denver-dog-days when</div>
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desperation gnawed at my</div>
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skinny belly because </div>
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of another bitch and i</div>
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don’t even want their jobs anyhow sad</div>
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and meaningless their impersonal</div>
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pool their clammy hands and bloodsucking</div>
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smiles when all i want is a </div>
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job</div>
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He paints literary portraits of people who appear to be loved ones, and of family events, oftentimes poignant and heart-breaking, as when he describes his father’s death, or broken love, or misguided youth. His poems are haunting in their starkness and reality, their sensitivity and pathos, whether they capture a moment in time, or describe a cycle of loss. Ricardo’s heart and soul are on vivid display in both of his books: <em>Greetings from Heaven & Hell</em>; as well as <em>under the influence </em>(Pichin Publishing, 2007). <br />
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<strong>Ricardo Lira Acuña’s</strong> books are available through his website, <u>www.writeracuña.com </u><br />
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<strong><u><em>Meet Yago S. Cura: Soccer Fan & Poet Extraordinaire</em></u></strong><br />
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<strong>Yago Cura</strong> describes himself as an “American-Argentine poet, librarian, and futbol cretin.” Indeed, his poetry chapbook, <em>Bestias Inberbes</em> (Hinchas de Poesía Press, 2009), in which Yago is co-author with Abel Folgar, is a series of “odes” to soccer stars, such as Pelé, Thierry Henry, and Daniel Passarella. These poems are bursting with colorful language as Yago addresses each athlete directly, citing his flaws and glories, in words that are alternately intellectual and slangy, burbling with machismo and good humor. To Thierry, for example, Yago says: “My, how this ode about a goofy French kid with/sniper-dreams makes for a troublesome entretemps?/....You flopped around like a/ gangly Wahoo slurping oxygen through a coffee stirrer.”<br />
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Yago’s poetry book, <em>Rubberroom</em> (Hinchas de Poesía, 2006) is quite distinct in tone and theme. In this autobiographical work, Yago recounts the trials and tribulations of teaching hard-headed, troublemaking teens in a New York City public school. The book is illustrated by Carlos Folgar with amazing hilarity and appropriateness, though the cartoon art is a foil for the seriousness of the protagonist teacher’s plight. <br />
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The title Rubberroom refers to a stigmatized holding room for teachers who are being investigated for disciplinary purposes, who are still on the school’s payroll, but who are not allowed back into the classroom until the individual investigations are completed and the teacher is cleared of charges. As Yago explains in “Act III: Prologue,” “...they call it the Rubberroom/ because you get to bounce/ off the walls/ like a regular retard.”<br />
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The book describes in gritty language the events leading up to the teacher’s banishment into the Rubberroom. The students, it turns out, were, from the get-go, the proverbial wild bunch: “malcontents, parolees/ ...medicated for bipolarity, pícaros, spazzes, rufianos,/ those with O.C.D./ wards of the state, stoners, the anti-social/ godfathers, and the clique-indigent.” In another poem, “Animalitos [Little Animals],” Yago further describes the students thus:<br />
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Los animalitos are antsy</div>
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and restless; that is their charge.</div>
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They sit there brawling....</div>
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like feral geezers....</div>
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And if they so desire</div>
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to melee in the lunchroom</div>
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they turn the lunchroom out....</div>
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because their puny teeth</div>
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are always beginning</div>
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to show.</div>
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Things quickly decline for the beleaguered teacher, whom the kids deride as, “Teacher Lost His Shit!” He throws a desk at the board one day, and the desk nicks a nearby kid. Hence the teacher is relegated to the Rubberroom, where a motley crew of malcontent teachers, incompetents, and burnt out folks pass the time till their disciplinary cases are settled. In the poem “Taking Attendance,” Yago describes his compatriots in a litany of adjectives, powerful words that hammer home the dysfunction of disciplined teachers: “Martyrs nailed by their principals/...marijuaneros/ rageoids, deadbeats..../ loose-cannons; the grimy/ & remorselessly insubordinate/....dilettantes, debutantes,/ shovelers-of-shit....” It’s a sad scene indeed.<br />
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Without a spoiler alert, let me say that <em>Rubberroom</em> marches trenchantly to its conclusion, like a small play. Yago creates a very human, very frustrated, insightful Everyman in his teacher character. He sheds light on the plight of urban education in the big city, in areas of disadvantage and—most likely—inadequate parenting, inadequate resources. Yago also shows us how the grind of daily challenges eventually burns the spirit of young, eager teachers. We see the beginning, the middle, and the end of teaching careers through the various “detainees” in the infamous Rubberroom.<br />
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Yago’s books can be purchased through <u>www.amazon.com</u> . His website is <u>www.ycura.magcloud.com</u> .<br />
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Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-30041426580257781682010-11-28T13:53:00.000-08:002010-11-28T13:56:21.724-08:00<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>MEET MAYRA CALVANI:</strong></span><br />
<strong>AUTHOR, BLOGGER, & BOOK REVIEWER <em>EXTRAORDINAIRE</em>!</strong><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">One of the most exciting things that is happening in our American literary world today is the increasing numbers of Latina bloggers. Many of these bloggers are published authors who utilize their blogs as additional forums for their creativity. In addition to posting a new poem or article, writers often discuss their books and other works, their writing routines, their book tours or speaking engagement calendars, their reviews of other authors' literary creations, and generally take time to show themselves to their public as fully-rounded folks with many interests and passions in addition to writing: families and pets, authors they idolize, their travels far and wide, etc. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Through these increasingly sophisticated and numerous blogs, authors are continually rediscovering themselves and sharing these journeys with us. In the pre-internet era, learning about the backgrounds and personalities of authors whose books we read could be challenging. When we found such information, it was often dry and locked in cement, brief and accompanied by faded black and white photos. Now, Latina bloggers (and a goodly number of male Hispanic authors as well!) are putting recognizable, amiable, respectable human faces on their literary selves and showing us the people they are in engaging, dynamic, constantly updated ways. What a delight it is to know the human spirit behind the artistry!</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><strong><em> Mayra: A "Renaissance Woman" Among Writers</em></strong></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: small;">One of my favorites among this relatively new, evolving cadre of Latina writers is <strong>Mayra Calvani</strong>, a native of Puerto Rico and a longtime New Yorker. As I've read her blogs throughout this year and kept up with her publications, I've come to regard Mayra as the epitome of a “Renaissance Woman” regarding writing. When you think of a versatile writer, you might imagine someone who writes poems as well as novels. Or someone who creates dramas as well as short stories. And so on. Mayra goes beyond this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">She’s been writing since the age of 12, when she began creating paranormal stories. She majored in Creative Writing in college, where her passion for writing solidified, but she never limited herself to one genre of writing. In fact, as she has evolved as an author, so has her predilection for publishing in different genres. She has written "literary" (as opposed to "commercial") short stories; parody/satire, as exemplified by her novel, <em>Sunstruck</em>; paranormal vampire fiction, represented by her novel, <em>Embraced by the Shadows</em>; nonfiction, focusing on book reviews and culminating in the recent award-winning book, <em>The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing</em>, which Mayra co-authored; and 6 children’s books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Mayra is most enamored of children’s literature, which she describes thus: “I love writing for children. It’s like walking on a rainbow. A world of color where I can exaggerate and let my imagination run totally wild.” Her latest child’s book is <em>Frederico, the Mouse Violinist</em>, to be published this fall. She has six children’s books scheduled for publication in 2011-2012! Mayra is also working on a young adult novel and is halfway finished.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Writing books in multiple genres is challenging enough for any author, and one might think that this keeps Mayra too busy for anything else. Not so. </span><span style="font-size: small;">She has written <em><u>over 300 book reviews, author interviews, and articles</u></em> in the past decade, publishing these in print media as well as online. She reviews for <em>The New York Journal of Books</em>, the <em>National Latino Books Examiner</em>, SimplyCharly.com, and <em>Blogcritics Magazine</em>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">In addition, Mayra maintains her two author websites and writes four blogs (addresses are below). She </span><span style="font-size: small;">says: “It’s fun switching from one genre to another depending on my mood. I love it.” A lifelong high achiever, Mayra also speaks four languages: English and Spanish, of course, plus French and some Turkish. She lived in Turkey for a while and is now based in Belgium.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Visit Mayra’s websites at <a href="http://www.mayracalvani.com/">http://www.mayracalvani.com/</a> , <a href="http://www.mayrassecretbookcase.com/">http://www.mayrassecretbookcase.com/</a> . Her blogs include <a href="http://www.mayra’ssecretbookcase.blogspot.com/">http://www.mayra’ssecretbookcase.blogspot.com/</a> , <a href="http://www.thedarkphantom.com/">http://www.thedarkphantom.com/</a> , and <a href="http://www.violinandbooks.wordpress.com/">http://www.violinandbooks.wordpress.com/</a> . Her book reviews appear most often in <a href="http://www.examiner.com/latino-books-in-national/mayra-calvani">www.examiner.com/latino-books-in-national/mayra-calvani</a> . Please drop by her sites and leave her your comments. It will be time well-spent for you!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">In future posts here, I'll discuss other bloggers, male and female. Also, keep your eyes out for my upcoming book review of Mike Padilla's rousing, humorous, big-hearted novel, <em>The Girls from the Revolutionary Cantina. </em>Take care, check out all these authors' wonderful work, and make literature an eternal part of your and your families' lives!</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"># # # #</span></div>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-19031018868826551432010-11-23T01:15:00.000-08:002010-11-23T01:38:30.035-08:00<strong><span style="font-size: large;">CATCHING UP WITH OUTSTANDING AUTHORS WHO ARE MAKING US PROUD!</span></strong><br />
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So much has happened since my last posting. Here are two literary events in which I was honored to participate with fellow authors I've known or recently met. I am always filled with pride and delight when I meet new authors or get to reconnect with literary friends. In these past two events, I did both.<br />
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<div align="center"><strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">PALABRA Literary Magazine:</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">Reading in Los Angeles, October 23</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="left">Talented author and editor, <strong>Elena Minor, </strong>introduced Issue 6 of her prestigious publication, <em>PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano & Literary Art, 2010. </em>It is packed with poems and stories by 25 Latino authors, including myself and three poets who attended the reading at the REDCAT Lounge at the Walt Disney performing arts complex. At the reading, the poets held us spellbound with their dramatic, heartfelt readings of their poems published in this issue. The talented group were:</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Manuel Paul Lopez</strong>, author of <em>Death of a Mexican and Other Poems. </em>A secondary school teacher and resident of San Diego, CA, Manuel's poems in the magazine are "Brother, Sister," "The Hay Bales," and "How to Live with Rudy."</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Yago S. Cura, </strong>co-author of the book, <em>Odas a Futbolistas (Odes to Soccer Players); </em>and co-editor of the online literary journal, <em>Hinchas de poesia. </em>His poems have appeared in various prominent literary journals, including <em>Borderlands, The New Orleans Review, </em>and <em>U.S. Latino Review.</em> The poems that were published in <em>PALABRA</em> are "Los Namers" and "Angelinos."</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Ricardo Lira Acuna, </strong>author of two books of poetry and photography: <em>Under the Influence; </em>and <em>Greetings from Heaven and Hell. </em>A graduate of Stanford and Columbia Universities, Ricardo plans to publish his first novel, <em>Prodigal Son, </em>in the near future. His poem in PALABRA is "Narrow is the Gate."</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left">I was the fourth reader at this event. I read my short story, "Paris," which will also be included in my second book of short stories, recently completed and aimed for publication in 2011. "Paris" is set entirely in my hometown of Pasadena, CA, and takes place in one day, from morning till night, with what some have called a surprise ending. </div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left">All in all, this was a successful event for us all, and I was pleased to meet three more poets. Poets enrich my life...everyone's life! <em>PALABRA Magazine</em> can be ordered online at its website: <a href="http://www.palabralitmag.com/">http://www.palabralitmag.com/</a> .</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">Pasadena Latino Authors:</span></em></strong></div><div align="center"><strong><em><span style="font-size: large;">Social Mixer & Panel Discussion--Pasadena, CA</span></em></strong></div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left">On November 10, six Latino authors held their first communal public event. Many attendees felt this was a "historic" event for the city, since, to our knowledge, a contingent of six published Latino authors is a first for Pasadena. All the authors, born and raised in the United States, write in English; and five have published at least one book. Collectively, these authors have over 60 years of publication experience. All the authors are also community leaders, holding positions of leadership in Pasadena civic organizations, including city commissions, a city governmental agency, and local non-profits. In addition, the group of authors represents at least three different generations and five different literary genre. The authors are:</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Randy Jurado Ertll</strong>, author of the memoir, <em>Hope in Times of Darkness: A Salvadoran-American Experience. </em>Randy is Executive Director of El Centro de Accion Social, a prominent Latino advocacy group. Randy's book has been praised by prominent civic leaders and numerous book reviewers and other authors. His book has been reviewed on this blog as well.</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Victor Cass, </strong>author of three books: <em>Pasadena Police Department: A Photohistory, 1877-2000, </em>a nonfiction book<em>; Love, Death, and Other War Stories, </em>his first novel; and <em>Telenovela</em>, his second novel. Victor's third book has also been reviewed on this blog. Victor's academic articles, columns, and opinion essays have appeared in a historical journal and in regional print media for over a decade. He has recently completed a fourth book and plans to publish it in 2011. He is a Pasadena police officer and loves his city: all his books are set in Pasadena.</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Manuel Contreras</strong>, archivist and journalist/editor, who has devoted 20 years to compiling a history of Pasadena via newsletters, advertisements, articles, and other ephemera that trace the city's social evolution since the 1930's. An octogenarian, Manny's historical collections are housed in the Pasadena Central Library, where they serve as reference for many people, young and old. Manny is a former City Commissioner.</div><div align="left"> --<strong>Sandra Gutierrez, </strong>author and co-editor of the award-winning book, <em>Teatro Chicana: A Collective Memoir & Selected Plays. </em>Sandra's book has been used in university and high school classes throughout the United States since its publication in 2008. She and her co-editors, <strong>Laura E. Garcia </strong>and <strong>Felicitas Nunez</strong>, are often in demand as speakers regarding the historic Chicano feminist awakening that their book details. Sandra is active in various civic organizations, including Adelante Mujer Latina.<br />
--<strong>Roberta Martinez, </strong>author of <em>Images of America: Latinos in Pasadena. </em>This book has also been reviewed on this blog. Through carefully selected archived and personal-collection photographs and meticulous narration, Roberta captures the contributions that Latinas and Latinos made to the development of Pasadena. An independent historian, Roberta contributed significantly to the greater understanding of California history in general with her book. She is the Director of Latino Heritage in Pasadena and is also a City Commissioner.<br />
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I was the sixth Pasadena author at this event. My book, <em>The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories, </em>was named a Finalist in the 2010 National Best Books Award by USA Book News. My writing has been published off and on since 1972 in literary journals, textbooks, anthologies, blogs, and regional print media. I also serve as a City Commissioner and Executive Board Member of One Community Think Tank in Pasadena.<br />
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The Pasadena Author event was attended by approximately 60 people: young and old, people of various cultural backgrounds, and also by community VIP's. Stay tuned for follow-up events! All the books by these authors are available through amazon.com and other booksellers.<br />
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<div align="center"># # # #</div><br />
</div><div align="center"></div>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-72323909401706023412010-10-24T22:34:00.000-07:002010-10-28T10:26:03.342-07:00<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">LITERARY FESTIVALS: </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: large;">GETTING OUT AND ABOUT AMONG </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: large;">MY FELLOW LATINA/O AUTHORS!</span></strong></div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">October has been a literary feast for me and for many of my friends and colleagues who also happen to be authors. Here's the lineup of places I've been this month, plus some writers with whom I had the pleasure of appearing and who were great to talk to:</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> <strong><u>OCTOBER 2: DUARTE (CA) FESTIVAL OF AUTHORS</u></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Set in a beautiful senior residential complex, we were among tall pine trees, winding paths, and green patches of grass that define the parklike boundaries of the complex. Approximately 75 authors participated, but only about 7 are Hispanic. Two of us--my son, <strong>Victor Cass</strong>, and I--spoke on a panel. Our topic was "Mystery and Fiction." </div><br />
The following Latinos were participants in this well-regarded festival:<br />
<ul><li><strong><u>Alex Moreno Areyan</u>, </strong>author of <em>Images of America: Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles </em>(Arcadia Publishing, 2010): Through hundreds of archival photos and meticulous narrative, the book chronicles 100 years of contributions by Mexican-Americans to the development of L.A., including iconic U.S. Congressman Edward R. Roybal. Alex also participated in the prestigious 13th Annual Los Angeles Latino Book & Family Festival (see below).</li>
<li><strong><u>Victor Cass</u>, </strong>author of <em>Telenovela </em>(Outskirts Press, 2009); <em>Love, Death, & Other War Stories </em>(iUniverse, 2005); and <em>Pasadena Police Department: A Photohistory, 1877-2000 </em>(Herff-Jones, 2000): Victor's newest book, <em>Telenovela</em>, is a fast-paced, engrossing romantic comedy/drama in which two beautiful daughters of immigrants form a deep friendship that withstands romantic troubles with a mutual love interest.</li>
<li><strong><u>Randy Jurado Ertll</u>, </strong>author of the memoir, <em>Hope in Times of Darkness: A Salvadoran-American's Experience </em>(Hamilton Books, 2009): Randy's book details his hardships in violence-torn El Salvador and his rise to a better life when he emigrated to America as an adolescent, though he first had to survive life in a gang-torn section of Los Angeles. His journey is filled with political insights and courage.</li>
<li><strong><u>Vanessa Libertad Garcia</u>, </strong>author of <em>The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive </em>(Fiat Libertad Co., 2009): Vanessa's book details the angst of young, gay Latinas and Latinos in Los Angeles against the backdrop of the 2008 American presidential election campaign. She alternates between poetry and prose vignettes to capture her characters' desperation, romantic interludes, and realizations about life.</li>
<li><strong><u>Roberta Martinez</u>, </strong>author of <em>Images of America: Latinos in Pasadena </em>(Arcadia Publishing, 2009): From the early unheralded pioneers, men and women, who helped found Pasadena, to the various leaders and community activists who helped shape Pasadena into the world-class city it is today, Roberta teaches us some modern history that is often ignored in local classrooms.</li>
<li><strong><u>Philip Victor</u> </strong>(Philip Victor Colon), author of <em>Jaguar Spirit </em>; <em>Soul Assassin; </em>and other graphic novels<em> </em>(Aerosol Press: 2004, for these two): A Puerto-Rican American writer from East L.A., Philip is an award-winning comic book writer who also produces and publishes his novels. His creations are based on Mayan mythology, are bilingual, and are appropriate for readers of all ages.</li>
</ul><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I'm the seventh Latino author at the Duarte Festival. My book, <em>The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories </em>(Outskirts Press, 2009), has been positively reviewed by various Latina/o authors. It is a compilation of 12 short stories set mostly in Texas, California, and Chicago. You can learn more about it on my author website at <a href="http://www.thelmareyna.com/">http://www.thelmareyna.com/</a>, which includes its title story in its entirety, as well as samples of my other publications.</div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSvyFptHVzfJIgm1DdEixteRJEhoLt2gaLSStf0k2qydmXTepEYgRfJW4N5yDXwwPMCNd7D01W29nDSCxMKBlUM1YopCmC1RzLpbfkf2sdjdcvU6TFEJiXBntMCVNMzG1ecmtQ/s1600/277.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSvyFptHVzfJIgm1DdEixteRJEhoLt2gaLSStf0k2qydmXTepEYgRfJW4N5yDXwwPMCNd7D01W29nDSCxMKBlUM1YopCmC1RzLpbfkf2sdjdcvU6TFEJiXBntMCVNMzG1ecmtQ/s200/277.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Victor Cass</strong></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53K83yhrmK8L8IqO0Khnx68I1G7raIzgKdNyVsVyYUfXK6guwRp9rfYjc4rQPjK4TIvzXsPDT8ld-EUOWeZHOH82N4F_jKj6_RcD7mMuCPMoBHJEW6LXRXYVjnJaLArR4so2R/s1600/269.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53K83yhrmK8L8IqO0Khnx68I1G7raIzgKdNyVsVyYUfXK6guwRp9rfYjc4rQPjK4TIvzXsPDT8ld-EUOWeZHOH82N4F_jKj6_RcD7mMuCPMoBHJEW6LXRXYVjnJaLArR4so2R/s200/269.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Vanessa Libertad Garcia</strong><br />
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Below: <strong>Randy Ertll & Roberta Martinez</strong> (l-r)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdm_g8Y8s44FbnPMh53Wf05jl04ogCHCvNeWQwODrCUwCoGSHkxa2MxAdnIi-gVkEFlu2RMMXv-y5JSdIsFGbnyS7DcPeJLE1hOqdpFeadnNpcRZxDPSjZkREC1AVJBx0LHRW/s1600/279.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdm_g8Y8s44FbnPMh53Wf05jl04ogCHCvNeWQwODrCUwCoGSHkxa2MxAdnIi-gVkEFlu2RMMXv-y5JSdIsFGbnyS7DcPeJLE1hOqdpFeadnNpcRZxDPSjZkREC1AVJBx0LHRW/s200/279.JPG" width="200" /></a></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong> <u>LOS ANGELES LATINO BOOK & FAMILY FESTIVAL</u></strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div> On the weekend of October 9 & 10, the campus of California State University, Los Angeles, became the stage for the largest gathering of Latina/o published authors in the history of the United States. Over 120 authors from all over America came together to serve on panel discussions, solo presentations, and booth displays of their books. Previously described on this site, the festival was a huge success with strongly established pioneer Hispanic authors, emerging writers, and everyone in between sharing their collective experiences and creativity with thousands of attendees that represented the spectrum of multicultural, multigenerational America. There were readings, signings, and Q&A's galore! Indeed, this was the literary feast of the year. <br />
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</div> Here are some photos of participating authors: <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8I6aRE1Qd7Pd6NZCsLs3fPvRNvPXQ1bANGMuCItQGz4PlLXZOQl8RULWQDnLQBRr2y6nwF_w5s0fXDQRx4CJhws9b8fEM8VaSejpYESBF01xOftYhesveEZYs8gcQ3JG9QhO8/s1600/005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8I6aRE1Qd7Pd6NZCsLs3fPvRNvPXQ1bANGMuCItQGz4PlLXZOQl8RULWQDnLQBRr2y6nwF_w5s0fXDQRx4CJhws9b8fEM8VaSejpYESBF01xOftYhesveEZYs8gcQ3JG9QhO8/s200/005.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Working hard and having fun!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ48LiyX_TLHL2MEzW67DEbqGKuyxqn6MHq1n139GWCZtyuCdanTnMlsvBi5u_KoMR8RGPINApSxB-4i8VfTkw2J9ZqQKipa61USkW_ry8v4HwBJuGWv2RgrQAh7zO9maRVweQ/s1600/017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ48LiyX_TLHL2MEzW67DEbqGKuyxqn6MHq1n139GWCZtyuCdanTnMlsvBi5u_KoMR8RGPINApSxB-4i8VfTkw2J9ZqQKipa61USkW_ry8v4HwBJuGWv2RgrQAh7zO9maRVweQ/s200/017.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Award-winning nonfiction author,<br />
<strong>Laura Contreras-Rowe</strong> (r)</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrydd87DJqIK-pfzpAXI6gEQfJbSfdyyFwSTNKdTXdf3xGwMu3eo2AfvB7pWfWKpPF3rYiY3beBovjg0NpqtpARm9h4mqFzkYa99GTPuS9ODnFBAHSIaWBlQ1Y4pAaEhKxOTit/s1600/022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrydd87DJqIK-pfzpAXI6gEQfJbSfdyyFwSTNKdTXdf3xGwMu3eo2AfvB7pWfWKpPF3rYiY3beBovjg0NpqtpARm9h4mqFzkYa99GTPuS9ODnFBAHSIaWBlQ1Y4pAaEhKxOTit/s320/022.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">I served as moderator on a panel with the following<br />
engaging authors, from l-r: <br />
<strong>David Bueno-Hill, Vanessa Libertad Garcia, </strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong>Manny Pacheco, & Ed Rodriguez</strong> </div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmIZaJb7HLQZutLlbk58GC1Wf0k-z1EuUxBeFlrpN-fk7-3Q2b1uDq9LNUBvbSHgUnmkIIca1ksQlz8XgRbKf_zhFWtp2yntdT5lngdcbH88JYU4se1AcnsdClTYc39iXjHPCb/s1600/012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmIZaJb7HLQZutLlbk58GC1Wf0k-z1EuUxBeFlrpN-fk7-3Q2b1uDq9LNUBvbSHgUnmkIIca1ksQlz8XgRbKf_zhFWtp2yntdT5lngdcbH88JYU4se1AcnsdClTYc39iXjHPCb/s320/012.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I felt very honored to meet <strong>Chuy Ramirez, </strong>Texas author of <em>Strawberry Fields, </em><br />
a very thoughtful, poignant novel about a family of migrant workers<br />
whose children rise above their poverty and come to understand<br />
the dichotomies of their bi-cultural world.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiwJFQGZq_2fbOaYmYu2gW6kKVYrfGUtH2FrhYhxQCPCV1dGdGLUVSD_WMB3ig2sDEAFfdYiJerH8TpLkuCdsW9UUpkphJ3SOilcbowvfGnvmUEmyovS24pLkZkgDb-ZNIzR_Q/s1600/Teatro+Chicana+authors+&+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiwJFQGZq_2fbOaYmYu2gW6kKVYrfGUtH2FrhYhxQCPCV1dGdGLUVSD_WMB3ig2sDEAFfdYiJerH8TpLkuCdsW9UUpkphJ3SOilcbowvfGnvmUEmyovS24pLkZkgDb-ZNIzR_Q/s320/Teatro+Chicana+authors+&+me.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Here are the wonderful women of <em>Teatro Chicana:</em><br />
<em>A Collective Memoir & Selected Plays--</em><br />
(l-r) <strong>Felicitas Nunez, Delia Rodriguez, &</strong><br />
<strong>Laura Garcia </strong>with me, their fan!<br />
(Felicitas, Laura, & <strong>Sandra Gutierrez</strong>, not shown,<br />
were the editors of the book.)<br />
* * *</td></tr>
</tbody></table>One of the highlights of this year's Latino Books & Family Festival was the presentation of the First Annual "Latino Books into Movies Awards," an exciting new venture. Two or three books were chosen in several different movie categories (Action & Adventure; Animation; Comedy; Documentary; Drama; Kids & Family; Romantic Comedy; and Suspense & Mystery). Professionals in the entertainment industry served as judges and selected winners and runners-up. Click here to read all about it: <a href="http://www.box.net/shared/avl3g1fhpx#/shared/avl3g1fhpx/1/53508294/522850838/1">http://www.box.net/shared/avl3g1fhpx#/shared/avl3g1fhpx/1/53508294/522850838/1</a><br />
Congratulations to these authors whose works we may someday see on the "big screen."<br />
<br />
All in all, these two author festivals gave our Southern California community ample exposure to some of the greatest literary talents in Latino literature today. I was humbled and honored to have been included in their company and came away inspired and motivated to learn more about my colleagues. Kudos to author <strong><u>Reyna Grande</u></strong> and to Cal State LA Professor <strong><u>Roberto Cantu, Ph.D., </u></strong>for their leadership in organizing and staging the Latino Book & Family Festival, with the collaboration and support of their outstanding team of volunteers, including Latino Literacy leader, <strong><u>Jim Sullivan</u>.</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-79569795225559079482010-09-28T14:47:00.000-07:002010-09-28T16:15:37.952-07:00<strong><span style="font-size: large;">THE LARGEST GATHERING OF LATINA/O PUBLISHED AUTHORS IN OUR NATION'S HISTORY!</span></strong><br />
<br />
We Latino authors are so fortunate to live in Southern California. Other than the remarkable weather, access to culture, wonderful population diversity, forward-thinking mindset, artistic ambience, etc. etc. that Californians usually rave about, there is one even more important reason to celebrate California:<br />
<br />
<strong><em>American literary history will be made in Los Angeles on the weekend of October 9 and 10, 2010, at the 13th Annual Latino Book & Family Festival (LBFF).</em></strong><br />
<br />
Why? More than 130 of us Latina/o published authors will come together at this event to present workshops and panel discussions, do book readings and signings, and dialogue with readers and fans. This is one of the largest literary festivals in America, but definitely the one with the largest contingent of Hispanic authors. <br />
<br />
This public event is free and highly popular with mult-cultural and multi-generational audiences growing in number each year. It will be held at California State University, Los Angeles. Though a large number of the Festival's writers live and work in California, several are coming from other parts of our country, such as two Texans--<strong>Chuy Ramirez</strong>, whose new book was recently reviewed on this site; and <strong>Daniel Chacon, </strong>a lauded fiction writer who teaches at the University of Texas, El Paso--and a novelist and short fiction writer from Arizona, <strong>Stella Pope Duarte</strong>. <br />
<br />
<strong><u>Great Diversity of Publications</u></strong><br />
<br />
The Festival authors represent the spectrum of genres in literature: novels and novellas, short stories, poetry, drama, screenplays, children's literature, young adult literature, memoirs, essays and other nonfiction, graphic novels (comic books), scholarly writing, and so on. Many of the Festival's writers are prize-winning authors, such as: <br />
<ul><li>the Festival's Director, novelist <strong>Reyna Grande </strong></li>
<li>novelist <strong>Montserrat Fontes</strong> </li>
<li>Pulitzer-Prize finalist <strong>Sonia Nazario</strong> </li>
<li>emerging historian and longtime radio personality, <strong>Manny Pacheco</strong></li>
<li>poet and fiction writer, <strong>Melinda Palacio</strong></li>
<li><em>New York Times </em>best-selling "chick lit" author, <strong>Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez.</strong></li>
</ul>Many more award-winning writers will be present at the festival, including established, renowned authors such as <strong>Daniel Olivas</strong>; and emerging young adult literature author, <strong>Sandra Lopez. </strong>You'll learn more about this exciting pool of talent at the Festival. Read on....<br />
<br />
<strong><u>Some Latino Literary Icons: Luis Rodriguez & Victor Villasenor</u></strong><br />
<br />
One of the early modern Latino writers in our country, author of 14 books and countless other writings--including fiction, poetry, and nonfiction--<strong>Luis Rodriguez'</strong> astounding literary career has spanned over 30 years. He has published in every major genre, and has conducted countless workshops and book talks in venues spanning academic settings, community settings, prisons, and Native American reservations. Luis is perhaps best known for his 1993 memoir, <em>Always Running: La Vida Loca</em>, which has sold more than 300,000 copies; has won numerous awards, including the Carl Sandburg Literary Award; has been adapted into plays performed across America; and was performed for two years as a play at Los Angeles' famed Mark Taper Forum.<br />
<br />
Luis' website (<a href="http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/bio">http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/bio</a>) details the many media appearances he has made, including appearances on PBS and the Oprah Winfrey Show. He has been interviewed and his works have been reviewed by major media, including the <em>New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Entertainment Weekly, LA Magazine, </em>and <em>La Opinion. </em>Luis is often considered one of the leading Chicano writers in the United States today.<br />
<br />
Another literary icon who will be present at the LBFF next month is <strong>Victor Villasenor</strong>, best-selling, Pulitzer-Prize nominated author of <em>Burro Genius. </em>Victor's highly-acclaimed <em>Rain of Gold</em>, a book inspired by his family that took him 16 years to research and write, will be part of an HBO mini-series scheduled for filming in Spring 2011. His website (<a href="http://www.victorvillasenor.com/">http://www.victorvillasenor.com/</a> ) also talks of his "nine novels, 65 short stories, and 265 rejections" prior to selling his first novel, <em>Macho!</em>, which has been compared to the writing of Nobel-Prize winning American author, John Steinbeck. <br />
<br />
Victor's long literary career has been an inspiration to many generations of Mexican-Americans and others. His works are studied in schools across America, and he was featured as an "American Latino TV Hero" in May 2010. In addition to his novels, Victor has written short stories, nonfiction, and the screenplay for "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez," which starred <strong>Edward James Olmos. </strong><br />
<br />
<strong><u>The Authors in Action: Workshops and Panel Discussions</u></strong><br />
<br />
On Saturday, October 9, panel discussions (with almost all of them having 5-6 authors) will begin at 11 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. Then, on Sunday, October 10, the same timeframe will be followed, with these panel presentations lasting one hour each. In almost every time slot, four panels will be going on simultaneously in different rooms of Salazar Hall on the campus. See the website for a map of the Festival's location.<br />
<br />
The weekend will be filled with literary fun and enlightenment, with a total of 53 presentations scheduled. The audiences will have the opportunity to ask questions of the authors and engage in discussions of their work. Topics of panel discussions range from children's literature, poetry, filmmaking, self-help, short stories, novels, getting literary agents, self-publishing, to history of folklorico dancing and cartoon books. It's a buffet of literary delights!<br />
<br />
When we aren't presenting, many of us authors will be available on the festival grounds at our own booths to sell and autograph our books and chat with fans. What a great opportunity to meet your favorite authors or to meet new ones to expand your horizons!<br />
<br />
<strong><u>More Information at the Website</u></strong><br />
<br />
Go to the festival's website at <a href="http://www.lbff.us/">http://www.lbff.us/</a> to see photos of last year's festival, photos of this year's author participants, bios of these writers, their websites, and the schedule of the panel presentations. See you at this historic festival!Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-23977986937811413962010-09-16T03:14:00.000-07:002010-09-16T03:41:24.846-07:00<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;"><u>BOOK REVIEW</u></span></strong>: <strong><em>STRAWBERRY FIELDS</em></strong></span><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">A DEBUT NOVEL BY CHUY RAMIREZ</span></strong><br />
<br />
<em>One of my goals in this blog is to bring attention to the writings of emerging Latina/o authors. In today's blog, I am reviewing the newly-released book by Texan author, <strong>Chuy Ramirez. </strong>According to fellow blogger, <strong>Maria Ferrer</strong>, whom I will highlight in an upcoming blog in the near future, Chuy is presently hard at work on his next literary project, a novella about the relationship between a terminally-ill woman and her attorney as they make final preparations for her death. Enjoy the review, and check out this gem of a debut book!</em><br />
<br />
<em> * * * * *</em><br />
<br />
<strong>CHUY RAMIREZ</strong>, a Texas attorney and emerging Latino writer, devoted 10 years writing part-time to create his debut novel, <em>Strawberry Fields</em> (First Texas Publishers, 2010). What he has as a reward for his decade of effort is a marvelous, engaging, poignant book that strongly heralds him as a writer to watch.<br />
<br />
Ramirez centers his book on Joaquin, who is the anthithesis of another Joaquin of Latino literary fame, the Joaquin in Chicano pioneer author <strong>Corky Gonzalez</strong>’ epic poem, “I Am Joaquin/Yo Soy Joaquin” (1964). Whereas the latter Joaquin railed against the oppression of Chicanos by Anglos and asserted his Mexican ethnic pride, Ramirez’ Joaquin, an American-born child of the 1960’s, feels strong ambivalence about his Mexican heritage. Strawberry Fields is as much an examination of a bi-cultural person’s inner struggles regarding ancestral and adopted homelands as it is of this particular character’s coming of age in America.<br />
<br />
The book covers several decades of Joaquin’s life. We see him as a young boy trying to navigate the temptations and mischiefs of childhood under his mother Manda’s caring, watchful eyes and his father’s stern stare. We see him as an adolescent with years of experience under his belt as a migrant farm worker, traveling with his mother and siblings in caravans of trucks through the Midwest and other states with crops to harvest. We see him in adulthood as a successful attorney in Texas, his home state, haunted by recurring dreams connected to his adolescence and the strawberry fields of Decatur, Illinois. These fields thus become symbolic on many levels: symbolic of Joaquin’s family struggles with poverty and his disaffection with his lot in life; symbolic of the carefree childhood moments he salvaged in the migrant camps when he and his brother could savor moments of freedom and exploration; symbolic of his eventual rejection of his cultural roots and thus, of his father.<br />
<br />
Throughout Joaquin’s life, his father, Benancio, looms as a figure that puzzles him, chastises him, and stirs elemental struggles between them involving love and hate, and culture clashes that cut to the bone. Benancio is a proud Mexican, his hubris and stubbornness turning him into a disapproving parent who beats his children for mild transgressions, who calls them derogatory names, and who can never be pleased. As a major antagonist in the book, Benancio represents to his sons the backwardness of a country and a culture they cannot embrace, as their father wants them to do. Their rejection of his culture, of his beloved Mexico, is ultimately their rejection of him, from which the unflinching Benancio can never recover, and for which he can never forgive them. He abandons his family, leaving them to wonder for most of their lives where he went and why he couldn’t love them.<br />
<br />
Besides his father, the key figures in Joaquin’s life are his mother Manda and his two siblings: Bennie, his younger brother; and his sister, who is simply called “Sis” in the book. Manda is a strong, patient woman born in America but closely attached to immigrants through her family’s business. She is attracted to the tall, taciturn, handsome Benancio, whom she meets while at work one day and eventually decides to marry. Despite her children’s conflicts with their father, and his seeming lack of tenderness toward her, Manda is devoted to Benancio, even after he abandons his family. As the matriarchal touchstone, Manda is defined by the extreme sacrifices she makes for her children in the name of progress, their progress, their future. Her gentleness and understanding are but an undertone throughout the book; but toward the end, we realize the extent of her sacrifices for her beloved family.<br />
<br />
Bennie, who is very close to Joaquin, grows up to become a school principal, a man with a vivid memory that serves as Joaquin’s link to his past. The studious Sis, sheltered from the hardships of the migrant life once she reaches adolescence, is largely in the background but serves as a stabilizing voice of reason and neutrality. She becomes a teacher and, in her adulthood, reminisces with her brothers about their father’s whereabouts and their checkered family history. <br />
<br />
The book shifts continually between the present and the past, taking us from Joaquin’s struggles as an adult, to those of his childhood, to those he survived as a teenager, and so on in loops and flashbacks that keep the book non-linear throughout. Dreams and nightmares are strategically interwoven into key interludes, so that the reader’s curiosity is piqued, and the pace of the narrative is kept brisk and exhilarating. As the book marches toward its climax, the chapters are even more non-linear, with scenes alternating between the past and present more rapidly as Joaquin gains clarity and insights about his experiences in the strawberry fields and about his identity as a man and as a son. <br />
<br />
A compelling sub-plot involves a beautiful, blonde girl of mixed heritage named Belinda who, early in the book, has disappeared. She then is absent for a good portion of the book until the adolescent Joaquin and his family are preparing to travel to the Midwest for harvesting. Joaquin sees her from a distance in one of the migrant workers’ groups and develops a crush on her, but his memory of her fades with time. We catch glimpses of Belinda throughout the book, but these are surrealistic scenes, chopped up and fuzzy, as incomplete memories can appear to be in reality. When the adult Joaquin is haunted by dreams of Belinda, which depict her with bloody wounds and missing eyes, he fears that he is somehow connected to her disappearance, and this may be why his mind has blocked out recollections of her.<br />
<br />
But this is another piece of the puzzle that Joaquin must solve. Belinda’s fate, on a subconscious level, is another reason that the adult Joaquin journeys from his home in Texas to the strawberry fields of Illinois, to revisit them, to seek something that even he is unaware of. In the final chapters of the book, with the strawberry fields drastically changed 30 years after he worked them, and the migrant workers’ camp by the fields totally gone, Joaquin can only rely on his faint memories, his emotions, his dreams, and the present scenes that repel him to derive meaning from his experiences. <em>What happened to Belinda? Why did his father abandon him? </em>Two burning questions—distinct from one another but critical to understanding who he, Joaquin, is—come together upon his revisitation of the strawberry fields. In a climactic epiphany, Joaquin discovers the answers to both questions.<br />
<br />
The author’s language in these final scenes and throughout the most critical scenes is poignantly vivid and sometimes heart-rending. Ramirez is deft with his descriptiveness, particularly in the second half of the book. In describing the Michigan of the 1960’s, for example, the first time Joaquin’s family migrated there to harvest crops, Ramirez writes: <br />
<br />
...where life seemed almost perfect among the solitude of a<br />
spacious rural America, where topsoil was measured in feet<br />
and little boys dreamed of playing high school basketball and<br />
little girls dreamed of becoming homecoming queens....a land<br />
inhabited by fattening cattle and red barns and grain elevators,<br />
and uniquely confident, stoic men...whose canvases were the<br />
sky and the open spaces on which they never tired of creating<br />
green and lush symmetry (p. 218).<br />
<br />
It is as if Ramirez warms up exponentially as the book unwraps and reveals its treasures to us. One wonders if the beginning parts were those writtten by Ramirez at the start of his decade of birthing this book. One wonders if the latter chapters indeed came later in the decade; and, if so, the beauty of the language, the depth of the insights in the final chapters, the power of Joaquin’s catharsis are rightfully the end products of much labor...not lost, as Shakespeare wrote, but of labors reaching their fruitful, magnificent conclusion. <br />
<br />
Ramirez calls his work “a book of Short Stories.” If these are indeed stories (rather than chapters of a novel), then they can be said to employ <em><u>intertextuality</u></em>, or the literary technique of repeating characters and places from one story to another. This technique marked pioneer Chicana author, <strong>Estella Portillo de Trambley’s</strong>, short stories in her classic book, <em>Rain of Scorpions and Other Stories</em> (Bilingual Press, Revised Edition, 1993), as scholars <strong>Vernon E. Lattin</strong> and <strong>Patricia Hopkins</strong> described in their Introduction to that edition.<br />
<br />
The technique was successful for Trambley’s purposes and won her admiration for her work. Similarly, Ramirez has woven his separate “stories” into a loosely-unified book, a hybrid novel to some, but clearly a tapestry of humanity that we can all relate to and embrace.<br />
______________________________________________<br />
To learn more about Chuy Ramirez' book, go to <a href="http://www.firsttexaspublishers.com/">http://www.firsttexaspublishers.com/</a>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-10380539149489428672010-08-28T01:32:00.000-07:002010-08-28T01:32:57.592-07:00<strong>TAKE A LOOK AT MY NEW BLOG: "THE LITERARY SELF"</strong><br />
<br />
In an effort to better use my time and to stay focused on my abiding interest in literacy, I have terminated one of my former blogs ("LatinaWriter99") and have created a new one that speaks more directly to how writing impacts our everyday lives. I'm calling this new blog, which I instituted tonight, "The Literary Self" (<a href="http://www.theliteraryself.blogspot.com/">http://www.theliteraryself.blogspot.com/</a>). I will continue writing "American Latina/o Writers Today," since my deep interest in the works of fellow Latina/o writers is very much a part of my own writing life...or my "literary self." Stay tuned, and thanks for reading my blogs!Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-69771789929579681242010-08-17T16:20:00.000-07:002010-08-27T11:42:55.702-07:00<strong><span style="font-size: large;">NO SHORTAGE OF LATINA/O LITERARY TALENT TODAY!</span></strong><br />
<br />
The increasing depth and breadth of Latina/o literary talent in America today was on display at a recent Los Angeles event co-sponsored by a vaunted group called Latino Literacy Now, among many other supporters. Approximately 20 Latina/o writers were introduced and honored for their work. The onstage ceremony was filmed and broadcast by the <a href="http://www.livestream.com/Isacnational">LatinoGraduate.net Global Broadcasting.</a><br />
<br />
This all occurred on August 7 at "An Evening of Literature and the Arts" held at the Pan American Bank in East Los Angeles. The authors, part of a contingent of over 130 Hispanic writers, are scheduled to appear at one of the biggest Latino literary events in the nation, the<strong> <a href="http://www.lbff.us/">13th Annual Latino Book & Family Festival (LBFF)</a></strong> to be held at California State University, Los Angeles, on October 9 & 10, 2010. The event at the bank was a preview of sorts.<br />
<br />
This year's LBFF boasts the largest number of authors in the history of this festival, which has also been held in Chicago, in addition to L.A., in prior years. For the entire weekend in October this year, many of these authors will present panel discussions and workshops on literary topics, read from their works, and answer their audience's questions about their writing. <br />
<br />
The festival is attended by thousands of people from diverse cultures, ages, and backgrounds and is a joyous event that includes food, music, and dancing. Renowned actor, <strong>James Edward Olmos</strong>, a major sponsor and supporter, is often the master of ceremonies on opening day. Two of the leading organizers and coordinators of this event are author <strong>Reyna Grande</strong> and Cal State LA professor, <strong>Roberto Cantu</strong>.<br />
<br />
You'll hear more on this blog about this major literary event as we approach October. Stay tuned!<br />
<br />
<strong><em>THE AUTHORS HONORED AT PAN AMERICAN BANK</em></strong><br />
<br />
The writers at the special event received special commendations and certificates from the California Senate, the County of Los Angeles, U.S. Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, and Speaker of the California Assembly John A. Perez. Each author was also interviewed onstage by <strong>Armando</strong> <strong>Sanchez</strong>, founder and head of Global Broadcasting. Armando is also leader of the Raise Literacy Campaign.<br />
<br />
Here are the honored authors: <br />
<ul><li><strong>Lalo Alcaraz</strong>, renowned cartoonist for the <em>Los Angeles Times </em>and author of 3 books, including the iconic <em>La Cucaracha</em> (1976, 2004); <em>Cartoon History of Latinos in the United States </em>(1999); <em>Latino USA </em>(2000); and <em>Migra Mouse: Political Cartoons on Immigration </em>(2004).</li>
<li><strong>David Bueno-Hill</strong>, an Honorable Mention Winner of the 2009 Latino Book Awards and author of the young adult novels, <em>Mr. Clean in the Barrio </em>and <em>Mr. Clean's Familia.</em></li>
<li><strong>Daniel Cano</strong>, Associate Professor at Santa Monica College, and longtime author, most recently of <em>Death and the American Dream </em>(2009).</li>
<li><strong>Victor Cass</strong>, a decorated police officer in Pasadena, CA, and author of 3 books, including the novels <em>Love, Death, and Other War Stories </em>(2005), and <em>Telenovela</em> (2009).</li>
<li><strong>Philip Victor Colon</strong></li>
<li><strong>Kathleen Contreras</strong>, author of the children's books, <em>Braids/Trencitas </em>and <em>Pan Dulce.</em></li>
<li><strong>Randy Jurado Ertll</strong>, a community activist and civic leader in Pasadena, CA, and author of <em>Hope in Times of Darkness: A Salvadoran-American Experience </em>(2009).</li>
<li><strong>Montserrat Fontes</strong>, a teacher of literature and journalism in Los Angeles, and a much-praised author of the novels <em>First Confession</em> and of <em>Dreams of the Centaur.</em></li>
<li><strong>Reyna Grande</strong>, whose first novel, <em>Across a Hundred Mountains, </em>won the venerable Premio Aztlan Literary Award (2006) and an American Book Award (2007); and who also wrote the celebrated novel, <em>Dancing With Butterflies </em>(2009). </li>
<li><strong>Javier Hernandez, </strong>cartoonist and creator of comic books including <em>El Muerto</em> and <em>Weapon Tex-Mex; </em>also the Associate Producer of the award-winning film adaptation, <em>El Muerto </em>(1997), starring Wilmer Valderrama and Tony Plana.</li>
<li><strong>Laura Lacamara</strong>, author of children's books, including the newly-released <em>Floating on Mama's Song </em>(2010).</li>
<li><strong>Rene Colato Lainez</strong>, author of several children's books in English, Spanish, and bilingual, including <em>The Tooth Fairy Meets El Raton Perez </em>(2010); <em>My Shoes and I </em>(2010); and <em>Rene Has Two Last Names </em>(2009).</li>
<li><strong>Rolando Ortiz</strong></li>
<li><strong>Mike Padilla</strong>, who won a Chicano/Latino Literary Prize and a California Arts Council artist fellowship; who wrote the short story collection, <em>Hard Language;</em> and author of the recently-published novel, <em>The Girls from the Revolutionary Cantina.</em></li>
<li><strong>Melinda Palacio</strong>, whose poetry chapbook, <em>Folsom Lockdown, </em>won Kulupi Press' Sense of Place Competition in 2009. Also, she is a PEN USA Emerging Voices 2007 Fellow. Her debut novel, <em>Ocotillo Dreams, </em>will be published this Fall.</li>
<li><strong>Amada Irma Perez</strong>, author of several English, Spanish, and bilingual children's books, including <em>My Very Own Room </em>(2009); <em>My Diary from Here to There </em>(2007); and <em>Nana's Big Surprise </em>(2007).</li>
<li><strong>Michele Serros</strong>, popular "chick lit" (or, as it's sometimes called, "chica lit") writer; author of books in English and Spanish, including <em>Honey Blonde Chica </em>(2007), <em>How to Be a Chicana Role Model </em>(2000), and <em>Chicana Falsa: And Other Stories </em>(1998).</li>
</ul>I felt very privileged to be onstage with this group and to listen to their engaging stories about what inspires them and how their careers evolved. I look forward to reviewing some of their books for this blog in the coming months.<br />
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I was also happy to see other authors in the audience, including emerging writer <strong>Vanessa Libertad Garcia</strong>, author of <em>The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive </em>(2009); and <strong>Roberta H. Martinez</strong>, author of <em>Latinos in Pasadena </em>(2009). Both of these very talented authors have previously been profiled and their books reviewed in this blog.<br />
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The types of writing represented by this group of authors covers the gamut from poetry, short stories, novels, young adult books, "chick lit," children's books, memoirs, and scholarly nonfiction, to social commentary/political cartoons. All of these authors write in English, so their literature is widely accessible to all cultures. Some of their works--such as that by Reyna Grande--are indeed taught in school settings. Several of these authors write in Spanish and bilingually as well as in English.<br />
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Many, if not all, of the authors honored at Pan American Bank have author websites. See the LBFF site for a full listing of these sites. Visit them, enjoy, and read the works of these dedicated writers!Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-20352814046379245912010-06-28T23:35:00.000-07:002010-06-28T23:35:11.155-07:00<strong><span style="font-size: large;">NEW BOOKS BY TWO AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS: CARIDAD PINEIRO & REYNA GRANDE</span></strong><br />
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There is no shortage of Latina literary talent in America today! <br />
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One of my aims in this website is to highlight the writings of Latinas who came to the United States from different origins—often from families, and with families, who spoke little or no English. Yet these Latinas not only learned their adopted land’s tongue, but they mastered it in ways that reveal their giftedness, their artistry, and that set them apart as literary leaders in a nation that values creativity and innovation.<br />
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These Latina authors have contributed, and continue to contribute, greatly to the richness of our American literature—and they should be acknowledged as examples of newcomers to our nation who enrich our lives and our society with their intellectual gifts. Two such amazing authors are <strong>Caridad Piñeiro</strong> and <strong>Reyna Grande</strong>. These Latinas are widely different in their genres and backgrounds, yet both are masters of their art. These talented writers are the first to be honored in this section.<br />
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<strong><em>MEET CARIDAD PIÑEIRO: PARANORMAL ROMANCE WRITER</em></strong><br />
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Caridad was born in Havana, Cuba, but was raised in Long Island, New York, where she quickly distinguished herself as a scholar, academic leader, and pioneering attorney (first woman partner in the Abelman, Frayne & Schwab law firm). Caridad recently said: “My family and I always watched scary movies, so the paranormal element always intrigued me. I was a science major in college and decided to blend that love of science with the paranormal.”<br />
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Luckily for all of us readers!<br />
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Author of 24 paranormal/suspense romance books, Caridad is often considered one of the superstars of this writing genre, distinguishing herself as a bestselling author on the New York Times and USA Today lists. In one year alone (2007), Caridad published six books and was honored with the Golden Apple Author of the Year by the New York City Romance Writers association. Other awards and honors bestowed upon her include: the Best Short Contemporary Romance of 2001 in the NJ Romance Writers Golden Leaf Contest; the Top Fantasy Books of 2005 and 2006 by Catalina magazine; and Top Nocturne of 2006 by Cataromance.<br />
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One of her newest romance novels is <em>Sins of the Flesh</em> (2009), in which a beautiful, terminally-ill musician, Caterina Shaw, who is of mixed ethnic heritage, becomes a guinea pig for medical experimentation that turns deadly. After she escapes from the tortures she’s being subjected to in the lab, she is targeted for death. Lonely, sardonic bounty hunter Mick Carrera is hired to kill her, but—as he learns more and more about Caterina—Mick switches his loyalty...and goes on a different mission. His loving Latino family, especially his physician sister, play a pivotal role in the plot. Caridad’s skilled weaving of mystery and suspense, spiced with scientific, futuristic possibilities of the medical world, keep the reader in suspense throughout. <br />
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Caridad’s dialogue is very realistic, and her descriptive prowess in depicting Caterina’s other-worldly transformations due to the drugs forced into her system fill the pages with excitement. Each character reminds us of someone we know, or of someone we could know; yet each character is unique in his or her presentation. Mick is a detective who rivals the classic good guys of commercial fiction for many decades past, yet Mick’s Latino heritage distinguishes him from other heroes. <br />
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At last, Latino readers have romantic heroes and heroines we bond with, we admire and root for, and these Latinos are, ultimately, the universal heroes everyone can relate to. Caridad reminds us that—even as we celebrate the cultural uniqueness of ethnic heroes—in the end, we are all the same, striving for the same dreams, feeling the same emotions, fighting the same fears.<br />
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<em>Sins of the Flesh</em> is available, along with Caridad’s other books, at amazon.com or from your favorite bookstore. Visit her website at <span style="color: blue;">www.caridad.com</span>.<br />
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<strong><em>MEET REYNA GRANDE: THE HONORS ARE JUST STARTING</em></strong><br />
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California author Reyna Grande was born in Mexico in 1975 and came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant when she was 9 years old to reunite with her parents. In Los Angeles, Reyna quickly flourished in school and bonded with books at an early age. She became the first in her family to attend college, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing/Film/Video from the University of California, Santa Cruz; and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Antioch University. <br />
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Reyna shares her deep love affair with literature with schoolchildren across the state and with college students across the nation, who study her books in their coursework. In addition, she teaches creative writing workshops in Los Angeles and volunteers in other literacy efforts, such as judging prominent literary competitions and coordinating the prestigious annual Latino Book & Family Festival in Los Angeles, which is slated for October 9-10 this year.<br />
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Reyna’s first novel, <em>Across a Hundred Mountains</em> (2006), won substantial critical acclaim, resulting in her winning El Premio Aztlan Literary Award (2006) and an American Book Award (2007). Her second novel, <em>Dancing with Butterflies</em> (2009), has also received wide praise and promises to become another literary pick for college course reading lists. It was selected by Las Comadres Book Club for January 2010, and it won a 2010 International Latino Book Award in its Best Women's Issues category.<br />
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In <em>Dancing with Butterflies</em>, four very different women, whose commonality is their affiliation with a folklorico dancing company, take turns narrating their lives. The women—Yesenia, Elena, Adriana, and Soledad—represent different generations with distinct challenges: a poignant struggle with middle age and its theft of vigor and beauty (Yesenia); the immense loneliness of widowhood and difficulty of fighting sexual temptation (Elena); the woundedness of growing up ignored and unloved (Adriana); and the sadness of severing cultural and familial roots for the sake of economic survival in a foreign land (Soledad). <br />
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Though Reyna’s characters are distinct from one another in their talents, goals, and needs, collectively they represent the suffering that surfaces in everyday life as we tackle demons we don’t always know we carry inside us. Reyna also underscores the interconnectedness of our lives, the webs that join us to one another to bring us solace, to heighten our pain, or to remind us that, for better or worse, all humanity is one.<br />
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Reyna’s language sweeps us from wherever we are while reading her book. We suddenly find ourselves on the edge of the stage as the swift, fluttering movements of butterflies, in all their color and grace, are recalled in the movements of folklorico dancers. Reyna writes: “Your feet seem to float over the floor as you twirl and twirl around and around before jumping into the arms of your partner....The stage is a flurry of dancers whirling and stomping. The audience breaks into a rhythmic clapping as they follow the lively song in 2/4 beat.” The fluidity and beauty of this iconic dance ultimately contrasts with the starkness and gracelessness of issues that litter our day and force our attention away from the grander things in life, away from love, serenity, confidence, and hope. <br />
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Reyna Grande is just getting started in making a memorable mark in our literary world. She is currently at work on a memoir. Both of her books can be purchased at your favorite bookstore or through amazon.com. Visit Reyna’s website at <span style="color: #3d85c6;">http://www.reynagrande.com</span> .<br />
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[This blog was originally posted on my other blog, <em>LatinaWriter99, </em>in June, 2010.)Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-88953373916618447072010-06-02T00:20:00.000-07:002010-06-02T00:20:45.960-07:00<strong>NEW CALIFORNIA WRITER TO WATCH: SANDRA LOPEZ</strong><br />
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Sandra Lopez, the author of the newly published young adult novel, <em>Beyond the Gardens</em> (2009), is a literary force to watch. She has been precocious for most of her life: reading books at the age of two, being the first in her family to graduate from high school and college, being one of the youngest emerging authors today. She recently received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Fullerton, and is ready to take on the literary world.<br />
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Her first novel was published before Sandra graduated from college. This debut book, <em>Esperanza: A Latina Story </em>(2008), depicts a teenager from a poverty-stricken home marked by domestic abuse, alcoholism and other drug abuse, gangland connections among her father and other relatives, and a saddening absence of hope for the future. Her barrio, Hawaiian Gardens in Los Angeles, could easily defeat her, as a friend tries to tie her down to early marriage at the cost of her education. When Esperanza enters high school, she faces bullies, peer pressure to meet low expectations, and the tremendous possibility that she, too, will become just another Latina dropout. Esperanza has no role models, no home support, but she finds strength she did not realize she had and fights against obstacles to fulfill her dreams. <br />
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In her new book, a sequel, Esperanza is now 18 years old and enrolled in an art college, pursuing her dreams with financial aid. Her life is upended when friends from her past re-enter: Carlos, who is now interested in her romantically, and his sister, Carla, who had urged Esperanza to marry her brother while in high school. Esperanza also contends with her roommate, a rich Chicana; and with Jake, a hunky mechanic who seems to be her soulmate. Life becomes complicated for Esperanza as she constantly wonders what is “beyond the gardens” of her barrio, and what life can possibly hold for her.<br />
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Both of Sandra’s books are available through amazon.com. You can visit her website at http://www.sandralopez.com .Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-11478192090777018152010-03-30T16:37:00.000-07:002010-03-30T16:42:23.596-07:00<strong>MEET NEW LOS ANGELES AUTHOR, VANESSA LIBERTAD GARCIA</strong><br />
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Sometimes "new writers," or those who have not yet attained name recognition, have been writing for years. Such is the case with Los Angeles native <strong>Vanessa Libertad Garcia</strong>, who has been filling journals with poems, stories, and screenplays since she was 11. She now has over 30 of those journals and is mining them for her second book, which will be a collection of poetry.<br />
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Vanessa's first book, <em>The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive</em> (Fiat Libertad Co., 2009), is a slim volume of 23 short pieces, some of them poems, many of them first-person or third-person vignettes that capture a few minutes or hours of a given character’s “despicable, embarrassing, or repulsive” life. <br />
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Gritty and unflinching, the tone of the book is one of desperation and starkness as each character depicted—Marta, a young, disenchanted lesbian; or Diaz Diaz, a gay fashion designer, for example—speaks to us of their heartbreak, alienation, and sometimes of suicidal plans. The personas that Vanessa invokes are products of a society that is too fast-paced, too materialistic, and too shallow for twenty-somethings or thirty-somethings trying to find a meaningful niche in life, as they struggle simultaneously to pay bills, be successful in a career, find true love, or simply forge a connection to someone or something outside of themselves that can make their lives fulfilling. Welcome to the underbelly of Los Angeles.<br />
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The voices of each persona is poignant and heart-wrenching. Vanessa describes “sweet-scented one-dimensional images that pop out at you like an early Warhol painting” (in “Longing”). There is little self-pitying though, no sugarcoating of the raw emotions that spill from her characters, many of whom are gay addicts who have seemingly accepted their sex orientations but nevertheless struggle to navigate life. <br />
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Matter-of-fact language, which contributes to the non-judgmental tone of the book and its authenticity, is often balanced against poetic descriptions or observations that catch the reader by surprise. For example: “Parasites of the night, dressed to the 9[‘s]/living off the small pints of love/stored in our words” (from “The Dead End Days”). Or: “The sun shuts its lids and the moon clocks in.” “Sadness already home invites guilt in for coffee” (both from “Lament”).<br />
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Yet, amidst the jadedness and sadness are subtle beams of hope for these young lives. In “Compassion,” toward the end of the book, Vanessa writes: “We are curious children/ with adult powers/that clumsily break the china.” She ends her book thus: “The crumbling world/ is always pieced together by time/and space....Justice eventually finds its place in line.” <br />
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Vanessa gives us a glimpse of lives in torment but also reminds us that lives are not frozen in time but are forever evolving, and we must stay open to the possibilities of change.<br />
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This book is available at amazon.com. I'll let you know when Vanessa Libertad Garcia's second book is published.Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-37303400575501487312010-02-21T00:20:00.000-08:002010-06-28T23:17:33.878-07:00<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Introducing: Some New Names and Books</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The goal of this blog is to recognize the literary work of current Latina/o authors, most of whom were born in the United States. </span><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial;">In my early blog posts a few years ago, I discussed some "pioneers" of modern Hispanic American literature, authors such as <strong>Richard Vasquez, Rudolfo Anaya, Estela Portillo de Trambley</strong>, and <strong>Tomas Rivera</strong>. It's vital that our country recognize and honor the writers who led the awakening of this modern literature in the 1960s and 1970s and paved the path for generations of Latina/o authors to contribute to the greatness of American literature in all its genres. (See my archived posts.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">I've also enjoyed writing about prominent authors and their continuing achievements, folks such as <strong>Sandra Cisneros, Pat Mora, Daniel Olivas, </strong>and <strong>Gary Soto.</strong> The present cadre of accomplished Latina/o authors are changing the literary landscape; are making their presence and influence felt in literature classrooms across America; and need our support and attention so they may continue thriving.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">At other times, I introduce writers making their debut on the literary scene, or folks who have not yet attained name recognition...but their merits and efforts warrant our recognition and discussion of their work.</span></li>
</ul><span style="font-family: Arial;">In the spirit of the latter...</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">MEET SANDRA ALONZO</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Sandra Alonzo</strong> is the author of a new young adult novel titled <em>Riding Invisible: An Adventure Journal</em>, to be officially released on March 2. I'm looking forward to reading it and talking about it on this blog. Just for you to know, however, this will be Sandra's second book. Her first, <em>Gallop-O-Gallop, </em>was published in 2007 and has received warm praise from her readers, who laud Sandra's "very accessible verse" and "wonderful and evocative picture book," which was illustrated by Kelly Murphy. The lovely, lyrical poems are brief enough for young readers to understand and enjoy, yet equally delightful for adults. One educator praises <em>Gallop-O-Gallop </em>thus: "This book is excellent for the classroom! ...The author weaves a beautiful tapestry of equine tales that's soothing for both young and old." </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Read more reader reviews of Sandra's book on amazon.com. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Sandra, who grew up near Los Angeles, always loved horses and had them as a child. As an adult now living in Central California, she still owns a horse and relishes nature by exploring the mountains near her home on horseback. Get in line for your copy of <em>Riding Invisible, </em>which is actually already posted on amazon.com for sale. Both books are available through that website. Sandra's website is <a href="http://www.sandraalonzo.com/">http://www.sandraalonzo.com/</a> . </span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">UPDATE ON DANIEL A. OLIVAS AND HIS NEW BOOK</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Daniel A. Olivas</strong>, another fellow Californian, is an example of an author who has made a mark on the literary scene. His five books have received wide praise from other renowned authors, and his writing is studied and analyzed in classrooms across America. He has just released his fifth and newest book, a collection of short stories titled <em>Anywhere but L.A. </em>This work includes stories Daniel wrote earlier in his career ("Gordon," a whimsical story about a talking dog, e.g.) as well as new ones ("Blue" and "The Jew of Dos Cuentos," e.g.). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Daniel's effortless writing style and ability to capture a character in broad, descriptive strokes engage readers as they switch from story to story in his new book. No two stories are the same stylistically or rhetorically, and this diversity of presentation keeps the reader on his or her toes. Consider "Let Me Tell You a Story," which is told in first-person narrative by an aggressive, rough-talking young man whose family is destroyed by his carelessness. The story's language is raw and effective, and readers can "hear" the urgency of this character as he defends what he did. On the other hand, "Blue" is told cryptically by a young woman in ten distinct little segments that describe, in her words, certain seemingly innocuous events and people in her life, but these anecdotes are highly nuanced and poetic; and the reader must be careful not to miss anything between the lines. The events are not chronological, and the non-linear telling of her life story makes "Blue" mystical, poignant, and fragile. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">At a recent book reading in Pasadena, California, Daniel explained how he often uses music as a means of stirring up his creativity. "Blue," he said, was inspired by Joni Mitchell's music. Daniel also discussed the challenge of balancing his everyday profession as an attorney with his great love of writing. He also visits public school classrooms and advocates for all children's literacy. Daniel Olivas is an important presence in our literature, and his works touch all people, from all backgrounds, because he portrays men, women, and children with simple but complex authenticity. Buy his books through amazon.com, and visit his award-winning blog<em>, La Bloga</em>, at <a href="http://www.labloga.blogspot.com/">http://www.labloga.blogspot.com/</a> .</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">SPEAKING OF ACCOMPLISHED AUTHORS...</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If you want to read a lot of <strong>Sandra Cisneros'</strong> work in one place, check out <em>Vintage Cisneros </em>(Vintage Books, 2004). Though this is not a new book, it is exceptionally handy and inspiring. Readers not familiar with Sandra's writing can get satiating doses of her talent in this slim paperback volume. It includes excerpts from five of her books, such as <em>The House on Mango Street,</em> her seminal work; and from her newest one, <em>Caramelo. </em>Poetry, short stories, and novel excerpts are alternated through this book, keeping the pace lively and totally engaging. This book, like almost all the ones mentioned in my blog, is available through amazon.com.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">STAY TUNED, AND STAY IN TOUCH!</span></strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Have you heard about <strong>Reyna Grande </strong>yet? You should, because her fame is spreading, and her talent is increasing quickly. I'll discuss her and her new book, <em>Dancing With Butterflies, </em>which was published a few months ago, in my next blog. Her star is on the rise!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Tell your friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and anyone else you can grab about this website. Tell them they need to keep up with what our American Latinas/os are writing about and teaching us. There are many insights to gain, much wisdom to absorb! </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051722.post-34028090495399870552010-01-05T18:36:00.000-08:002010-06-28T23:11:30.184-07:00<strong><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-size: large;">What Will 2010--the Proverbial "New Decade"--Bring for American Latina/o Authors?</span></strong><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">Here's my wish: inspiration, perseverance, exposure, recognition, and continued melding into mainstream American "publication" in all its manifestations: print, electronic, and entertainment venues. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">Of course, dearest to my heart is the literary arena, because this involves schools and classrooms, literature and composition courses from grade school through universities, and this is where quality is presented, analyzed, discussed, and worked with, in projects, plays, panel discussions, role-playing, etc... year after year, decade after decade, and even through centuries.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">THE SPECIAL ROLE OF LITERATURE FOR US ALL...</span></strong><br />
<ul><li><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="color: white;"><strong><em>Literature</em></strong> endures and forms part of a nation's cultural foundation.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="color: white;"><strong><em>Literature</em></strong> creates an identity for large groups of people, and helps people understand one another: our histories, our struggles and achievements, our universality and brotherhood across racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural divides.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="color: white;"><strong><em>Literature</em></strong> is the finest expression in words of our hopes and dreams...of our <em>souls</em>!</span></span></li>
</ul><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">So my strongest wishes for the New Year are:</span><br />
<ul><li><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">that the literary creations of American Hispanics--men and women, young and old, across all genres, across our nation--shall ever more strongly integrate into the tapestry of AMERICAN LITERATURE;</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">that our literary contributions shall not only be recognized and published, but that our creations shall be of such quality, they are respected, quoted, cited, and spoken of in the same breath as are the literary works of other respected "mainstream" authors today;</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">that our literary creations shall be read in classrooms across America and will be discussed and analyzed with all the attention and valuing that traditional authors have received in English classrooms throughout time;</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">that students of all colors and all ages shall be exposed to the literature of American Hispanic authors so that, in time, our literature will be--quite simply--AMERICAN LITERATURE, with all the cultural respect that term carries.</span></li>
</ul><strong><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">WINNING PRIZES IS IMPORTANT, TOO!</span></strong><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">To my knowledge, no American Hispanic (Latina/o born in the United States, which is the focus of my blog) has ever won a literary Pulitzer Prize. They may have been nominated, and they may have won other respectable prizes...but not the Pulitzer. I welcome my readers to correct me. Write me an email and set me straight!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">Yet the literary Pulitzer Prize is the strongest affirmation that our country bestows upon its authors. It brings with it the credibility and admiration that authors generally want. It helps to insure the longevity of that author's words, the weight these words carry, the meanings that generations of readers will dissect and reflect upon. The Prize helps authors be inducted into the realm of AMERICAN LITERATURE.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">May 2010 be a year in which an American Latina/o writer is not only nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, but the year in which the Prize is won. And if this is not to be, may 2010 be the year in which many American Latina/o authors begin seriously laying the groundwork to deserve and win such an honor.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">A CALL FOR AUTHORS TO "GET INTO THE ARENA"!</span></strong><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt spoke movingly about "the man in the arena"--a person who has the courage to put himself/herself "out there," to take risks, to take action to pursue his or her dreams, to make things happen. The man in the arena might get knocked down, might fail, but this person continues to actively pursue whatever goals he or she has set, continues striving toward success.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">May 2010 be the year in which American Latina/o writers today shed our fears of literary rejection. May it be the year in which we shed our doubts about our abilities to make the written word sing. May it be the year in which we create, create, and create some more and send our writings <em>by the thousands </em>to literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and editors all over America! </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">May 2010 be the year in which vaunted literary journals like <em>Glimmer Train </em>and <em>Tin House</em> are swamped with story and poem submissions by American Latinas/os in numbers unseen before! May it be the year in which they--and other prominent literary venues that rarely publish Latina/o authors--realize our critical mass and take notice that our literature needs to take its place in mainstream literature...that our writings are highly worthy of being published by the best and read and adored by the best.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">May 2010 be the year in which prestigious, highly exclusive annual anthologies--such as <em>Best American Short Stories of 2009, </em>or <em>Best American Poems of 2009</em>, for example--include a respectable number of American Latina/o authors in its pages...or, at least, the year in which our Hispanic authors lay the groundwork for this happening next year.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">Let's put ourselves "in the arena." Let's show, in large numbers, what has been hiding in the literary shadows of America. And may it make us all proud!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * </span><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">ON ANOTHER NOTE: SOME UPDATES FOR YOU</span></strong><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">In a recent blog, I spoke about Pasadena author, Randy Jurado Ertll, who has recently published his first book, a memoir titled <em>Hope in Times of Darkness. </em>Randy is a Salvadoran-American, and his book is doing well, I'm very happy to say. Here is some information about an upcoming reading/discussion that Randy will hold in Pasadena. All are invited.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">"HOPE IN TIMES OF DARKNESS: A SALVADORAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">WHEN: Friday, January 8, 2010 12:00 p.m. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">WHERE: La Pintoresca Public Library </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white;">1355 North Raymond Avenue, Pasadena , CA 91103-2235</span>Thelma T. Reynahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06301689369632221130noreply@blogger.com5