"Chicano writers from El Paso are the most progressive, open-minded, far-reaching, and inclusive writers of them all."

Octavio Romano

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Bullets from Cd. Juarez hit El Paso City Hall: It's like Déjà vu all over again; El Paso Writer Updates on Gilb, Saenz, and Salazar



hit El Paso City Hall: 
It's like Déjà vu all over again

Spectators on roof of the Paso Del Norte Hotel watching 1st Battle of Juarez


With bullets hitting El Paso's City Hall many comparisons are being draw up to the First Battle of Cd. Juarez, the first major battle of the Mexican Revolution.


Tuesday, I think it was, bullets from an Ak-47 crossed over the border despite the wall, and hit El Paso's City Hall. One source told me that one of the bullets entered a room and hit a painting knocking it off the wall. At that point, everyone hit the floor.

I listen to the radio shows yesterday morning and some questioned the distance an Ak-47 bullet can travel and stated that the round had to be sniper.

Above, Revolutionaries near irrigation ditch during 1st Battle of Juarez

On the homepage of today's El Paso Times, they give a diagram showing the trajectory and the article states that is it possible for an AK-47 bullet to stray as much as a mile. Those familiar with El Paso, if you were traveling upriver on the Rio Grande, the river curves northeast right after the Sante Bridge and Chihuahuita. So the radius of of how close you are to Mexico is very great.


In May 1911, when Francisco Madero, Pascual Orozco, and Pancho Villa led an attack on Cd. Juarez, many El Paso Citizens gathered on the El Paso side to watch the battle, many to their detriment.

Many El Pasoan watched from rooftops and train cars. If I remember, about 10 people were killed on the El Paso side from stray bullets.

Just a few months ago, some people were comparing incidents of Nazi Germany to current state in Arizona. It grew some criticism.


Now, there are many comparisons nowadays between the Mexican Revolution in Cd. Juarez and the drug war violence. I'm not much of an advocate of the comparison.  Sure shot are straying over, so the comparisons run, but revolutionaries fighting for tierra y libertad to thugs fighting over drug territories is a far fetch. It's a shame this violence is occurring during the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

New Links:


EL PASO WRITER UPDATES


El Paso Writers Mentioned in articles and blogs

Rudolfo Acuna mentions El Paso journalist Ruben Salazar in his article

Mexicans Are Not Dumb: The Schools Fail by Rudy Acuña on

Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas blog: 

 Mexican American journalist Ruben Salazar, killed by Los Angeles Sheriff
deputies while covering the Chicano Moratorium of August 29, 1970,
reacting to educators calling Mexicans “culturally deprived,” wrote in
1963, “Presumably they want to save these poor people terrible void by
giving them culture…What they don’t seem to realize is that Mexican
Americans have a culture…” READ MORE.

Dagoberto Gilb is mentioned by Eric Miles in his interview with Anis Shivani on the Huntington Post: "

"As educational opportunities open up and as minorities become economically and educationally viable, they're telling their stories. Their works, however, are cast off into the category of "minority" fiction. They're stuck on the Literary Short Bus. Fine authors like Dagoberto Gilb, Mark Nesbitt, even Toni Morrison--they're not called great writers."

"They're labeled Minority Writers. The blue collar world is usually associated with white people, Irishmen and Italians and Jews and so forth--peoples who were discriminated against in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But we're not building railroads anymore, and if we ever do so again, it'll be Hispanics and Blacks doing the dirty work, and they'll be writing the novels about their travails." READ MORE.

Saenz gets Oprah's approval; Saenz on PBS' NewsHour

Benjamin Alire Saenz young adult novel Last Night I Sang to the Monster was named on Oprah.com's top nine books for her Summer Reading List. This book also won the 2010 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People.

Seeing Ben Saenz with the PBS NewHour's footage amazed me.  


"Wealthy people can move anywhere they want. Wealthy people are welcome anywhere in the world, which then we have to say then borders are really to keep out the poor."

                                   ---- Benjamin Alire Saenz, NewHour

                                   READ AND SEE MORE


----------------
NEW ISSUE OF 
"LIBROS, LIBROS" 
IS OUT

Over 50 pages of new and forthcoming books by/on Chicano(a) and Latino(a)s


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TOMORROW: INTERVIEW WITH CARLOS MORTON




The link we share with you today is: MartinEspada.net.


 



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