Pluma Fronteriza - Your Chicano Literature News Headquarters

Feliz Cumpleños a Nuestro Poeta laureado chicano Abelardo Delgado

2011-11-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

Abelardo B. Delgado

(Nov. 27, 1930 - July 23, 2004)

En la vida y en la mas allá, seguir siendo nuestro poeta laureado chicano

Con Mis Versos

Con mis diversos

casi versos

mato mitos

y destapo verdades

empolvadas por siete siglos

de mentiras.

Con mis versos

planto azucenas

sobre cadenas

de gente.

Esclavizada por si misma.

Con mis versos

arrullo a los enamorados

empapados y pegados

con su propio sudor

de amor

en un lecho ajeno.

Con mis versos

hago a los sordos

escuchar el canto

de los madrugadores pájaros.

Con mis versos

visito otros universos

aun no descubiertos

y sin boleto de viaje.

Con mis versos

lleno tinajas de chia

en Chiapas

y se las llevo

a los Zapatistas en la selva

para que luzcan bien

sus caras escondidas

y sus miradas encendidas.

Con mis versos

les arreglo a los indocumentados

pasaportes anaranjados.

(c) Abelardo Delgado. From La llorona; 43 llorona abelardo. Barrio Publications, 1997. Published with permission of the estate of Abelardo Delgado

Thanksgiving in America by Felipe Ortego

2011-11-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA

From The National Hispanic Reporter, November 1991; posted on the Deming Headlight, November 25, 2010.

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

In most enterprises, moments of thanks- giving take place for safe arrival or deliverance. The story about the first Thanksgiving in America credits the Pilgrims at the Massachusetts Bay Colony celebrating their safe arrival at the Atlantic frontier of the “new world”.

That band of Pilgrims set sail from Plymouth, England, on September 15, 1620 on the Mayflower with 103 religious dissenters on board. Their original destination was the Virginia colony, but they put to at Cape Cod on November 19, and set foot on Plymouth rock (Massachusetts) on December 21 (December 11, Old Style).

It is recorded that these Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution in England; they actually came to practice Puritanism, a religious fundamentalism of intolerance that eliminated parliamentary government in England between 1649 and 1660.

The Pilgrims who came to America were not just simple religious conservatives persecuted by the King and the Church of England for their unorthodox beliefs. They were political revolutionaries who meant to over throw the English monarchy and did in 1649. Noble as their victory was, Puritan tyranny simply replaced royal tyranny.

But in 1620, the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony were outcasts who could not fit into English mainstream society. They regarded their Wampanoag Indian benefactors as their enemy, as noted in the Plymouth Thanksgiving sermon of 1623 by Mather the Elder who gave special thanks to God for the devastating plague of smallpox that destroyed the majority of the Wampanoag Indians. He praised God for eliminating “chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth.

To the Pilgrims, the Indians were heathens and, therefore, instruments of the Devil. Squanto, the only educated Wampanoag among the Indians, was regarded as merely an instrument of God set in the wilderness to provide for the survival of the Chosen Elect–the Pilgrims.

Records are not very clear about when the Pilgrims celebrated that first Thanksgiving. And stories about that first Pilgrim thanks- giving have been embroidered with touches of Indian charity helping those Pilgrims through their first rough winter in America.

But at that first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation in 1621, Pilgrim friendship was feigned and the peace offered tenuous. A generation later when the population shift favored the whites. Puritans slaughtered Indians genocidally in the conflict that has become known as King Philip’s War, after which King Philip of the Indians was beheaded and the Wampanoags sold into slavery. So much for the myth of harmony about that first Thanksgiving.

The myth of that first Thanksgiving actually came into being during the 19^th century when the national goal of assimilation emerged as a way to homogenize a diversity of people into a unified nation through a common national (albeit mythical) history.

But the Pilgrim Thanksgiving of 1621 was not the first thanksgiving in America. In 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon pro-claimed thanksgiving when his crew put ashore on what is now St. Augustine, Florida. In his account of the Conquest of Mexico, Bernal Diaz notes a moment of thanksgiving in 1519 joined by Cortez and his men for safe passage to what is now Veracruz, Mexico.

A story of thanksgiving is told about Panfilo de Narvaez and his expedition to Florida in 1526. Another story of thanksgiving is told about Coronado and his men, taking place on the banks of the Rio Grande near present-day San Elizario, Texas, in 1540 near what is today El Paso. And on September 8, 1565, Don Pedro Menendez declared a day of thanks before begining construction of St. Augustine, Florida. Stories of thanksgiving abound.

Mention is made here and there in American history about a national day of thanksgiving. On October 3, 1863, for example, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of thanksgiving . And in 1905, Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation declaring November 12 as a day of thanksgiving. Not Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving Day did not actually become a national holiday until December 26, 1941, with House Joint Resolution 41 (77^th Congress, 1^st Session) declaring the 4^th Thursday in Novem-ber as Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving is a day all Americans commemorate. But Thanksgiving is not a proprietary holiday. The Pilgrims didn’t invent it. Nor did the Spanish. But when we think of the first thanksgiving we need to look at the forgotten (some would say “neglected”) pages of American history. For the history of the United States during the period when its lands were Spanish is as much a part of American history as is the history of the period when its lands were English.

More importantly, perhaps, is to remember that as a national holiday, Thanksgiving Day is of recent origin, belonging to the children of the 20^th century. It’s time to re-commemorate Thanksgiving Day as a day of hope for the American children of the 21^st century.

Metacomet's Head, Massasoit children

Fusilamiento de Felipe Angeles

2011-11-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

Fusilamiento de Felipe Angeles

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En mil novecientos veinte
señores, tengan presente
fusilaron en Chihuahua
a un general muy valiente. De artillero comenzó
su carrera militar,
y en poco tiempo llegó
a ser un gran general.
El gobierno comprendió
los males que iba a causar,
y mandó que lo persiguieran
pa’ mandarlo a fusilar.
Con veinte hombres que traía
puso cuatro de avanzada,
para ver si no le tendían
una terrible emboscada.
En el cerro de la mora
le toco la mala suerte,
lo tomaron prisionero,
lo sentenciaron a muerte.
El reloj marca las horas
se acerca la ejecución,
preparen muy bien sus armas
y apúntenme al corazón.
Apúntenme al corazón,
no me demuestren tristeza,
a los hombres como yo
no se les dá en la cabeza.
Ya con esta me despido
por las hojas de un granado,
aquí termina el corrido
de un general afamado.

New Acquisitions Novemver 2011

2011-11-25T10:37:00.001-07:00

New Acquisitions for November 2011

Two New Gems from Wings Press on Lorna Dee Cervantes; Southern Latino Cooking from North Carolina Press; Rudolfo Anaya Plays on Univ. of Oklahoma Press; Pedro Moya de Contreras off Unv. of OK

The following review copies have been received by Pluma Fronteriza:

Billy the Kid and Other Plays

(Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Americas series)

Paperback Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (December 10, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0806142251 ISBN-13: 978-0806142258

Rudolfo Anaya (Author), Cecilia J. Aragon (Afterword), Robert Con Davis-Undiano (Afterword)

While award-winning author Rudolfo Anaya is known primarily as a novelist, his genius is also evident in dramatic works performed regularly in his native New Mexico and throughout the world. Billy the Kid and Other Plays collects seven of these works and offers them together for the first time.

Like his novels, many of Anaya’s plays are built from the folklore of the Southwest. This volume opens with The Season of La Llorona, in which Anaya fuses the Mexican legend of the dreaded “crying woman” with that of La Malinche, mistress and adviser to Hernán Cortés. Southwestern lore also shapes the title play, which provides a Mexican American perspective on the Kid—or Bilito, as he is known in

New Mexico—along with keen insight into the slipperiness of history. The Farolitos of Christmas and Matachines uncover both the sweet and the sinister in stories behind seasonal New Mexican rituals.

Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems

Paperback Wing Press 978-0-916727-84-0

ePub ISBN: 978-1-60940-153-5
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-60940-154-2
Library PDF ISBN: 978-1-60940-155-9

by Lorna Dee Cervantes

In this delightful book, Lorna Dee Cervantes has undertaken a mad discipline: the 100 word format unleashes paradoxically vast effects. Full of playfulness, rage and her traditional fire, Ciento is a masterful performance. (The title, said out loud, not only means "100," but can be read in another way to say: "I feel.") These are the world's biggest, deepest, miniatures. You will dip into it again and again.
— Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Hummingbird's Daughter and The Queen of America

Come down from your Tower of Loneliness and enter the hurly burly of Love in Lorna Dee Cervantes' magnificent book of poems, Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems. Each poem is 100 words long. Each poem overflows with an abundance of poetic energy, insight, eroticism, and above all, humor. Someone once said you know when you've read a good poem because when the poem stops, you go through the windshield. In this collection, you go through the windshield at almost every line. As Lorna Dee says in her poem "100 Words to the Chaos (Without You)," whatever pattern of attraction she has for you, the reader, she longs to "lay it on a Fibonacci /sequential spiral dance to you." Buy this book. Read it. It'll keep you young and in love forever.
— E. A. "Tony" Mares, author of With the Eyes of a Raptor and Astonishing Light: Conversations I Never Had With Patrociño Barela

Stunned Into Being: Essays on the Poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes

Paperback Wings Press 9780916727888 ||

by Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson

Editor Eliza Rodriguez y Gibson writes that Lorna Dee Cervantes' phrase “the poetry of improbability” describes perfectly “the critical possibilities of poetry: it juxtaposes the horrors of nuclear weapons testing with images of beauty; it gives the ineffable mass and color; and ultimately, it presents the reader with a choice that is predicated on our agency as thinking and doing subject in the world...Ultimately that sense of possibility is what drives Cervantes' vision, and it is what draws so many readers to her work”

Pedro Moya De Contreras: Catholic Reform and Royal Power in New Spain, 1571-1591

Hardcover Univ of Oklahoma Pr (Trd); 2 edition (March 15, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0806141719 ISBN-13: 978-0806141718

Stafford Poole (Author)

A definitive portrait of a Spanish cleric and royalist who fundamentally shaped New Spain, updated in light of newly available sources.

For a brief few years in the sixteenth century, Pedro Moya de Contreras was the most powerful man in the New World. A church official and loyal royalist, he came to Mexico in 1571 to establish the Inquisition and later became archbishop and viceroy for the region.

This new edition of Stafford Poole s definitive portrait of Moya de Contreras, first published in 1971, now offers an expanded understanding of this enigmatic figure s influence on the development of New Spain. In tracing the career of a sixteenth-century church official and administrator who was more notable for what he did than for who he was, Poole offers a rich source of information about Spanish rule in colonial Mexico and the evolving relationship between the Spanish monarchy and the Catholic Church.

For this second edition, Poole draws on newly available sources to fill in gaps regarding Moya de Contreras s shadowy early career and final years in Spain. He also explores in greater depth the churchman s influence as Grand Inquisitor in light of the plethora of new research and recent publications on the Spanish Inquisition.

Poole shows that Moya de Contreras was as diligent at carrying out the tortures of the Inquisition as he was at exposing government and church corruption. His reforming zeal reached its culmination in his leadership of the Third Mexican Provincial Council of 1585, which enacted a legal code for the Mexican Church that lasted more than three hundred years.

The New Southern-Latino Table: Recipes that Bring Together the Bold and Beloved Flavors of Latin America and the American South

Hardcover Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (August 15, 2011)

Language: English ISBN-10: 0807834947 ISBN-13: 978-0807834947

Sandra A. Gutierrez (Author)

In this splendid cookbook, bicultural chef Sandra Gutierrez blends ingredients, traditions, and culinary techniques, creatively marrying the diverse and delicious cuisines of more than twenty Latin American countries with the beloved food of the American South.

The New Southern-Latino Table features 150 original and delightfully tasty recipes that combine the best of both culinary cultures. Sandra, who has taught thousands of people how to cook, highlights the surprising affinities between the foodways of the Latin and Southern regions--including a wide variety of ethnic roots in each tradition and many shared basic ingredients--while embracing their flavorful contrasts and fascinating histories.

These lively dishes--including Jalapeno Deviled Eggs, Cocktail Chiles Rellenos with Latin Pimiento Cheese, Two-Corn Summer Salad, Latin Fried Chicken with Smoky Ketchup, Macaroni con Queso, and Chile Chocolate Brownies--promise to spark the imaginations and the meals of home cooks, seasoned or novice, and of food lovers everywhere. Along with delectable appetizers, salads, entrees, side dishes, and desserts, Sandra also provides a handy glossary, a section on how to navigate a Latin tienda, and a guide to ingredient sources. The New Southern-Latino Table brings to your home innovative, vibrant dishes that meld Latin American and Southern palates.

El Paso Writers Update for Nov. 20, 2011

2011-11-20T19:32:00.001-07:00

El Paso Writers Update for Week of Nov. 20, 2011
News on Troncoso, Gilb, Jesus Tafoya, Octavio Solis, Luis J. Rodriguez
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Praise for Dagoberto's Gilb's New Book

I'm sure everyone got to see the New York Times feature on Dagoberto Gilb. If not, check out From Here to Oaxaca by Bridget Kevan: "Where are we when we are before the end yet after the beginning? We are in the midst of life, where everything happens. Before the end and after the beginning, one celebrates a perfect sixth birthday, looks for a job, has an affair, remembers old girlfriends, suffers a stroke. These are the moments Dagoberto Gilb describes in his elegiac third story collection, “Before the End, After the Beginning.” READ MORE.

Of interest also out of Victoria, Texas is UHV writer-in-residence draws national praise for latest book (Victoria Advoacte).

Also check out this short review by Susannah Meadows in the New York Times. READ IT NOW
and this youtube presentation: See it now

Troncoso on a Role

If you missed Sergio Troncoso's reading at UT El Paso a few weeks ago, check out this You Tube video of the reading: Sergio Troncoso Reading.

Also check out this piece on the Hudson Valley Writers Gala which honored Sergio Troncoso among others. Read now. Troncoso has posted several reviews of his novel From This Wicked Patch of Dust on his website. Read Reviews Now.

Octavio Solis' "June in a Box"

Check out this piece about Octavio Solis' play "June in a Box": "Solis, who wrote Cal Shakes' epic saga "Pastures of Heaven," became intrigued with the story of June Robles, a 6-year-old girl kidnapped on her way home from school and held for 19 days in a box in the Arizona desert. He wondered how she managed to survive and what the effect the experience had on her later in life. The result of his investigations is a dreamlike, hauntingly lyrical piece of theater that stirs the imagination long after you leave the theater." READ NOW.

Ruben Salazar Honored

The Paso Del Norte Civil Rights Project honored Ruben Salazar at their annual Annual Fiesta Fronteriza. Read more .

Luis J. Rodriguez on Occupy America

Check out Luis J. Rodriguez blog post The Heart of Occupy America:
"In the early hours of Tuesday, November 15, New York City police officers attacked and removed Occupy Wall Street Protestors from Liberty Plaza in the city’s financial district, leading to many arrests and the removal of tents, property, and other items. This is Ground Zero for the Occupy Movement sweeping across the United States and other parts of the world." READ MORE.

4th Annual McNair-Tafoya Symposium

Sul Ross State University held its fourth annual McNair-Tafoya Symposium on Monday at the Morgan University Center. The university's McNair-Tafoya Symposium is named in memory of Jesus Tafoya, an associate professor of Spanish, who died in 2008 and who was a mentor from the beginning of the McNair program. Read More.

Honoring America's Veterans By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

2011-11-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

American soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meus in France. Foto taken on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect. --Department of Veterans Affairs.

HONORING AMERICA’S VETERANS

Previous version titled “Veteran’s Day: Pain and Promise” appeared in Newspaper Tree, November 10, 2008; Silver City Daily Press, November 11, 2008; La Prensa, San Antonio, Texas, November 11, 2007. Posted on Somos en Escritos: Latino Literary Online Magazine.

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Since the founding of the nation, some 48 million men and women have served in the U.S. military. More than half are alive today. A small number of World War II veterans are still with us, though they are dying at the rate of about 1,000 a day.

In the United States there are two days that honor American veterans: one is Memorial Day — the last Monday in May — and the other is Veteran’s Day —each year on November 11.

Some sources indicate that Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic when, as decorations, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.

In May of 1966, President Lyndon Johnson officially declared Waterloo N.Y. as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. In December of 2000, Congress passed the “National Moment of Remembrance” resolution to remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Until 1968 when the Congress established the Uniform Holiday act and moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, the nation celebrated Decoration / Memorial Day on May 30^th as a day of remembrance for Americans who died in battle.

On January 19, 1999, efforts were made to restore Memorial Day back to May 30^th instead of “the last Monday in May,” the traditional day of observance of Decoration / Memorial Day. The efforts were unsuccessful.

In the 20^th century, the War of nations (World War I) ended on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 and the day was proclaimed as Armistice Day in remembrance of the end of World War I and is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

By Executive Order, in November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. The day was later renamed Veterans Day to honor those who have served in any of the armed forces during war.

Each year on November 11, the nation celebrates that legacy and commemorates its contribution to the American character. In 2004 the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to name the city of Emporia, Kansas, as the official founding city of Veterans Day.

When World War II ended in August of 1945, I was 19 years old and a Sergeant in the Marine Corps. I had survived the vagaries of that grueling war and, putting my uniform aside, went out into the world to make my “fortune” with the 16 million men and women who served in that effort.

What that fortune would be, I had no idea. Thanks to the University of Pittsburgh (1948-1952) that fortune has turned out to be an academic career spanning almost six decades and a staggering production of published words. All this with only one year of high school and no GED.

What I knew at war’s end was that as a World War II veteran the promises of America strengthened my resolve to confront the challenges of the nation at mid-century. What I also knew was that as a veteran I was part of a legacy of military service stretching back to the foundations of the nation.

n Veterans Day, in particular, I think about the youth of our nation fighting in brutal climes like Afghanistan and Iraq. I think about Willie Bains, a companion of my youth who went off to the European Theater during World War II and never came back. We should have grown old together and reveled in conversations about our children and grandchildren.

On Veterans Day, especially, I think about the World War I veterans I used to see in my youth on the streets of San Antonio, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, hawking paper poppies (symbolic of Memorial Day) for donations.

Inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields” (December 18, 1915) by Lt. Colonel John McCrae a Medical Doctor of the Canadian Army, Moina Michaels initiated the tradition of sporting poppies on Decoration/Memorial Day.

I remember how many veterans of World War I in my youth were without limbs, how many of them were blind, how many of them had grown old before their time, had given up on life and the promises of their country — all this after having given themselves to America.

Though they are less, today I see maimed and crippled veterans of World War II struggling to come to terms with the visions they still carry in their heads about that conflagration.

And now in our nation there are veterans of Viet Nam and subsequent battles waiting for the largesse of the nation to heal them of their wounds, to succor them in their time of need.

The nation has not served its veterans well, those who gave their full measure of devotion “to protect and defend.” This is not a panegyric to the nobility of war, for there is little nobility in the ravages of warfare. Memorial Day and Veterans Day should be a reminder to all of us that, despite our differences, regardless of color, religion, ethnicity, or gender, we should pay homage to our fellow Americans who have defended the ramparts of our democracy even though that democracy has at times disdained their service.

Memorial Day and Veterans Day are flitting moments in the enduring cycle of nation-building. We have not yet formed “a more perfect union.” Ronald Reagan’s shining city on the hill still awaits us while the blood of our children is spent today on campaigns that remind us of Greek and Roman excursions into foreign lands in pursuit of empire.

And what of the veterans of those campaigns? Those men and women who have sacrificed (and are sacrificing) so much in pursuit of an imperious chimera whose flight takes (has taken) us into perilous regions. What of their sacrifices? All the sacrifices of our veterans over the life of our nation create a collectivity of patriotism dedicated to the ideals of the nation rather than to the vagaries of its politics. For that reason we should honor our live and fallen veterans on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--John McCrae

Felipe de Ortego y Gasca is Scholar in Residence, Chair, Department of Chicana/Chicano and Hemispheric Studies, Western New Mexico University; USMC, World War II, 1943-1946 (Platoon Sergeant); USAF, Korean and Viet Nam Conflicts, 1952-1962 (Active Duty: Captain; Major, USAFR)

El Paso County Sheriff's Office linked to Fast and Furious

2011-11-03T23:18:00.003-07:00

Nov 4, 12:05 AM EDT

AP Associated Pest

El Paso County Sheriff's Office linked to Fast and Furious

Vin Diesel and Sheriff Wiles Seen at Party

By TOCAYO TRIFT

AP Film Writer

El Paso (AP) -- The El Paso County Sheriff's Office was among several local law enforcement agencies that was asked to aid in the making of various films in the “Fast and the Furious” film series. These new allegations have surprised both El Paso's film critics and non-critics alike spurring both parties to plead “please no more 'Fast and Furious' movies!”

The “Fast and the Furious” franchise started in 2001 with the original “The Fast and The Furious,” not to be confused with “Fast & Furious” (2009) or the forthcoming “Fast/Furious” (coming in 2013) or “Fast-Furious” (coming in 2014), or “Fast (i.e. Furious)”(coming in 2015).

Left, Vin Diesel ("The Fast") and Right, Sheriff Richard Wiles ("The Furious")

This series of films was marked with significant bad acting and terrible plots. Sources report that DVDs of the various “Fast and the Furious” movies were allowed to be smuggled into Mexico.

However, Sheriff Richard Wiles says that his office only supported the making of “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006) and not any other film in the franchise. Regarding the smuggling of the franchise movies into Mexico, Wiles stated that his office is “not the Mexican border patrol.”

Since its inception, the injection of “Fast and the Furious” movies into the Mexican economy has had great repercussions. “Imagine, Mexican kids trying to imitate Vin Diesel's acting skills,” stated Mexican President Felipe Calderon, “we want are kids to learn from the masters of playing Mexicans like Charleston Heston, Natalie Wood, Jennifer Lopez, and El Paso City Representative Steve Ortega.”

Wiles said he will not get into the film criticism on the films and said his office will continue assisting with the production of more “Fast and Furious” movies.

The ATF also known as the Bureau of Atrocious and Terrible Films first introduced Vin Diesel films into Mexico hoping to stop the import of excellent Mexican films into the US especially by noted Mexican directors such as Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Wednesday that he just remembered Mexicans and Mexico existed, and he plans to question Vin Diesel regarding the film-walking operations with Texas connections.

Last year, the El Paso Film Police found stash of films including “The Fast and The Furious” (2001), “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006), “Fast & Furious” (2009), “Fast Five” (2011), and “Fast & Furious 6” (2013) in a West El Paso home reputed to belong to El Paso City Representative Cortney Niland.

Lunes Con Lalo: Encounter and Financial Restrictions

2011-10-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

Abelardo & Dolores Delgado (Emanuel Martinez)

Lunes Con Lalo

Poetic Wisdom for Your Week by Abelardo Delgado

Encounter

I just heard

a misplaced word

as another minute

passed me by.

Each minute

comes much closer.

My heart behaves

strangely.

My mind makes circles

of excitement

as if

life itself

was about to be born.

Two people bound to meet

cease being people

and entangle in some angelic harp

approach each other.

They don't run

to each

other

but fly with anxious wings

which in their hearts

happily flutter.

Time, jealous of the way

these two are using it,

refused to move.

It freezes their encounter

Their embrace

becomes a stone

and their kiss

turns to marble.

Their words become lava,

they taste desire's guava.

=========

Financial Restriction

Match your good will

to a dollar bill.

Seven blessings

won't pay back rent.

I can't buy

a bag of groceries

with all your rosaries.

From La Llorona: 43 Lloronas of Abelardo
(c) Abelardo Delgado

Published with permission of the Delgado Estate.

Double Speak By Rodolfo F. Acuña

2011-10-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Double Speak

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

Stuart Chase’s The Tyranny of Words (1938) described an “anxiety culture” where the manipulation of word meanings was a device for control. Chase’s book encouraged the study of semantics (the science of word meaning). Within a decade George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) coined the notion of doublespeak, the act of disguising and distorting of words.

What was then a conversation point has become the norm. Today, doublespeak is so common that euphemisms such as “downsizing” for layoffs or you’re fired and “take out” for destroy or murder are used without reflection. The intentional ambiguity has become part of the political stratagem.

The intent of doublespeak is to deny or disguise the truth. As propaganda it rivals Adolph Hitler’s Big Lie and is today so widespread that out of necessity the field of linguistics has grown to the point that there are numerable subfields.

Doublespeak has led to the field of forensic linguistics to breakdown the meaning or intent of words to juries and judges alike. This has led to the development of the International Association of Forensic Linguists that publishes the Journal of Speech, Language, and the Law.

George Carlin had a whole routine on euphemisms such as he "passed away," avoiding the reality of “he is dead.” The use of euphemisms is nothing new; in the 18^th century, Shakespeare in Hamlet used the euphemism “die” for “orgasm,” thus Hamlet said "I die in your lap." The problem today is that the use is so pervasive.

There are varying layers of euphemisms which involve sophisticated metaphors. They can be traced back to the Greeks and historically they have enriched poetry and dichos (proverbs). Euphemisms are so common that we often accept their literal meaning without reflection.

To protect oneself it is important to be cautious and develop a general knowledge of semantics. University of California Los Angeles professor Otto Santa Ana’s Brown Tide Rising: Metaphoric Representations of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse is especially informative. Santa Ana gives the reader awareness and the tools to decipher propaganda. Particularly interesting is how the government uses metaphors such “desert storms” substituting it for the reality of the war or invasion of Iraq in the 1990s.

Just thinking about different meanings, how different is the use of “Manifest Destiny” from Deutschland über alles. In U.S. history the so-called Western Expansion has been described as “The Winning of the West” as if the Indian Wars had been a ballgame.

In other instances, it is called the “Western Expansion,” the “Western Movement,” or the “re-annexation of Texas and the Southwest” (which again are all euphemisms for Manifest Destiny). Are these expressions factual?

History is replete with examples of doublespeak. At the turn of the 19^th century industrialists and bankers such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Mellon built financial and industrial empires by exploiting the public, the natural resources and exploiting and assassinating workers. Their behavior was so nefarious that historians and reformers dubbed them the Robber Barons.

Later foundations endowed by the robber barons funded historians such as Allan Nevins to rewrite history and rechristen them “Captains of Industry.” The Texas based King Ranch, which accumulated a million acres of land, much of it stolen from Mexican farmers, paid Historian Tom Lea to write a Horatio Alger-like eulogy to Richard King.

In recent times, countless other instances of doublespeak have crept into the American vernacular. Expressions such as “pulling oneself up by his or her bootstrap,” “equality,” “equal opportunity,” “free world” or the “democratic world” are misused. We refer to countries led by dictators as “democratic” simply because they support us. Western Civilization means the white world and along with the “free world” insidiously refer to countries that at one time had empires and profited from the sale of slaves.

As a student of urban history, words such as redevelopment and urban renewal bug me. In Tucson I came across a group called the Southern Arizona Leadership Council whose members have made fortunes by buying government land at bargain prices and displacing homeowners. They have made millions by having the inside track to contracts and jobs.

In Los Angeles we call “urban development” or “urban renewal,” people removers or bulldozed communities. People were displaced and others made huge profits because of this removal.

Lately, words like “class warfare” and “equality” have taken on distorted meanings. In the present economic crisis people call the one percent who often pay minimal or no pay taxes, “job creators.” Are they job creators when most have received huge federal bailouts and they refuse to reinvest the money in American jobs? For that matter are they patriotic because they wear flag pins? Are the ninety-nine percent waging class warfare by criticizing the privilege of the few?

For that matter, are the Kochs philanthropists because their foundations donate money to art galleries that bear their names? Should they be called philanthropists for funding groups to fight government regulation with the purpose of making higher business profits and paying lower taxes?

The tranny of words becomes dangerous when translating foreign words. Recently my friend Arnaldo Cordova wrote an article in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada

in which he referred to the rash of bombings in Mexico as being the byproduct of “delinquencia organizada,” which upon a hurried reading I translated as organized juvenile delinquency. Boy was I embarrassed.

But look at the idiots who translate the word la raza as strictly meaning race when it popularly refers to a people. Because of the gullibility or ignorance of others the xenophobes continue to intentionally confuse communication, entering Hitler’s Big Lie twilight zone.

Recent anti-immigrant campaigns have taken a similar bent. In 1994 the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 campaign that restricted public services for undocumented immigrants was insidiously called 187. In California Section 187 refers to the California Penal Code that defines the crime of murder.

This demonetization has its roots in the “term illegal alien.” Illegal conjures the imagery of criminality; alien invokes the imagery of body snatchers from outer space.

This imagery plays on the American fears that recall 1980s movies of extraterrestrial invasions. They are popularized by people who still believe in the boogeyman and are afraid of the dark. Many white people in Arizona are afraid that they are losing their patrimony to the Mexican body snatchers, although most Mexicans have been in Arizona longer than the snowbirds.

Words have meaning; there are consequences in distorting them. Look no further than the phrase “weapons of mass destruction.” In the process, the truth becomes a casualty when it loses its sense of reality. What is keeping this country afloat is scientific or critical thinking and we are losing this edge. Doublespeak is the antithesis of science.

Thinking is not bad, it won’t kill you. Msgr. Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality (1975), laments the loss of convivial tools in our society:

I choose the term "conviviality" to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment; and this in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others, and by a man-made environment. I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value. I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society's members.

Our anxiety culture today is in danger of losing its most basic convivial tool -- reasoned communication. Today, doublespeak has crossed over the line. People are captives of the political euphemisms of others who are purposely dishonest. In the end, this will lead to lethal consequences that may in many instances kill and in other occasions make us poorer and less free as the truth loses its sense of reality.

Published with permission of Rodolfo F. Acuña

El Paso Writers Update for Week of Oct. 16, Part I

2011-10-16T10:32:00.001-07:00

El Paso Writers Update for Week of Oct. 16, Part I
News on Sasha Pimentel Chacon, Dagoberto Gilb, Miguel Juarez, Pat Mora and more
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Above, left to right, Pluma editor Raymundo Eli Rojas, Miguel Juarez, and Hector Gonzalez talking about saving El Paso's Lincoln Center and Luis Jimenez' sculpture "Los Lagartos"

Two full months of actvism has prevented me from posting a whole lot on the PF blog. I've finally come to the realization that I no longer have time to do a full newsletter of Pluma Fronteriza and Libros, Libros. I'm talking about the hardcopy. I'd enjoy any recommendation though. I'm still thinking about it.

Sasha will accept the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award Today

UT El Paso prof wins American Book Award

Our biggest news we have is that UTEP Creative Writing professor Sasha Pimentel Chacon Won the Before Columbus Foundaton's American Book Award. See El Diario de El Paso article "Premian libro de poesía de inmigrante": "Una mezcla de sencillez, orgullo y alma de niña se observan en los ojos rasgados de la ahora paseña Sasha Pimentel Chacón, una escritora que llegó hace apenas cuatro años a estos lares para quedarse." READ MORE.

Also see this West End Press media release on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notes/west-end-press/sasha-pimentel-chac%C3%B3n-to-accept-american-book-award-in-berkeley-october-16/10150358544122305

Gilb and Fountain to receive Awards in November

Also Poet Carrie Fountain of Las Cruces will receive the emerging author award from the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation's inaugural Illumine awards for excellence in literary achievement in November. Dagoberto Gilb will be offered the fiction award. Read more.

Benjamin Alire Saenz

Saenz in Chicago

John Green and Benjamin Alire Sáenz, authors known for their "coming-of-age"characters, will be in conversation with Donna Seaman discussing Saul Bellow's book "The Adventures of Augie March" at 6 p.m. at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State St.; free. Registration is required. 312-747-8191. See chicagopubliclibrary1b1c.eventbrite.com.

Saenz is mention in an article in the San Antonio Express-News which features El Pasoen Heidi Marquez Smith: "Director of Book Festival Wants To Reach More Kids."

Luis J. Rodriguez

Rodriguez in the Huff

John Rogers features Luis Rodriguez in his article "Words prevailed over gangs for Luis J. Rodriguez". "Even when he was a notorious street punk, shooting at people and shooting up heroin, there was always something a little different about Luis J. Rodriguez. If he wasn't pulling a knife to settle a dispute or running to avoid the law, Rodriguez was just as likely to be off somewhere reading: Homer's "Odyssey" maybe; or John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"; or some other great work." READ MORE.

Dagoberto Gilb (courtesy of The Venture)

Gilb on Nuestra Palabra Tour

Nuestra Palabra Tour will be coming to El Paso which may include Junot Diaz, Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto Gilb among other. See "Nuestra Palabra takes its Latino literature showcase on the road."

Gilb's forthcoming short story collection (next month!) is listed in "Celebrate Hispanic heritage with a good read": "Finding a book by, for or about a person of Hispanic heritage used to be a chore. We forget there was a time when mainstream bookstores and libraries carried little to nothing that could pass for a book about the Latino experience in the United States." READ MORE.

Wedding Bells at Cinco Puntos

Congrads to Cinco Puntos Press' Johnny Byrd on his recent marriage. See Cinco Puntos' statement "Yes, Johnny Byrd did get married!"

Mary Wright as the Library Lady and Gabe Martinez as Tom‡s in 'Tomas and the Library Lady,' a bilingual play by Pennsylvania Youth Theatre. Public performances are Tuesday and Oct. 18 at the Bethlehem Public Library, and Oct. 22 at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks. (contributed photo / October 5, 2011)

Tomas and the Library Lady

See this article about "Tomas and the Library Lady" based on Pat Mora's award-winning children's book. The story was adapted for the stage in 2005 by Latino playwright Jose Cruz Gonzale. The play will be performed on Tuesday, Oct. 18. Check out "Free bilingual play presents inspirational story": "Tomas, the main character in Pat Mora's book "Tomas and the Library Lady," is an inspirational character. Through the kindness of a stranger, he learns how important reading, hard work and perseverance are to success." READ MORE.

Miguel Juarez on "El Vaquero" Removal

We will be featuring an interview with Miguel Juarez soon regarding his activism on part for Luis Jimenez' Los Lagartos and Lincoln Center (El Paso). He was recently quoted by the El Paso Times and other venues regarding the city of El Paso losing Luis Jimenez "El Vaquero" sculpture. See Juarez' comments as well as photage of the removal "Adios, 'Vaquero': Luis Jimenez's famed sculpture leaves longtime home."

Troncoso to be honored at Gala

Sergio Troncoso is to be honored at the The Hudson Valley Writers' Center annual gala at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 3. The event is at Tappan Hill Mansion, the former Hudson Valley estate of Mark Twain. Tickets are $250. For information, call 914-332-5953.

David D. Romo

When Sergio Troncoso was in town a few weeks ago he said you won't find his books at Costco. Nevertheless, I did find David D. Romo's book. On David Romo, he is quoted in the El Paso Times article "Links of the past: Some of El Paso's landmarks in fight to survive."

Recent Books: Central American Topics

2011-10-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Recent Books: Central American Topics

The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, Updated Edition

Paperback

University Of Chicago Press; Second Edition, Second Edition edition (July 30, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0226306909 ISBN-13: 978-0226306902

Greg Grandin (Author, Preface), Naomi Klein (Contributor)

After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash.

Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region.

With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy — one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal — and that the conflict’s main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy. Updated with a new preface by the author and an interview with Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order — a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond.

Black in Latin America

Hardcover NYU Press (July 27, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0814732984 ISBN-13: 978-0814732984

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Author)

12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage. While just over 11.0 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of them arrived in the United States. The rest — over ten and a half million — were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America. This astonishing fact changes our entire picture of the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere, and of its lasting cultural impact. These millions of Africans created new and vibrant cultures, magnificently compelling syntheses of various African, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish influences.

Despite their great numbers, the cultural and social worlds that they created remain largely unknown to most Americans, except for certain popular, cross-over musical forms. So Henry Louis Gates, Jr. set out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries of their acknowledge — or deny — their African past; how the fact of race and African ancestry play themselves out in the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean and Latin America. Starting with the slave experience and extending to the present, Gates unveils the history of the African presence in six Latin American countries — Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and Peru — through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics, and religion, but also the very palpable presence of anti-black racism that has sometimes sought to keep the black cultural presence from view.

In Brazil, he delves behind the façade of Carnaval to discover how this ‘rainbow nation’ is waking up to its legacy as the world's largest slave economy.

In Cuba, he finds out how the culture, religion, politics and music of this island is inextricably linked to the huge amount of slave labor imported to produce its enormously profitable 19th century sugar industry, and how race and racism have fared since Fidel Castro's Communist revolution in 1959.

In Haiti, he tells the story of the birth of the first-ever black republic, and finds out how the slaves's hard fought liberation over Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire became a double-edged sword.

In Mexico and Peru, he explores the almost unknown history of the significant numbers of black people — far greater than the number brought to the United States — brought to these countries as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the worlds of culture that their descendants have created in Vera Cruz on the Gulf of Mexico, the Costa Chica region on the Pacific, and in and around Lima, Peru.

Professor Gates' journey becomes ours as we are introduced to the faces and voices of the descendants of the Africans who created these worlds. He shows both the similarities and distinctions between these cultures, and how the New World manifestations are rooted in, but distinct from, their African antecedents. “Black in Latin America” is the third installment of Gates's documentary trilogy on the Black Experience in Africa, the United States, and in Latin America.

In America Behind the Color Line, Professor Gates examined the fortunes of the black population of modern-day America. In Wonders of the African World, he embarked upon a series of journeys to reveal the history of African culture. Now, he brings that quest full-circle in an effort to discover how Africa and Europe combined to create the vibrant cultures of Latin America, with a rich legacy of thoughtful, articulate subjects whose stories are astonishingly moving and irresistibly compelling.

The Jaguar Within: Shamanic Trance in Ancient Central and South American Art

(Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)

Hardcover University of Texas Press (July 1, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0292726260 ISBN-13: 978-0292726260

Rebecca R. Stone (Author)

Shamanism--the practice of entering a trance state to experience visions of a reality beyond the ordinary and to gain esoteric knowledge--has been an important part of life for indigenous societies throughout the Americas from prehistoric times until the present.

Much has been written about shamanism in both scholarly and popular literature, but few authors have linked it to another significant visual realm -- art. In this pioneering study, Rebecca R. Stone considers how deep familiarity with, and profound respect for, the extra-ordinary visionary experiences of shamanism profoundly affected the artistic output of indigenous cultures in Central and South America before the European invasions of the sixteenth century.

Using ethnographic accounts of shamanic trance experiences, Stone defines a core set of trance vision characteristics, including enhanced senses, ego dissolution, bodily distortions, flying, spinning and undulating sensations, synaesthesia, and physical transformation from the human self into animal and other states of being. Stone then traces these visionary characteristics in ancient artworks from Costa Rica and Peru.

She makes a convincing case that these works, especially those of the Moche, depict shamans in a trance state or else convey the perceptual experience of visions by creating deliberately chaotic and distorted conglomerations of partial, inverted, and incoherent images.

Cancer Survival in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Central America

(IARC Scientific Publications)

PaperbackPaperback: 308 pages Publisher: World Health Organization; 1 edition (July 2011)

ISBN-10: 9283221621 ISBN-13: 978-9283221623

R. Sankaranarayanan (Author), R. Swaminathan (Author)

Population-based cancer survival rates offer an important benchmark for measuring a health care system's overall effectiveness in the fight against cancer.

While this type of information on high-resource countries is readily available, Cancer Survival in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Central America presents in-depth cancer survival data from 27 population-based cancer registries in 14 low- and middle-resource countries.

The striking inequalities in cancer survival between countries and within countries described in this volume are largely related to the differences in general awareness, availability of early detection practices, trained human resources, diagnosis and treatment and the development and accessibility to cancer services, as well as, to a lesser extent, to issues of data quality and reliability.

The differences in cancer survival reported in populations observed between and within countries studied in this volume provide valuable insights for future planning and investment by governments in primary prevention activities, early detection initiatives and tertiary care to achieve meaningful cancer control.

The calendar period of registration of incident cases for the present study ranges between 1990 and 2001. Data on 564 606 cases of 1-56 cancer sites from different registries are reported. Data from eleven registries were utilized for eliciting survival trend and seventeen registries for reporting survival by clinical extent of disease. Besides chapters on every registry and general chapters on methodology, database and overview, the availability of online comparative statistics on cancer survival data by participating registries or cancer site in the form of tables or graphs is an added feature.

Prácticas ciudadanas de los jóvenes en tiempos de posguerra: Estudio de caso: Juventud de San Juan Comalapa, Departamento de Chimaltenango, Guatemala

(Spanish Edition) Paperback Editorial Académica Española (July 28, 2011)

ISBN-10: 3844343717 ISBN-13: 978-3844343717

Carol González Villarreal (Author)

Enfocar la atención en los jóvenes, y como están incursionando en la sociedad a partir de su participación ciudadana, representa un reto desde la sociología. Ello, porque se busca entender la noción no sólo desde su dimensión etaria, sino desde su dimensión sociocultural. También, es un desafío indagar sobre la forma como las nuevas generaciones están respondiendo a la negación de inclusión que se ha vivido en Guatemala.

Examina, por tanto, los espacios que utilizan para expresarse y demandar, las razones que los movilizan o los inhiben, y las principales dificultades para actuar como ciudadanos. Por tanto, ayuda a visualizar las características que está asumiendo el ejercicio de la ciudadanía y la cultura política de los jóvenes en un espacio local golpeado por la guerra civil.

En el nivel teórico, este estudio puede dar pautas acerca de cómo re-comprender la ciudadanía y su ejercicio en un contexto de posguerra y, en el nivel práctico, pautas sobre qué variables readecuar y condicionantes considerar, si se quiere poner en práctica políticas de descentralización estatal, de participación ciudadana y de desarrollo local, dirigidas a la población joven del país.

The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic: The Rise and Fall of an Early Mesoamerican Civilization

Hardcover University Press of Colorado (July 18, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1607320924 ISBN-13: 978-1607320920

Michael Love (Author, Editor), Jonathan Kaplan (Author, Editor)

From 400 BC to AD 250, the southern Maya region was one of most remarkable civilizations of the ancient Americas. Filled with great cities linked by flourishing long-distance trade, shared elite ideologies, and a vibrant material culture, this region was pivotal not only for the Maya but for Mesoamerica as a whole.

Although it has been of great interest to scholars, gaps in the knowledge have led to debate on the most vital questions about the southern region.

Recent research has provided a wealth of broadly based new data that have expanded the understanding of this region and its influence on greater Mesoamerica. In The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic, prominent contributors debate whether the southern region was indeed "Maya" or instead a region of intense multiethnic interaction, with speakers of many languages and many sources of identity.

The chapters address a host of advanced developments to which this area can lay claim -- urbanism and city-states, the earliest Maya writing, and the origin of the Maya calendar--as well as additional issues including the construction of social and cultural identities, economic networks of early complex societies, relationships between the Maya and the Olmec, and a comprehensive discussion of the ancient city of Kaminaljuyu and its relationship to other cities in the region.

Customary Justice and the Rule of Law in War-torn Societies

Paperback United States Institute of Peace (July 6, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1601270666 ISBN-13: 978-1601270665

Deborah Isser (Editor)

The major peacekeeping and stability operations of the last ten years have mostly taken place in countries that have pervasive customary justice systems, which pose significant challenges and opportunities for efforts to reestablish the rule of law.

These systems are the primary, if not sole, means of dispute resolution for the majority of the population, but post-conflict practitioners and policymakers often focus primarily on constructing formal justice institutions in the Western image, as opposed to engaging existing traditional mechanisms.

This book offers insight into how the rule of law community might make the leap beyond rhetorical recognition of customary justice toward a practical approach that incorporates the realities of its role in justice strategies.

Customary Justice and the Rule of Law in War-Torn Societies presents seven in-depth case studies that take a broad interdisciplinary approach to the study of the justice system. Moving beyond the narrow lens of legal analysis, the cases Mozambique, Guatemala, East Timor, Afghanistan, Liberia, Iraq, Sudan examine the larger historical, political, and social factors that shape the character and role of customary justice systems and their place in the overall justice sector.

Written by resident experts, the case studies provide advice to rule of law practitioners on how to engage with customary law and suggest concrete ways policymakers can bridge the divide between formal and customary systems in both the short and long terms.

Instead of focusing exclusively on ideal legal forms of regulation and integration, this study suggests a holistic and flexible palette of reform options that offers realistic improvements in light of social realities and capacity limitations. The volume highlights how customary justice systems contribute to, or detract from, stability in the immediate post-conflict period and offers an analytical framework for assessing customary justice systems that can be applied in any country.

Latin America's New Left and the Politics of Gender: Lessons from Nicaragua

(SpringerBriefs in Political Science) Springer; 1st Edition. edition (July 26, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1461403588 ISBN-13: 978-1461403586

Karen Kampwirth (Author) Paperback: 60 pages

The majority of Latin Americans now live in countries that are governed by democratically elected governments on the political left, which is unprecedented in that region.

This book analyzes this occurrence by asking a question that up until now has been largely ignored in the literature on the contemporary Latin American left: to what extent have these governments governed with, and promoting the interests of, the women's movements that are an important part of their base of support?

This question is examined by focusing on a critical case that is rarely analyzed in the literature on the new Latin American left, the case of Nicaragua. The broader implications for Latin America will be shown, making this book of interest to researchers and graduate students in Latin American studies as well as gender studies and political science.

Nicaragua: [Large Print]

Paperback ReadHowYouWant; Large Print 16 pt edition (July 27, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1459617231 ISBN-13: 978-1459617230

Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade (Author)

This newly revised volume details Nicaragua's unique history, culture, economics, politics, and foreign relations. Its historical coverage considers the country's early and recent history, from pre-Columbian and colonial times through the nationalist liberal era, the U.S. marine occupation, the Somoza dictatorship, the Sandinista regime, the conservative restoration, and the Sandinista comeback.

The fifth edition includes a new chapter detailing the reelection of Daniel Ortega and the irony of his current role in undercutting the rule of law and democracy that he helped institute in his earlier administration. This edition also documents what may be the more enduring reality of this Central American country: the historical and ongoing interventions by which the United States - the ''eagle'' to the north - continues to shape Nicaraguan political, economic, and cultural life.

Access to Water for All?: Designing a "Sector Wide Approach" within the Potable Water and Sanitation Sector Case Study: Nicaragua

Paperback VDM Verlag Dr. Müller (July 7, 2011)

ISBN-10: 363936841X ISBN-13: 978-3639368413

Lukas Scherak (Author)

Aim of the thesis was to examine to what extent one can convert the theoretical approach of the "Sector Wide Approach" within the Potable Water and Sanitation Sector. First the actual condition within the area of the water supply was thoroughly analyzed, this means the investigated data about the access to clean drinking water within the population was evaluated, in order to develop a regional profile from Nicaragua with the help of several demographic and socio-economic factors.

Furthermore several Workshops took place, in which the participants (political institutions and donor organizations) dealt with the political and administrative implementation of the SWAp, in order to recognize and eliminate possible structural problem zones.

Also informal discussions were conducted with each participant inter alia about their readiness for the participation, their interest in the implementation of the SWAp, their role within this process. Based on the existing data and the results of the actual condition it was analyzed whether it is possible to implement the SWAp in Nicaragua within the Potable Water and Sanitation Sector.

El equilibrio fantasma (Spanish Edition)

Paperback Publisher: Palibrio (July 14, 2011)

Language: SpanishISBN-10: 1463304161 ISBN-13: 978-1463304164

Ricardo Sánchez-Murillo (Author)

"A todas luces vivimos en una sociedad donde imperan la indiferencia y la indolencia: es la era de los inmorales". El Equilibrio Fantasma reúne una selección de atrevidos relatos cargados de indignación y de una crítica irónica que nos invitan a pensar en una nueva racionalidad, y en especial, a luchar por una realidad social-humanista, económica, y ambiental distinta.

Estas páginas guiarán al lector en un viaje desde las entrañas del narcotráfico en Centroamérica a la inmoralidad de la crisis económica y política. Sánchez-Murillo plantea la derrota de nuestro sistema cultural a través de la incongruencia del vigente paradigma educativo, la injusticia contra mujeres y niños, el derrumbe financiero, el apoderamiento tecnológico y la destrucción del planeta.

Rica and Peru.

New Books: Topic Mexico

2011-09-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

New Books: Topic Mexico

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413ePhjCqAL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

The Mythologies Of Ancient Mexico And Peru

Paperback Theophania Publishing (July 30, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1770832661 ISBN-13: 978-1770832664

Lewis Spence (Author)

It is difficult to understand the neglect into which the study of the Mexican and Peruvian mythologies has fallen.

A zealous host of interpreters are engaged in the elucidation of the mythologies of Egypt and Assyria, but, if a few enthusiasts in the United States of America be excepted, the mythologies of the ancient West have no following whatsoever.

That this little book may lead many to a fuller examination of those profoundly interesting faiths is the earnest hope of one in whose judgment they are second in importance to no other mythological system.

By a comparative study of the American mythologies the student of other systems will reap his reward in the shape of many a parallel and many an elucidation which otherwise would escape his notice; whilst the general reader will introduce himself into a sphere of the most fascinating interest—the interest in the attitude towards the eternal verities of the peoples of a new and isolated world.

Rise of the Latin American Baseball Leagues, 1947-1961: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico and Venezuela

Paperback Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub (July 5, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0786463848 ISBN-13: 978-0786463848

Lou Hernandez (Author)

Beyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico

Paperback University of California Press; 1 edition (July 8, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0520269594 ISBN-13: 978-0520269590

Debra Lattanzi Shutika (Author)

Since the 1990s, migration from Mexico to the United States has moved beyond the borderlands to diverse communities across the country, with the most striking transformations in American suburbs and small towns.

This study explores the challenges encountered by Mexican families as they endeavor to find their place in the U.S. by focusing on Kennett Square, a small farming village in Pennsylvania known as the "Mushroom Capital of the World."

In a highly readable account based on extensive fieldwork among Mexican migrants and their American neighbors, Debra Lattanzi Shutika explores the issues of belonging and displacement that are central concerns for residents in communities that have become new destinations for Mexican settlement.

Beyond the Borderlands also completes the circle of migration by following migrant families as they return to their hometown in Mexico, providing an illuminating perspective of the tenuous lives of Mexicans residing in, but not fully part of, two worlds.

Daily Life in Colonial Mexico: The Journey of Friar Ilarione da Bergamo, 1761-1768

(American Exploration and Travel Series) \

Paperback University of Oklahoma Press (July 30, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0806142332 ISBN-13: 978-0806142333

Friar Ilarione da Bergamo (Author), Robert Ryal Miller (Editor), William J. Orr (Translator)

In 1761 Ilarione da Bergamo, a Capuchin friar, journeyed to Mexico to gather alms for foreign missions. After harrowing voyages across the Mediterranean and Atlantic, he reached Mexico City in 1763. His account reveals the squalor, crime, and other perils in the viceregal capital, and details daily life: food, public hygiene, sexual morality, medical practices, and popular diversions.

His observations about religious life are particularly valuable. Ilarione also describes mining and refining techniques, recounts a bitter and bloody miners’ strike, and recalls traveling across bandit-infested wilderness to Guadalajara.

After his return to Italy, Ilarione wrote an account of his journey, published here for the first time in English.

The editors have liberally annotated the text, written an introduction about Ilarione’s life and the historical context of his journey, and included more than a dozen of Fra Ilarione’s original drawings, including maps and sketches of Mexican flora. Daily Life in Colonial Mexico is a welcome addition to the firsthand literature of New Spain.

Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1910-1936

Paperback University of Texas Press (July 1, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0292729723 ISBN-13: 978-0292729728

John W. F. Dulles (Author)

Early in a sixteen-year sojourn in Mexico as an engineer for an American mining company, John W. F. Dulles became fascinated by the story of Mexico's emergence as a modern nation, and was imbued with the urge to tell that story as it had not yet been told--by letting events speak for themselves, without any interpretations or appraisal.

The resultant book offers an interesting paradox: it is "chronicle" in the medieval sense--a straightforward record of events in chronological order, recounted with no effort at evaluation or interpretation; yet in one aspect it is a highly personal narrative, since much of its significant new material came to Dulles as a result of personal interviews with principals of the Revolution.

From them he obtained firsthand versions of events and other reminiscences, and he has distilled these accounts into a work of history characterized by thorough research and objective narration.

These fascinating interviews were no more important, however, than were the author's many hours of laborious search in libraries for accounts of the events from Carranza's last year to Calles' final retirement from the Mexican scene.

The author read scores of impassioned versions of what transpired during these fateful years, accounts written from every point of view, virtually all of them unpublished in English and many of them documents which had never been published in any language.

Combining this material with the personal reminiscences, Dulles has provided a narrative rich in its new detail, dispassionate in its presentation of facts, dramatic in its description of the clash of armies and the turbulence of rough-and-tumble politics, and absorbing in its panoramic view of a people's struggle.

In it come to life the colorful men of the Revolution --Obregón, De la Huerta, Carranza, Villa, Pani, Carillo Puerto, Morones, Calles, Portes Gil, Vasconcelos, Ortiz Rubio, Garrido Canabal, Rodríguez, Cárdenas. (Dulles' narrative of their public actions is illumined occasionally by humorous anecdotes and by intimate glimpses.)

From it emerges also, as the main character, Mexico herself, struggling for self-discipline, for economic stability, for justice among her citizens, for international recognition, for democracy.

This account will be prized for its encyclopedic collection of facts and for its important clarification of many notable events, among them the assassination of Carranza, the De La Huerta revolt, the assassination of Obregón, the trial of Toral, the resignation of President Ortiz Rubio, and the break between Cárdenas and Calles. More than sixty photographs supplement the text.

The History and Development of Psychoanalysis in Mexico: The Conquista and Latin American Identity

Hardcover Edwin Mellen Pr (July 15, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0773415483 ISBN-13: 978-0773415485

Raul Paramo-ortega (Author), Herdis Amelie Wawretzko (Translator), Dale Kaplan (Translator), Hannes Stubbe (Foreword)

This work provides a history of psychoanalysis in Mexico and discusses the effects of culture, language and history on the development and application of psychoanalysis in different milieus.

These essays treat the investigation and contextualization of the transference of an 'imported cultural good' which is the psychoanalysis as it was initiated and marked by Freud (as a method to investigate the unconscious, as a therapy, as a theory of personality and above all as culture criticism).

The first chapter is a historiographical reconstruction, the second chapter adopts a cultural and historical perspective, the last chapter examines the transcendent effects of the conquista.

Beyond la Frontera: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migration

Paperback Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (July 1, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0195382226 ISBN-13: 978-0195382228

Mark Overmyer-Velazquez (Author)

Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date historical overview of Mexican migration to the U.S., Beyond la Frontera: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migration examines the transnational and historical impact of migratory trends as they developed in Mexico and the U.S. from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.

Featuring essays by leading authors in the field, the book utilizes both a chronological and thematic structure, referencing mutually influential periods in Mexican and Mexican-American history.

Taking into consideration the bi-national historical factors and narrative constructions of Mexican migration, Beyond la Frontera also describes how we may better understand the persistent legislative debates surrounding migrant rights and national sovereignty.

Daily Life of the Aztecs

(The Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series)

Hardcover Greenwood; 2 edition (July 6, 2011)ISBN-10: 0313377448 ISBN-13: 978-0313377440

Davíd Carrasco (Author), Scott Sessions (Author)

The Aztecs were an amazingly advanced culture, creating beautiful art and architecture, a calendar, and a rich mythology.

They were also a culture that practiced ritual human sacrifice to rejuvenate their plants and ensure the continued cycles of the stars, the moon, and the sun. How does one reconcile these seemingly disparate forces?

Dancing Home

Hardcover Atheneum Books for Young Readers (July 12, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1416900888 ISBN-13: 978-1416900887

Alma Flor Ada (Author), Gabriel M. Zubizarreta (Author)

A year of discoveries culminates in a performance full of surprises, as two girls find their own way to belong.

Mexico may be her parents’ home, but it’s certainly not Margie’s. She has finally convinced the other kids at school she is one-hundred percent American—just like them. But when her Mexican cousin Lupe visits, the image she’s created for herself crumbles.

Things aren’t easy for Lupe, either. Mexico hadn’t felt like home since her father went North to find work. Lupe’s hope of seeing him in the United States comforts her some, but learning a new language in a new school is tough. Lupe, as much as Margie, is in need of a friend.

Little by little, the girls’ individual steps find the rhythm of one shared dance, and they learn what “home” really means. In the tradition of My Name is Maria Isabel—and simultaneously published in English and in Spanish—Alma Flor Ada and her son Gabriel M. Zubizarreta offer an honest story of family, friendship, and the classic immigrant experience: becoming part of something new, while straying true to who you are.

Emiliano Zapata: A Biography

(Greenwood Biographies) Hardcover Greenwood (July 22, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0313380805 ISBN-13: 978-0313380808

Albert P. Rolls (Author)

Emiliano Zapata is regarded as among the most important figures of the Mexican Revolution. This book provides more than just a biography of a great leader; it enables readers to understand who Zapata was and the interests and ideologies he supported, emphasizing his ideals and distinguishing him from those who have used his name for their own purposes.

Emiliano Zapata: A Biography is organized chronologically, detailing Zapata's youth and early adulthood in the years preceding the Mexican Revolution; his role in getting his home state involved in the Revolution; and his ascent to power in Morelos' revolutionary movement.

The author elucidates Zapata's continual struggle to bring meaningful change to the lives of Mexico's poorest people, how his commitment to revolutionary reform came to define his existence, and how his ideals led to his own violent death as they had to the deaths of so many of his adversaries. A fascinating read for high school students as well as general readers, this biography tells an unforgettable story of one of Mexico's heroic figures.

The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic: The Rise and Fall of an Early Mesoamerican Civilization

Hardcover University Press of Colorado (July 18, 2011)

ISBN-10: 1607320924 ISBN-13: 978-1607320920

Michael Love (Author, Editor), Jonathan Kaplan (Author, Editor)

Although it has been of great interest to scholars, gaps in the knowledge have led to debate on the most vital questions about the southern region.

Recent research has provided a wealth of broadly based new data that have expanded the understanding of this region and its influence on greater Mesoamerica. In The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic, prominent contributors debate whether the southern region was indeed "Maya" or instead a region of intense multiethnic interaction, with speakers of many languages and many sources of identity.

The chapters address a host of advanced developments to which this area can lay claim--urbanism and city-states, the earliest Maya writing, and the origin of the Maya calendar--as well as additional issues including the construction of social and cultural identities, economic networks of early complex societies, relationships between the Maya and the Olmec, and a comprehensive discussion of the ancient city of Kaminaljuyu and its relationship to other cities in the region.

Black in Latin America

Hardcover NYU Press (July 27, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0814732984 ISBN-13: 978-0814732984

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Author)

12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World during the Middle Passage. While just over 11.0 million survived the arduous journey, only about 450,000 of them arrived in the United States.

The rest—over ten and a half million—were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America. This astonishing fact changes our entire picture of the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere, and of its lasting cultural impact.

These millions of Africans created new and vibrant cultures, magnificently compelling syntheses of various African, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish influences.

Despite their great numbers, the cultural and social worlds that they created remain largely unknown to most Americans, except for certain popular, cross-over musical forms.

So Henry Louis Gates, Jr. set out on a quest to discover how Latin Americans of African descent live now, and how the countries of their acknowledge—or deny—their African past; how the fact of race and African ancestry play themselves out in the multicultural worlds of the Caribbean and Latin America. Starting with the slave experience and extending to the present, Gates unveils the history of the African presence in six Latin American countries—Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, and Peru—through art, music, cuisine, dance, politics, and religion, but also the very palpable presence of anti-black racism that has sometimes sought to keep the black cultural presence from view.

In Brazil, he delves behind the façade of Carnaval to discover how this ‘rainbow nation’ is waking up to its legacy as the world's largest slave economy.

In Haiti, he tells the story of the birth of the first-ever black republic, and finds out how the slaves's hard fought liberation over Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire became a double-edged sword.

In Mexico and Peru, he explores the almost unknown history of the significant numbers of black people—far greater than the number brought to the United States—brought to these countries as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the worlds of culture that their descendants have created in Vera Cruz on the Gulf of Mexico, the Costa Chica region on the Pacific, and in and around Lima, Peru.

Professor Gates' journey becomes ours as we are introduced to the faces and voices of the descendants of the Africans who created these worlds. He shows both the similarities and distinctions between these cultures, and how the New World manifestations are rooted in, but distinct from, their African antecedents. “Black in Latin America” is the third instalment of Gates's documentary trilogy on the Black Experience in Africa, the United States, and in Latin America.

Now, he brings that quest full-circle in an effort to discover how Africa and Europe combined to create the vibrant cultures of Latin America, with a rich legacy of thoughtful, articulate subjects whose stories are astonishingly moving and irresistibly compelling.

Reining in the Rio Grande: People, Land, and Water

Hardcover University of New Mexico Press (July 15, 2011)

ISBN-10: 0826349439 ISBN-13: 978-0826349439

Fred M. Phillips (Author), G. Emlen Hall (Author), Mary Black (Author)

The Rio Grande was ancient long before the first humans reached its banks. These days, the highly regulated river looks nothing like it did to those early settlers.

Alternately viewed as a valuable ecosystem and life-sustaining foundation of community welfare or a commodity to be engineered to yield maximum economic benefit, the Rio Grande has brought many advantages to those who live in its valley, but the benefits have come at a price.

This study examines human interactions with the Rio Grande from prehistoric time to the present day and explores what possibilities remain for the desert river. From the perspectives of law, development, tradition, and geology, the authors weigh what has been gained and lost by reining in the Rio Grande.

Octavio Paz: Humanism and Critique

Paperback Transcript Verlag (July 27, 2011)ISBN-10: 3837613046 ISBN-13: 978-3837613049

Oliver Kozlarek (Editor)

Octavio Pa is one of the most recognized of Latin American writers. His essays offer a sophisticated critique of global modernity. Although his work has advanced many of the arguments that orient our contemporary debates in the social sciences and in philosophy, it has hardly ever been seriously considered within theses disciplines.

This volume suggests that this may have been a mistake. Its authors indicate ways in which Pa essays can be read as substantial contributions to contemporary debates in various fields.

They aim to present to a non-Spanish speaking audience some of the discussions about Pa offerings to the ongoing debates. The book also wants to make a clear statement: a critique of our contemporary modernity must go hand in hand with a non-exclusive intercultural understanding of Humanism.

Oliver Kolarek teaches political and social philosophy and social theory at the Institute for Philosophical Research at Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo in Mexico and is a visiting professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa in Mexico-City.

Lunes con Lalo: Airplane Musings

2011-09-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Lunes con Lalo: Airplane Musings
Poetic Wisdom for Your Week by Abelardo Delgado
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To the left of the plane are the sangre cristo mountains

the no-smoke sign gone

they all armed themselves, i could've sworn,

like racers they looked at it to start

once it went off,

all calibers, winston to my left,

sales to my right

and started shooting at each other

with smoke,

the social-cancer-causing ritual...

how many more days when pot legal

will join these wars acceptedly.

a pause, dinner was served,

the trays removed, the

matches and lighters initiated the battle

once again, and i inhaled,

what two or three had exhaled,

thinking, funny i never did smoke myself,

probably never will,

i do enjoy seeing some girl/woman

now and then bring the white rifle

to her pretty lips and graciously

fire the curls of smoke that

enshroud her pretty face/eyes

and make her even lovelier,

but we are just getting

ready to land into eight inches of snow in denver

and i have better things to remember.....

by Abelardo

15 minute delay

will a fifteen minute delay in houston's airport

disrupt the ability of eternity to import

foreign matter into the sole vacuum

of existence,

reason, peaks a tinsy bit at the window

watching humanity only partially undress

and i read last sunday

that the sun will burn itself out,

that, i presume to be the purpose

a god designed for mr. sun,

as he must have designed

a yet more destructive one

for mr. lon nol

but i hear clearly above the noise

of the harligen bound jet

the buzz of spirits playing cards

on the isles

as the two hostesses serve

refreshments up and down

filmed, recorded, stored, taped, filed

and the godness of infinity is

again measured in the change of time,

….time zones, you know....

and i close my eyes

and either die ahead of time

or see the womb, not my mother's but the speak of distant

dusts

in which all knowledge of my being flowing freely gusts.

by Abelardo

"15 Minute Delay" and "To the left of the plane are the sangre cristo mountains," (c) Abelardo Delgado. Published with permission of the Delgado estate.

Poetic Wisdom for Your Week from Lalo Delgado

2011-08-23T20:36:00.004-07:00

Poetic Wisdom for Your Week

"Aqui" and Reflections on The Fast, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Schizoid Autobiographical Notes, and Seven Abelardos
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Aquí

Aquí, de hoy en adelante

hemos despertado el gigante,

a nosotors mismos

y nosotros aquí,

bajo el sol de Aztlán,

no juramos uno al otro,

apoyo...cariño...respeto...

confianza y carnalismo

porque vivir esclavos

es como haber muerto.

Aquí, con los ojos

y la vez

la mente clara,

vemos como el Xicano

libre de declara

y por eso con una fuerte

a b r a z o ,

la vida misma tú prometes

y yo te prometo ti.

Aquí, en la cuna

de la

r e v o l u c i ó n

social Xicana,

hoy, cinco de mayo,

la raza soberna

declaramos con el percho

en llamas

por el orgullo

que cada Xicano

por ser Xicano

tiene como suyo.

Aquí se had decidido

no emprender camino sino

a aumentar el paso

y ensenarle a todos

lo fino que es

ser raza

y lo sagrado que es

nuestra justa causa

recordándonos que

ya no

es tiempo pa' descansar

cuando se trata de avanzar.

by Ableardo B. Delgado

Notes on The Fast, Pre-Movimiento Writing, Rafael Jesus González, and Schizoid Autobiographical Notes

Raymundo Eli Rojas: Now your fast...I'm trying to place the date.

Lalo Delgado: It ended on Easter of '68. I timed it so it would en on Easter.

RR: A little after Martin Luther King's death. How many days was it (fast)?

LD: Twenty-two. To prepare for it, I had done 18 on just liquids. So I did a 40-day fast, but half of it was on liquids, the other was just on water. A little salt and just a little sugar. I got a lot of publicity out of that, a telegram from César Chavez, who probably was the one I was trying to emulate in doing the fast. I also had heard that he had gone that long without food, so I figured that if he could go without food that long, I can.

So after the fast, I went to the hospital to start eating little by little. When I ended, I was at the crowd with my mom, my wife, my kids. Then after that, I went for a day or so to the hospital and came back the next day to work.

RR: How long after the fast did your book The Fast come out?

LD: Probably a couple of weeks later. Cause the poems were ready, I just had to have someone type them and put them on a stencil. We ran maybe 200 copies, bound, not even hard bounded, just softbound. I think it sold for a dollar and fifty cents. The idea for me, at least, was the fact that I collected my first book of works. Of course by then, I had already, as you already discovered, published some stuff in El Burro and some anthologies. I was still looking at social issues from Christian eyes rather than just a worldly person. Maybe through the years my work has become more pessimistic because I know that issues are not so simple to analyze.

There's God and then there's politicians.

RR: Who were some of the Chicanos that were writing back then? I know you guys would have lots of readings, Ricardo (Sanchez), you, Carlos Morton, Juan Contreras, Che Luera.

LD: There's a Chicano from El Paso that I don't think has been fully appreciated, but he use to go to Texas Western (UT El Paso previous name) with me, and now he is a professor in California. His name is González, Rafael González! He doesn't write much, but when he writes, it's very good.

We were friends, you know friends during college years. We kind of inspired each other. His parents had a little hardware store on Stanton Street...I think he's in Santa Rosa or something. California. There's only one book I got my hands on.

He writes in Spanish very well. All kinds of old Spanish stuff...his work is very polished. It became one of our favorites. Plus, we had this guy named Santiago Rodríguez who was in the Sociology Department (at UTEP). He might still be there. A daughter, Carmen.

Yea, of course, all this time, you never lose touch with the church. I continue to be involved with the church. I don't know if its worth mentioning it or not, but during my stay with Father Rahm, I became a playwright.

And I wrote three plays and they won first prize three years in a row. The competition was sponsored by CYO, Catholic Youth Organization. No Chicano had ever won. I won three times in a row, so they stopped the competition. “We don't want more of this stuff.”

My writing started even before that. I started writing little quentos in Spanish and sending them to El Continental. And they also won first prize, which in those days mean $25.

But it encouraged me to write when I saw people respond to what I was doing. I think it is hard to separate myself from my writing. I'm writing my autobiography. It's going to be sort of a schizoid autobiography. There's six or seven Lalos inside of me, you know. One of them is the writer, the other one is the organizer/activist, the other one the organizer, the activist, the other one is the educator, the other one is the gambler, you know all the bad things you do in life. So it's kind of hard to put down who the hell I am.

RR: Well, Seven Abelardos!

LD: (laughing): Abelardos! No wonder I've been saying that. Thanks for the idea. Actually.... I have seven chapters!

Notes: El Burro was a early UTEP (then Texas Western) literary magazine published in the late 1950s and early 60s. El Continental was a Spanish-language newspaper in El Paso, colloquially known as El Cuentamentiras. Lalo refers to Father Harold Rahn and poet Rafael Jesus Gonzalez.

"Aqui" - (c) Abelardo Delgado 2003. Published with permission of the Delgado family.

Interview with Lalo Delgado (c) Raymundo Eli Rojas 2000.
"

El Paso Writers Update for Week of Aug. 15

2011-08-17T02:00:00.005-07:00

El Paso Writers Update for Week of Aug. 15
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Ruben Salazar Files

Ruben Salazar is mentioned in Gabriel Lerner's Huntington Post article "We're Here and We're Not Leaving." "Salazar was the first Latino to cover the Mexican-American community of Los Angeles for mainstream media and the first to break the unofficial embargo that blocked non-crime news from the Latino enclave of East Los Angeles, where I now live. As a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and as News Director of TV station KMEX, he was fully bilingual and integrated into mainstream America while developing, honoring and maintaining his Hispanic culture. He reported on a community struggling for respect and recognition." READ MORE.

Also of interest on Salazar is "Finally, transparency in the Ruben Salazar case" (LA Times)
"Ruben Salazar's daughter on her father's killing" (LA Times).

Troncoso to Read at Writer's Center

Sergio Troncoso will read on Oct 16, 2: 00 to 4:00 pm, at The Writer's Center, 4508 Walsh St, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. He will read with Patricia Valdata. Troncoso posted some movies shorts about his new book. Check out.

Carlos Munoz, Jr. Quoted

Carlos Munoz, Jr. is quoted in The Nation in David Zirin's "Bud, Bruno and Baseball's Bigotry" about Tony Bruno calling San Francisco Giant's pitcher Ramon Ramirez an "illegal." READ MORE.

Poetry by Luna

Check out this post on Sheryl Luna along with one of her poems: Four Poems By Sheryl Luna.

State fo Education: Raymund Paredes

Raymund Paredes is quoted in a piece about an adult education program at the University of Texas Brownsville. See "Program will help adult students earn degree". Also see "Higher ed goals still need work" and "Help for community college students" (Austin American Statesman); "State faces challenge in helping underprepared students graduate from college" (Austin American Statesman);

Short Story by Chacon

Daniel Chacón's short story ”22 Hiding Places” is included in a new anthology titled Solace in So Many Words, a collection of essays, stories, and poems. Read more.

Redroom Bio's

Nice bio on Octavio Solis posted at the Redroom.com. Check it out. Also catch C.M. Mayo's bio. Read it now.

Gilb's Newest Reviewed

A Publishers Weekly review of Dagoberto Gilb's new book on Grove Press is out: "PEN/Hemingway Award–winner Gilb’s 10 new tales, many written as the author recovered from a 2009 stroke, take on family ties, poverty, labor, and prejudice at the country’s borders, but defy racial and geographic boundaries even when they provide the principal conflict." READ MORE.

Delgadoisms: Poetic Wisdom for your Week: GANAS

2011-08-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

Delgadoisms: Poetic Wisdom for your Week

by Lalo Delgado

Ganas

When in distress

a one-word ticket to success

is GANAS.

GANAS is that desire

which often over eats

and takes a siesta in us.

GANAS is that puntapie

we often need

to kick ourselves into action.

GANAS, if it were to be

a computer key-word,

would open up all the files

of opportunity to the possessor

of such a magical word.

GANAS, is job promotion

and security,

it is the A+

we never dreamed we could earn.

GANAS helps one learn,

makes one happy and proud.

GANAS is people of one mind

who wish to leave poverty behind,

people with the strong desire

to turn the world around,

to turn the world upsidedown.

Abelardo

March '91

(c) Abelardo Delgado 1991
Published with permission of the Delgado family.