El Paso and WWII: On the Wings of An Angel

I don't remember how old I was, but my brother told all the kids on the block that the man living at the end of the street had said we could swim in his wading pool. My sister even questioned it, but finally we believed my brother and a few of the neighborhood kids changed into their swimming gear and walked to the end of the block and jumped in. Well, the owner of the house came home and found all these kids in his backyard and started yelling at them to get out.

My neighbor is Pete G. Flores, a graphic designer by trade, he has put out a World War II story called ON the Wings of An Angel, the story of Joe Pino, who on his seventh mission he was shot down in France, declared dead, buried in the cemetery in Willers-Cotterets, France. Through the efforts of a young boy who found a piece of the B-17 bomber aircraft, Joe Pino was found alive and well 50 years later.

Pete Flores has been a constant source for Pluma Fronteriza and my articles on El Paso's Chicano barrios.

Recently, Ken Burns completed his forthcoming documentary "The War" on WWII. It was criticism because it did not have any Chicanos or Latinos in it. Last Sunday, The El Paso Times published an article by Ramon Rentiria on how Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez a journalist and University of Texas at Austin associate professor of journalism took on PBS. Check out the article: Historian takes on Ken Burns.

In Chicano(a) Literature, there are a number of books that focus on WWII or use it as a backdrop. My favorite was one I reviewed by the late Sabine Ulibarri who served as a tail gunner in WWII, Mayhem Was Our Business.

Among the valiant: Mexican-Americans in WW II and Korea by Raul Morin was recently republished a few years ago. It has short non-fiction stories on Chicano veterans. When it came out in the 1960s, nobody would publish it until the American G.I. Forum gave their assistance.

We have stories on the homefront also. On New Mexico University Press is Coal Camp Days by Ricardo L. García describes the coalfields of northern New Mexico and the remembrances of six-year-old Matias Montaño, a fictionalized version of the author’s life in the last years of World War II.

Another homefront account is Alejandro Grattan-Domínguez' Dark Side of the Dream, which porays a Mexican family's struggles as new immigrants in Texas at the start of WWII.

For you Chicano(a) literary criticism buff, Don Luis Leal's bio/autobiography Don Luis Leal, una vida y dos culturas, has a part about his experiences in the Philippines.

Don’t Spit on My Corner by Mike Duran is a novel set in WW II-era East Los Angeles. It deals somewhat with gangs.

Down Garrapata Road by Anne Estevis gives us a taste of South Texas during the 1940s and 1950s showing men leaving to WWII and rumors of El Chupasangre (the blood sucker) staling the valley.

Other books worth taking a look at are Shadows & Suposses by Gloria Vado and The Valedictorian and Other Stories by S.D. Navarro.

El Paso and World War II: The Homefront

There are a few book that have World War II-era El Paso as a setting. One is the much university-used, A Place in El Paso by Gloria López-Stafford. The story tells of a girl growing up in the barrio with her father, who she never realizes is white. Arturo Islas Migrant Souls also has some of the novel as a backdrop.

My favorite though is Letters to Louise by my hero, the late Abelardo B. Delgado. Delgado's award-winning autobiographic epistolary novel follows a young boys comming of age. In one part of the book, he describes the officials doing sweeps and arresting Mexican women in the Segundo Barrio so that they would not "spread disease" to soldiers at Fort Bliss.
Also, muralist Ernesto Martinez served in an armor division in Europe during WWII and helped liberate a concentration camp. His oral history was recorded by theUS Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project.

Chicanos and World War II

There are many other books dealing with the War and the Homefront. Some deal with the Zoot Suit Riots and others academic books deal with WWII-era labor movements. In Zaragosa Garcia's book Labor Rights are Civil Rights he describes has the more radical unions of the CIO were more inclusive of people of color but when the CIO merged with the more conservative AFL after WWII, many of those inclusive unions were thrown out.

Karen Brodkin's How Jews Became White Folks: And What that Says About Americas, tell how the GI Bill was passed more specifically to help White WWII veterans, not WWII veterans of color. Though many Chcianos would use the GI Bill to go to college, many applications of others for higher ed, housing, and more went unheeded or were lost (like the Congressional Medal of Honor recommendations).

Veteran journalist and poet, Joe Olvera, has written several articles on Company E, which was almost entirely Mexican. Company E was part of the 141st Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division saw combat in Italy and France, enduring heavy casualties during the controversial crossing of the Rapido River near Cassino, Italy.

There is also books, movies, and documentaries U.S. Army Air Force’s 58^th Fighter Group, in which heroes helped in the liberation of the main Philippine Island of Luzon in the summer of 1945. The pilots flew P-47D Thunderbolt single-seat fighter aircraft carrying out tactical air support missions.

A Wikipedia article on Hispanics and World War II has some writing on Hispanic women service members.

On the Wings of An Angel is a wolcome addition to this literature. A book-signing event will be sponsored by the Veterans Business Association of El Paso:

On the Wings of An Angel: A World War II Story of Life, Death, and Resurrection

Book-signing Event

sponsored by the El Paso Veterans Business Association

Thursday, Aug. 23 2007

Vista Del Sol Conference Centere

11189 Rojas Av.

El Paso, Texas 79935

Luis Jimenez lecture, El Pasoan makes dean at Cal State, El Paso Floods Photo Exhibit

“Las Platicas” EPCC Chicano Studies Program Lecture Humanities Lecture Series

“Luis Jimenez: American Dream.”

El Paso native Luis Jiménez (1940-2006) was one of the most important and influenctial Chicano sculptors and print makers. The lecture will examine issue treated in Jiménez art, such as imagination, conceptions of liberty and American mythologies

Aug. 15, 6pm

EPCC Administrative Service Center, 9050 Viscount

Lecture by Rubén C. Cordova, Ph.D. Cordova is an art historian, critic, and photographer, who is currently a Guest Professor at Sarah Lawrence College.

Lecture will be facilitated by Art Professor Jackie Mitchell. Info. call (915) 831-3101 or email jmitch18@epcc.edu

New Pancho Villa Out

Cinco Puntos Press has released The Face of Pancho Villa: A History in Photographs and Words by Friedrich Katz. “There is no doubt that history is written by the victors,” spoke a eulogizer at Pancho Villa’s funeral, “but it is also true that legends are written by the people. For that reason the name of Francisco Villa has remained enshrined forever in the heart of the poor.”

This book, coupling noted historian Friedrich Katz’s text with 42 archival photographs, provides a deep insight into this revolutionary who was a hero for some, a villain for others. The scholarship of Friedrich Katz has forced Pancho Villa back into historical conversations as a pivotal and complex figure in the Mexican Revolution.

The photographs are culled from the vast Casasola Collection in the Fototeca Nacional of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico.

www.cincopuntos.com

Cal State names librarian, dean

Cal State San Bernardino has appointed a new university librarian and dean.

Cesar Caballero, associate university librarian at Cal State Los Angeles, will now run the library. He replaces Johnnie Ann Ralph, the university librarian and dean emeritus who retired at the end of the school year.

Caballero received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at El Paso; his master's degree in library science from the University of Texas at Austin; and his doctorate in higher education administration from Texas Tech University.

The John M. Pfau Library contains more than 750,000 books, bound periodicals and other print items, according to a university statement.

Check out the El Paso Times for a story on the El Paso Floods of 06 Exhibit starting Tuesday

'Troubled Waters': Exhibit shows faces of the flood

El Paso Times senior photographer Rudy Gutierrez knows a journalism adage, "If you want a good picture, you're going to have to get wet." That certainly proved true last summer. Gutierrez and other El Paso Times photographers spent hours in rain and floodwaters ... Full story

Make plans

 What: Opening reception for "Troubled Waters:"Images From the Floods of 2006."

 When: 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday. The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 6.

 Where: Chamizal National Memorial's Abrazos Gallery, 800 S. San Marcial.

 Information:"532-7273.

Check out Daniel Olivas’ review of “Dahilia Season”

Young characters hold their own in debut collection

Myriam Gurba populates her debut story collection, "Dahlia Season" (Manic D Press, paperback $14.95), with young people who are often marginalized by a society too afraid or too exhausted to respond otherwise. Full story

New Books

HE POPEDOLOGY OF AN AMBIENT LANGUAGE (Atelos 2007 ISBN: 978-1-891190-29-2), Edwin Torres Using "ambient language"--fragments, excerpts, stage directions, echoes, conversation snippets, syntactic undulation, and rigorous sonic chaos--Edwin Torres creates an alchemy of language, what he calls "electrobabble" and "algorithmictotem." Amid the fast-paced frenzy of his lyrical style, Torres finds an excited reason for hope and purpose: "one by one/ the rhythmic yuwanna/ will climb the fearist/ the murmuring yugottit/ will find the liminal/ the metronomed howboutit/ will catch the kicker." Amid such restless verbal motion, things will happen, things must happen; as order will emerge from disorder, a sense of calm gradually suffuses THE POPEDOLOGY OF AN AMBIENT LANGUAGE. "This all impossible/ But I appear it on page, so/ Becomes possible on way-through page."

http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=9781891190292

El Paso was a metal town

Growing up Chicano in El Paso deposits you in a variety of music on the border. Living here has exposed me to so much music that when I leave, I marvel how much more cultured El Paso is than other cities.

When I was young, I would hear the ump pas of banda long before it was popular. I hear it and say "turn that off." Same when for norteno and ranchera music. It just did not have a place in my Chicano world. To some, presently, I'm a sort of Mexican music export now. How ironic.

But when I was young, El Paso was a metal town. See when I first started gaining conciousness and memory as a young boy, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had just begun. But being a Baptist for sevaral generations, this was Satans music, though long after, I'd find out how far removed from Satan it was.

For those of you who don't know metal, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal included Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Def Leopard, and many more. Some say it was a reaction to the decline of metal bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath. Others say it was a reaction against punk and disco. Another is that with its British origin and its idealizing of the working class, it was a protest against Margarat Thachter's regime.

I'm sure you're asking what does this have to do with El Paso. Well, when I was growing up, when you though metal, you though Ysleta High School. The Indians were just known for these metal youth bands. Even into the late 1980s as metal was declining and rap was on the advent, Ysleta still seemed to produce these rockers.

In my sisters time, the rockers were very big. It's hard to describes them now, but they were all denim and metal t-shirts. One guys I met in the late 1980s was a young Jewish guy who played the guitar. I remember him playing the licks to "Sweet Child O mine."

There was one place near Yarbrough and Alameda called the Texas Stakeout. I must have been underage when I got in. The band played covers and all nights some guys kept yelling out, "Billy Squire! Billy Squire" hoping they would cover him. So in the mix of cumbia clubs and lesbian dance clubs down Alameda, you found metal hangouts.

For some reason by the late 1980s, I got really into Oldies. Back then, Oldies meant 50s, 60s. I learned how the growing gang underworld liked this music. Back then KROD was an oldies station and often late evening you hear dedications from Happy to Sleepy. Oldies weren't popular with anyone, but I was looking for music to bring me closer to my dad. My dad was a child of the 50s and Fat Domino, Eddie Valens, and the Big Bopper are to this day still our united favorites. By far, my song was "Rip it up" by Little Richard. I had fallen in love with the Oldmobile 88, the old ones, so this song brought all that back.

Being love with music made me ignore what was going on. Though a delved in the growing gangster rap, especially at the turn of the decade and the growth of gang activity, I missed the New Wave and the coming Alternative Movement.

So, more later....

Castillo to release novel: The Guardians

Closing your business

My friend asked me if I knew a good Mexican restaurant on the Eastside of El Paso. I didn’t recall any, but I mentioned Avila's remembering they had a good plate of enchiladas but not knowing it was now closed. Remember, I just returned to El Paso. I passed by one day and a sign said, “Thank you for so many years” and stated they closed. I think that is how business should do it. I would have like Montwood Theatre to a last show. Maybe advertise saying we will show our last movie and then close. Otherwise it’s sadness.

Ever the activist

Ever the activist that I am, as I already told some, doing some underground research into the state of the working poor in El Paso. One thing that I noticed among the services is all the Violence Against Women Act assistance that organizations in El Paso are providing. The problem is big. Immigrant women are being held hostage by citizen spouses who use the women immigration status against her. They threaten not to file something or play stupid. All through that, they keep abusing the women in many ways.

But looking at El Paso, I get distressed. The university continues to subcontract out. More underpaid workers. Day workers continue to go unpaid in the street. Domestic workers often suffer abuse by El Paso patrons. Janitors are often at the end of the oppression stick. The Segundo Barrio is ever divided. The organizations are competing against each other. Others marking their territory leaving piss at every corner.

One aspect that is good, is that the Industrial Areas Foundation is helping to organize a Border Interfaith Group. Hopefully it will do some good. One criticism I've heard from members and former members of EPISO is the singleissueness and conservatism. Though Chicago organizing institutes can be somewhat top down, the IAF has done some good work with groups such as TogetherOne in Omaha, Nebraska or is it Lincoln. I forget.

EPT Writing

I went to the BorderSenses release party about a week ago. It was nice to see old friends. I was Daniel Chacon and Amit Gosh. The publication has grown so much. I read one of the poems in their new issue. This has been a continue publication, never missing an issue as we have. But they need fund to continue, so if you are an El Pasoan in exile, consider donating. Go to www.bordersenses.com.

Corridos

I’ve somewhat started writing corridos again. I took the guitar out, though shopping for picks, it distresses me that there is no real music store on the eastside since KurlandSaltzman closes. I guess CapshawOlivas closes their eastside store too. I wrote a corridos about the back-door draft.

Military

On that topic, I’ve notices many obnoxious and young G.I.s in town. More then usual with all the build up. I go to restaurants and I can tell. This build up will bring the good and bad people to El Paso. It often brings the racist element to town or more so than usual. But this is the chance for Whites and Blacks who have never lived among Chicanos and Mexicanos to experience the good our people have. I know there has been racial tension in the Northeast between Blacks and Chicanos. Hopefully, something can be done.

Reactionary

It seems many El Paso activist groups are still very reactionary. Throw a protest, a march, or something after something happens. We need to get proactive.

Tim Z. Hernández to visit

Tim Z. Hernández, author of Skin Tax will be coming to town, so says Daniel Chacon. Hopefully, I can finally get my review of Skin Tax published. Tim Z. Hernandez grew up in Visalia and was catapulted into a life of writing and performance art after the tragic death of his much beloved uncle. Hernandez is the recipient of two awards, the Best Solo Production of 2003 Award for his one-man show Skin Tax: Diaries of a Macho, and the James D. Phelan Award for best manuscript by an emerging writer.



Ana Castillo to present new book

Ana Castillo will read from her new book The Guardians at 7pm Friday, at the Mesilla Community Center, 2251 Calle de Sntiago in Mesilla, New Mexico. The event is sponsored by the Border Book Festival. www.borderbookfestival.org. Check out Ramon Renteria and Sergio Troncoso’s El Paso Times book review at: http://origin.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_6432901

Los Pintos de Guantanamo in verse

Also check out the bit on the book by detainees at Guantanamo called Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak (Univ of Iowa Prsss): http://origin.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_6432902

New books

For the Children: Award Winning Book

The Bilingual Picture Book Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado was recently named One of the Best Children’s Books of the Year. Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado by Dawn Jeffers (Raven Tree Press) has been chosen for inclusion in the prestigious Bank Street College of Education’s 2007 edition of The Best Children’s Books of the Year.

Bank Street College of Education is located in New York City and their Children’s Book Committee issues an annotated handbook of children’s books they believe to be the best publications of the prior year.

Considered a guidebook for parents, teachers and librarians, the listings include fiction, nonfiction and poetry titles which are arranged into sections by age and topic. The Children’s Book Committee receives more than 4,000 titles a year for consideration and possible inclusion in their guidebook. Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado has also received the Midwest Book Award for Children’s Books, BWI’s Top Pick and is included on the Brodart Español Recommended Book List.

Quixotic vision in Robert Lopez’ new book

Recently released is PART OF THE WORLD by Robert Lopez on Calamari Press (2007 ISBN 978-0-9770723-8-5). PART OF THE WORLD is a fugue in both a musical and psychological sense. It is a canonical juggernaut of lyrical language--ever dissolving, devolving, shifting, then reconstituting itself into a new knowledge of reality.

This language comes straight from a compulsive mind in a Quixotic state--ceaselessly harping on the everyday perturbations and peculiarities of our humdrum lives--our cars, apartments, health, finances.

But if you relax your focus as if staring at some sort of holographic fractal, with each part containing the whole, the superficial meaning is purged, layer by layer, peeling back and revealing the subtext of what the mind is capable of under the burden of trauma and accountability.

"Robert Lopez has written a darkly hilarious exploration of the trickery of memory, the unreliability of personal history, and the strangeness, even uncanniness, of our daily transactions"--Dawn Raffel. "Literary pleasures like this are all too uncommon"--Laird Hunt
http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=097707238X



New Novel in Translation from Host Publications

PONCIA VICENCIO by Evaristo Conceicao has been released on Host Publications (2006 ISBN: 978-0-924047-34-3). It is translated from the Portuguese by Paloma Martinez-Cruz.

The story of a young Afro-Brazilian woman's journey from the land of her enslaved ancestors to the emptiness of urban life. However, the generations of creativity, violence and family cannot be so easily left behind as Poncia is heir to a mysterious psychic gift from her grandfather. Does this gift have the power to bring Ponci back from the emotional vacuum and absolute solitude that has overtaken her in the city? Do the elemental forces of earth, air, fire and water mean anything in the barren urban landscape? A mystical story of family, dreams and hope by the most talented chronicler of Afro-Brazilian life writing today.
http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0924047348 (USD 1275462554.44)



City of Write: Latin American Women

The University of Minnesota has put out UNFOLDING THE CITY: Women Write the City in Latin America by Anne Lambright and Elisabeth Guerrero, editors (2007 ISBN 978-0-8166-4812-2) . It is an original look at how Latin American women writers rethink urban space.

The essays in this collection assert that women’s views of the city are unique and revealing. For the first time, Unfolding the City addresses issues of gender and the urban in literature—particularly lesser-known works of literature—written by Latin American women from Mexico City, Santiago, and Buenos Aires.

The contributors propose new mappings of urban space; interpret race and class dynamics; and describe Latin American urban centers in the context of globalization.

Contributors: Debra A. Castillo, Sandra Messinger Cypess, Guillermo Irizarry, Naomi Lindstrom, Jacqueline Loss, Dorothy E. Mosby, Angel Rivera, Lidia Santos, Marcy Schwartz, Daniel Noemi Voionmaa, Gareth Williams. For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/L/lambright_unfolding.html



N O W A V A I L A B L E ! Awesome stories from Cuba

I’ve been reading this and like it very much. Closed for Repairs Stories by Nancy Alonso is a much needed book from the island of Cuba. If there was a Cuban word for Chicanada, this book describes the intelligence of on-the-island Cubans often finding amusing was to survive after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Translated by Anne Fountain, "New voices from Cuba are always welcome. And in this splendid translation by Anne Fountain of short stories by Nancy Alonso, the English-reading public has obtained widened access to facets of daily life in Cuba during the years following the Special Period. The poignancy and pathos resonate, as does the triumph of the human spirit. All in all: a wonderful read"--Louis A. Pérez, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Closed for Repairs is a series of eleven vignettes that depict Cuban ingenuity in the face of urban problems. Each solution is framed with humor and irony and gives a glimpse of life on the Island today.

Alonso shows us the spirit of resolve on the part of Cubans when faced with such issues as transportation problems, lack of water, and the shortage of consumer goods and construction materials caused by the embargo.

Illuminating the endurance and resilience of the Cuban people, these stories will make you chuckle. Alonso's sly wit is compelling as she satirizes the bureaucracy--an element of her work that will resonate universally.
Closed for Repairs | http://www.curbstone.org/bookdetail.cfm?BookID=195
Closed for Repairs by Nancy Alonso, translated by Anne Fountain (Curbstone
Pub date: June 2007 | ISBN: 978-1-931896-32-0)

Curbstone occasionally sends information about current publications, events and readings via e-mail. If you wish to be added to this list please visit http://www.curbstone.org/optinorout.cfm , or send a message asking to be added to or removed from list to cplist@curbstone.org. You may also write or call Curbstone Press at 321 Jackson St. Willimantic, CT 06226. Phone: 860-423-5110.


The consequences—both positive and negative—of consumer boycotts of sweatshop labor.

Another University of Minnesota gem: UNRAVELING THE GARMENT INDUSTRY: Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work by Ethel C. Brooks (2007 ISBN 978-0-8166-4485-80) is part of their Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Series.

Unraveling the Garment Industry investigates the politics of labor and protest within the garment industry. Focusing on three labor rights movements—against GAP clothing in El Salvador, child labor in Bangladesh, and sweatshops in New York City—Ethel C. Brooks examines how transnational consumer protest campaigns effect change, sometimes with unplanned penalties for those they intend to protect.

“Impressive multisited fieldwork meets critical social theory to produce a provocative and insightful account of the production, logics, and meanings of transnational campaigns against labor violations.” —Javier Auyero

“Unraveling the Garment Industry provides a trenchant critique of consumer led campaigns for inadvertently reinforcing the global-local divide both symbolically and materially. Ethel Brooks’s deepest commitments illuminate the testimonies of women workers that are often marginalized by transnational scholarship and activism.” —Amrita Basu
For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/B/brooks_unraveling.html

For more information on the Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Series:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/byseries/social.html

Back in El Paso; New Books, Montwood Theatre's Closing

Pluma Fronteriza is back home in El Paso. The move was made at the turn of May and June.

Kidnapping and Murder

It is good to be back home. Pluma had been in Oak Park in Overland Park, Kansas. Just after we left, a young girl was kidnapped and murdered just a few blocks from us.

It made national news and deeply saddened us.

Since arriving I've been working underground to see what the status of low-income worker in El Paso is.

Montwood Theatre closing

My brother had gone to see "300" at Montwood Theatre shortly after we arrived in El Paso. Last week we drove by and the sign said "closed permanently." Montwood theatre was old and the equipment was old. I remember it had this long hallway to the east of the theatre that survived all the remodeling over the years. I remember walking down the hallway to the cinema to see "Star Wars" back in the 1970s. I really don't remember the movie much, but I remember that hallway for some reason.

Montwood Theatre had a arcade nextdoor called the Detour. The cinema had this ranch style look before, then it was remodeled in the late 1980s and made classy with lights and guys in hats. The three main theatre's survived and they added 4 smaller ones. It was still $1 to get in. During middle school, Montwood was the place to hang out. It was within walking distance from Eastwood Middle School, my girlfriend's at the time, and many other friends.

But the nights at Montwood began brewing fistfights and other trouble and someone cracked down. No loitering was allowed and I think business slumped. Once a great while I was return. The last time, was when I saw "Enemy at the Gates." The air conditioner was not working, so that made it really fun.

As much as antiquated it was, Montwood Theatre will be missed.

NEW FICTION




First, check out this review by Rigoberto Gonzalez on Kathleen Alcala’s new book:
http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_6213554

PART OF THE WORLD (Calamari Press 2007 ISBN: 978-0-9770723-8-5), Robert Lopez
Fiction. PART OF THE WORLD is a fugue in both a musical and psychological sense. It is a canonical juggernaut of lyrical language--ever dissolving, devolving, shifting, then reconstituting
itself into a new knowledge of reality. This language comes straight from a compulsive mind in a Quixotic state--ceaselessly harping on the everyday perturbations and peculiarities of our humdrum lives--our cars, apartments, health, finances. But if you relax your focus as if staring at some sort of holographic fractal, with each part containing the whole, the superficial meaning is purged, layer by layer, peeling back and revealing the subtext of what the mind is capable of under the burden of trauma and accountability. "Robert Lopez has written a darkly hilarious exploration of the trickery of memory, the unreliability of personal history, and the strangeness,
even uncanniness, of our daily transactions"--Dawn Raffel. "Literary pleasures like this are all too uncommon"--Laird Hunt
http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=097707238X


PONCIA VICENCIO (Host Publications 2006 ISBN: 978-0-924047-34-3), Conceicao Evaristo. Translated from the Portuguese by Paloma Martinez-Cruz. The story of a young Afro-Brazilian woman's journey from the land of her enslaved ancestors to the emptiness of urban life. However, the generations of creativity, violence and family cannot be so easily left behind as Poncia is heir to a mysterious psychic gift from her grandfather. Does this gift have the power to bring Ponci back from the emotional vacuum and absolute solitude that has overtaken her in the city? Do the elemental forces of earth, air, fire and water mean anything in the barren urban
landscape? A mystical story of family, dreams and hope by the most talented chronicler of Afro-Brazilian life writing today. http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0924047348

Bilingual Picture Book Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado named one of the Best Children’s Books of the Year


Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado by Dawn Jeffers (Raven Tree Press) has been chosen for inclusion in the prestigious Bank Street College of Education’s 2007 edition of The Best Children’s Books of the Year. Bank Street College of Education is located in New York City and their Children’s Book Committee issues an annotated handbook of children’s books they believe to be the best publications of the prior year.

Considered a guidebook for parents, teachers and librarians, the listings include fiction, nonfiction and poetry titles which are arranged into sections by age and topic. The Children’s Book Committee receives more than 4,000 titles a year for consideration and possible inclusion in their guidebook.

Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado has also received the Midwest Book Award for Children’s Books, BWI’s Top Pick and is included on the Brodart Español Recommended Book List.

Era el día veintitrés de Junio

La toma de Zacatecas (excerpt)

Juan Ortega

Era el día veintitrés de Junio,
hablo con los más presentes,
fue tomada Zacatecas
por las tropes insurgentes.
Al llegar Francisco Villa
sus medidas fue tomando,
y a cada uno en sus puestos
bien los fue posesionando.
Ya tenían algunos días
que se estaban agarrando,
cuando llegó el General
a ver qué estaba pasando.

Les dijo el General Villa:
Conque está dura la Plaza,
ya les traigo aquí unos gallos
que creo son de buena raza.

El veintidós dijo Villa,
ya después de examinar,
mañana a las diez del día
el ataque general.
Luego mandó que se fuera
cada quien a su lugar,
que a la siguiente mañana
todos tenían que pelear.
* * *

Estaban todas las calles
de muertos entapizadas,
los mismo estaban los cerros
que parecían borregadas.
Andaban los federales
que ya no hallaban qué hacer,
pidiendo enaguas prestadas
para vestir de mujer.

Lástima de generales,
de presillas y galones,
pues para nada les sirven
si son puros correlones.
Ahora sí, borracho Huerta,
ya te late el corazón
al saber que en Zacatecas
derrotaron a Barrón.

Alberto Rios releases Theatre of Night

Alberto Rios has released THE THEATER OF NIGHT (May 2007 cloth / 117pp. Copper Canyon Press ISBN: 978-1-55659-230-0)Poetry.

In THE THEATER OF NIGHT Arizona poet laureate Rios writes a lifelong love story that unfolds along the Mexican-American border.

His poems trace the lives and loves of an elderly couple through their childhood and courtship to marriage, maturity, old age, and death. Rios' narratives are both surreal and hyper-real, creating the hard, sweet weave of two lives becoming one. "Rios' verse inhabits a country of his own making, sometimes political, often personal, with the familiarity and pungency of an Arizona chili" The Christian Science Monitor.

http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=9781556592591

Rigo Reviews: Felicia Luna Lemus's "Like Son"

Unusual characters meet universal themes in family saga
Rigoberto Gonzalez

A writer with an unparalleled literary style and attitude, Felicia Luna Lemus comes charging full force with her second novel, "Like Son" (Akashic Books, $14.95 paperback), a page-turning account of "a most unusual trinity" of characters navigating through the most universal of themes: love and heartache.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_5997163

Juarez Women Murders

Diana Washtington Valdez will be at Barnes & Noble in the West Side (El Paso) at 2 p.m., May 26 (Saturday) to sign copies of The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, the investigative book (in English) about the Juarez women's murders, drug cartel, corruption, et al. Two years ago, the bookstore hosted a signing for Spanish-language edition, Cosecha de Mujeres. We've received very positive reviews of the book in both languages. The English edition contains updated material.

www.dianawashingtonvaldez.blogspot.com


University of California Press releases The Farmworkers' Journey

Farmworkers' Journey by Ann Aurelia López


"This book tells a powerful and moving story of lives affected by agricultural and trade policies, migration, and the dehumanization of farm workers. The text is an eye-opening blend of academic research and testimonials of the people directly touched by the powerful market forces that have been unleashed by trade liberalization. "—Alejandro Nadal, Science, Technology and Development Program, El Colegio de México

Illuminating the dark side of economic globalization, this book gives a rare insider's view of the migrant farmworkers' binational circuit that stretches from the west central Mexico countryside to central . . .

For more information, click on The Farmworkers' Journey

Subjects: Anthropology; American Studies; California & the West; Economics & Business; Ethnic Studies; Latin American Studies ; Politics ; Sociology
978-0-520-25072-7, cloth $55.00
978-0-520-25073-4, paper $21.95








MUJERFEST 2007

Join in solidarity with other mujeres from el valle y todo Tejas in organizing Mujerfest 2007, a day of workshps, music, film, poetry, and art. Mujerfest 2007: This Bridge We Call Home will take place on July 28th at Mercedes Civic Center in the lower Rio Grande Valley. A special zine honoring Gloria Anzaldua will be available. Submit your proposals for discussions, exhibits or platicas for Mujerfest now! Get info at www.caferevolucion.org/mujerfestinfo.html or contact: noemi.mtz@gmail.com.

Is it time for Chicana(o) book reviewers to get tougher?

If I remember correctly, it was about 1997 when I published my first book review on a Chicano title. It was a very basic book review on Charlie Trujillo’s Soldados: Chicanos in Vietnam. Actually, Dr. Dennis Bixler-Marquez asked if I could write it for the El Paso Times. He had been asked to do it originally, but I guess thinking I would also be a good candidate to write it so he asked me to do it. Both Bixler and I had previously presented at a conference on the Vietnam War.

So began my busting out of reviews of Chicano(a) titles. I was not the first to contribute to the paper, but it was about that time that Ramon Reteria took over the book review page at the El Paso Times and he was looking for books that an El Paso audience would like. Since then, reviews have come from Carlos Ortega, Bixler-Márquez, Rigoberto González, Sergio Troncoso, Daniel Olivas among others. I think I remember some from Dagoberto Gilb, Ray González, and Christine Granados, but correct me if I’m wrong. For sure, I know González and Granados have contributed essays.

I grew tired of Chicano(a) Literature

I tend to like reviewing books by El Paso authors, but as the list of El Paso’s Chicano writers grew, it became harder and harder for me to keep up. Law school loomed and though I was able to keep reviewing books, by 2004, I grew somewhat tired of Chicano Literature because that’s all I was reading.

I missed books in other genres of literature. I had strayed from many non-fiction titles I once devoured. In 2006, I intended to read only academic non-fiction works on Chicano(a)s. Though here and there, I threw in some creative literature, I mostly stayed the course. The books would come in the mail and still do, and I am hung, drawn, and quartered by the need to give these new writers exposure and my need to read works outside of our genre.

In 2007, we are seeing more and more reviews by Chicano(a) on Chicano(a) literature. Back in the late 1990s, there were some here and there, but nothing on the level that the El Paso Times provides. I began looking for other venues. I found some, but most have been low-key. Other writers have found better venues. The Los Angeles Times is one to mention.

Nevertheless, I cannot stop from feeling our books are still not making it into major newspapers. One here and there will pop up, especially if the review is on a book by a big-name Chicano(a) writers, however, with Latinos now being the largest “minority” group in the U.S., book reviews are not matching our output.

Do our books see the trash or moved to the back of the book reviewer’s closet. Are our books seen as too ethnic, something regular White readers will not like? Then again, there are those who say White readers are Chicano(a) Literature’s biggest reader base. I don’t think editors of book review pages have caught on to that though.

Still, university presses publish much of our literature. Second would be by middle presses. Third, the major presses. Fourth, the small presses. Then there are those that bypass all of them and go directly to the Internet or self publish. The major papers will look less at the small press and not at all at anything self published.

Many book review editors rely on the wire services that put out books reviews like Publisher Weekly. I still have an email from John Mark Eberhart of the Kansas City Star boasting that he would only publish reviews that made it into those publications. That reminds me, I need to dig that email up and comment and the various interesting comments Eberhart had on literature.

Writers reviewing writers/Non-writers reviewing Writers

On another note, most of the Chicano(a) reviewers are also fellow writers. Of course that brings up the old conspiracy theory that the reviews come as favors to other writers/friends. Just the same as some writers’ anthologies contain the same “friends” as the last anthology they edited. This brings up some of the allegations that foetry.com has brought up. Don’t get me started. That’s not the point I’m trying to make.

Writers’ reviewing other writers is a double-edged sword. It is basically a review from the inside. Someone who is not a writer also has a double-edged sword. She gives us a view from the outside. Unlke the writers, she is not meant to create, but to destroy, a real critic. Well, maybe not a real critic, but one you'd enjoy drinking Tecates with. However, unlike the writer, her literary knowledge may not be as keen as a writer. Transversely, some writers write more outside the mode. I can definitely see a difference in the MFA/English Major reviewers and those who are not MFA/English department trained.

On the other hand, that leaves a hole. I for example am not a good reviewer. I’ve found my literary knowledge quite low in how to really read novel, a short story, and fuck poetry. Especially in the poetry realm, I find my carnales(as) who have studied literature, are keener than I am in reviewing poetry.

My explanation follows. I entered reviewing to give light to struggling writers. That’s basically been my main mission with Pluma Fronteriza, Libros, Libros, and the Pluma Fronteriza blog. But since then, I think others have taken the rein, others who are much better reviewers than I. I mostly gave a short summary of the book, made few comments, made some comparisons, and that’s about it. Not great reviews, maybe a few unpolished gems here and there.

I never thought I really review(ed) books critically. I think other writers did it better. Furthermore, it was hard for me to write a bad reviews -- still is. I have a host of bad reviews of book in the crevices of my computer files, which I never sent out. I felt guilty for the writers. I feel sorry for the writers. Months later I’m screaming, “That book got an award.” Then I’m thinking, am I insane? Was it only me? Was the selection committee insane?

I think other writers have this feeling as I have observed in the comments that other reviewers put in their emails when they send me a review.

So who knows? I’m just asking questions. Is the review better from the outside or inside?

Our need for courageous critics

What it gets down to is that Chicano(a) Literature needs critics. You see really good critics in the literary criticism area of our literature. However, their reviews have slowed down increasingly since the 1970s. These guys and gals, didn’t hold anything back. They were not there to create, but to destroy the lifelong dreams and works of writers.

Will our literature improve if we were more critical? Maybe. I have to admit, I saw some zanty titles in the last two years, some of which I started to read but never finished knowing I would write a bad review. I get that guilty feeling again like squirming because you have to take a piss but you are listening to someone speak to you and can’t leave the room.

Reviews on the internet

Most of my thoughts above regard reviews in newspapers. Though our reviews have increased, we are still getting a blind eye.

However, I think the real future of reviews of Chicano(a) Literature is on the Internet. No editors. No word limits (I frequently get the scream of an editor who can’t get his university-trained writer to write a review in 400 words). You can say anything you want on the Internet, especially on blogs.

No editor and no publisher to mettle in your thoughts. The rise of blogs like La Bloga and ours have expanded the criticism of literature and I think that is where the future of book reviews lie as newspapers slowly start their death rattle.

That book that took you 20 years to write, a reviewer can destroy or save in 400 words.

I take the middle ground. Sometimes we need favors. We still need to help our struggling writers.

Nevertheless, I am still waiting for the reviewers who will be a critic and nothing else. Won’t pull punches. Won’t do favors. Like the caveman in Mel Brooks History of the World, Part I, who critically looks at the cave art in Lascaux caves in southwestern France and pisses on it. So easy, a caveman can do it.

Journalists Should Look to History before Calling an event the Worse Massacre in US History

It has been a few weeks since the Virginia Tech Massacre and I guess one of our off-the topic post is due.

I saw many of the articles that floated around on the web dealing with race and the massacre.

My focus is on how the media covered the event. Many times, especially on NPR and CNN you heard the following statements:

“The worst mass shooting in the nation’s history."

“The worst mass killing in US history.”

Journalist should be careful when making such statements. Most likely, many of these general statements were made without any historical research into their validity or else were made off hand. However, it also shows us how White culture looks at the mass killing of people of color. Although people of color were victims of the VT massacre, our history shows many other events in US history that would qualify as “worst” in the US history books. Many surpass the VT Massacre by a long shot.

Let us just look at mass killing since 1776, the birth of our nation. In 1778, the Cherry Valley Massacre took place in which Loyalists and their Iroquois allies, led by Walter Butler and Joseph Brant, led a raid on Cherry Valley, and this ended in a massacre of 33 people. This might be able to be let go since this took place during war, so let us look on. However, any killing of unarmed, POW, disarmed, wounded, is still a massacre in my eyes.

On May 29, 1780, the Waxhaw Massacre took place in Buford, South Carolina as British killed some ‘Americans’ as they attempted to surrender. Again, many of the deaths were in battle so it hard to say this was the worst, but the British killed an estimated 113 and mortally wounded more than a hundred.

Though not part of the US yet, in California in 1837, several genocidal raids against Native Americans took place in California. Led by José María Amador, a group of Californians killed about 200 Native Americans. Here, one can say, California was not yet part of the union.

However, in 1852 California was part of the union when the Bridge Gulch Massacre occurred. In this instance, 120 Native American men, women, and children were killed. Wow. This may qualify as the worse, but let look on.

On Sept. 7 (11?), 1857, Mountain Meadows Massacre took place. Here Mormons killed between 100 and 140 men, women, and children from Arkansas after convincing them to turn over their weapons.

On April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, after Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest (founder of the Ku Klux Klan) demanded surrender of Union Fort Pillow and it was refused. Forrest's forces assaulted the fort defenses in a particularly violent battle until the Union defenders flew a white flag. However, Confederate forces continued firing upon the surrendering soldiers killing or wounding over 354 of the 580 men. In An Unerring Fire, author Richard Fuchs examines the event as a product of the social milieu and the individual personality of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who Fuchs believes was an accessorial inspiration before and a passive participant during the massacre. Again, during wartime.

On Nov. 19, 1864, there was the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. Colorado Volunteers under the command of Col. John M. Chivington attacked a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho. The Native Americans were there at the instructions of the Commander of Fort Lyon, who had promised them protection until the Native Americans could negotiate a formal peace settlement with the military commander of the Department of Kansas. The Whites killed approximately 150 Native Americans. This would whole-heartedly qualify as one of the worst mass killing in US history. The Native Americans were unarmed and not at war.

There was also the Memphis Riot, May 1-4, 1866. You learn that urban acts of genocide against in African Americans are many times called “riots” in US history. The same can be said for urban acts of violence again people of Mexican decent (ex. Zoot Suit Riots). The word “riot” may be used as to place blame on the victims. Here, police and firefighters led the way in terrorizing African Americans. White rioters killed forty-six African Americans, shot or beat two hundred more, and raped five women. The mob burned eight to nine homes, four churches, and twelve schoolhouses; only the arrival of Union troops restored order. Source: Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Women In America.

Another one that would surpass VT is the January 23, 1870 Massacre on the Marias in which U.S. soldiers slaughtered 173 Blackfeet men, women, and children on the Marias River in Montana in response for the killing of Malcolm Clarke and the wounding of his son by a small party of young Blackfeet men.

Another one that would surpass VT is the April 30, 1871 Camp Grant Massacre. Here, in what was Arizona Territory at the time, in the pre-dawn hours, a group of 148 Arizonans -- comprised of 6 Anglos, 94 San Xavier Papagos, and 48 Mexicans -- massacred 8 men and 110 women and children in the brief span of 30 minutes. In addition, the perpetrators kidnapped 28 Arivaipa Apache infants to sell in the child slave trade.

The next would definitely be the worst “mass killing” or “mass shooting,” however you want to look at it: On Dec. 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee, the U.S. Army massacred 300 disarmed and unarmed Native American men, women, and children. The dead include Native American leader Sitting Bull.

I think I made my point, but remember these:

April 1866. Circleville Massacre. Mormons massacred 16 Native Americans.

July 36, 1866. New Orleans Massacre. An estimated 50 African Americans and their supporters are killed and 200 injured by White rioters.

Nov. 27, 1868. Washita Massacre. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Calvary attack a Chaynne village on the Washita Reservation in Oklahoma. Though the Native Americans offered no resistance and surrendered, the U.S. Army massacred them and killed their leader Black Kettle who was waving a white flag.

1887. Louisiana. Ten thousand workers at sugar plantations in Louisiana, organized by the Knights of Labor, went on strike for an increase in their pay to $1.25 a day. Most of the workers were African American, but some were White, infuriating Governor Samuel Douglas McEnery, who declared, "God Almighty has himself drawn the color line." The militia was called in, but then withdrawn to give free rein to a lynch mob in Thibodaux, which killed somewhere between 20 and 300 people. An African American newspaper described the scene:

"Six killed and five wounded" is that the daily papers said, but from an eyewitness to the whole transaction we learn that Whites killed no less than 35 African Americans. Lame men and blind women shot; children and hoary-headed grandsires ruthlessly swept down! The Negroes offered no resistance; they could not, as the killing was unexpected. Those of them not killed took to the woods, a majority of them finding refuge in this city.

Zinn, 2004; http://www.dougriddle.com/essays/sk20021220.html, retrieved July 21, 2005.

1921 Tulsa Race Riot. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Whites massacre hundreds of African American residents of the prosperous Greenwood community. The earnest Sheriff McCullough worried about vigilantes running amok; the racist publisher Richard Lloyd Jones sought to sell newspapers by appealing to White bias; the defiant ex-slave Townsend Jackson refused to comply with Jim Crow laws; and the hapless Dick Rowland's arrest for accidentally bumping into a white girl triggers the slaughter. During the 16 hours of rioting, over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 were left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million (nearly $17 million after adjustment for inflation) in property damage. Officially, Whites killed thirty-nine people, although most experts agree that the actual number of African American citizens killed during the riot to be around 300. http://www.tulsareparations.org/TulsaRiot2Of3.htm, retrieved July 23, 2005.

Aug. 5, 1920 - Jan. 27, 1923. Rosewood Massacres. Florida, USA. After an alleged rape of a White woman by an African American man, white residents of Sumner, Florida, (northern Florida) massacred African Americans in the town of Rosewood over a period of a week (starting on Jan. 5, 1923). Here, Whites killed between 70-250 African American men and women and many more wounded. Whites killed many by lynching and killed one by burning him at the stake. The whites burned the towns of Ocoee and Rosewood, whose populations are mostly African American.

1942. Detroit Race Riot. In a 'race riot' in Detroit on June 21, 34 were killed and 700 injured.

Therefore, the main message here is journalist should be careful in use of their words. Journalists can call the VT Massacre the “worst school mass shooting” or “university killing” or “university gun killing,” or even “worse mass shooting by a lone gunman,” but they should not commemorate one massacre by stepping on the victims of another, especially when they are mostly Native Americans and African Americans.