El Paso Writers Update for Week of Feb. 6

El Paso Writers Update for Week of Feb. 6 
Share

Bert Corona

Burt Corona is mentioned in David Bacon's article Criminalizing Immigrants for Profit on Truth-out.org. "In 1947, after reading a newspaper article about the crash of a plane carrying a group of Mexican contract workers back to the border, Woody Guthrie wrote a poem, later set to music by Martin Hoffman.  In haunting lyrics Guthrie describes how it caught fire as it flew low over Los Gatos Canyon, near the farming town of Coalinga, at the edge of California’s San Joaquin Valley.  Observers below saw people and belongings flung out of the aircraft before it hit the ground – falling, as Guthrie sang, like leaves." Read more.

Check out this article on going behind the ban as books by many Chicano authors are banned, including Dagoberto Gilb. Read "The Librotraficante Behind the Movement to Smuggle "Wetbooks" Back Into Arizona.":

"Manuel Muñoz's book, Zigzagger, is banned at the high school right across from the University of Arizona campus where he is a professor of creative writing. Munoz graduated from Harvard, received his MFA from Cornell University, and is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment from the Arts. Apparently, the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) has found that all of that literary pedigree only led him to 'promote the overthrow of the United States government.'" 

Check out this OC Metro article on Rafael Lopez with some mention of Pat Mora:

Rafael Lopez: a visual journeyman.

 

A small mention of John Rechy is in Dora Levy Mossanen's look at The Last Romanov. (Huffington Post)

Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist Manual. You bet, check out this

A Conversation with C.M. Mayo After Translating Madero´s Spiritist Manual on the Literal, Latin American Voices Blog: "You decided to translate Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist Manual 100  years after it first was published. What triggered your desire to work  on this project when, even at the time the book was released, he was mocked in newspapers as a crazy man who talked until he was blue on the face?" Read More.