Sunday Small Press Spotlight: Evelyn St. Press & Tin Fish Press

SUNDAY SMALL PRESS

SPOTLIGHT

EVELYN ST. PRESS AND TINFISH PRESS

EVELYN ST. PRESS

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of information on Evelyn St. Press other than their website and some books they published. I'm familiar with them as they published Santo de la Pata Alzada: Poems from the Queer/Xicano/Positive Pen by Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano as well as two other books edited by Herrera y Lozano.

Queer Codex: Chile Love
poetry anthology by queer men of color
Edited by Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano
co-published with ALLGO Queer Codex 

Rooted!
poetry anthology by queer women
Edited by Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano
co-pub

Affirming Flame: Progressive Texas Poets in the Aftermath of September 11th 

Edited by Jennifer Margulies

ISBN-10: 0972391002 2002

This vital collection of work by Texas poets and artists features moving and challenging responses to September 11, 2001. Affirming Flame presents the voices and visions of people making art who did not want to make war. These are prayers and other communications with the divine, eulogies, nightmare snapshots, love poems, lyrical manifestos, bulletins telling the news that the news did not tell. This book is a historical document and a record of the persistent human need for poetry in times of grief, healing and transformation. It is a collection of creative resistance and an unlikely anthology of hope. 

Santo de la Pata Alzada: Poems from the Queer/Xicano/Positive Pen
by Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano

"Uncompromising and hopeful" -- Horacio N. Roque Ramirez, University of California, Santa Barbara

"this is/beauty that illuminates your heart/humor that lands so deep/you bleed without feeling the cut." -- Sharon Bridgforth, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The Bull-Jean Stories and Love Conjure/Blues (Redbone Press)

These poems of love and resistance testify to the survival of a young Xicano coming of age in the U.S. and Mexico, coming out, facing HIV, and facing himself, body and soul. Bilingual (English and Spanish).

Voices for Racial JusticeEdited by Sharon Bridgforth and Jennifer Margulies
co-published with YWCA of Greater Austin  

The Panza Monologues by Virginia Grise and Irma Mayorga
co-published with ALLGO

 

TINFISH PRESS

Tinfish Press was founded in 1995 in order to facilitate conversations between experimental writing (written mostly outside of Hawai`i) and the important writing being done in Hawai`i. Writers like Lisa Kanae, whose Sista Tongue (2001, 2008) is one of our most important titles, have a lot to say to writers in other places who think about language and power issues, and whose work uses non-standard languages and forms.

"We began with a thin journal that was xeroxed and stapled, and moved into chapbooks with the publication of Joe Balaz’s Ola in 1996. Since then we have published 19 issues of the journal, many chapbooks and a couple fistfuls of perfect bound volumes. Our designs, all by artists with ties to Hawai`i, are strikingly non-standard. We publish work from the Pacific region, concentrating on language issues, colonialism, Buddhism, place, and poetic form. Above all, we seek to create alliances between writers whose work crosses national and aesthetic borders."

As Tinfish publishes writers from around the Pacific, they published Chamorros and Filipino writers.

Barbara Jane Reyes writes out of Modernist and Filipino traditions; Craig Santos Perez owes a lot to both Charles Olson and to his Chamorro grandmother; the Hawai`i writers of Tinfish 18.5 reach to traditions as various as Hawaiian chant and flarf. 

"All of our publications are designed by graphic artists with links to Hawai`i under the direction of our Art Director, Gaye Chan."

Eulogies
E U L O G I E S
Elizabeth Soto • 2010 •  $14
Designed by Michelle Saoit

but so much noise there was no end to the chatter between engines clack clacking belts and pulleys feet walking talking talking through vocal corded mouths radio wireless television
no end no end noendnoendnoend to this new tongue he had not been there he did not know native no langue no franca no knowledge no friends saying you matter to some part of the universe this part here today now you matter and someone is telling you even if you can’t understand any part of anything they are saying whispering in your deaf ears something will ebb through something will translate something will make sense someday you will hear you will know what they are saying behind closed doors walled rooms wrapping padlocked and captured 

F R O M _ U N I N C O R P O R A T E D _ T E R R I T O R Y

F R O M _ U N I N C O R P O R A T E D _ T E R R I T O R Y
By Craig Santos Perez • 2008 • $15
Design by Sumet (Ben) Viwatmanitsakul

In the preface to his first book, a lyrical epic on the violent convergences of colonialisms on Guam (Japanese and American), history, family, and language (Chamorro and English), Perez writes: “On some maps, Guam doesn't exist; I point to an empty space in the Pacific and say, 'I'm from here.' On some maps, Guam is a small, unnamed island; I say, 'I'm from this unnamed place.' On some maps, Guam is named 'Guam, U.S.A.' I say, 'I'm from a territory of the United States.” On some maps, Guam is named, simply, 'Guam'; I say, 'I am from Guam.'” Written in the spirit of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictée and Barbara Jane Reyes's Poeta en San Francisco, Perez's book promises to add significantly to a growing canon of Pacific poetries. 

P O E T A _ E N _ S A N _ F R A N C I S C O
By Barbara Jane Reyes • 2006 • $13
Design by Karen White & Colin Wilkinson

Barbara Jane Reyes’s Poeta en San Francisco is a linguistic tour de force, incorporating English, Spanish, and Tagalog in a book-length poem at once lush and experimentally rigorous.  From the vantage of San Francisco, Reyes looks outward to the Philippines, Vietnam, and other colonized places with violent histories.  As she said in a recent interview, “It’s almost a cliché, the phrase, ‘the personal is political,’ but certainly, this is a strong consideration in my work.”  And yet, it is not only violence that concerns Reyes: “I am interested in how we come to love in this world, despite the historical circumstances, the conquests, the wars, which have created us as a diasporic people, as exiles, and refugees.”  This is an ambitious, sweeping and necessary work.  Reyes has won the James Laughlin Award for a second book from the Academy of American Poets for this volume. 

NEW BOOKS IN JUNE 2010

Intersecting Inequalities: Women and Social Policy in Peru, 1990-2000, Jelke Boesten

Pennsylvania State University Press (June 30, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0271036702

"In this provocative study of poor women's organizations in Peru in the 1990s, Jelke Boesten raises most of the fundamental issues of transnational feminism and development facing the world today. 

Focusing on reproductive rights, domestic violence, and poverty relief, Intersecting Inequalities examines some of the ways in which women's local organizations in the global South, particularly in Peru, have wrestled with authoritarian and violent governments, tangled with women's national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and faced down mates and other family members who wanted to maintain existing social relations. 

Avoiding easy answers, Boesten points to some of the successes and pitfalls in seeking health care, freedom from violence, and adequate food supplies to show how women's groups can promote either progressive or right-wing political policies. 

This gripping book is a must-read for historians of transnational feminism, policy makers, leaders of NGOs, and others hoping to create new institutions to solidify social citizenship and justice for women around the world." --Temma Kaplan, Rutgers University, author of Crazy for Democracy: Women in Grassroots Movements and Taking Back the Streets: Women, Youth, and Direct Democracy. 

"Intersecting Inequalities is an innovative, nuanced exploration of women's organizations and state policy frameworks in contemporary Peru. By using the lens of intersectionality to frame her study, Boesten provides us with a remarkable account of how gender, race, ethnicity, and class intersect to (re)produce marginality in the lives of indigenous and mestiza women as they interact with public institutions, NGOs, and even feminists. 

Her interdisciplinary approach challenges the very foundations of traditional social science fields and begs us to ask pressing questions about how neocolonial societal institutions and neoliberal policy processes continue to stratify Latin American societies and create irreconcilable differences among women--the supposed beneficiaries of modern feminism." --Amy Lind, University of Cincinnati. 

As the only male head of state to address the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, Alberto Fujimori projected an image as a promoter of progressive policies to improve the condition of women, especially the poor, in society. And indeed the Peruvian government did pursue such policies during his tenure in such areas as poverty relief, population control, and domestic violence. 

These policies are used as case studies in this book to examine the relationship between gender/race/class/ethnic divisions and the state in its project of nation-building. This investigation reveals that policy meant to further womens development and emancipation often reproduced the marginality it was supposed to fight and depicts the strategies women developed to negotiate with and challenge the state.

Couture and Consensus: Fashion and Politics in Postcolonial Argentina 

(Cultural Studies of the Americas) , Regina A. Root

Univ Of Minnesota Press (June 25, 2010) ISBN-10: 0816647933

Following Argentina’s revolution in 1810, the dress of young patriots inspired a nation and distanced its politics from the relics of Spanish colonialism. Fashion writing often escaped the notice of authorities, allowing authors to masquerade political ideas under the guise of frivolity and entertainment. 

In Couture and Consensus, Regina A. Root maps this pivotal and overlooked facet of Argentine cultural history, showing how politics emerged from dress to disrupt authoritarian practices and stimulate creativity in a newly independent nation.

Drawing from genres as diverse as fiction, poetry, songs, and fashion magazines, Root offers a sartorial history that produces an original understanding of how Argentina forged its identity during the regime of Juan Manuel de Rosas (1829–1852), a critical historical time. 

Couture and Consensus closely analyzes military uniforms, women’s dress, and the novels of the era to reveal fashion’s role in advancing an agenda and disseminating political goals, notions Root connects to the contemporary moment.

An insightful presentation of the discourse of fashion, Couture and Consensus also paints a riveting portrait of Argentine society in the nineteenth century—its politics, people, and creative forces.

Women's Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: Engendering Social Justice, Democratizing Citizenship

Elizabeth Maier (Editor), Natalie Lebon (Editor), Sonia E. Alvarez (Foreword)

Publisher: Rutgers University Press (May 9, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0813547296

Women’s Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean brings together a group of interdisciplinary scholars who analyze and document the diversity, vibrancy, and effectiveness of women’s experiences and organizing in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past four decades. 

Most of the expressions of collective agency are analyzed in this book within the context of the neoliberal model of globalization that has seriously affected most Latin American and Caribbean women’s lives in multiple ways. 

Contributors explore the emergence of the area’s feminist movement, dictatorships of the 1970s, the Central American uprisings, the urban, grassroots organizing for better living conditions, and finally, the turn toward public policy and formal political involvement and the alternative globalization movement. 

Geared toward bridging cultural realities, this volume represents women’s transformations, challenges, and hopes, while considering the analytical tools needed to dissect the realities, understand the alternatives, and promote gender democracy.

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Upcoming this week of June 13:

Are chapbooks losing their chapyness? Part II

Barrio Del Diablo, Part II

El Paso Writer Update

New books in June: Race Topics; Updates Octavio Solis

Not much to post this Saturday, but as I'm too tired to sleep, here are some links on "Pastured of Heaven" the recent theatrical release which is based on Steinbeck's writings and written by El Pasoan Octavio Solis. The first link, includes an interview:

Steinbeck's 'Pastures' makes for good grazing

"The world premiere of "John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven," by nationally known San Francisco playwright (and Texas transplant) Octavio Solis, kicks off the new Cal Shakes season and coincides with the opening of the new Patron and Artists Center at the Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda. The play, which previews tonight and Friday and opens Saturday, is adapted from the little-known John Steinbeck novel "The Pastures of Heaven," composed of linked stories about a farming community in the Salinas Valley. Cal Shakes developed the play as part of its New Works/New Communities program in collaboration with San Francisco's unique Word for Word Performing Arts Company, which stages works of fiction verbatim." Read More.

 

A Journey into The Pastures of Heaven

"This is where El Paso-born San Francisco resident Octavio Solis, one of the most in-demand playwrights working in America today, comes in. Solis has a deep connection to the land, and a wonderfully flexible and humorous imagination. He signed on, and the project, gestated over many months, was finally born. Read MoreThis is where El Paso-born San Francisco resident Octavio Solis, one of the most in-demand playwrights working in America today, comes in. Solis has a deep connection to the land, and a wonderfully flexible and humorous imagination. He signed on, and the project, gestated over many months, was finally born." READ MORE.



'La Posada Magica' Returns to South Coast Rep Dec 7-23
Playwright Solis based La Posada Mágica on the traditional Latin American Christmas observance in which community members make a procession through their neighborhood to commemorate Mary and Joseph's search for lodging.  Jazz musician/composer Loya will perform his songs and music live at every performance. READ MORE.
 

 NEW BOOK IN JUNE 2010

RACE TOPICS

Legal Construction of a Latino Identity 

(Carolina Academic Pr June 30, 2010 ISBN-10: 1594601003), Reynaldo Valencia
Description unavailable

Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity 

(City Lights Open Media)(City Lights Publishers June 2010 ISBN-10: 0872865088)

Tim Wise. 

In this powerful follow-up to Between Barack and a Hard Place, Tim Wise argues against “colorblindness” and for a deeper color-consciousness in both public and private practice. We can only begin to move toward authentic social and economic equity through what Wise calls "illuminated individualism"—acknowledging the diverse identities that have shaped our perceptions, and the role that race continues to play in the maintenance of disparities between whites and people of color in the United States today. This is the first book to discuss the pitfalls of “colorblindness” in the Obama era.

Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice: Revisioning Academic Accountability 

(Suny Series, Praxie Theory in Action)(State University of New York Press June 2010 ISBN-10: 143843135X), Joe Parker (Editor), Ranu Samantrai (Editor), Mary Romero (Editor)

In the 1960s and 1970s, activists who focused on the academy as a key site for fostering social change began by querying the assumptions of the traditional disciplines and transforming their curricula, putting into place women's and ethnic studies programs that changed both the subject and methods of scholarship. 

The pattern of scholars and activists joining forces to open fields of research and teaching continued in subsequent decades, and recent additions, including critical race studies, queer studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies, take as their epistemological foundation the inherently political nature of all knowledge production. 

Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice seizes this opportune moment in the history of interdisciplinary fields to review their effects on our intellectual and political landscape, to evaluate their ability to deliver promised social benefits, and to consider their futures. 

The essays collected in this volume examine how effectively interdisciplinary fields have achieved their goals of intellectual and social change, and consider the challenges they now face inside and outside the academy.

Multiracial Americans and Social Class: The Influence of Social Class on Racial Identity 

(Routledge ISBN-10: 0415483999 June 22, 2010), Kathleen Odell Korgen (Editor). 

As the racial hierarchy shifts and inequality between Americans widens, it is important to understand the impact of social class on the rapidly growing multiracial population. Multiracial Americans and Social Class is the first book on multiracial Americans to do so and fills a noticeable void in a growing market. 

In this book, noted scholars examine the impact of social class on the racial identity of multiracial Americans, in highly readable essays, from a range of sociological perspectives. In doing so, they answer the following questions: Who is multiracial? How does class influence racial identity? How does social class status vary among multiracial populations? Do you need to be middle class in order to be an "honorary white"? What is the relationship between social class, culture, and race? How does the influence of social class compare across multiracial backgrounds? What are multiracial Americans' explanations for racial inequality in the United States? 

Multiracial Americans and Social Class is a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the fields of sociology, race and ethnic studies, social stratification, race relations, and cultural studies.

Retro Book Review Friday: Our House on Hueco by Carlos N. Flores reviewed by Carlos Morton

Life Living 'Under' Gringos

Author describes growing up in the 
Five Point Neighborhood of El Paso

 by Carlos Morton

Think Our House on Hueco (Texas Tech University Press, 2006) by Carlos Flores as a Chicano “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Vato.” 

The only part I didn’t like about this book was the title. No, Flores wasn’t trying to “imitate” Sandra Cisneros. The editors at Texas Tech University Press changed what used to be called “The Mulberry Tree,” a much better title about growing up in El Paso in the 1950’s. 

The seed for this grew out of a conversation the author had with his wife Dora who suggested he write “an inspiring and uplifting book” for young readers. This Flores has done in a moving and extremely well crafted way.

It’s a marked departure from Flores’ earlier work where the main character, Americo, is ever present. Told from the first person, Our House on Hueco looks at the world through the eyes of a precocious ten year old boy. 

Junior and his family have just escaped from the El Segundo Barrio with its tirilongos, violence, and poverty, to a house near Five Points -- in the Anglo part of town. 

But they are so poor, the father, a displaced U.S. Veteran of Puerto Rican descent, has the family of four living in a one room subterráneo, or basement, with a makeshift kitchen and no bathroom. They rent out the top part of the house to an Anglo serviceman and his family in order to pay the mortgage. 

Junior’s mother, a humble woman from Cd. Juárez, feels humiliated because they have to ask permission from their gringo tenants to use the bathroom. Mom, by the way, is deeply suspicious of any gringos although we never learn why.

However, Junior and his little brother Rafa make friends with the gringitos playing “pirates,” with the whites acting like English, and the Mexicans playing Spanish pirates. 

Mom makes extra money ironing the Sergeant’s uniforms. One day during an argument with Pop over his alleged womanizing, she burns a uniform which causes Sarge to make some disparaging remarks about Mexicans in general, and Mom in particular. Junior overhears this, feeling the pain and rage (a la Ricardo Sanchez) of growing up Mexican. 

Meanwhile Pop gets beaten up by some Mexican co-workers who are jealous of his seeming prosperity and even burn part of the house on Hueco Street down.

This is a real growing up on the border story, with its interplay of Latino and Anglo, a world that Flores, based in Laredo, Texas, has experienced all his life. It echoes the humor of Tony Burciaga as when Mom tells Junior: “Dile al gringo que no soy una zanahoria,” because Sarge keeps calling her “sanoria” instead of señora. 

It’s about la mera chicanada, not some pretty tale about so called Hispanics who happen to live on a street named after an exotic tropical fruit.

Chicano Literature's most prolific playwright, Carlos Morton is a professor of drama at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Originally published in Pluma Fronteriza, Spring 2007 

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Check out interview with Carlos Flores in How to be a Writer: Some Tips from Authors

Out of El Paso Spotlight: Lizz Huerta and New Books In June 2010: Immigration topics; Updates on Solis, Rodriguez, Gilb, Luna, Santana, Rechy

Out of El Paso Spotlight
Lizz Huerta 

(above) San Diego writer Lizz Huerta
Photo by Julia Sherburne

I first became aware of Lizz Huerta while looking for chapbooks to spotlight in our next issue of Libros, Libros (out this month!). The poet and short story writer published a chapbook called Half Life of Memory. 

 Half Life of Memory

This San Diego writer of poetry and short stories runs the Mind of Lizz Huerta Blog. With publishings in Zyzzyva and even in the American Anthology of Young American Poets when she was a teen, Huerta was recently featured in San Diego City Beat:

"Lizz Huerta is about two minutes into a short story called “Birds” at a competitive reading event called “Literary Death Match.” Looking around, it’s hard not to notice the contemplative looks on people’s faces. They weren’t always like that. When Huerta initially introduced herself and uttered the name of her piece, her affable demeanor, wide smile and good looks must have made the crowd initially impatient.

Oh, great, here we go. Some pretty girl with a pen is going to read us some long-winded story about her ornithological trip to some third-world country and how it relates to the indigenous people’s struggle to be free—or some shit.  

You can’t blame them for being judgmental. After all, the evening has been filled with rather predictable political rants and trite, introspective spoken word. But then Huerta lets it fly."
" READ MORE. 

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El Paso Writer Updates
 

We caught this "Ultimate Dago Tour" piece on this stress website: 

"I can remember liking his collection of short stories The. Check out the opening of the story titled please thank you at first their people came and went. Dagoberto Gilb the author of this weeks story Uncle Rock exchanged emails with Cressida Leyshon a fiction editor at the magazine about the Dodgers immigration and leading a charmed life. By the time I got into music. I think I was too young for them. The New Yorker Uncle Rock by Dagoberto Gilb." READ MORE.

Also check out the University of Houston-Victoria news wire for National magazines publish works by UHV writer-in-residence.

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Check out the recent pub on "The Pastures of Heaven," written by Octavio Solis:

Theater review: 'Pastures of Heaven', San Francisco Chronicle: 

"...one of the most adventurous theatrical undertakings of the year to date, the big, bold and multifaceted dramatization of John Steinbeck's "The Pastures of Heaven".... READ MORE.

Chad Jones' Theatre Dogs says: 

"Steinbeck’s Heaven, published when the author was only 30, is a novel told in 10 thematically linked short stories (with a prologue and epilogue), and Solis’ adaptation more or less follows the structure of the book with some dramatic rearrangement. The result is a play that feels more like a complete novel than the actual novel does. A deeply human story of dreams and destiny, of flaws, foibles and failure, Pastures of Heaven, both on the page and on the stage, is a compelling and beautiful story shot through with the sadness of fantasy clashing with reality." READ MORE!

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Luis Rodriguez on the air

According to Luis Rodriguez blog, from of June 7 to June 11, Luis will be on on KJLH-FM’s Front Page talk show as an honorary co-host with Dominique DiPrima. He states that he's been doing this "off and on for about three years." It's an early show, 4:30 AM until 6 AM. Get it at 102.3. This show is now being video streamed at www.ustream.tv so you can hear it anytime and not at 4 in the morning.

Just put in the keywords “KJLH Front Page.” It will also be on iTunes.

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"Death of Ruben Salazar" Mural

Lowwriter design has a caption on Frank Romero's mural "The Death of Ruben Salazar":

"Rubén Salazar wаѕ a writer fοr tһе Los Angeles Times аחԁ wаѕ active іח tһе civil rights battles οf tһе 1960s. Wһеח Chicanos rallied against tһе Vietnam War οח August 29, 1970, police fired tear-gas canisters іחtο tһе Silver Dollar Bar, wһеrе Salazar wаѕ struck аחԁ kіƖƖеԁ. Tο сrеаtе Death οf Rubén Salazar, Frank Romero combined tһе large scale οf Mexican Revolution murals wіtһ tһе brilliant colors οf tһе East LA barrio. Tο tһе rіɡһt, a movie marquee announces tһаt “La Muerte de Rubén Salazar” іѕ now playing. At tһе left οf tһе Silver Dollar, tһе Casa de Cambio suggests חοt οחƖу tһе exchange οf paychecks аחԁ cash, bυt tһе іԁеа οf change іח tһе community." READ MORE .

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CINCO PUNTOS PRESS GRAPHIC NOVEL

Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush by Luis Alberto Urrea is set in Rosario, Mexico.  The story is narrated by a boy, one assumes now a man, reminiscing about his childhood. It consists of short anecdotes about local events which, at first, don’t seem particularly extraordinary.   And then you discover exactly what it is that makes the town unique:  Mr.  Mendoza – the self-proclaimed “graffiti king of all Mexico”  – whose messages appear on walls, mountains, bridges and even the corpse of a monk.   He uses graffiti as a tool to critique the town and the townspeople.  “Upend hypocrites today.”  “Deflate your pomp or float away.” READ MORE.

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Miguel Santana interview and Facebook page

Miguel Santana has several things happening. He has a Facebook page for his new book the The Marien Revelation. Also, see this interview in the Salt Lake City Weekly.

Rechy on summer reading list

John Rechy's City of Night was included on Zimbio.com's Twenty Great Gay Novels for Summer along with such writers as Thomas Mann, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, and Truman Capote. A City of Night Facebook group has been created, in fact their is a reading group in El Paso called the City of Night Reading Group.

Steve Weinstein wrote a not-so-flattering review of Rechy's memior About My Life and the Kept Woman .

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Standards publishes Luna

Check out Sheryl Luna's poem "Smokin'"  published in Standards journal out of Colorado. Catch it online.

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New Books in June 2010

Immigration Topics

Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times

Douglas S. Massey and Magaly Sanchez R.

June 2010

Anti-immigrant sentiment reached a fever pitch after 9/11, but its origins go back much further. Public rhetoric aimed at exposing a so-called invasion of Latino immigrants has been gaining ground for more than three decades — and fueling increasingly restrictive federal immigration policy. 

Accompanied by a flagging U.S. economy — record-level joblessness, bankruptcy, and income inequality — as well as waning consumer confidence, these conditions signaled one of the most hostile environments for immigrants in recent memory. 

In Brokered Boundaries, Douglas Massey and Magaly Sánchez untangle the complex political, social, and economic conditions underlying the rise of xenophobia in U.S. society. The book draws on in-depth interviews with Latin American immigrants in metropolitan New York and Philadelphia and — in their own words and images — reveals what life is like for immigrants attempting to integrate in anti-immigrant times.

https://www.russellsage.org/publications/100106.102528

Violence Against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality, and Community

(NYU Press June 2010 ISBN-10: 0814788238), Roberta Villalon. 

Caught between violent partners and the bureaucratic complications of the US Immigration system, many immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to abuse. For two years, Roberta Villalón volunteered at a nonprofit group that offers free legal services to mostly undocumented immigrants who had been victims of abuse. Her innovative study of Latina survivors of domestic violence explores the complexities at the intersection of immigration, citizenship, and violence, and shows how inequality is perpetuated even through the well-intentioned delivery of vital services. 

Through archival research, participant observation, and personal interviews, Violence Against Latina Immigrants provides insight into the many obstacles faced by battered immigrant women of color, bringing their stories and voices to the fore. Ultimately, Villalón proposes an active policy advocacy agenda and suggests possible changes to gender violence-based immigration laws, revealing the complexities of the lives of Latina immigrants as they confront issues of citizenship, gender violence, and social inequalities.

The Boys from Little Mexico: A Season Chasing the American Dream  

(Beacon Press June 2010 ISBN-10: 0807021679), Steve Wilson

The all-Hispanic boys' soccer team from Woodburn High has made the playoffs for nineteen straight years. As they prepare to make it twenty, the boys are determined that this will be the season they beat the wealthy suburban schools around them and finally win the Oregon state championship. 

Their spirited drive gives a rare sense of hope and unity to a blue-collar farming community that has been transformed by waves of immigrants over recent decades, a town locals call "Little Mexico." In 2005, Woodburn High's Bulldogs, aka Los Perros, will start the season with eight undocumented students, three boys who speak almost no English, a midfielder groomed to play for a pro Mexican team, a goalkeeper living in his third foster home, and an Irish-descended white coach desperate to lead all of them to success. 

Watched over by a south Texas transplant — a surrogate father to half the squad — this band of brothers must learn to come together on the field and look after each other off it. More than just riveting sports writing, The Boys from Little Mexico is also about the fight for the future of the next generation and a hard, true look at boys dismissed as gangbangers, told to "go home" by lily-white sideline crowds.

Mexican Women and the Other Side of Immigration: Engendering Transnational Ties 

(Chicana Matters)(Univ of Texas Press June 15, 2010 ISBN-10: 0292722036)

Luz María Gordillo

Weaving narratives with gendered analysis and historiography of Mexicans in the Midwest, Mexican Women and the Other Side of Immigration examines the unique transnational community created between San Ignacio Cerro Gordo, Jalisco, and Detroit, Michigan, in the last three decades of the 20th century, asserting that both the community of origin and the receiving community are integral to an immigrant's everyday life, though the manifestations of this are rife with contradictions. 

Exploring the challenges faced by this population since the inception of the Bracero Program in 1942 in constantly re-creating, adapting, accommodating, shaping, and creating new meanings of their environments, Luz María Gordillo emphasizes the gender-specific aspects of these situations.

Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives 

(Oregon State Univ Press June 1, 2010 ISBN-10: 0870715844), Erlinda Gonzales-Berry and Marcela Mendoza (Authors).

This important volume sheds new light on the stories and lives of mexicanos in Oregon: why migrants come to Oregon fields, construction sites, and warehouses, what their experiences are when they settle here, and how they adapt to life in the United States. 

Brain Gain: Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy 

(Brookings FOCUS Books) ( Brookings Institution Press June 16, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0815704828

Darrell M. West

Many of America s greatest artists, scientists, investors, educators, and entrepreneurs have come from abroad. Rather than suffering from the brain drain of talented and educated individuals emigrating, the United States has benefited greatly over the years from the brain gain of immigration. 

These gifted immigrants have engineered advances in energy, information technology, international commerce, sports, arts, and culture. To stay competitive, the United States must institute more of an open-door policy to attract unique talents from other nations. Yet Americans resist such a policy despite their own immigrant histories and the substantial social, economic, intellectual, and cultural benefits of welcoming newcomers. Why?

In Brain Gain, Darrell West asserts that perception or vision is one reason reform in immigration policy is so politically difficult. Public discourse tends to emphasize the perceived negatives. Fear too often trumps optimism and reason. And democracy is messy, with policy principles that are often difficult to reconcile.

The seeming irrationality of U.S. immigration policy arises from a variety of thorny and interrelated factors: particularistic politics and fragmented institutions, public concern regarding education and employment, anger over taxes and social services, and ambivalence about national identity, culture, and language. 

Add to that stew a myopic (or worse) press, persistent fears of terrorism, and the difficulties of implementing border enforcement and legal justice.

West prescribes a series of reforms that will put America on a better course and enhance its long-term social and economic prosperity. 

Reconceptualizing immigration as a way to enhance innovation and competitiveness, the author notes, will help us find the next Sergey Brin, the next Andrew Grove, or even the next Albert Einstein.

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Tomorrow, Retro Review Friday with review by Chicano playwright Carlos Morton

Book Review: Nolan Richardson biography: Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson

Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson

by Rus Bradburd

Nolan Richardson - from El Pujido to Glory

Book tells tale of African American coach from El Paso's Segundo Barrio

by Raymundo Eli Rojas

I was very excited when I saw that Nolan Richardson's biography Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson (Amistad 2010 ISBN-10: 0061690465) by Ray Bradburd had been published. This is due to my fascination with El Paso's barrios and of course, being a Kansas alum, I'm a big fan of college basketball.

Overland Av. (Ladrillo Pl) in El Pujido, El Paso. Can you believe this 
part  of Overland  was not paved until the 21st Century
Photo (c) Raymundo Eli Rojas 2003

El Pujido

Nolan Richardson grew us in the barrio of El Pujido in South El Paso. In many stories about Richardson, some writers confuse El Pujido with Segundo Barrio. Segundo Barrio gets it name from the Second Ward, in which early El Paso politicians split El Paso in to different political wards.

Officially, El Pujido would fall out of the Second Ward's political boundaries, but it has always been considered a part of Segundo, if not on the edge.

If one exits I-10 at Exit 20 at S. Cotton Street and goes south, turn east at San Antonio Avenue, right before the overpass going over the railroad tracks. If you know the California Cafe at San Antonio and Cotton, just run across the street. Behind the Economy Cash and Carry, which use to be a Farah plant, are S. Lee St., Hudspeth Pl, and Ladrillo Pl. (Overland Avenue) in a deep little pocket. Pushed in from all sides, thus El Pujido, although in the book and in articles interviewing Richardson, he translate pujido as “tough and rugged.”

Unfortunately, if you are looking for a grand description of growing up in El Pujido, Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson will not provide it.

Nevertheless, it will give you a good introduction and maybe more tales of El Pujido can be told later.

What Forty Minutes of Hell does give the reader is an immersion into the racial world of college basketball.

Nolan Richardson coached the 1994 University of Arkansas Razerbacks to the NCAA Men's National Championship. He played both at Bowie High School and Texas Western (now UTEP) under legendary coach Don Haskins.

Despite not living up to my expectations on growing up in El Pujido, Forty Minutes of Hell is an journey into the life of an African American breaking barriers, calling racism for what it is -- of an African American blending into the Chicano culture of El Paso -- with it own racism against Blacks, and of a pioneer into the White world of college coaching.

Most of the book revolves around his controversial firing in 2002 from the University of Arkansas, despite delivering the university a NCAA championship in 1994.

The chapter “Black Boy” describes his childhood in El Paso. Giving some history of African Americans in El Paso the author goes into some description of Frederick Douglas Colored School. After Richardson's mother died, his father moved the family to El Paso to live with their grandmother in El Pujido on Overland Ave. Richardson's father would be in and out of El Paso, leaving the children to be raised by grandmother, “Ol' Mama.”

Lot near corner of Lee Street and Ladrillo Pl (Overland)  where Ol' Mame lived 

Photo: Raymundo Eli Rojas (c) 2003

“O'Mama” was from Louisiana. In El Pujido, the family lived in a three-room house on Overland and it was O' Mama, Richardson says, who kept everyone in line. Richardson credits his grandmother for keeping him in line and seldom wanted to leave El Paso for fear that O'Mama would be gone when he returned.

Being Black among Chicanos in El Paso

Richardson says he was the only black kid around in that neighborhood. He learned to slip between the cracks of El Paso segregation laws. Not allowed to swim in the Armijo Park pool in Segundo Barrio, he was allowed at the pool at Washington Park – at lease once a year -- right before they drained the pool. He wold often escape to Cd. Juarez where there was no segregation.

Pool at Armijo Park in El Segundo Barrio, El Paso

© Russell Lee Photograph Collection, Center for American History, 

University of Texas at Austin, Swimming pool at Armijo Park, El Paso, Texas, 1949

At Douglas, which was the school for African Americans, there were lack of resources, space, and teachers as often seen in the separate but equal era. Other areas that were “hubs” for African Americans in Richardson's time were Shiloh Baptist Church, Gillespie Steak House, Rusty's Playhouse, and the Square Deal Barbershop. 

 Shiloh Baptist Church

from church website

http://www.shilohbaptistep.org

“The Mexican kids treated me so well,” Richardson says who went on to be a star athlete at Bowie High school.

The biography describes the different theaters and which ones were segregated. African Americans could enter the Mission Theater, but had to sit on the balcony. The Alcazar was open to African Americans. Richardson hung out with many Chicanos and his biography states that his friends had to remind him -- there were places that he could not enter.

Though Richardson says he was treated differently by Chicanos then Whites, there was still some things lacking. However, Richardson as a young man idolized local athletic heroes like Rocky Galarza and Nemo Herrera, the Bowie High School baseball and basketball coach.

On one occasion, when Bowie made the state playoffs, the team went to play a game in Abilene, Texas. Richardson was not allowed to stay at the same hotel as the team. He would later visit this hotel later in his athletic career. Richardson would later play with the basketball team of Union Furniture owned by Saul Kleinfeld.

After attending a junior college in Arizona on a baseball scholarship and getting married, Richardson, but with a baby on the way, he knew he need to return to El Paso and he enrolled at Texas Western.

At Texas Western

He joined the basketball team playing through the coaching transition from Harold Davis to Don Haskins, enduring the style change to the Henry Iba-influenced defensive game. Since El Paso was home, he did not live on campus. Richardson would live on Tularosa Street during this time.

In one occasion, city alderman Bert Williams took Richardson to the Oasis on Copia Street. This was 1961, and Richardson reminded Williams that he would not be served at the Oasis. They went anyway.

They sat, the waitress came over. The waitress told them she could not serve Richardson. The Oasis restaurants were owned by a former El Paso mayor, Fred Harvey. Williams and Richardson would leave, but this prompted Williams to draft city legislation officially banning segregation in El Paso.

During college Richardson worked hauling wood in a lumberyard and parking cars at First Methodist Church.

Rus Bradburd does good to tone the reader into basketball history and trivia describing such personalities as Henry Iba, John McLendon, and the like.

This history is needed because Bradburd shows how white the college coaching world was, and still is. The history is also needed because Richardson needed to develop his own style of coaching basketball, thus the full-court press -- 40 minutes of hell style.

After a successful career at Texas Western, Richardson would coach at Bowie High School in El Paso's Segundo Barrio. Bradburd describes Richardson exploring other coach's styles to hone in on developing his own.

But Richardson quickly notice no matter how many game he won as a high school coach, El Paso's remote location, nobody noticed. He had to enter the world of college coaching.

Enter College Coaching

He landed the head coaching job at Western Texas College in Snyder, Texas and became a town hero taking Western Texas to the championship for the junior college division before taking the helm at the University of Tulsa. At Tulsa he would gain several NCAA tournament entries.

Richardson would see success here despite initial response that they hired “that ni$$#^ coach.” He was always straight up about racism, not just the in-your-face discrimination, but Richardson called it like it was in response to institutionalized racism.

Again, Richardson would see success at Tulsa during a turbulent time in his life when his daughter came down with leukemia.

Bradburd point out many things about Richardson's style and that of other black coaches. The criticism they would receive. The failure to give them credit, but when a white coach did the same thing later with success, the praise would fall on the white coach. Or the coach explosions that got White coaches fired, but later rehired, yet since Richardson's firing, no college has come calling.

The book follows Richardson to the University of Arkansas and Bradford immerses us into the the history of desegregation in Southern college sports. Much of this surprised me, especially the information about the University of Texas and the reluctance to desegregate and include African Americans in football and basketball even well after Brown vs. The Board of Education and Texas Western's 1966 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship victory, and the end of official Jim Crow in Texas.

Even UTEP does not escape criticism for the lack of people of color in their athletic department over the last 40 years (not much different from tenured professors).

While at Arkansas, Richardson would lose his daughter to leukemia and almost lose his job. The incumbent athletic director scoured nooks and crannys to find some hidden causes to fire Richardson.

This was before Richardson's team won the 1994 NCAA Men's Championship. Bradburd follows the glory that followed and Richardson's struggle through the 1990s still flooring teams with winning season. Bradburd shows how Black and white coaches were viewed differently during a bad basketball season. 

Nolan Richardson holding 1994 NCAA Basketball Champion Trophy

Despite a national championship, Richardson felt his job was always in danger, much different from what a white coach with a national championship under his belt would have experienced.

Bradburd's book is a good read and kept me turning page. The immersions into college basketball history and it confluence with race has never been covered so well. With most historians focused on “firsts”: first black players, first black coach, etc., the real racial analysis is sometime lacking. 

Race and institutions

Much prior analysis focuses on in-your face racism, while not criticizing the institution racism that keeps racism flourishing. And when institutions desegregate or admit the first person of color, the institutions are celebrated as Civil Rights heroes despite decades of in-your-face racism through admission denials, and despite existing institutional racism.

Richardson has several children, some with his first wife who was his highschool sweetheart, and his daughter with his second wife, a Mexican-American women from El Paso. Still living in Arkansas, he says he's the only coach that's been fired and didn't leave town. Former players visit, Mexican food is served.

Richardson would go on to coach Mexican Olympic team, spending time in El Paso as he coaches the team in Cd. Juarez yelling at players in his Segundo Barrio Spanglish. It's not everyday you get a story about a black kid growing up in El Paso's Segundo Barrio.

Forty minutes of Hell will keep readers tune in and maybe the reader will learn something about college basketball that they did not know before -- the Black and the White.

(c) Raymundo Eli Rojas, 2010

Raymundo Eli Rojas is the editor of Pluma Fronteriza a newsletter highlighting Chicano writers from the El Paso region and Libros, Libros, a newsletter of new Chicano(a) literature. He is graduate of UTEP and the University of Kansas School of Law; former director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center; and former director and founder of the Kansas City Worker Justice Project.