Sunday Press Spotlight: University of Texas Press

Sunday Press Spotlight

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

I chose the University of Texas Press for this Sunday's spotlight because I like the output they are putting out this year.

Texas Press was founded in 1950 and in its 60-year career, it published a lot of good stuff. Most impressive are scholarly book on Chicanos(as). The press publishes 11 journals. The University of Texas Press has published more than 2,000 books over five decades. Currently a staff of 50, under the direction of Joanna Hitchcock, brings out some 90 books and 11 journals annually.

Just in the last year, they have published David Montejano's history of the Chicano Movement in San Antonio (forthcoming), Emma Perez' historical novel 92009), Samuel Brunk's book on Zapata, Mario T. Garcia's book on Catholics and the Chicano Movement.

Now, here are some links to some University of Texas Press books we've already mentioned on the Pluma Fronteriza blog and some that are forthcoming:

Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera (University of Texas Press Nov 2010) edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba with Georgina Guzmán. READ MORE.

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. READ MORE.

Católicos: Resistance and Affirmation in Chicano Catholic History (Univ of Texas Press Jan 2010 ISBN-10: 0292718411) by Mario T. Garcia. READ MORE.

Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez Irreverent Apparition, Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Alma Lopez. (University of Texas Press) - forthcoming

Bueno, like I said, there a lot of new titles of interest off this press this year and there is a lot of good forthcoming stuff:

The Posthumous Career of Emiliano Zapata: Myth, Memory, and Mexico's Twentieth Century 

(Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture)(Univ of Texas Press Jan 2010 ISBN-10: 0292718500), Samuel Brunk . 

Before there was Che Guevara, there was Emiliano Zapata, the charismatic revolutionary who left indelible marks on Mexican politics and society. The sequel to Samuel Brunk's 1995 biography of Zapata, The Posthumous Career of Emiliano Zapata traces the power and impact of this ubiquitous, immortalized figure. 

Mining the massive extant literature on Zapata, supplemented by archival documents and historical newspaper accounts, Brunk explores frameworks of myth and commemoration while responding to key questions regarding the regime that emerged from the Zapatista movement, including whether it was spawned by a genuinely "popular" revolution. 

Blending a sophisticated analysis of hegemonic systems and nationalism with lively, accessible accounts of ways in which the rebel is continually resurrected decades after his death in a 1919 ambush, Brunk delves into a rich realm of artistic, geographical, militaristic, and ultimately all-encompassing applications of this charismatic icon. 

Examining all perspectives, from politicized commemorations of Zapata's death to popular stories and corridos, The Posthumous Career of Emiliano Zapata is an eloquent, engaging portrait of a legend incarnate.

Avant-Garde Art and Artists in Mexico: Anita Brenner's Journals of the Roaring Twenties 

 (Univ of Texas Press Oct 15, 2010 ISBN-10: 0292721846), Susannah Joel Glusker (Editor), Carlos Monsiváis (Foreword). 

The Mexican Revolution, that violent, inchoate, never-quite-complete break with the pastoopened a new era in Mexican art and letters now known as the "Mexican Renaissance." 

In Mexico City, a coterie of artists including Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco & David Alfaro Siqueiros explored how art could forward revolutionary idealsoand, in the process, spent countless hours talking, gossiping, arguing & partying. Into this milieu came Anita Brenner, in her early twenties already trying her hand as a journalist, art critic & anthropologist. 

Her journals of the period 1925 to 1930 vividly transport us to this vital moment in Mexico, when building a "new nation" was the goal. Brenner became a member of Rivera's inner circle & her journals provide fascinating portraits of its members, including Orozco, Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo & Jean Charlot, with whom she had an unusual loving relationship. 

She captures the major and minor players in the act of creating works for which they are now famous and records their comings and goings, alliances and feuds. Numerous images of their art brilliantly counterpoint her diary descriptions. 

Brenner also reveals her own maturation as a perceptive observer and writer who, at twenty-four, published her first book, Idols Behind Altars. Her initial plan for Idols included four hundred images taken by photographers Edward Weston and Tina Modotti. 

Many of these images, which were ultimately not included in Idols, are published here for the first time along with stunning portraits of Brenner herself. Setting the scene for the journal is well-known Mexican cultural critic Carlos Monsivais, who offers an illuminating discussion of the Mexican Renaissance and the circle around Diego Rivera. 

Reading Chican@ Like a Queer: The De-Mastery of Desire  

(Cmas History, Culture, & Society Series)(Univ of Texas Press Mar 2010 ISBN-10: 0292721749), Sandra K. Soto. 

A race-based oppositional paradigm has informed Chicano studies since its emergence. In this work, Sandra K. Soto replaces that paradigm with a less didactic, more flexible framework geared for a queer analysis of the discursive relationship between racialization and sexuality.

Through rereadings of a diverse range of widely discussed writers -- from Américo Paredes to Cherríe Moraga -- Soto demonstrates that representations of racialization actually depend on the sexual and that a racialized sexuality is a heretofore unrecognized organizing principle of Chican@ literature, even in the most unlikely texts. 

Soto gives us a broader and deeper engagement with Chican@ representations of racialization, desire, and both inter- and intracultural social relations. While several scholars have begun to take sexuality seriously by invoking the rich terrain of contemporary Chicana feminist literature for its portrayal of culturally specific and historically laden gender and sexual frameworks, as well as for its imaginative transgressions against them, this is the first study to theorize racialized sexuality as pervasive to and enabling of the canon of Chican@ literature. 

Exemplifying the broad usefulness of queer theory by extending its critical tools and anti-heteronormative insights to racialization, Soto stages a crucial intervention amid a certain loss of optimism that circulates both as a fear that queer theory was a fad whose time has passed, and that queer theory is incapable of offering an incisive, politically grounded analysis in and of the current historical moment. 

Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier 

(Univ of Texas Press Jan 2010 ISBN-10: 0292718632), Camilla Fojas .

The southern frontier is one of the most emotionally charged zones in the United States, second only to its historical predecessor and partner, the western frontier. Though they span many genres, border films share common themes, trace the mood swings of public policy, and shape our cultural agenda.

In this examination, Camilla Fojas studies how major Hollywood films exploit the border between Mexico and the United States to tell a story about U.S. dominance in the American hemisphere. She charts the shift from the mythos of the open western frontier to that of the embattled southern frontier by offering in-depth analyses of particular border films, from post-World War II Westerns to drug-trafficking films to contemporary Latino/a cinema, within their historical and political contexts. Fojas argues that Hollywood border films do important social work by offering a cinematic space through which viewers can manage traumatic and undesirable histories and ultimately reaffirm core "American" values. 

At the same time, these border narratives delineate opposing values and ideas. Latino border films offer a critical vantage onto these topics; they challenge the presumptions of U.S. nationalism and subsequent cultural attitudes about immigrants and immigration, and often critically reconstruct their Hollywood kin. By analyzing films such as Duel in the Sun, The Wild Bunch, El Norte, The Border, Traffic, and Brokeback Mountain, Fojas demands that we reexamine the powerful mythology of the Hollywood borderlands. 

This detailed scrutiny recognizes that these films are part of a national narrative comprised of many texts and symbols that create the myth of the United States as capital of the Americas.

 

 

Revolution on Paper: Mexican Prints 1910-1960 

(Univ of Texas Nov 2009 ISBN: 978-0-292-72248-4), Dawn Adès and Alison McClean. The Mexican revolution of 1910–1920 gave rise to an artistic explosion that was felt most profoundly in printmaking. The left-wing government viewed art as an important vehicle for education and the promotion of revolutionary values. It established a program to cover the walls of public buildings with murals and set up numerous workshops to produce prints for wide distribution. 

By the 1930s, Mexico was attracting socially committed artists from all over the American continent and beyond, ready to do battle for a new aesthetic as well as a new political order. Diego Rivera, a key figure in the art of revolution, became one of the most celebrated artists in the world. Starting with works by José Guadalupe Posada, who was adopted by the revolutionaries as the archetypal printmaker for the people, Revolution on Paper features prints by thirty-five artists, including the "Three Greats" of Mexican art of the period—Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. 

The selection includes not only single-sheet artists' prints, but also posters addressing social and political issues, and illustrated books on many different subjects. Images of the revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata, scenes of poverty, hunger, and oppression, and posters protesting against fascism and the war in Europe contrast with representations of Mexican history and idealized rural life that express what was regarded as typically "Mexican." Introductory essays by Dawn Adès and Alison McClean set Mexican printmaking in its artistic and political context. Concise biographies of the artists, a chronology, and a glossary of printmaking terms complete the book. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/aderep.html

Architecture as Revolution: Episodes in the History of Modern Mexico  

(Univ of Texas July 2010 ISBN: 978-0-292-72195-1). 

The period following the Mexican Revolution was characterized by unprecedented artistic experimentation. Seeking to express the revolution's heterogeneous social and political aims, which were in a continuous state of redefinition, architects, artists, writers, and intellectuals created distinctive, sometimes idiosyncratic theories and works. 

Luis E. Carranza examines the interdependence of modern architecture in Mexico and the pressing sociopolitical and ideological issues of this period, as well as the interchanges between post-revolutionary architects and the literary, philosophical, and artistic avant-gardes. 

Organizing his book around chronological case studies that show how architectural theory and production reflected various understandings of the revolution's significance, Carranza focuses on architecture and its relationship to the philosophical and pedagogic requirements of the muralist movement, the development of the avant-garde in Mexico and its notions of the Mexican city, the use of pre-Hispanic architectural forms to address indigenous peoples, the development of a socially oriented architectural functionalism, and the monumentalization of the revolution itself. In addition, the book also covers important architects and artists who have been marginally discussed within architectural and art historiography. Richly illustrated, Architecture as Revolution is one of the first books in English to present a social and cultural history of early twentieth-century Mexican architecture. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/cararc.html

In the Palace of Nezahualcoyotl: Painting Manuscripts, Writing the Pre-Hispanic Past in Early Colonial Period Tetzcoco, Mexico 

(Univ of Texas press April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-292-72168-5), By Eduardo de J. Douglas. 

Eduardo de J. Douglas offers a detailed critical analysis and historical contextualization of the manuscripts to argue that colonial economic, political, and social concerns affected both the content of the three Tetzcocan pictorial histories and their archaizing pictorial form. 

As documents composed by indigenous people to assert their standing as legitimate heirs of the Aztec rulers as well as loyal subjects of the Spanish Crown and good Catholics, the Tetzcocan manuscripts qualify as subtle yet shrewd negotiations between indigenous and Spanish systems of signification and between indigenous and Spanish concepts of real property and political rights. 

By reading the Tetzcocan manuscripts as calculated responses to the changes and challenges posed by Spanish colonization and Christian evangelization, Douglas's study significantly contributes to and expands upon the scholarship on central Mexican manuscript painting and recent critical investigations of art and political ideology in colonial Latin America. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/doupal.html

Reinventing Practice in a Disenchanted World: Bourdieu and Urban Poverty in Oaxaca, Mexico 

(Univ of Texas Press April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-292-72192-0), By Cheleen Ann-Catherine Mahar. 

Colonia Hermosa, now considered a suburb of Oaxaca, began as a squatter settlement in the 1950s. The original residents came in search of transformation from migrants to urban citizens, struggling from rural poverty for the chance to be part of the global economy in Oaxaca. 

Cheleen Ann-Catherine Mahar charts the lives of a group of residents in Colonia Hermosa over a period of thirty years, as Mexico became more closely tied into the structures of global capital, and the residents of Colonia Hermosa struggled to survive. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/mahrei.html

 

Fiesta: Days of the Dead & Other Mexican Festivals 

(Univ of Texas Press 2010 ISBN: 978-0-292-72209-5), Chloë Sayer. 

Mexico has a vast range of annual festivals; several commemorate national events, but most are religious or spiritual in inspiration. After the Spanish Conquest of 1521, Roman Catholic teachings fused with the beliefs of native civilizations, so that even today the popular arts and crafts draw upon the Church as a rich source of imagery and a catalyst for creativity.

Fiestas are often lavish and extremely costly. Sayer gives a contemporary context to these colorful annual celebrations and shows how these festivities are uniquely Mexican. http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/sayfie.html

Carlos Monsivais dies at 72

Carlos Monsiváis Aceves 

(May 4, 1938 – June 19, 2010)

Truely one of the greatest human rights activist of our time. With Mexico's tradition of the 'public intellectual' Monsivais was called upon to critic the nation he loved time and time again, as well as the neighboring nation to the north of Mexico.

Monsivais visited UTEP in 2000 or so. I remember reading translation of Monsivais works in a book at the Barnes and Nobel in El Paso. So when he came to visit, I was working in the office that sponsored the event. I met him and I knew he was a great Mexican scholar but embarrassingly did not put two and two together until after a few moments. 

Monsisvais gain my respect as when he always referred to Chicanos he called us "nuestros hermanos chicanos." I've been scanning the articles post on the web honoring him. Not many talk about the vato's humor. He was a very funny man.

There's a lot written out there on this great writer and human rights activist, so I'll just lead you there. Here is the link to the Los Angeles Times obit:

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-carlos-monsivais-20100620,0,4662367.story

and here is the link on La Jornada:

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/06/20/index.php

Monsi, por que te Vais?-Hernández

 from La Jornada (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/06/20/index.php?section=cartones&id=0)

New Chicano(a) books by El Paso Writers Mario Garcia and Maria Del Pilar Munoz and Updates on Solis, Morton, Salazar, Paredes

El Paso-born historian , Mario T. Garcia has released:

Católicos: Resistance and Affirmation in Chicano Catholic History

(Univ of Texas Press Jan 2010 ISBN-10: 0292718411)

Description is as follows: Chicano Catholicism -- both as a popular religion and a foundation for community organizing -- has, over the past century, inspired Chicano resistance to external forces of oppression and discrimination including from other non-Mexican Catholics and even the institutionalized church. 

Chicano Catholics have also used their faith to assert their particular identity and establish a kind of cultural citizenship. Based exclusively on original research and sources, Mario T. García here offers the first major historical study to explore the various dimensions of the role of Catholicism in Chicano history in the 20th- century. This is also one of the first significant studies in the still limited field of Chicano religious history. Topics range from how early Chicano Catholic intellectuals and civil rights leaders were influenced by Catholic Social Doctrine, to the role that popular religion has played in the lives of ordinary men and women in both rural and urban areas. 

García also examines faith-based Chicano community movements like Católicos Por La Raza in the 1960s and the Sanctuary movement in Los Angeles in the 1980s. While Latino/a history and culture has been, for the most part, inextricably linked with the tenets and practices of Catholicism, there has been very little written, until recently, about Chicano Catholic history. García helps to fill that void and explore the impact--both positive and negative -- that the Catholic experience has had on the Chicano community. 

Floricanto Press has released  

Dreams Suenos 

(Floricanto Press Jan 2010 ISBN-10: 1888205245)

Written by Maria Del Pilar Munoz. Publisher's description is as follows: 

With her passionate interest in historical anthropology Maria del Pilar Munoz has contributed to New Mexico and La Herencia Magazines. She has also written an interpretation of Legends from the Camino Real and Mexica poems. 

Since a young child, she enjoyed traveling throughout the Southwest and Mexico, paved and unpaved roads, listening to the voices of ancianitos (elders) having platicas (long talks) to bring forth traditions in forecasting the future using deeply rooted practices of elucidation of dreams. Latinos strongly believe that dreams are a forewarning at what lies ahead and beyond and to help you overcome whatever life brings. 

It was the reappearing memory of the importance of reading dreams that influenced publishing these interpretations. Maria del Pilar Munoz was born in Chihuahuita, historical corner of El Paso, Texas. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Education with specialization in History and Master of Education with specialization in Curriculum Writing from University of Texas at El Paso. 

Having lived all her life in El Paso she retired as a Bilingual Education Teacher from Ysleta Schools. Mother of three sons and three daughters now enjoys five grandchildren. "The importance of knowing the connection between our culture and our dreams makes the book Dreams by Maria del Pilar Munoz a must read for anyone interested in exploring this exciting cultural relationship more in-depth. Kudos to the author for making this exciting exploration possible. An exciting must read!" Norma Godina-Silva, Ph.D., Founder, Director, ESL-BilingualResources.com.

"Dreams will open your minds avenues into a different cultural spectrum of understanding. A plus read for one who wishes to know more about the significance of dreams and how to use them to broaden one's scope of life." Elbert Garcia, Santa Rosa, New Mexic.

El Paso Writer Updates

Raymond Paredes 

The Texas Tribune posted article "Texas Higher Ed Commissioner on Closing the Gaps" and interview with El Paso native and now Texas Commissioner on Higher Education, Raymond Paredes. Regarding Texas, the article says, "Only five public universities have six-year graduation rates above 50 percent, only three out of 10 full-time community college students earn any credential after six years, and only 22 percent of students graduate from high school college-ready. Seeking to refocus their efforts on key improvements, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which Paredes oversees, released an accelerated version of the Closing the Gaps plan in January."

To see the video of the interview with Paredes go to:

Interview with Raymond Paredes

Octavio Solis' Pastures of Heaven "Impressive"

Kedar Adour Reviews has posted a review on Solis' new play "Pastures of Heaven": "Every part of this production is impressive with the caveat that two hours and 55 minutes stretches ones attention span especially if Mother Nature brings wind and fog to the venue. This show will certainly have a life after CalShakes. Rather than chase it around the country you should head to the Hill in Orinda now and see this highly recommended production." READ MORE. 

Also, the New Play Blog has a post on "Pastures of Heaven" with some news on a mural that was made relating to the play. Click here on

New Play & Mural Premieres Now: "Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven"

 

 

Beca a Carlos Morton

Bueno, Carlos Morton won a major beca. El Instituto Franklin- UAH has awarded le beca Nebrij to Carlos Morton. Read the press release at the Somos en Escrito Blog.

Salazar memorabilia

The LA Times blog has posted several graphic items regarding Ruben Salazar including the above and the papers following the day of his assassination. Check them out at

Ruben Salazar, RIP

 

The link Pluma shares with you today is:

The Phillip K. Dick Festival

http://www.philipkdickfestival.com/

JUAN BRUCE-NOVOA: A MEMORIAL ESSAY by Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

JUAN BRUCE-NOVOA: 

A MEMORIAL ESSAY 

From Historia Chicana, June 16, 2010

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca
Scholar in Residence and Chair, Department of Chicana/Chicano and Hemispheric Studies, Western New Mexico University

Como Juan no hay dos—that’s what I wrote to Juanita Lawhn in response to her email informing me of Juan Bruce-Novoa’s death on June 11, 2010 (Novoa was his mother’s name). 

Indeed, como Juan no hay dos. Needless to say, I was stunned by the news. He was just 66, born in 1944 in San Jose, Costa Rica where his father (James Bruce) then worked for the coffee importers Otis McAllister. The following year, James Bruce moved his family to San Antonio, Texas. 

In 1948, the Bruces moved to Denver, Colorado where in 1966 Juan graduated with a B.A. in European history and psychology from Regis College, and earned an M.A. in 20^th Century Spanish Literature in1968 and a Ph.D. in Contemporary Latin American Literature in 1974 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Juan Bruce-Novoa was 28 when I first met him in the fall of 1972 in Denver, Colorado; I was 46. That August I had gone to Denver from El Paso, Texas, as Assistant to the President at Metropolitan State College and had hooked up with Daniel Valdes as founding Associate Publisher of La Luz Magazine, first Hispanic public affairs magazine in English. In El Paso I had been Founding Director of the Chicano Studies Program (first in the state) and advisor to the president on Chicano Affairs at the University of Texas at El Paso. 

 

Though a generation separated Juan Bruce-Novoa and me, we were peers and colleagues in the roiling pot of Chicano literature. The previous year I had completed my study on Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature (University of New Mexico, 1971), first study in the field and my essay on “The Chicano Renaissance” had been published by the Journal of Social Casework (May, 1971), after being rejected by scores of journals because they had never heard of Chicano literature and consequently thought none of their readers would be interested in the topic.

Despite that situation with Chicano literature, I was having a run of publications that year, my piece on “Montezuma’s Children” (submitted for Pulitzer consideration) had been published as the cover story of The Center Magazine (November/December 1970) of the John Maynard Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California, and entered into The Congressional Record by Senator Ralph Yarbrough of Texas (116 No. 189, November 25, 1970, S 18961-S18965). In April of 1971, The Saturday Review published my piece on “Schools for Mexican Americans” as a cover-feature.

That September of 1972, Juan and I gave presentations at the joint conference in Denver of the Colorado Council of Hispanic Educators and the American Association of Publishers. In an open letter to me published in La Luz Magazine in 1973, Juan wrote:

I sat listening to you deliver the keynote address . . . . you seemed to be in your usual top form. You proceeded to reprimand the publishers for their lack of minority authors in their catalogues and briefly recounted the various paths that minorities, especially Mexican Americans, had taken in the past and the new developments n the present scene. During the speech, you called for a new aesthetic, one not biased in favor of the Anglo writer, one that would allow the Chicano contributions to American culture to take their rightful place along side those of other groups. A new literary aesthetic, a Chicano aesthetic, by which to judge the works of the Chicano author.

In that presentation, my call for a Chicano aesthetic was to free Chicano literature from the burdens of history and the shackles of American literature. In that Open Letter, Juan Bruce-Novoa proceeded:

Later in the conference, I rose to address the two groups myself. I also called for a new aesthetic, artistic as well as critical. I deplored as I always have, the existence of any pre-established definitions of the characteristics of art and its sub-types. Those that have been proffered by segments of the Chicano movement are no less oppressive than those so long held by the anglo critics. I called for complete freedom to write about anything, in any way and in any language without cultural, regional or political prerequisites. No restrictions from outside nor inside the Movement. To compliment this freedom, a new critical approach: post analysis instead of prejudgment.

Juan Bruce-Novoa

Freedom of Expression and the Chicano Movement: An Open Letter to Dr. Philip Ortego

To my knowledge, this was the first published piece by Juan Bruce-Novoa. This would be the first in a string of exchanges we would have over the next 28 years. Over each of those years our perspectives on Chicano literature would be sharpened and refined. While we were not in absolute agreement in everything about Chicano literature there was certainly no contradiction between my call for a Chicano cultural aesthetic and Juan’s call for an acultural one. We were both concerned about the rise of norms that could stifle Chicano literature aborning.

In Denver, Juan and I would meet often for charlas on Chicano literature over cafesitos here and there in the many coffee shops scattered across the city at the time. In August of 1973, I was going off to San Jose State University as a visiting professor in English, Chicano Studies, and Social Work. Juan graciously hosted a bon voyage gathering at his house for me at which he presented me with a framed copy of one of his etchings entitled “Innocencia Perversa” which would be the title of his book of poetry published in 1977. The work has always hung prominently wherever I’ve lived — still does. 

 

Returning to Denver after San Jose where I became a fast friend of Ernesto Galarza, I threw myself into La Luz Magazine as its Managing Editor, hawking the magazine hither and yon. Juan went off to Yale and finished his dissertation. In January of 1974, Juan invited me to Yale for a Roundtable presentation on Chicano literature which I entitled “The Forgotten Pages of American Literature.” Tino Villanueva and Carlos Morton presented at the Roundtable also, the proceedings of which were published in the Journal of Ethnic Studies (Spring, 1975).

It was bitterly cold in New Haven that January, ice-storms almost paralyzed the area. I flew into New York from Denver and went on to New Haven by bus. As always, Juan was the perfect host (in a smoking jacket no less). Wine warmed us and words stirred us to passion. The rhetoric of Aztlan pushed us onward and upward—arriba y adelante! At that conference, Juan introduced me to Paul de Man, the controversial proponent of deconstruction, who sympathized with the plight of Chicano literature.

That cold and icy winter reminded me of the days of my youth in Chicago (1936-1940) with winters no less cold or icy. Though brief, my visit to Yale and New Haven also stirred in me memories of my winters from 1948 to 1952 in Pittsburgh where I was an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in comparative studies (languages, literature and philosophy). Now here I was at 48 in the northern reaches of Aztlan preaching the gospel of Aztlan to the uninformed. But Juan was doing a great job there by himself, drawing Chicano students from Aztlan to the gothic chambers of Yale. 

Two years earlier I had lectured at Harvard on Chicano literature, recording that experience and my visit to Cape Cod in a piece entitled “Lest Darkness Overtake Me.” There I was, an Argonaut from Texas looking for my immortal soul on that stark stretch of rocks jutting out into the Atlantic from Provincetown.

In October of 1974, David Conde and I organized the first National Chicano Literary Conference at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Chicanos from across the nation came. Juan Bruce-Novoa came and delivered a blockbuster of literary theory which he called “The Space of Chicano Literature.” Twenty years later at a Chicano literary conference at the University of Mexico in Mexico City which Juan and I both attended, I confessed (jocularly) that for all the years since his presentation of “The Space of Chicano Literature” I pretended to understand the concept of Juan’s theory for fear of being found out that I didn’t.

Juan’s concept of the space of Chicano literature was an important step in the advancement of Chicano literature and critical theory. Thanks to Henry Casso, the Proceedings of that conference were published as The Chicano Literary World—1974 by the National Education Task Force de la Raza in 1975 and republished by Jose Armas as a special issue of De Colores (1:4, 1975) of Pajarito Press. Juan was the man of the hour at that conference. Thirty years later in 2004, Juan and I would reunite at New Mexico Highlands University for the 30^th commemorative anniversary of that conference. We were both considerably grayer by that time, though now I was walking with a cane. Juan looked as trim and young as always.

In November of 1974, Juan and I were at another conference on Chicano literature at the University of Texas at Austin when we heard that the Fort Worth Independent School District had banned all Chicano books and materials from their schools. On the banned books list was We Are Chicanos: Anthology of Mexican American Literature which I had edited for Washington Square Press in 1973. Thanks to all our efforts but especially Juan’s, we were able to exert enough pressure on the Fort Worth Independent School District to rescind its ban. The reason for the ban—the Chicano books incited revolt and revolution. Shades of the Texas Textbook Massacre of 2010 by the Texas State Board of Education.

Over the following decades, Juan traveled extensively, principally in Europe, curtailing our encounters. On occasion, however, I‘d receive a note or missive from him posted from Germany or Spain or wherever his travels had taken him. In those years I thought of him as a bon vivant. But he was always the critical observer of the human condition. Our disagreements were always jovial, although I bristled a bit when he referred to me once as a “media mogul” in one of his works. 

In 2005, I received a congratulatory note from Juan for receiving the Patricia and Rudolfo Anaya Critica Nueva Award from the University of New Mexico for “scholarly achieve-ment and exemplary contributions to Chicana-Chicano literature.”

The last time I saw Juan was on April 24^th of 2007 at the 13^th Annual Multicultural Conference in San Antonio, Texas, hosted by San Antonio College and Juanita Lawhn. At that conference I received the Premio Letras de Aztlan from the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies—Tejas Foco “for lifetime work and achievement in Chicana/o scholarship and community activism.” I gave the keynote presentation and Juan introduced me, explaining in that introduction “On Renaissance, Luz, and Selective Amnesia:  An Overdue Tribute to Felipe Ortego" his perception of my role in the birthing of Chicano literature and the days of our friendship when I was with La Luz Magazine in Denver. His words brought tears to my eyes. I had no idea that would be the last time I would see Juan Bruce-Novoa. Like Lycidas in John Milton’s pastoral elegy, Juan was too young to die. 

 

In remembering Juan, my wife Gilda and I remember having breakfast with him on the last day of the San Antonio Multicultural Conference in 2007 where he suggested we collaborate on an anthology of works from La Luz Magazine. I liked the idea and agreed we should do it. But as so often happens in life, vicissitudes got in the way. I’m reminded of Haruki Murakami’s comforting words: "Memories are what warm you up from the inside.” And thinking about Juan makes me warm every time. Pero como Juan no hay dos. QEPD.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Felipe,

Te admiro mucho por tus palabras y sentimientos que expresas con todo corazon.  Thanks for the words and your memories.  I always look forward to reading what you write.  Cuidate y que Dios siempre te bendiga.  I guess Juan's passing and your words softened me up a bit.  Todo esta bueno.

--Emilio Zamora, 6/16/10

El Paso Writer Update #4: Alicia Gaspar de Alba; El Paso Writer Updates on Delgado, Morton, Gilb, Solis, Tony Payan

El Paso Writer Update  #4: 
Alicia Gaspar de Alba

We are postponing our Out of El Paso Spotlight for Thursday; I'm still working on it and switching it with out paseno writer update.

Alicia Gaspar de Alba is the author of two books of poetry, one short story collection, and three novels now. And what a critic she is, as you can find her articles on a tonada de journals and books. She is the current chair of the Center for Chicano Studies at UCLA. She received her B.A. at UTEP and her M.A. in creative writing at UTEP. She received her Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico.

In 2008, Gaspar de Alba won the Gold Shield Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence (UCLA); in 2005, the International Latino Book Award for Best English-Language Mystery; in 2000 the Latino Literary Hall of Fame for Best Historical Fiction; in 1998, Border-Ford/Pellicer-Frost Award for Poetry; in 1998, the Shirley Collier Prize for Literature (UCLA); in 1994, the coveted Premio Aztlá, and in 1989, the Massachusetts Artists' Foundation Fellowship Award in Poetry (1989).

As with our other recent updates, we have been including our last update from Pluma fronteriza (2007):

Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s mystery novel Desert Blood won a couple of big awards: Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Lesbian Mystery and the Latino Book Award for English-Language Mystery. Desert Blood is being translated into Italian as Il deserto della morti silenziose: I feminicidi di Juarez (which means Desert of The Silent Dead: The Feminicides of Juarez). Her new historical novel, Calligraphy of the Witch, is forthcoming.

Well that's the old news. The current news is that Gaspar de Alba released Calligraphy of the Witch: A Novel ( St. Martin's Press) in 2007.

Here's the publisher's description:

It's spirited indentured servant gets tangled up in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony witch hunts in this ambitious historical drama. Halfway through her 15-year indenture at a Mexico City convent, Concepción Benavidez escapes only to be captured by pirates and taken to Boston, where she's sold into slavery. 

Nathaniel Greenwood, a local merchant, is impressed that the papist slave can write and purchases her to help his disabled father-in-law manage his chicken farm. 

Renamed Thankful Seagraves, Concepción, who was repeatedly raped by the pirate captain, soon discovers that she's pregnant. Greenwood's barren wife, Rebecca, covets Concepción's newborn daughter, Hanna, and sets out to take her away. 

As their struggle over the girl unfolds, witch hysteria grips the colony, and Concepción is drawn into the fray when Hanna fingers her for a witch.

Description End

This is interesting because many feminist scholars have shown that witch hunts were largly targeted women for other purposes than witchcraft.


Forthcoming Books

Dr. Gaspar de Alba will be releasing Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera (University of Texas Press Nov 2010) which she is editing with Georgina Guzmán.

Description:
 

Since 1993, more than five hundred women and girls have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez across the border from El Paso, Texas. At least a third have been sexually violated and mutilated as well. Thousands more have been reported missing and remain unaccounted for. The crimes have been poorly investigated and have gone unpunished and unresolved by Mexican authorities, thus creating an epidemic of misogynist violence on an increasingly globalized U.S.-Mexico border.

This book, the first anthology to focus exclusively on the Juárez femicides, as the crimes have come to be known, compiles several different scholarly "interventions" from diverse perspectives, including feminism, Marxism, critical race theory, semiotics, and textual analysis.

Editor Alicia Gaspar de Alba shapes a multidisciplinary analytical framework for considering the interconnections between gender, violence, and the U.S.-Mexico border. The essays examine the social and cultural conditions that have led to the heinous victimization of women on the border—from globalization, free trade agreements, exploitative maquiladora working conditions, and border politics, to the sexist attitudes that pervade the social discourse about the victims.

The book also explores the evolving social movement that has been created by NGOs, mothers' organizing efforts, and other grassroots forms of activism related to the crimes. Contributors include U.S. and Mexican scholars and activists, as well as personal testimonies of two mothers of femicide victims.

The book includes articles by Kathy Staudt, Maria Socorro Tabuenca,  Irasema Coronado, among others.

Another book she will be releasing with Alma Lopez is Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez's Irreverent Apparition also on University of Texas Press. It will include a DVD with various interpretations of the Virgen de Guadalupe. This book contains essays about the use of the Virgen de Guadalupe in controversy; issues of censorship; with articles by Emma Perez, Deena Gonzalez, and more.

Below are Gaspar de Alba's other books:

Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders

Arte Publico Press, 2005

It's the summer of 1998 and for five years, over a hundred mangled and desecrated bodies have been found dumped in the Chihuahua desert outside of Juarez, Mexico, just across the river from El Paso, Texas. The perpetrators of the ever-rising number of violent deaths target poor young women, terrifying inhabitants on both sides of the border.

El Paso native Ivon Villa has returned to her hometown to adopt the baby of Cecilia, a pregnant maquiladora worker in Juarez. When Cecilia turns up strangled and disemboweled in the desert, Ivon is thrown into the churning chaos of abuse and murder. Even as the rapes and killings of "girls from the south" continue--their tragic stories written in desert blood--a conspiracy covers up the crimes that implicate everyone from the Maquiladora Association to the Border Patrol.

When Ivon's younger sister gets kidnapped in Juarez, Ivon knows that it's up to her to find her sister, whatever it takes. Despite the sharp warnings she gets from family, friends, and nervous officials, Ivon's investigation moves her deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of silence.

From acclaimed poet and prose-writer Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Desert Blood is a gripping thriller that ponders the effects of patriarchy, gender identity, border culture, transnationalism, and globalization on an international crisis.

La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge: Poetry Y Otras Movidas, 1985-2001

Alicia Gaspar De Alba (Author)

In the introduction to Gaspar de Alba’s collection of poetry and essays, she writes, "I can always tell when parts of a poem start to synchronize in my head...when the images keep rolling around on my tongue." And through the letters spilling from her pen, the reader experiences the same connection, as Gaspar de Alba’s words thread through the mind and stay rolling on the tongue long after the book is closed.

In sections divided into each of the places she visited in her travels, Gaspar de Alba incorporates the Mexican archetypal wailing woman who wanders in search of her lost children. La Llorona is more than an archetype: she is a tour guide through the ruins of love and family, the constant presence of the poet’s voice. She transcends time, place, and gender.

The lines of the poems breathe that haunted spirit as they describe her journeys, or movidas,-both geographic and figurative, in search of the lost mother, the absent father, the abandoned child, the lover, the self. These essays track other movements of thought: reflections on identity, sexuality and resistance.

As a leading interpreter of border life and culture, poet, storyteller, and essayist Gaspar de Alba explores the borders and limits of place, body, and language through a painful series of moves and losses. She prevails and becomes the forger of her own destiny, her own image on the landscape, the interpreter of her own dreams and history.

Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities  

Palgrave Macmillan 2002

 Alicia Gaspar de Alba (Author), Tomas Ybarra Frausto (Author)

In Chicano/a popular culture, nothing signifies the working class, highly-layered, textured, and metaphoric sensibility known as "rasquache aesthetic" more than black velvet art. The essays in this volume examine that aesthetic by looking at icons, heroes, cultural myths, popular rituals, and border issues as they are expressed in a variety of ways.

The contributors dialectically engage methods of popular cultural studies with discourses of gender, sexuality, identity politics, representation, and cultural production. In addition to a hagiography of "locas santas," the book includes studies of the sexual politics of early Chicana activists in the Chicano youth movement, the representation of Latina bodies in popular magazines, the stereotypical renderings of recipe books and calendar art, the ritual performance of Mexican femaleness in the quinceañera, and mediums through which Chicano masculinity is measured.

Sor Juana's Second Dream

Library Journal

In her first novel, poet and Chicano studies scholar Gaspar de Alba brings to life Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a prolific, brilliant, and complex author and nun of 17th-century Mexico.

Although Sor Juana left behind several volumes of published writings, the more personal details of her life remain sketchy. Gaspar de Alba has artfully combined excerpts from the writings with explicit, fictionalized journal entries to create a vibrant, if sometimes anachronistic, account of a complex life.

Long adored in Mexico, Sor Juana has only recently become popular in the United States. She is often considered North America's first lesbian feminist writer, and Gaspar de Alba clearly shares this view.

Eminently readable, this book is recommended for larger public libraries; readers desiring a more conservative biography might prefer Nobel laureate Octavio Paz's Sor Juana; or, The Traps of Faith (LJ 9/1/88).--Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Chicano Art Inside/Outside The Master's House  
University of Texas Press, 1998

In the early 1990s a major exhibition--"Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985"--toured major museums across the United States. The exhibit attracted both praise and controversy. This book presents the first interdisciplinary cultural study of the CARA exhibit. Alicia Gaspar de Alba shows how the exhibit reflected, and serves as a model for, the cultural and sexual politics of the Chicano Movement. 20 color and 58 b&w photos. (from the publisher)  

The Mystery of Survival and Other Stories 
  (Bilingual Press, 1993)
 

In The Mystery of Survival and Other Stories, Gaspar de Alba considers the boundaries between sexes, lovers, cultures, generations, and beliefs and presents a body of work that allows her characters to both defy and celebrate these borders. This collection is peopled by those tenaciously exploring their places in the world: an ambitious young Mexican American reporter who quietly comes to understand the profound impermeability of this boundary as his Anglo editor refuses to see him as anything but an underling; a young woman haunted by the memories of her childhood along the United States/Mexico border; a boy who crosses the brittle line his parents have drawn between each other and chooses to show his allegiance to his mother. Gaspar de Alba reveals characters who, by exploring these boundaries, learn to define themselves and, ultimately, discover not just how to survive, but to flourish. (from the publisher)

"Beggar on the Cordoba Bridge," 
collection of poems in Three Times A Woman: Chicana Poetry  
(Bilingual Press, 1989) 

Bueno, what a resume. I emailed the professora a few days ago to see what else is happening, so Pluma Fronteriza hopes to update you soon.

EL PASO WRITER UPDATES 

Dagoberto Gilb's Secrets

The Digital Dunes blog put out a post on Dagoberto Gilb: "Last month, I wrote about "Uncle Rock"" by Dagoberto Gilb and the reader complained that there was "no impact." READ MORE 

We also caught this post from "Secrets for Dagoberto" on cheerleading? Que?, check it out: Secrets for Dagoberto. I got to hand it to the vato, his two stories in the New Yorker and Harper's respectively, have been getting a lot of internet spin.

Lalo Delgado's bugs

I caught this video by Hektor M performing the poem "Bugs" by Lalo Delgado. Check out by clicking HERE.

Also, the following article was published in April: "Honoring the 'grandfather of Chicano Poetry." Of course they are talking about the Poet Laureate of Aztlan, the Chicano Santa Claus -- Lalo Delgado. “His poetry is said to have reflected the struggles, hopes, feelings and desires and dreams of the Mexican-American people,” Jordan said. “He believed fervently in the power of the pen to educate and restore justice — a principle I believe benefits all of us.” READ MORE.

El Paso continues its battle with Denver to claim Lalo Delgado. Unfortunately, I think Denver is winning. We had the mural put up in Segundo recently, but I think Denver is still ahead. Nevertheless, Lalo would admit that he's big enough for both cities.

I saw on Gloria Velasquez mention her reading at the Lalo Delgado Poetry Festival on her blog recently. Check it out at: http://gloriavelasquez.com/blog.html

I spoke with one of Lalo daughters yesterday. Please keep Lalo's widow Dolores in your prayers.

Octavio Solis and The Waltons?

Another review on Solis' recent premier of "Pasture of Heaven." This review is by Chris Jensen for All Shooked Down, "New Cal Shakes Show is Far from 'Heaven': "Imagine an episode of The Waltons that just won't fucking stop, and you'll have some idea of the horror that awaits you with The Pastures of Heaven." READ MORE OF JENSEN'S REVIEW. 

Ejole, critics... pinche gringos. What Chicano watched The Waltons? Good night John Boy and all that...shit, I just gave myself away.

Also, caught that Solis will be directing The Brothers Size September 9-October 17. Check it out.

Carlos Morton wins

I got an email from Dennis Bixler-Marquez that Carlos had won some award. Carlos emailed me yesterday that he was returning from Mexico, so I'll get the lowdown from the horses mouth. Nay.

Tony Payan on CNN

You can catch an op ed by UTEP's Tony Payan, "Border killing a symbol of failed policy." 

"....a dehumanization plays out at the border, where some lives are worth more than others -- a calculus that usually runs along wealth lines, as those with money can afford visas to cross over the bridge and the poor have to stay out or risk their lives by crossing under it." READ MORE.

Libros, Libros Reborn: Let us keep you up to date on Raza publishing


Friends, for almost 6 years we published the most up-to-date list of Chicano(a) and Latina(o) literature twice a year. It had short 50-word description on what new our Raza letters, from publishing by Chicanos on Grove with gold-lettering and inscriptions from God to garage-printed chapbooks on construction paper.

The newsletter was a monstro, like 50 pages of new books. You had to be a bibliophile to love it. Manuel Ramos and Rigoberto Gonzalez told me once that they read it at least once, so I know at least two people like it.

The good news is that we will put out a new issue this month, but we need you to let us know what's been published.

If you published a chapbook or other book, and you think your book will fall off the radar (ay don't be so pessimistic) -- might fall off the radar -- or just will not get all the attention a gold-plated Chicana(o) novel off a New York press would get, do this: Send me the title, the press name (if self published, let me know, the ISBN (if you have one) and a 50-word description.

I saw Rich Yanez on Facebook complain of breaking down a novel to 200-300. Well, sorry carnalas and carneles, to make room for everyone's book, and to make sure the thickness is mas or menos if you use Libros, Libros as a coaster or to level your shaky table -- we need you to stick to 50 words in describing your book. Email this to rayerojas AT gmail.com.

Oh, and it has to have been published in 2010 or is forthcoming in 2010. Don't worry, well put out another issue in the fall so that Santa Claus can check it out.



The link we share with you today is Rafael Jesus Gonzalez' blog:

Rafael Jesús González

rjgonzalez.blogspot.com