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Reading Classics of Chicana Chicano Literature

Review: Alma Luz Villanueva. Naked Ladies. Tempe AZ: Bilingual Press / Editorial Bilingue, 1994.
ISBN 0927534304

Michael Sedano


Back when I was a single man, finding a companionable woman led me seek to learn what women expect from men. I adopted a strategy of closely reading literature by women, thinking therein to identify the standards I should aspire to achieve. It’s a good thing I married in 1968. I would have given up in favor of a hermit’s cave like Rustico in the Decameron, after reading Alma Luz Villanueva's 1994 novel, Naked Ladies, about one woman's liberation, intimidated by the standard set by Villanueva’s character, Alma.

Twenty years after publication, Naked Ladies stands as a Chicana Classic every man should read, simply to be grateful for the lower standard his mate, or prospective mate, tolerates.

Naked Ladies presents an intensely personal story of a single woman's change from dominated to fully in control. There is sex, violence, love, motherhood, danger. Gender issues and a woman's critical stance highlight the book's Chicana feminism. A high school teacher couldn't get away with the book's hot sex scenes nor its homosexuality, but independent young readers will find Naked Ladies worthwhile reading because it features a strong Chicana lead, a multicultural cast, and stresses the urgency for women of being decisive, acting sooner rather than later, and mistrusting men. Most of all, though, Villanueva proves that there's always an alternative way, options, from one's most profound crises.

The complete work is itself a model of alternatives -- Part One traces Alta's liberation. We watch as Alta sheds one burden after another. Whether by choice or by circumstance a series of crises lead inevitably to that day in her life that she's the remaining survivor of her past self, and she has to begin again.

Part Two takes us to 1999, a critical year in Alta's new life. Alta is rich enough to live in rustic surroundings and employ an apprentice. Since we last saw her, Alta's completed her degree, begun a successful counseling practice, and settled into a deeply satisfying heterosexual relationship with her apprentice.

Part One is Hell, Part Two Paradise. Part Two is fairy tale where they slay the dragon and everyone lives happily ever after. Readers won't sit still for this simplistic take on a woman's life. Villanueva tosses back a structural challenge, "If Life isn't like Alta's, shouldn't it be? What do you think Alta's going to do that would prevent herself from living in the world of Part Two?"

I'm uncertain that Villanueva believes most men capable of answering that. I feel defensive for men when almost every man you meet turns out to have been sexually abused as a child or is himself a child abuser, rapist, wife abuser, adulterer. Villanueva's pretty relentless in this so the pattern is inescapable.

Alta's love with Jade mirrors Alta's nascent experiment with woman lovers in the first half, when Villanueva delivers an erotic scene whose intensity consumes the two women. In the morning though, Jackie pulls away:

Alta turned from the stove, ready to smile. Jackie s face stopped her. It was cold, distant. Angry and embarrassed.
I should be going. I’ve got a million things to do today, and Jose has to be at his father’s at ten. Jackie placed an unusual emphasis on the masculine as though to set things straight. She was a normal woman, after all, her tone conveyed.
It felt like a direct blow to Alta’s abdomen. She fastened her gaze on Jackie’s eyes. Are you sorry about last night? 158

People should meet Alta. Villanueva’s introduced a Chicana who defines her life for herself. Chicanisma isn’t nearly as great a concern in Alta’s life as being a woman and mother. The great tragedies in Alta’s life grow from being woman not Chicana. The writer adopts a completely personal stance in setting out to encompass important events in lives of the writer’s women: April’s first period, breast cancer, love, raising our children, other people’s children, men, rape, abortion, sexual abuse, adultery, violence against women.

Villanueva gives all her characters an ethnic identity. Alta and April, the lead women characters, along with Jackie and Rita, are Latina, Jade is Asian and Navajo, April is dark like her mother, but her father, Hugh, along with Katie, Doug, Cheryl, and Bill are Anglo. Michael and Steve, Alta’s best male friends, are black. Yet ethnicity itself keeps its place in the background of the relationships, so the absence of Chicano or Latino men in Alta’s life is unremarkable. Further, Alta expresses her ethnic identity in several ways, the allusion to grandmother s wisdom, a casual remark like, Do you want some more coffee, loca? But while Alta hears familiar Chicano voices of protest, she feels more vitally moved by her awareness of womanhood:

An intense sorrow and longing filled Alta; so intense she almost lost consciousness for a moment. It was the child’s pain. "Yes." She saw her hunger, the shame of her poverty, the color of her skin, the sound of her Spanish being ridiculed publicly in a five-year-old’s memory, and an Indian language her grandmother spoke sometimes flickered like a vague, comforting dream that left her desolate because she could never remember, never remember, never remember.
Then Alta remembered the cries of her mother, the defense of her mother, the betrayal of her mother, the longing for her mother. Her mother. Her longing for a father had stopped at eight, and now she craved only a mother. 146 - 7

Personal satisfaction and sexual identity define Alta’s values, not the cultural nor an ethnic focus on Chicanismo. One might even argue the work is not a work of Chicana Chicano Literature at all, but of some different genre, whose author simply happens to be Chicana.

Interesting woman, Alta. But the Alta you know from part two is only a possibility--she hasn't done any of this yet, or if. At Part Two the time jumps forward to 1999. This hasn’t happened yet, the seeming perfect ending: Alta finds two true Loves. A good man in Michael, a wounded Jade. Michael deals with Alta’s love for a woman with a strenuous seduction of his own. Jade, on the rebound from a failed relationship, is gang raped and accepts Alta’s and Michael s counsel. Michael is Alta’s student-become-companion. Part Two offers to resolve every unhappy ending left hanging, as Katie dies to end Part One.

The younger Alta experiences power over a man in the book’s opening pages when Alta runs down the elegant purse snatcher:

And the woman, Alta could hear as she quickly rolled down her window, was saying, Let go of me, you fucker, in a steady, angry voice.
Within that silent universe there was only one choice: run him over: now. Right now.
The wheel turned without effort, and Alta’s aim was perfect. The beautiful panther-man wasn’t expecting this, and his face registered shock and pain as the front bumper caught his strong, lovely legs. He’d dragged the woman halfway down the street. Now he let her go and his eyes connected to Alta’s.

The reader imagines himself standing and cheering this woman, looking forward to the next few pages to see how Alta’s career unfolds from so eventful an introduction.

What follows is a series of tragedies mixed with moments of pure joy; small incremental victories that culminate in Alta’s conquest of the oppressive Hugh. Thus ends the first half of the book. Alta and Hugh have fallen into each other’s embrace a final time. Alta and inertia have their sway and Hugh dances himself into a frenzy.

I’ve been seeing someone since I was seventeen. I'm a homosexual. That’s what I am, a homosexual. And the man I've been seeing has AIDS. He's going to die. 140

Jade’s view of being woman has become twisted by a vicious gang rape:

Twice, during the night, she’d sat bolt upright at a harmless sound, but nothing was harmless anymore. Nothing had ever been harmless, she realized. Being a woman is being raped as a child and being raped as a woman, and then killed if it suited them. 202

Michael and Alta believe their ad hoc outdoor summer solstice ritual might provide a therapy Jade desperately requires. Alta may entertain her own motives because she loves both Michael and Jade. Alta’s keenly aware of Michael’s own enhanced sexuality in competition with Jade and Alta’s. Psychedelic mushrooms, wine, and group sex helps them perform a satisfying ritual and all seems well with mutual love and respect glowing among the three. As Jade and Alta couple, Michael watches from across the campfire, pleased at the women's satisfaction, not jealous of their physicality. There’s a standard for male behavior that readers will find incredibly tough to manage.

Villanueva doesn’t want a happily-ever-after ending, so she brings back Ray and Jim--Jade’s pair of cracker rapists--seeking revenge and blood.

Jim chuckled at the Sunday school brag. In fact, they both went to church nearly every Sunday, and if they didn’t their wives and kids did. The people in the church blamed “those feminist bitches” for causing trouble. They said those words inwardly; outwardly they said, “some folks just like to cause trouble, women like that” 263

Ray feels a strong gang rape-based camaraderie with Jim:

Yes, that first time. Sloppy seconds, then sloppy eights. Makes a guy feel closer ta his buddies. Like me an’ Jim’s tight now.

Jim, however, draws the line at one's own children, unlike Ray:

You ain’t messin’ with your own kids, are you?
Ray laughed loudly. Ya takes stuff way too serious, Jim boy. Ya jus’ be breakin ‘em in for mankind, the way I see it.
Does your old lady know?
She knows an’ she knows what’s good fer ‘er. Put the fear a God in ‘er right away. Ahm the man, ain’t I? 265-6

Alta hears this from cover but must watch helplessly as Jade and Michael get taken hostage. Just as Ray is about to rape Jade while Jim can t keep his hands off Michael’s genitals, Alta re-enacts the Will and power observed in the first pages of Naked Ladies. Alta shoots and kills Jim, saving Michael, then kills the fleeing Ray.

In a culminating irony, having just killed two men--one of whom, we learn, was raped by his father from age two to five—we learn Alta is pregnant, and her child has a barely distinguishable penis. It’s a boy.

They live happily ever after, a perplexing ending. Men who think with their dicks--and most do--are the enemy. But men are sons of mothers like Alta, so why do some men turn out like Ray and Jim or Hugh and Doug? Why aren’t more men like Alta’s son, or Michael?

Villanueva puts this responsibility squarely in the woman s hands, as if to say Alta’s way is the only road to any type of idyllic future: be decisive; take action; it’s a woman s world if she wants it.

But what about Chicanos like me, not up to my tocayo’s standards, nor Alta’s?


The Gluten-free Chicano
The Gluten-free Chicano Finds the Best Restaurant in the World

DiStasio's On the Bay
781 Market Street
Morro Bay CA 93442
805-771-8760

Wheat is poison, to the gluten intolerant. The most recent time the Gluten-free Chicano made a mistake and ate a sugar cooky he believed was GF, he passed out and was out of commission the next day. Finding restaurants, especially when traveling, is a game of lethal roulette.

Then a miracle.

The Gluten-free Chicano lined up a 8 a.m. to be first in line for that night's 4 p.m. opening.

On his annual birding photography vacation to Morro Bay, fatigued of putting Dorn's Restaurant servers through his standard close examination--is it thickened with flour? is there bread in it? is there wheat, barley, rye in it? would you please ask the cook and be sure? can I see the label?--he girded his loins for the ordeal and walked into an Italian place that for the past couple years had been an empty space next door to Dorn's.

The menu featured a few gluten-free dishes. When the GF Chicas Patas complimented the order taker on the restaurant's kindness, the vato offered a two-page gluten-free menu. Pasta, pasta, pasta, on the left hand side; pasta, pasta, pasta on the right hand side. Carbonara. Ravioli. Lasagne. Primavera.

Hosanna and I'll have one of everything! The delicious fresh-tasting marinara sauce was heavenly, ambrosial, on pasta. Pasta cooked perfectly and so good the GF Chicano trembled with fear that the kitchen had made an error and he'd be dead in 59 minutes.

Not only did the Gluten-free Chicano survive, he returned the next night for an expensive steak with spaghetti on the side--that wasn't on the menu and the kitchen prepared it just for the Gluten-free Chicano.

So the GF Chicano learned an important lesson. Don't make assumptions about Italian places. The best restaurant in the world is Italian. It's called DiStasio's On the Bay in Morro Bay. ¡Ajua!

A soupçon of bad news: DiStasio's uses Ancient Harvest quinoa pasta. As the NY Times reports--this indeed constitutes heart-breaking news, like the "fascist" comment Whole Foods' CEO spewed leading the Gluten-free Chicano to boycott the grocery store selling the best gf beer selection in town--there's a serious problem with quinoa:

Now demand for quinoa (pronounced KEE-no-ah) is soaring in rich countries, as American and European consumers discover the “lost crop” of the Incas. The surge has helped raise farmers’ incomes here in one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries. But there has been a notable trade-off: Fewer Bolivians can now afford it, hastening their embrace of cheaper, processed foods and raising fears of malnutrition in a country that has long struggled with it.

Good-bye perfection.



The Gluten-free Chicano Makes Menudo - A Naturally GF Food

I had been collecting güiros in the remote barranca near my grandfather’s birthplace. The old indio who makes my güiros was showing me new designs and I lost track of time. I would not reach the highway before darkness so I faced being trapped along the trail and at the mercy of wild peccaries, random cucuy, and the critters of remote darkness.

I knew better than to stay with the old curandero güiro artisan, whose conecta to cucuy had given me night sweats for a month the previous visita, so I made for a settlement deeper into the barranca, the güiro maker shaking his canas telling me I'd be better off spending a sleepless night halfway up the cañon than risk what awaited me further down the barranca. I reached the small village just after sundown.

Already gente were streaming to the tiny zocalo. Señoritas done up in their finest hand-embroidered blusas, the whirling colors of their full loose skirts and faldas mixed with their bright excited laughter. Their mothers gave me el malojo but I had a talisman from el viejo.

Small clusters of men laughed in the shadows, as men will, at some off-color remark or a prediction about the night's prospects. I kept a wary eye on one vato who had taken a dislike to me on an earlier visit.

A trio of musicos, a violin, a guitar, and a güiro, on the kiosko segued from a warming up cacophony to a sweet rhythmic version of Agustin Lara's Solamente Una Vez. There was a magic to the song I'd never sensed before, especially the long sweeping raspas of the güiro. Romance swept the plaza until everything became a blur of passion. De repente, I was whirled into the light to find myself waltzing with the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

Candlelight caught her pupils and shone through her lustrous reddish black hair. The music drowned out everything but her eyes. The softness of her ample waist and soft sheen of sweat on her lightly pimpled brown forehead took my breath, and I whirled her across the dirt faster and faster as the güiro roared above the evening's magic. I was so intoxicated by her allure I thought I'd been enchanted and I was in a ghost story when someone pushed me into my partner and the music abruptly stopped.

"Hijo de la chingada madre, suelta a mi hermana, cabron pinche gringo." A glint caught the edge of the machete the vato brandished at his chest, pointed at mine. The shadows stirred, the dance floor rapidly emptied. I stared into the vato's eyes without blinking. Then I smiled. "¿Y tu, que vas hacer con esa navajita, mi'jo, rasparte las uñas?" I still have not decided what surprised the vato more, the reductio ad absurdum, my diction, or the fearless glint of my ojos hinchados and ruthless half-smile.

Outrage surrounded me. Vatos had bunched up around us thinking to see blood shed--mine. But in a flash of an eye I had disarmed their local champion and twirled his machete like a juggler with a chain saw. Much as the crowd wanted blood, they wanted it to be my blood, not his. As I gently pushed my dance partner out of harm's way, she reached her lips to brush her hot breath across my cheek. I turned to quiet the murmuring crowd...

To make a long, long story short, I convinced the mob to let me treat them to a bowl of homemade menudo. I was pleased that, so far from anywhere, the village had a Wolfe stove.


Here is the recipe that earned me a dance with every woman in the ville, and the hearts of all the mothers. Flirting Abuelitas hinted I should come calling on their nietas, pressing me with photographs whose subjects were avatars for every panaderia calendar I'd ever seen except without the arrow in a breast.

The admiration of all the caballeros reflected in the abrazos I got and all the tequilazos I downed. At dawn, after they'd tasted my menudo, the cheering crowd carried me and the musicos around the plaza on their shoulders.

Ingredients
5 lbs honeycomb tripe. (The fuzzy tripe is OK, too.) Put in freezer until half frozen.
1 head garlic.
1 large onion.
2 cans hominy.
Optional: 2 6" lengths of beef leg bone or 2 pig knuckles.
Red chile sauce (boil dried Anaheim, Negro, New Mexico, Guajillo, and Arbol chile pods with an onion and a head of garlic, purée, strain) or, 1 jar Gebhardt's chile powder, or 2 cans la palma chile sauce (puro chile, no tomato)
Six or more sprigs dried oregano (a Tbs or so crushed leaves)



Preparation
1/2 fill large pot with cold water.
Strip fat from underside of tripe, get it all!
Cut half-frozen tripe into 2" x 2" pieces (it cuts really easily when half-frozen).
Put the panza into the pan and add the chile, unpeeled head of garlic ditto the onion, (you'll remove these later), oregano, tbs salt. optional a bay leaf.

You can make a chicano bouquet garni by wrapping the ajo, cebolla, sprigs of oregano, in cheesecloth and tying into a bag. Dip the bay leaf into the boiling broth then take it out in 5 minutes.

Turn up the heat. When the pot begins boiling, lower the flame to a medium simmer, cover, 3-4 hours. If you are in a hurry, boil the hell out of it for an hour and a half, (or pressure cook it for 1 minute after the vapor cap starts rocking).


Monitor to ensure you don't reduce the tripe to soft squishy unpalatable gunk. The meat is done when, with a bit of effort, you can cut it with the edge of a fork.


I add the hominy when the tripe is nearly done. Dump the cans of hominy, water and all, into the menudo and add more water if you need more soup. Adjust the flavor: more salt, more chile for flavor or for picoso.

Garnishes are important. Diced onion, cilantro leaves, crushed chile de arbol or chile piquin, oregano leaves. Lemon or lime halves--do not use this recipe and serve quartered limón, or a cucuy will haunt you.

For an authentic touch, put a peeled onion cut in half and a knife on the table so diners can score the onion then slice the diced cebolla directly into the bowl.

Serve with hot tortilla de maíz. Wheat-eaters sharing your table will enjoy bolillos or tortilla de harina.


La Bloga On-Line Floricanto Penultimate Tuesday in January 2013
David Lester Young, Joe Navarro, Odilia Galván Rodríguez , Sonia Gutiérrez, Andrea Mauk


USS Constitution by David Lester Young
I Understand Peace, Equality, Justice and Hope (Remembering Dr. King on His Birthday) by Joe Navarro
Spirit Tree of Life By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Song for a New Civilization by Sonia Gutiérrez
Dreams Manufactured Daily (Just Follow Along) by Andrea Mauk


USS Constitution
by David Lester Young

Ironsides iron will in Star Spangled Banner fortitude,
Deed born within a birthright Bill of Rights of longitude
Sharing latitude of sea to shining sea’s sailing Constitution
“We the people” are the strength of power point composition.

A Free Press salvo must carry its Declaration of Independence
Of editorial integrity found within questing power Truth dependence
That a writer never fears the Executive Privilege wrath of domination
That Free Speech patriotism is an imperative birth-write condition.

America is this 100% civilian elected and owned - run government,
The President, Congress, officials are not incorporated governance,
Where Conglomerates buy political stables in campaign investments.
That Special Interests must never be above neighborhood vestments.

That clothing covering our elected officials shares a Pledge of Allegiance
To this nation, but never to any Demigod of Incorporation with grievances
That threatens public officials by holding them hostage in signed contracts.
That in 1776 America divorced Royal proclamations with charter subcontracts.

America’s founding father principles are in business venture stock capitalism.
That America Dream made for people to own, invest in business commercialism
That found its American inheritance in a born in America proud vested heritage
That should never outsource our America’s Blue Collar heart and soul lineage.

Yet, fiscal cliff deconstruction seeks to destroy America from within this loyalty
That gives out tax free entitlements in Goliath welfare that shares corporate royalty.
Then this economic boa constrictor says we cannot afford civilian Social Security,
After they raped and pillaged America’s business pension plans for their futurity.

Robbing Hood barons, monster media moguls, bank-sters bankrupting Americans
Getting paid bonuses creating a 10% dominion of Conservative States of America,
Their wrath reaping havoc on the floundering USS Constitution in troubled waters
Forcing it onto fiscal cliffs without the rudder of Congress into economic slaughter.

But hear that murmur,
Feel that thunder,
See America’s heart beat coming alive,
Sense that spirit in “We the people” birthrights
That deed of inherited individual patriotism
In Star Spangled Banner-ed in F. Scott KEYS.
That Freedom, Democracy, Liberty in Free Speech,
Is not a obscenity, but this imperative necessity
That “We the people” must shout out aloud NUTS
N-ever U-nder T-yranny S-urrender
The USS Constitution.




I Understand Peace, Equality, Justice and Hope (Remembering Dr. King on His Birthday) 
by Joe Navarro

I understand peace, equality,
Justice and hope
Paz, igualidad, justicia
Y esperanza, even though
They sometimes remain
Elusive, the same as
Catching clouds and rainbows
The ideals are etched in
My vocabulario, en dos idiomas
I think of them in English
And español in hopes that
Two languages can cross
The threshold of oppression
I stopped dreaming in
Abstract lofty ideals that
No one can achieve without
Struggle, without un movimiento
This is what I learned that from an
Inspiration that roared from
The mind and lips of
A gentle man who stood
Unwaiveringly, face to face
With with the anti-human
Racial construct that declared
Itself superior to all on la Tierra
I was one of those chavelitos
Who listened to the spiritual discourse
For humanity against the dangers
Of racial, ethnic and international
Domination through violence,
Brutality and subjugation
I listen to the revolutionary cry to
Value la gente, human beings
Over commodities and a denunciation
Of crass materialism and racism
I listened to a giant, rich of corazón
A humble man who loved toda la gente
But despised the haters and dominators
A man who was a powerful orator
Who spoke out, even against
The threats of the most powerful
Nation on Earth, I learned from
The wise man, The Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr who lived and died
Awakening the humanity of
People who were tired of living
Under the heels of others
Then fear and loathing traveled
From the barrel of a gun into
His physical existence on la Tierra
Yet he arose again as winged
Consciousness, a free spirit that
Traveled far and wide into the
Hearts and minds of those
Who would listen and learn
Someone, like me


Spirit Tree of Life 
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez

Dedicated to Chief Theresa Spence and the Idle No More Movement

spirit tree tied with sacred direction colors
prayer offerings full of hopes and dreams
fears are kept at bay by sacrificing
and opening to the possibilities of prophecy
fulfilled wishes for better days of promise
a cleansing snow covers the sleeping ground
waiting for the first awakening of green


Song for a New Civilization
by Sonia Gutiérrez

You take the only thing
you have left to record
a people’s history—
a shard of glass and a mirror.

You write about the courage
of canons and muskets.
You include the tapered sound
of fleeting ducks fleeing
from the squeeze of an AR-15.

You press heavily on the shard
and see bodies lined up—
covered in plastic and crimson stars.

One round after another
and another, bullets from boys and men
they called strange birds. Birds
who in their silence inherited
centuries of indifference.

Every time the mirror speaks,
you gasp, pledging to innocence
that these deaths were not in vain.
You take a torn shirt and wipe
the shard of glass and mirror,
and hand wash the stars with tears
as soap suds turn a brick red.

You take the clean mirror and hold it
up high, sharing its vision
for a new civilization.

The mirror takes the boy’s toy grenade
and arms his eyes with justice.
Takes the boy’s hate
and nurtures his mind with happiness.
Takes the boy’s loneliness
and gives him a community of listeners.
Takes the boy’s silence
and arms his tongue with words.
Takes the boy’s fear
and teaches him true brotherhood.

The mirror speaks for our children
so one day these boys and men
on a whim do not wear the mask
of strange birds and in their delusion
rob us of our sisters, our grandfathers,
our teachers, our classmates,
our neighbors, our brothers,
our own children—their own future.


Dreams Manufactured Daily (Just Follow Along)
by Andrea Mauk

Nothing ever seems to happen
in a minute, an hour, a day,
until I look back on my life as a whole,
then I can marvel at the many things I've done
that people told me I wouldn't accomplish,
couldn't accomplish,
cuz after all, who was I?
A girl walking a tightrope
hangin' onto a balloon filled with helium dreams,
and stardust wishes.
A chubby girl with a potentially lethal
autoimmune disease.
A fool.

You'll be back, they assured me
to the beep of the scanner,
to the graveyard shift
on the West side of Phoenix
where the women sometimes
don't get into the store
without getting their purse ripped from their arms,
their faces bloodied by the butt
of a pistol
by young men who exchange their dignity
for a quick crack high.

You'll be back, they promised,
to the Valley of the Sun
and its inbred economy
where you can watch them play golf and ride horses
and swim all day long
as you make the beds
and vacuum the carpets.
You'll long for a promotion,
a job in an office where
you don't have to wear a uniform.

You'll never leave, not for long.
You can't break free of the heat that's
embedded in your pores,
the streets you can't drive down twice
because your car is too low,
your talent that's been stifled
by a wanna-be metropolis
laid out on a perfect grid
and its need to organize its people
like the rainbow of garments
in a walk-in closet,
and besides,
your music's all wrong.

Every day,
I read the sign like a mantra,
43rd Avenue next exit,
Los Angeles 356 miles
and I sang like Bootsy Collins,
'Hey, L.A. Califor- NI-AYY,
City of Angels, Hollywood.'
I counted the trips, 1, 2, 3, 57...
until the one time when I'd
pass 43rd and keep going.

I have been back
many times
to visit
and I might even consider
going back to retire
but I never went back
because I didn't succeed
or have the courage
to follow my dreams.
I left with my paintbrush,
my pencils and paper,
my sheet music, microphone
and a determination
that no matter what teachers said,
or parents predicted, or how friends laughed,
I could not be told
who I was supposed to become.

On certain days when I get to feeling
like nothing's working out as planned,
in the hardest moments when I cannot
find a way to believe in myself,
I drive past something, an image, a sign
an icon of some kind that reminds me,
Oh yeah, this is Hollywood, a place
where dreams are manufactured daily.
That's why I came here.
I have used my paintbrush,
my pencils and paper,
my microphone.
I didn't have to come here to be a dreamer,
I was born that way,
but the only dream I held tight to in Phoenix
was being able to leave it behind.


Bios
USS Constitution by David Lester Young
I Understand Peace, Equality, Justice and Hope (Remembering Dr. King on His Birthday) by Joe Navarro
Spirit Tree of Life By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Song for a New Civilization by Sonia Gutiérrez
Dreams Manufactured Daily (Just Follow Along) by Andrea Mauk


David Lester Young. Born Akron, Ohio. Graduated Tallmadge High School. Associate Degree University Of Southern Indiana. Creative Writer Poet Philosopher. Present location Panama City Beach, FL.

Started writing around 1970 after being honorably discharged from the Vietnam War. I started by writing poems and thoughts on napkins. Today, I start six or seven a day, some get finished, others do not.

I always have written under D. Lester Young. I also use Franklin Doppelganger, because of my resemblance to Ben Franklin, a person I greatly respect and whose ideas I find are worth using Free Speech about. I do write daily quotes like; “Free Speech is not obscenity but a necessity. Franklin Doppelganger 01/12/13

My poetry can be found by using GOOGLE and typing in David Lester Young. You can also go to the Authorsden.com site, and look up my name, David Lester Young.


Joe Navarro is a literary vato loco, teacher, poet, creative writer, husband, father and grandfather who currently lives in Hollister, CA. Joe integrates his poetic voice with life's experiences, and blends culture with politics. His poetic influences include the Beat Poets, The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Alurista, Gloria Anzaldua, Lalo Delgado and numerous others. You can read more from Joe at www.joenavarro.weebly.com.



Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet/activist, writer and editor, has been
involved in social justice organizing and helping people find their
creative and spiritual voice for over two decades. Her poetry has been
widely anthologized, and she is the author of three books. Her last editing
job was as the English edition editor of Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba.
Odilia is one of the founding members and a moderator of Poets
Responding to SB 1070 on Facebook. She teaches creative writing
workshops nationally, currently at Casa Latina, and also co-hosts,
"Poetry Express" a weekly open mike with featured poets, in Berkeley,
CA. For more information about workshops see her blog http://xhiuayotl.blogspot.com/
or contact her at Red Earth Productions & Cultural Work 510-343-3693.

Sonia Gutiérrez is a poet professor, who promotes social justice and teaches English Composition and Critical Thinking and Writing at Palomar College. Her poetry, guest columns, and vignettes have been published in La Bloga’s On-line Floricanto, FRONTERA-ESQUINA, The San Diego Poetry Annual, La Jornada Semanal, AlternaCtive PublicaCtions, and contratiempo: pensamiento latinoamericano en USA. Her bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press), is forthcoming in 2013. She is at work on her novel, Kissing Dreams from a Distance, among other projects. To learn more about Sonia, visit her blog, Chicana in the Midst, and muy pronto at www.soniagutierrez.com.


Andrea García Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality, and her poetry is featured in the 2012 Mujeres de Maiz “‘Zine.” She is a regular contributor to Poets responding to SB 1070. Her poems have been chosen for publication on La Bloga’s Tuesday Floricanto numerous times. She is also a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry. Her production company, Dancing Horse Media Group, is currently in pre-production of her independent film, “Beautiful Dreamer,” based on her original screenplay and manuscript, and along with her partners, is producing a unique cookbook that blends healthful recipes with poetry and prose from the community.

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On Aaron Swartz

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My Official Poetic License

Reyna Grande and Melinda Palacio

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Review: In the Country of Empty Crosses
Michael Sedano

Arturo Madrid (author), Miguel Gandert (photographs). In the Country of Empty Crosses. The Story of a Hispano Protestant Family in Catholic New Mexico. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781595341310

The handful of protestant kids in Arturo Madrid's rural New Mexico public school struggled to voice their own prayer. Their pastor had forbidden them to participate in Catholic practices. "Forgive us our debts" the protestant kids insisted, while the Catholics prayed to be forgiven "our trespasses."

When Europeans first trespassed into indigenous tierra that would become New Mexico, those Mexican Spaniards set into motion a pattern for dominating what was there before they came, that would repeat itself when Anglos trespassed onto hispano land. Arturo Madrid’s memoir, In the Country of Empty Crosses. The Story of a Hispano Protestant Family in Catholic New Mexico, recounts impacts of that dominance.

Just as indios found themselves marginalized by the gente from down south, hispanos and their Catholic religion found themselves, too, squeezed out by foreign language-speaking interlopers as prickly as the barbed wire they strung after seizing land. Former landholders got their only compensation in the sound of a judge’s gavel echoing the Terminator’s command to the helicopter pilot, “get out”.

Interloper. As the old order changed yielding place to new, Arturo Madrid’s protestante familia found themselves interlopers in their own tierra not once, but doubly.

In the hispano community, they were outliers owing to their election of the anglos’ religion.

In anglo churches, hispanos were targets for missionary work, separate and unequal; bilingual hispanos attending the mainline services found themselves only a little more tolerated but advantaged as intercultural negotiators for gente who'd become interlopers on their own tierra.

Madrid opens the memoir with a telling illustration of hispano exclusion. Taking a sentimental journey to his familia’s former tierra searching for vestiges, the cosmopolitan Madrid—he is a Professor of Literature comfortable in elite Unitedstatesian circles—meets a local vato Madrid terms “the Marlboro man.”

The visitor asks the local if he’s familiar with a location, the long-abandoned places his bisabuelos settled. Madrid especially wonders where the old familia camposanto lay. The Marlboro man corrects the outsider, “you mean the campo herejes.” To some Catholic hispanos, protestantes remain heretics, 400 years after the last inquisitor left New Spain.

Madrid recounts a telling encounter with the anglo minister’s wife in Chama. Performing a self-imposed Christian obligation, Madrid and his mother knock on the parlor door with an offering of fruit and vegetables waiting in the truck. The woman cracks the door and gestures her visitors to go around to the back door. At the back stoop, the pastor’s wife asks through the door what she can do for the two Mexicans? Madrid’s mother issues a sharp rebuke, “do something for yourself” by accepting the crates of fresh fruit and vegetables loaded in the pickup.

We cut across the lawn and make our way ccarefully through untended shrubbery still wet with dew. The warm air smells of pine needls and pinesap. As we enter the shade at the back of the manse, the fresh smell of pine is displaced by the acrid odor of moist coal cinders. The backyard is dark and bare. Tall firs cut out the light, making it cold and dank as well. I am glad to be wearing a light jacket. The manse has a screened back porch, and my mother pulls on the handle to the entry door, but it is latched. (155)

Details like these add to the rich texture Madrid’s elegant prose creates throughout In the Country of Empty Crosses, the Story of a Hispano Protestant Family in Catholic New Mexico. Madrid has not written with retribution in mind, however near to revenge some incidents sound. Indeed, the author sets forth incidents as facts, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about the cultural fusions and transitions that would create contemporary mores of his tierra.

A few years later, Madrid encounters the Marlboro man’s brother, and receives a decent welcome and useful information. Back at the manse, as they drive away from the Chama parsonage, the rude woman seems to be abjectly ashamed. And she’ll have to schlep the heavy crates by herself.

Madrid’s literary occupation shines brilliantly in this readable text. The writer avoids easy sentimentality, packing detail and telling incident without imposing a political stance that might deflect from the memoir element. For example, recounting that his boyhood home in Tierra Amarilla was the site of a raid by chicano nationalists, Madrid doesn’t mention the murder of the anglo forest ranger nor name Reies Tijerina as the shooter. Since Madrid no longer lived in Tierra Amarilla when he learned of the tragedy, the event is not part of his cultural debt.

Throughout his 213 pages, the author doesn’t wallow in regret that the rural New Mexico of Madrid’s youth doesn’t exist anymore, despite his subtly pointed illustration of inexorable change. The retrograde attitudes of the various brands of Christianity on display in the author’s memory probably continue to divide communities today, but that may be a function of individual venality rather than culturally imposed norms. Madrid chooses to omit such considerations.

Chicanas Chicanos who, like me, grew up in rural Catholic settings outside New Mexico will recognize Madrid’s tierra and its denizens, and that’s another good reason people will enjoy reading the memoir.

Raza are more alike than different, though differences inevitably crop up. “The manse,” for example, is the pastor’s home. The term jumps out at me for its unfamiliarity. Madrid notes the Baptists were ascendant in the local protestant community; I wondered if the sect had subtly imposed a plantation mentality to go along with their manifest destiny?

I asked a preacher’s kid what his family termed their home. It was always “the parsonage.” Other friends told me they knew “the vicarage.” “Rectory” is the priest’s abode in Catholic parishes. Webster’s tells me “manse” is common usage among Presbyterians, and Madrid’s gente followed Presbyterian dogma, diluted by that Baptist influence.

Madrid’s writing flows elegantly, a tapestry of memory he weaves or unravels thread by thread, laying patterned motifs with a word or image on an earlier page that the writer expands into paragraphs and rich chapters later. Readers will note lilacs, railroads, sunflowers, smells and landscape motifs. The story so richly textured becomes deeply engaging to the point the book’s liberal display of excellently wrought photographs becomes invisible. Once noticed, however, the fotos enhance the pages, illustrating more the ambience of the chapter than necessarily a single sentence. Photographer Miguel Gandert’s captions appear in the afterpages.

The book itself is laid out like an art book, so much so that designer Kristina Kachele places the CIP page at the back instead of obverse the title page. She provides ample white space via wide margins, generous leading, a pleasing serif font, and a page size that sits the palm without burdensome bulk. The publisher elected a medium weight bright white coated stock that not quite ideally supports the photographs, but nonetheless holds much of the detail and care Gandert invests in his exposures.

Cultural baggage being what it proves to be, I did not “get” the title’s “empty crosses.” Catholics display the crucified Christ on a cross, protestantes don’t. Madrid sees the empty cross, too, as a symbol of redemption, though who’s redeemed remains ambiguous and subject matter for spirited discussions In the Country of Empty Crosses, the Story of a Hispano Protestant Family in Catholic New Mexico is sure to engender.



Michael Sedano (mvs) - You tell about that resentful anglo boy who challenged your selection to lead a school ceremony. Did you see the memoir as a chance to get even with tipos like him?

Arturo Madrid (am) - Laughs. No, although friends have told me there may be elements of that. But I want to recount accurately as far as I remember. There is so much in our history that bears examination I have no time nor interest in getting back at people.

MVS - You write about the pressures of being a principal's kid (his father) and son of a local government official (mother), how you were constantly under observation by all eyes. Did your research lead you to read the book Preacher's Kid, about the same phenomenon?

AM - Several people told me about the book, so I might. I wanted to convey a different sense of history so my work didn't require much of that type reading. There are many contradictory tensions that come more clearly out of experience, observation, conversation.

MVS - The principal theme of the book is being an interloper. The anglos were interlopers on your tierra, yet you see yourself and before that, your parents as interlopers into protestant worlds. You don't spend a lot of energy investigating their motives nor addressing a justification for their determination to become cultural blenders.

AM - That was so far in the past and difficult if not impossible to know. They were biliterate and bilingual;  their parents were literate people. That is what their society needed.

MVS - The Tierra Amarilla raid  by La Alianza Federal de Mercedes was an awful event. You don't mention the murder or Tijerina.

AM - I heard about the incident while driving in my car, so it wasn't part of my experience. I met Tijerina years later and found him interesting and companionable. I didn't go into the raid because I was living in Texas and Tierra Amarlla wasn't my story.

MVS - You populate the book with lots of synaesthesia and visuals, there's a sense of longing in your narrative focus. What do you miss about your tierra?

AM - Living 20 years in San Antonio, in the city, I miss the open spaces and being able to see long distances, see mountains. I miss the smells of New Mexico, the piñon forest, the creosote bushes, the mix of smells after a rain.

MVS - Has time healed the divisions you recount? Have gente managed to subsume the hard feelings or do these divisions remain, perhaps as krypto cultural norms exacerbated by propinquity?

AM - In rural New Mexico people are occupied making a living and manage to put aside such divisions out of self-interest. It's different in the city where divisions remain and probably don't improve much because of propinquity and the nature of big towns.

MVS - What are you reading now?

AM - I'm reading Hilary Mantel's book on the French revolution, A Place of Greater Safety. She's a wonderful historian and writer who won a Booker Prize. I enjoyed Fludd. I'm also the judge for the Texas NACCS Book Award, and have five titles to read.

MVS - Miguel Gandert's photographs illustrate the book beautifully. But I got wrapped up in the story and tended to ignore the fotos the first time through.

AM - I've had that response from several friends. Miguel's photographs are so striking that originally the publisher wanted to limit illustrations to just a few but the images demanded to be included.

MVS - What do you want readers to know about Arturo Madrid as a result of reading In the Country of Empty Crosses?

AM - I want them to think this guy can tell a good story, that he has a good sense of language, and beyond that he knows how to use language to create a wonderful environment.


My 44th Anniversary


January 15, 1969 was a Wednesday. If I slept the night before, I don't remember. I had a 0700 appointment at the Santa Barbara bus terminal.

That final night my three best friends and I--Barbara, Mike, and Bryan--cruised the streets of Santa Barbara for one final look-see. At a stop sign--would I go south to Haley Street, or north and back to Isla Vista--a cowboy hat in the rearview mirror honked impatiently then he rammed his clunky pickup truck into us when I didn't pull away. Pulling around me, he honked and gave me the finger, screaming, "Fuck You, Four F." I exploded in laughter.

In the morning, with a Josh White tune running through my head, "there's a man going round taking names,"someone called my name. I hugged my wife and kissed her good-bye. I stepped onto the bus and in a few minutes, it pulled away. Barbara had kept up a brave mien all week as the clock ticked away. I glanced out the window to see she'd finally given in to her tears. Her hands covered her downturned face and she missed seeing me wave goodbye.

Forty-four years ago today, I reported as ordered by President Richard M. Nixon and accepted involuntary induction into the United States Army.


I was lucky that day. As a gruff Sergeant herded our skivvy-covered asses upstairs to the final set of examinations before taking the Oath, one Draftee sat red-faced under the sign that read "United States Marine Corps."


The Gluten-free Chicano
Las Dos Gildas Make Tortillas de Harina

Last week's Gluten-free Chicano segment exulted in finding the palo his mother used in rolling tortillas de harina. Because wheat is poison to the gluten-afflicted, the GF chicas patas shared the recipe for egg and tortillita as alternative to making flour tortillas.

This week, Las Dos Gildas, the renowned cooking site, provides a suitable recipe for those forbidden treasures. Gilda Valdez Carbonaro has amended the recipe to feature vegetable oils rather than the lard that produces the authentic flavor of homemade tortillas de harina.

The Gluten-free Chicano recommends using lard in the same volume of oils. Click here for Las Dos Gildas' recipe. Rolling a perfect tortilla with your mother's palo will have to be a matter of trial and error.

http://dosgildas.com/tortillas-de-harina/


On-Line Floricanto. Antepenultimate Tuesday of January 2013


Lacerated Dreams by Xuan Carlos Espinoza-Cuellar
A veces ~ Sometimes by Lupe Rodriguez
The Stadium by Kenneth Salzmann
Dream Warriors by Dde TheSlammer


Lacerated Dreams
by Xuan Carlos Espinoza-Cuellar

it ain’t got to be so complicated
knowledge should be available
free and running like water streams and shit

love should not be incarcerated
neither should dreams be lacerated
amongst barbed wire fences and shit

no body parts should feed the desert
no last breaths should be taken at the edge of dreams

why is it gotta be so damn complicated?
Filling out papers and shit
Singing hymns and chants to the empire
Why should some hide their red
While others call it patriotism?
Yet, the sinister of their practice is glorified and praised and shit
Praised like Jesus.. en el nombre de Cristo Jesus

A pregnant woman left to starve
While pedestrians watched
And children recorded
Children,
Children beaten by life
Children who beat other children unconscious
Drug dealing children
Prostitute children
Illegal alien children
Poor children
Poor colored children

Why has shit got to be so complicated?
We as a society feed off their flesh
Their voice, their fall from grace
We feast off their broken spirits
Cash checks over their corpses
And we demand more

What type of society are we
That we demand doom
While claiming privilege and shit?



Mother in Chains
by Colleen Krinard

bleeding silently at the edge of the road
mother stands weeping, watching, waiting.

they have stripped her naked.
and with greedy joy have bound and raped,
pillaged and plundered
her wholeness into tiny grains
of dust and rubble turned
to profit
by the kings
and queens of
paper green
and silicon ink.

her tears of broken waters fall
on muddied treaties trampled long ago
by a destiny so manifest
that it has lost itself
in lives of
ruin and contempt.

her soul yet waits for eyes of passion
and hearts of fire
to listen
and to hear her song
of coming home.

with ears of yearning
and arms outstretched she knows
this dance is not yet done.

come to me now
oh my children and friends
who know the joy of the
sounds of sunrise and
the quiet of the dancing stars and moon.

take your places around the table
once set long ago by dreamers
much like you.

find each other,
and in celebrating your homecoming,
restore us all.



A veces ~ Sometimes
by Lupe Rodriguez

I hear the voices of elders
in dreams
so close to me
I can feel their breath....
their warmth....
their touch so soft...
afraid to awaken...
to lose...
their touch and presence...
I remain.....
eyes shut even when awoken...
my palms extended and awaiting....
a touch no longer....almost forgotten...
es un sueno...just a dream...
A veces....sometimes I wish.....
I'd never be awoken of that dream....
que bonito sueno fue.....
what a beautiful dream it was.....



The Stadium
by Kenneth Salzmann

This is no game, remember,
Because the elevated rumbles still
Through the kitchen smells of each
Wave of ever-dark-eyed strangers
Ever cooking up strange dishes
Strangely spiced, and all the while
Slipping strange words
Into the spiced atmosphere
Hovering over 161st Street
To rise above the
Train's insistent jazz,
To swell into an unequivocal
Roar that will be joined by ghosts
As surely as forgotten ancestors
Will never let us go.
America is dark-eyed, too,
Against all its wishes,
And speaks in tongues,
And can't subdue
Its hunger for a common language.



Dream Warriors
by Dde TheSlammer

We came to live the American dream
We just found some nightmares along the way
We want the dream for our families
The good job
Shoes for our kids
Food in the home
Walls that are built
Not just shacked together
But sometimes when you dream
The events of your days
Can shift your dreams into nightmares
Meantime we work honest jobs
Making it ironic that we have 2 jobs
Yet make half the pay
Working twice as hard
Dreaming of the America we were lied about
The America we would have died about
The America that is a daily bout
Of us vs your lack of acceptance
But lately nightmare ideologies
Are creeping into our daily lives
Making even our accents suspect
To these Freddy Krueger “protectors”
Carrying batons that resemble
Razor blades bound in leather gloves
Used to slice our innocence like we were children
Molesting our freedom
Uniforms that look like sweaters
Stained from the black oozing
From their standard issue hearts
And red stripes from the blood splatters
Of mandatory beating quotas
Faces burned with the fire
Of their hatred for us
But we are dream warriors
Using our wishes to give us the tools
To fight back against the deformed society
That says we disgust them
But I know why you really hate us
Its because we are living
The first American dream
The one we were introduced to
The daily celebration of Columbus Day
To arrive in an inhabited land
And say we live here now
and in response you tell us
Papers please
Star of David
Skin tone mentalities
Arizona acted initially
To be in the middle
Of Nazi regime
Papers?
Please by all means
Because instead of wrapping smallpox in blankets
We wrap weed in the papers we use
To keep you manageable
Your government has its papers for us
We have our papers we govern to you
No wonder you throw us in joints
That’s why we drive low-riders
To prove we aren’t always high
We're well grounded
As in not going anywhere
Hell isn’t a place you leave
Just to go back because
Our wings got tired
We are angels who didn’t fall from grace
We had our land ripped from under us
You opened the ground
And it swallowed us
It was just a matter of time
Before we ascended again
Without the use of rope
We aren’t the bane of your existence
We are the dark knights of your redemption
Robin you of your false sense of superiority
And you two-faced jokers
Who like to use and abuse us
You are out of our league
Our shadows shine brighter than you
We illuminate the American dream
So you can wake up and see
That finally
We have come back home


BIOS

Lacerated Dreams by Xuan Carlos Espinoza-Cuellar
A veces ~ Sometimes by Lupe Rodriguez
The Stadium by Kenneth Salzmann
Dream Warriors by Dde TheSlammer


Xuan Carlos Espinoza-Cuellar. Xuanito identifies himself as a third world xueer/ista, mexican@, artivista, izquierdista, radical, proud person of size, estudiante y poeta. a person who believes in social justice and that poetry has the potential to revolutionize the world, cada palabra is a spark of consciousness, cada poema una transformacion profunda. A highly recognized poet and performer who dares to interrogate issues impacting our queer and immigrant communities. his performance ranges from cabaret to slam poetry. Xuanito has performed at several venues such as universities, gay clubs, book stores, pupuserias, glbt centers, straight bars and art galleries. his/her vision is one of reclaiming art from and to the margins, dignifying our forms of expression and use laughter to fight oppression and exploitation.

"Xuanito will slap you with knowledge and truth, and leave you wanting more."

Colleen Whitehorse Krinard, mother of six amazing and now grown life companions, has been writing songs and poetry since 1978. Singer, songwriter, poet, composer, writer, psychotherapist, social worker, energy intuitive, shaman, curandera, she has been called by one of her teacher-mentors, Dr. Arturo Ornelas of CEDEHC, Cuernavaca (Centro de Desarrollo Humano Hacia la Comunidad AC) ‘la bruja blanca que vuela con el viento’. Since being welcomed into this circle south of the border, her awareness of the history and current social-political issues pertaining to immigration and the relations between México and the Estados Unidos continues to grow and develop along with her process of moving towards fluency in Español.

Colleen holds degrees in Anthropology, Music, Social Work, and the School of Life. She has studied esoteric, metaphysical and healing traditions from around the world for over forty years, and utilizes and teaches her eclectic mezcla of this material in her Transformational Energetics sessions and classes. She has spent over twenty years working with people struggling with mental health, medical, and addictions issues in public clinics, offering specialized support in the treatment of trauma.

In the early years her work focused on personal themes; her poetry and songs were her way of coping with her experiences of becoming a single mother, a developing depression, and living with the after-effects of PTSD in her life. Pivotal changes occurred when she was exposed to a more global perspective of human history, economics and suffering through doctoral level coursework in Anthropology at the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco, Ca where she learned about the creation of poverty and debt in the post-colonial Global South through the enforcement of fiscal structural adjustments and other colonizing economic policies.

Under the guidance of Dr. Wynne DuBray, Lakota Sioux, professor of Cultural Diversity and Mental Health in the MSW program at California State University, Sacramento, Colleen had the opportunity to identify and reconnect with her indigenous roots and values through a guided journaling project. Later, while working at Consolidated Tribal Health Project, a Pomo consortium in Mendocino County, California, between 2002 and 2005 she learned first-hand through the stories of her clients and their families of the traumatizing effects of racism, past and present affecting the People. At this time she also took classes in Native American studies at Sonoma State University, in Cotati, Ca, learning about both the legal-historical perspective of traumatization in a class on California Native American History taught by Raquelle Myers, Pomo, and David Lim, of the National Indian Justice Center in Santa Rosa, Ca, and also experiencing directly the resilience and creativity pouring out through Native American literature and poetry with Duane Big Eagle, Osage, Ok.

During this same timeframe Colleen was privileged to be in conversation with Edwin Lockhart, Sherwood Band Pomo, regarding local social justice issues as well as hearing about his personal shamanic process with fire circles, and how he was learning through dreams and visions, before his early passing.

Finally it was hearing John Trudell and his band, Mad Dog, in Boonville, California in live performance where the torch of passion lit the fire in her heart and planted the seeds for the application of her music and poetry to social justice issues.

Recently returned from five months living in Oaxaca, Mexico, she currently lives in Belen, NM, and works in a medical clinic in nearby Los Lunas, NM.

Colleen shares the following foundational concepts which guide her life and work:
we are not alone …
everything is energy …
everything is inter-connected …
life is a magnificent learning journey …
nature heals and sustains us and we owe a debt…
the full-meal-deal of life includes the light and the dark …
we learn by trying things out, mistakes are a good thing …
our obstacles are often the signposts highlighting our paths along the way …
we have an emergent need to learn ways to live increasingly in constructive and respectful relationship with nature in our modern lives …
why not smile, listen, share, learn, love and laugh as we go on our ways …




Kenneth Salzmann is a poet and writer who lives in Woodstock, New York. His poetry has appeared in such journals as Rattle, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Home Planet News, and many more, and in such anthologies as Beloved on the Earth, Reeds and Rushes, Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers, and Child of My Child. He blogs at www.kensalzmann.com.


DDE The Slammer is an Indianpolis, IN native, but is born in Cancun, Mexico. He has been consistantly performing at opem mics and slams for the past six years. He has performed in several parts of the US as well as Germany. With poems ranging fom Mexican viewpoints (one of these poems had him practically banned from a restaurant in Indianapolis after he performed it) to video games to human trafficing to gas station danishes, his versatility can only be matched by the energy he brings. Self-titled leader of the "Bellyswag" movement, which is a movement that requires little movement, he has a large presence on stage in a figurative and literal stance. His CD entitled Common Sense Shoryuken holds a variety of poems and yes, the cover does have the button combo for a Dragon Punch

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Tino Villanueva

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City of a Hundred Fires by Richard Blanco

Erika Andiola speaking at The Capitol for Immigrant Rights

Erika and her mother, María

Jorge Ramos

La Bloga's Daniel Olivas interviewed Richard last May when Looking for The Gulf Motel had just been published.  (Click here for interview)

Additional reading:  ColorLines article:  "Release of DREAMer Erika Andiola's Family Highlights Youth Movement's Power" (CLICK HERE)

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Presenting a handful of recent or soon to be published short story collections by established and emerging writers. If you like the short form, these books are meant for you.


Hotel Juárez: Stories, Rooms and Loops
Daniel Chacón
Arte Público Press - March 30, 2013

[from the publisher]





Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories
Sherman Alexie
Grove Press - October, 2012

[from the publisher]


Sherman Alexie’s stature as a writer of stories, poetry, and novels has soared over the course of his twenty-book, twenty-year career. His wide-ranging, acclaimed fiction throughout the last two decades, from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven to his most recent PEN/Faulkner Award–winning War Dances, have established him as a star in contemporary American literature.

A bold and irreverent observer of life among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the daring, versatile, funny, and outrageous Alexie show­cases his many talents in Blasphemy, where he unites fifteen beloved classics with fifteen new stories in one sweeping anthology for devoted fans and first-time readers. Included here are some of his most esteemed tales, including “What You Pawn I Will Redeem,” in which a homeless Indian man quests to win back a family heirloom; “This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” a road-trip morality tale; “The Toughest Indian in the World,” about a night shared between a writer and a hitchhiker; and his most recent, “War Dances,” about a man grappling with sudden hearing loss in the wake of his father’s death. Alexie’s new stories are fresh and quintessential, about donkey basket­ball leagues, lethal wind turbines, a twenty-four hour Asian manicure salon, good and bad marriages, and all species of warriors in America today.

An indispensable Alexie collection, Blasphemy reminds us, on every thrill­ing page, why he is one of our greatest contemporary writers and a true master of the short story.


The Doctor's Wife
Luis Jaramillo
Dzanc Press - November, 2012                                               

[from the publisher]

Winner of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Contest, The Doctor’s Wife pushes the limits of what a short story collection can be. In stylish, intimate, and devastating short flashes, Luis Jaramillo chronicles the small domestic moments, tragic losses, and cultural upheavals faced by three generations of a family in the Pacific Northwest, creating a moving portrait of an American family and the remarkable woman at its center.

CRITICAL PRAISE

"I read Luis Jaramillo’s beautiful collection in one sitting. This is a ravishing book. I loved every word. It should be required reading for everyone." —Abigail Thomas

"The Doctor’s Wife is like the runaway child of Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust—Luis Jaramillo’s acerbic wit and satire are rare finds in America. Pick this up at once." —Alexander Chee

"The Doctor's Wife is story-writing at its best; lean, even epigrammatic, each of these stories offers a beautifully realized insight into the life of three generations of a family in the Pacific Northwest." —Scott Turow

"The Doctor's Wife holds great promise indeed." —David Abrams, The Quivering Pen




Mundo Cruel
Luis Negrón, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine
Seven Stories Press - February 26, 2013

[from the publisher]


Luis Negrón’s debut collection reveals the intimate world of a small community in Puerto Rico joined together by its transgressive sexuality. The writing straddles the shifting line between pure, unadorned storytelling and satire, exploring the sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking nature of survival in a decidedly cruel world.



SUZANNE JILL LEVINE's many translations include the works of Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Manuel Puig. She is the editor of the Penguin Classics Jorge Luis Borges series and author of The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction. She is winner of the 2012 the PEN Center USA Literary Award for her translation of José Donoso’s The Lizard’s Tale.



This should be a great exhibit. Several excellent artists (even a few legends in the bunch), and a commemoration of two people, Luis and Martha Abarca, who encouraged, preserved, and actively furthered the cause of Latino art in the Denver community.

click photo for larger image

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La casita de David Unger es un conmovedor relato para niños de todas las edades en el cual el autor se remonta a su infancia en Guatemala. 

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Written by Diane De Anda

Illustrated by Oksana Kemarskaya

Translated by Gabriela Baeza Ventura

                       

In this bilingual picture book, a young girl inspires her 

neighbors to create community gardens full of delicious vegetables

Toña loves to listen to her Abuela's stories about when she was a young girl. When her grandmother remembers planting a vegetable garden "on my own little square patch of land," Toña wishes she too could have her very own garden. Their apartment building is surrounded by cement, but Abuela reminds her that it only takes a small patch of land to grow tomatoes or squash and even carrots. And soon, they have a plan!

First, they speak to Father Anselmo about a weed-filled lot behind the church. He likes the idea of beautiful green plants instead of weeds, and fresh vegetables sound delicious too! With help from her family, Toña yanks out the weeds and plants rows of vegetables. Each day after school, she and Abuela water the seedlings and pull out weeds that have sneaked in between the plants. In a few weeks, "the garden was green with lacy carrot tops in a row, vines of squash curling on the ground and bushy green tomato plants."

Toña loves the garden, but feels sad for all the children who walk by and wish they had a garden of their very own, too. Then her grandmother's quilt gives Toña an idea. Together they find little plots of land all around the neighborhood for the other children, and soon the community is full of small garden patches that remind Toña of Abuela's patchwork quilt.

With brightly hued illustrations that depict a cityscape full of multiple generations working towards a common goal, children ages 7-10 will be inspired to plant and perhaps even eat! -their own vegetables after reading this charming bilingual picture book.

Canta, Rana, canta/ Sing, Froggie, Sing

Translated by  Natalia Rosales-Yeomans

Illustrated by Carolyn Dee Flores

This bilingual picture book features a popular Latin American 

folksong translated into English for the very first time

Based on a traditional folksong that has been sung by parents and children in Spanish-speaking countries for generations, Canta, Rana, canta / Sing, Froggie, Sing is a charming tale in which a "frog was sitting under the water, when she decided to croak out loud." But a fly came along and "hushed her mouth." When the fly decided to buzz out loud, "along came a spider and hushed her mouth."

In each verse, an insect or animal larger than the one in the previous stanza hushes the smaller one. So the fly hushes the frog, the spider hushes the fly, the mouse the spider, the cat the mouse and so on. The book's cumulative structure encourages kids to practice their memorization skills while becoming familiar with animals and the sounds they make.

This bilingual edition contains an updated version of the original Spanish, a first-ever English translation and the musical annotation of the folksong. With animals, people and music whimsically depicted by illustrator Carolyn Dee Flores, this book will inspire a new generation to discover a unique cultural tradition.

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The Gluten-free Chicano
The Gluten-free Chicano’s Native Food: Tortillas de Harina

Michael Sedano


My people are wheat-eaters, especially tortillas. One grandmother rolled out sabana-style thin tortillas reflecting her Yaqui heritage, despite being born in Pomona a third-generation Californiana. That gramma was more likely to feed me a baloney sandwich on white bread with mayo lettuce and tomato, than a taco.

My Mexicana grandmother’s migrations originated in Michoacán then stopped in Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska before settling in Redlands, California, where my mother was born at a time when girls were esteemed for skills like crochet and making tortillas.

Both sides of the family eschewed forks; we ate with our hands and taqueábamos. I still do, though I remember the waitstaff at Patricia Quintana’s Ixote restaurant in Polanco staring wide-eyed—aghast?--as I scooped up my refín with their teeny tiny tortillas de maíz. Maybe the chilangos prefer knives and forks, or they’ve never seen a country boy eat?

Taqueando makes food taste better, and gets the diner up close and personal with comida: tear a piece off the tortilla; pinch or scoop some food into the tortilla; sweep the little taco up into a grateful mouth.

The food blog, Las Dos Gildas, recently published my sentimental encounter with my mother’s lost palo, the rolling pin she used making tortillas. One of las Gildas let me know the other Gilda intends to do a column on making tortillas de harina. I look forward to it. Despite having my mother’s recipes—both amasando by hand and by Cusineart--I don’t know how to amasar and I can’t handle a palo. Besides, the arte and skill of making perfect tortillas are far beyond my words.

My grandmother's recipe for tortillas de maíz, by the way, starts with buying a pig and sowing seed for the cosecha, and ends with a tina full of home-made soap out in back under the nopales near the escusado. Tortillas de harina are a breeze, compared to mixtamal-based tortilla.

Today, La Bloga's Gluten-free Chicano segment features egg and tortillita, a ten-minute breakfast using a single frying pan. The meal is from my mother’s side of the family and infinitely variable—add canned string beans, for example, or sliced weenie rounds. No, corn torts don't work but one can use them if you don't know what you're missing.

Egg and Tortillita - Not Gluten-free 
Ingredients
Eggs.
Flour tortilla. Store-bought torts are usable straight from the bag. Home-made tortillas may want to air-dry a bit for the crispiest finish.
Oil in a frying pan
Preparation
Beat the eggs in a bowl or cup.

Fold the tortilla, tear it into 2” strips, then tear them into two inch pieces.

Drop the tortillitas one at a time into hot oil in a frying pan. Toast well on both sides.


Pour the beaten eggs into the pan and scramble with the toasted tortillitas.


Serve with hot tortillas recien hechos de mano and taquear to your heart's content. Add grated yellow cheese to the scramble, serve with sliced fresh tomatoes and chile.


Veterans Welcome Home Day Honors Women Veterans


On Saturday April 13, 2013, Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day, Inc. hosts the organization's 5th annual WHVVD celebration at California High School in Whittier, California. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Organizer José Ramos, a Vietnam combat medic, writes:

"there will be live music, food, booths with information for our Veterans in regard to school, benefits, health. There will also be vendors with items from books written by Veterans to military paraphernalia, blankets, Native American items and of course we have or Kiddie Korner with free face painting and jumpers for the kids. We will have our military vehicle display and Classic Car Show.

I ask all Veterans and folks who read this email to spread and share the date, time and place of our event.

Some Veterans have asked me why I continue to have these events, how many times do we need to be welcomed home? At the beginning, this was about fixing the past, about acknowledging the service of all Veterans who served in and during the Vietnam war. Today this celebration is important because we have fun when we come together, enjoying the brotherhood, meeting of other Veterans, sharing the pride on our family members' faces as they show us off.

But in my heart I also feel it serves to acknowledge that we made a mistake, as a nation, at the end of the Vietnam War, and that March 30 will always be a reminder that the United States will never again blame Veterans for delivering the message we sent them to deliver.

And the big plus is meeting new Veterans attending their first celebration, letting them know there's a support community always present, connecting Veterans with service organizations.

For those out there who know female Veterans of any era, please make sure to let them know this celebration is all about them; we are honored to have our comrades and sisters there. The event will not be complete without their presence.

We will be hosting a Message Wall along the edge of the school's athletic track. We encourage all who attend to bring something they would like to share with others; military ribbons, badges, pictures, poetry, letters, memories of their service or the service of a Veteran in their life.


La Bloga On-Line Floricanto, Second of 2013
Andrea Mauk, Christopher Carmona, Andrea Hernandez Holm, Iris De Anda, Hacha C Norris

Making a Choice (My Shout Out for the New Year), by Andrea Mauk
The Art of Bleeding, by Christopher Carmona
Letting Go, by Andrea Hernandez Holm
Are You Listening?, by Iris De Anda
Read A Poem Last Night About Burning Bridges, by Hacha C Norris


Making a Choice (My Shout Out for the New Year)
by Andrea Mauk

In this wide world of hope and fear and destruction where
we cower because
good things are always coming to an end,
calendar myths and fiscal cliffs
ice upon the polar caps,
Twinkies
and our old familiar sun,
I choose hope.

On this crazy planet of closed doors and cold wars,
battle scars and condemnation,
corporate sleeze and naked greed,
where guns are the answer
not a problem,
magazine rounds pop off at the mouth
more often than the neighborhood chismosa,
I choose peace.

This hunk of rock that we call
Home Sweet Home
though we don't listen to its needs
or celebrate its glory,
this breathtaking,
life-sustaining marble
spinning like a top
while bottom feeders
do lunch on us,
drink Scotch on the rocks
and pollute the water supply,
its all in a day's work
in this neverending
land of plenty,
I choose to open my eyes.

In this upside-down retrograde existence
where love is an excuse for
bondage and beatings,
mayhem and murder,
a proclivity to jealousy,
a propensity to rage,
where hatred is the motivator
and reading a quote from the Bible is a "brave"
excuse for everything,
where even with stitches and
Neosporin applied,
wounds never heal,
I choose to follow my generous heart.

In this land thats more wack
than the characters high on bennies
in On the Road with Jack Kerouac,
where finding opportunity is becoming
as tricky as stealing honey from a bee,
we dont know what to think
unless we see it on TV
more coverage of making floats for the Rose Parade
than remembrance of Wounded Knee,
when theres too much static
on every frequency,
I choose stillness.

At a pinpoint on this Milky Way satellite
that moves faithfully through day and night,
a place where image is everything,
beauty comes cheap and easy,
where education is valued,
the quality stuff kept under lock and key,
though language is devalued,
and dialect is a sign of weakness,
where books are burned,
trespassers hunted with no rock unturned,
where chasms and rifts
are the name of society’s game,
I choose deep understanding

I choose the immense power of love.

Copyright 2013 by Andrea Mauk


the art of bleeding
by Christopher Carmona

the art of bleeding is the art of kneading
of feeling the dough between your fingers
day in and day out until your hands are worn
fingernails brittle from the grinding
fingertips replaced with calluses from the rolling
and the simmering of the stove leaves
burnmarks all over your arms

the art of bleeding is the art of feeding
hungry children at the end of long days
after working at the clinic
pollo con aroz or pork chops con papas
albondigas with mashed potatoes and corn
six days a week breakfast and dinner
chorizo tacos and meatloaf
the pain in your back from all that standing
you covered with a smile and a diet coke

the art of bleeding is the art of cleaning
every room in the house
from kitchen to bathroom to living room
but we had to clean our rooms
wash the dishes and cut the yard
that was our job
you did everything else from laundry for six
to mopping the floor with a fabuloso scent
and a month old sponge
sometimes on knees sometimes with cuts

the art of bleeding is the art of tending
treating our scrapes, bruises, and cuts
with that old brown bottle of alcohol and cotton swabs
band-aids and tweezers to pull cactus needles from buts
bandages for our sprains, broken bones, and torn hearts
with just a caress of our hair or a hug after a hard day
you nursed our wounds while yours were covered
with heating pads, pain pills, and grins that bare it all on your back

the art of bleeding is the art of needing
from your hands of cuts and burns
to the fresh smelling tabletops
you were always constant with care and Lysol
you did not create in words paints or song
your medium was in bleeding
not the substance that coursed through your veins
but bleeding as someone who
cherishes the tending
not the cut
and that is why you were a master
in the art of bleeding
because you bled for us everyday
every breath

your art, mom, is the art of bleeding


Letting Go
by Andrea Hernandez Holm

You can’t leave my mom’s house
Without a blessing. She doesn’t make
The sign of the cross
Anymore and sometimes, she doesn’t
Even say the prayers out loud
But she catches you before you leave,
Holds you close and you know,
May God bless you and keep you safe.
Every time. All the time. Always.

I send the boys to school
Alone and am tempted to keep them home
Where I can see them and kiss them
And talk with them any time I want.
I can make taquitos for lunch and
We can watch movies in the afternoon.
I bought a cake mix, we could bake that for dessert.
If I keep them home, I can hear them laugh and fight
and breathe.

I let them go.

But not without a prayer first, you know
May God bless you and keep you safe.
Every time. All the time. Always.

© 2012 Andrea Hernandez Holm



Are You Listening?
by Iris De Anda

Actions speak
louder than words
silence holds the space
louder than bombs

I see you marching
thru mountains of green
I hear you even
when you say nothing

For we are one in the same
we are revolutionaries of heart
spanning the web of stars
our corazon carrying grace
no need to see our face

Pasamontañas reveal the eyes
only the windows to our souls
emerge fierce & lit with fire
the doors closed long before
only bridges beginning to surface

Winds of change
shift the leaves of our
ancestral trees
stand strong like ancient temples
of remembrance

The capitalist plague
will not take hold of our roots
because together we move
like rushing water
swiftly cleansing
scarlet stains & death
in our path

Stillness speaks
silence thunders
we peak like rainclouds
embracing the sun
we make ourselves heard
by telepathic knowing
a sixth sense that is growing

Do not fear the roar of Giants
for they are few & their time is gone
listen to the whisper of the Cosmic Earth Keeper
for they are many & their time is here



Read A Poem Last Night About Burning Bridges
by Hacha C Norris

I read a poem last night about burning bridges
communications failings
to telling, unfolding truth, and mistruths
to defending when attacked
to betrayal and silence,
worse than a death rattlle
I read a poem last night
where defense was a plastic shield
where sincerity was thin ice
allowing
creating conditions for you to fall
into the cold pit of no coming back

I read a poem last night where visions
manifest
lying in wait to tell you
to point another
direction
as others watch you
trip
over the cliffs edge

I read poem last night
where nouns became yours
and pronouns lifted you up,
to where you want to be
while adjectives describe
what you wanted to see
leaving me
beneath you
is clearly indicated
in your redefining
and setting limits
to not uplift
but to break down

I read a poem last night
where embracing
was long enough
to pick your pocket clean
as they take
without ever giving back,
their insincerity burned like a hated flag,
so the bridges I burned in my path
of your defining moments
of victories not yours to own

Copyright 2012 Hacha C Norris


BIOS
Making a Choice (My Shout Out for the New Year), by Andrea Mauk
The Art of Bleeding, by Christopher Carmona
Letting Go, by Andrea Hernandez Holm
Are You Listening?, by Iris De Anda
Read A Poem Last Night About Burning Bridges, by Hacha C Norris

Andrea García Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality, and her poetry is featured in the 2012 Mujeres de Maiz “‘Zine.” She is a regular contributor to Poets responding to SB 1070. Her poems have been chosen for publication on La Bloga’s Tuesday Floricanto numerous times. She is also a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry. Her production company, Dancing Horse Media Group, is currently in pre-production of her independent film, “Beautiful Dreamer,” based on her original screenplay and manuscript, and along with her partners, is producing a unique cookbook that blends healthful recipes with poetry and prose from the community.


Christopher Carmona is a beat poet following in the tradition of beat poets like Jack Kerouac, Bob Kaufman, and Raul Salinas. He was a nominee for the Alfredo Cisneros de Miral Foundation Award for Writers in 2011 and a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2012. He has been published in numerous journals and magazines including vandal., Bordersenses, and The Sagebrush Review. He has a collection of poetry called beat by Slough Press and is also editing a Beat Texas anthology called The Beatest State In The Union: An Anthology of Beat Texas Writings. Currently he is organizer of the Annual Beat Poetry and Arts Festival.

Andrea Hernandez Holm is a graduate student in the Mexican American Studies Department at the University of Arizona, and holds an M.A. in American Indian Studies. Andrea's primary research interests include indigeneity, identity, and the intersection of identity with creative writing. She is an Instructional Specialist, Sr., in the University's Writing Skills Improvement Program where she provides tutoring services to undergraduate and graduate students and teaches writing workshops for high school students, graduate students, and the general Tucson community. She has also taught Mexican American Studies, American Indian Oral Traditions, American Indian Literature, and American Indian Religions at the university.

Andrea has worked as a research/publications specialist, a freelance writer, editor and writing consultant. Her most recent projects have included working as an editor for Veronica E. Velarde Tiller's book, Culture and Customs of the Apache Indians (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2010) and serving as the Project Researcher/Writer of the award-winning Tiller's Guide to Indian Country: Economic Profiles of American Indian Reservations published by BowArrow Publishing (2005). Her essay "Prayers and other Ofrendas" appeared in Wisdom of Our Mothers (Familia Books, 2010). Andrea is also a published poet with works appearing in The Blue Guitar, La Sagrada, Tribal Fires, Collegiate Latino Underground, Red Ink, and the Cuentos del Barrio II art exhibition of the Tucson/Pima Arts Council. Two of her poems were selected for the 2010 commemorative issue of El Coraje, a Chicano Studies student publication produced for the Conference Combating Hate, Censorship and Forbidden Curriculum held in Tucson.

Andrea is currently a member of the moderating panel for the Facebook page "Poets Responding to SB 1070". She is also a member of the women's writing group, Sowing the Seeds de Tucson. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction essays appear in the group's anthology, Our Spirits, Our Realities (2011).

Read interviews with Andrea:
"The battle over Mexican American Studies" by Chrissie Long, University World Newshttp://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120824101851900
"Does Tucson need Three Poet Laureates to bring it back from the brink of censorship?" by Jeff Biggers, The Huffington Posthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/tucson-poet-laureate_b_1396176.html

Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, & online @ La Bloga. She is an active contributor to Poets Responding to SB 1070. She performs at community venues & events throughout the Los Angeles area. She hosted The Writers Underground Open Mic 2012 @ Mazatlan Theatre & 100,000 Poets for Change 2012 @ the Eastside Cafe. Follow her story @ http://irisdeanda.typepad.com/la_writer_underground/

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Finally, you’ll enjoy this interviewwith Kevin González  by poet Eduardo C. Corral.

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Jennifer Lozano (graduate student from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), reading from her scholarly paper which focuses on "La Bloga." Felicidades to Lozano for passing her comps.  She is now ABD!

Professors and writers, Amelia M.L. Montes, Julie Minich, Joy Castro, and Alex Espinoza

Dinner at Tamazcal Restaurant in Boston

Joy Castro reading from Island of Bones. See next picture of her book which is now being adopted into curriculums across the country.

Professors Amelia M.L. Montes, Norma Cantú, Joy Castro, and Lorraine Lopez at our panel.

Below is Canícula, Professor Norma Cantú's award winning book:

Professors Amelia M.L. Montes and Richard T. Rodriguez who is the author of Next of Kin:  The Family in Chicano/a  Cultural Politic

One of Professor López's award winning books: homicide survivor's picnic and other stories

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Melinda Palacio

Alvin Jackson, Melinda Palacio, Jose Torres-Tama in Torres-Tama's studio in New Orleans

Photo Retablos: Immigrants in Chocolate City by Jose Torres-Tama

Jose Torres-Tama in his studio

Melinda Palacio, Evelyn Rodriguez, Jose Torres-Tama, Lucrecia Guerrero

 The past few weeks have been wonderfully busy. Upon arriving in New Orleans, I was interviewed by Susan Larson on WWNO's The Reading Life. I had my first book signing for How Fire Is a Story, Waiting at Octavia Books, followed by a joint reading with Lucrecia Guerrero at Maple Street Books, Healing Center, and a final reading at the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street last Sunday, December 30. Both events were well attended thanks to spot on the Reading Life and in the Times-Picayune. Some highlights include one woman who heard me read a poem on WWNO and came to the Maple Leaf Bar and bought five books for her friends because she enjoyed How Fire Is a Story, Waiting. Another wonderful moment was when fellow Bloguera Lydia Gill walked in the door to hear our reading at the Healing Center. Lucrecia and I had fun ringing in the New Year. The reading at the Maple Leaf Bar was special because I took advantage of the reading grants from Poets and Writers and the funding came through despite PW having to temporarily close their offices due to Hurricane Sandy.

La Bloga in Nueva Orleans with Melinda Palacio and Lydia Gil

December 2012, Melinda Palacio and Daniel Olivas at the PEN Oakland Awards

I will miss 2012. It was a good year for me. It ended with more than a bang. Ocotillo Dreams won the PEN Oakland Award (that makes three awards for my first novel; two ILBA awards the Mariposa Award for Best First Book and Honorable mention in the Historical Fiction category at the International Latino Book Awards at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan last Summer). How Fire Is a Story, Waiting is making its own heat. Hello 2013!

January is shaping up nicely. Later in the month, I have a book signing at Bank of Books in Ventura, January 19 at 1pm.

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Latinos do not stop celebrating Christmas on January 1st. The fun continues with El día de los reyes magos. In Mexico, the rosca de reyes bread is a must. You can go to your favorite bakery and buy one fresh yummy rosca or you can bake your own.

Here is the recipe, courtesy of the food network. To watch the video click here.

Ingredients

• 1 (1/4-ounce) packet active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup dried figs, cut into strips, plus more for garnish
• 1/4 cup candied orange peel, cut into strips, plus more for garnish
• 1/4 cup candied lemon peel, cut into strips, plus more for garnish
• 1/4 cup chopped candied cherries, plus more whole for garnish
• 2 tablespoons light rum
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 large eggs, divided
• Water

Directions

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Twenty-thirteen, Day One

Michael Sedano

Twenty-twelve with three seconds remaining.

La Bloga On-Line Floricanto Best Poems of 2012
Tara Evonne Trudell, Ramón Piñero, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, John Martinez, Andrea Mauk, Andrea Hernandez Holm, Devreaux Baker, Victor Avila, Francisco X. Alarcón, Nancy Aide Gonzalez, Sharon Elliott, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Sonia Gutiérrez, Carmen Calatayud, Hedy Garcia Treviño, Claudia D. Hernández


“Border Song” by Tara Evonne Trudell
“They Have Names” by Ramón Piñero
“Poem 6 ~ Being A Border” by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
“Words Can Set The Meter of Healing” by John Martinez
“Mudos Across the Ocean Divide” by Andrea Mauk
“Not Enough-Too Much” by Andrea Hernandez Holm
“Recipe for Peace” by Devreaux Baker
“A House Full of Light (Psalm 1000)” by Victor Avila
“Ultimate Migrants: Monarch Butterflies’ Life Mantra / Migrantes por excelencia: Bio-mantra de las mariposas monarca” by Francisco X. Alarcón
“Tapestry of Dawn” by Nancy Aide Gonzalez
“The Day of Little Comfort” by Sharon Elliott
“Calling Forth the Seeds of Winter” by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
"Herencia / Legacy" by Sonia Gutiérrez
"Commitment Otra Vez" by Carmen Calatayud
"Walking on the Shards of Broken Dreams" by Hedy Garcia Trevino
“Tejiendo la niebla" por Claudia D. Hernández


Border Song
By Tara Evonne Trudell

will I be
the border song
you sing
against
rusty tall
fences
will I be
the warm
flesh
you ache
to feel
in cold
distances
will humanity
ever comprehend
how deep
brown
can feel
so many years
suppressing
generations
taking fear
and crafting it
to the masses
keeping souls
trapped
in far away
places
continual stealing
taking earth
and
killing her people
will children die
playing sticks
and stones
growing
into living
a walking dead
society
tireless ancestors
spirits fighting
revolutions
over and over
in an America
that doesn't care
to question
will I be
your
last border
song?




They Have Names
By Ramón Piñero

“No one asked their names.”
So screams the headlines
throughout the
Arab world
We know just
that nineteen
were killed
this time;

We did
not count the
last time
the last
time
we said this
would be the
last time

No one asked their names;
they almost never do
they are expendable
fodder for the cannons
of
war

One side
point’s fingers
we excuse it
‘cause after all
it had to be a rough
going back
one time
two times
three times
who could have?
would have thought
that war and violence
has no reset button

when you’re dead
you stay dead
no health bars
no extra lives
in this video
game version
of mans’ oldest
folly; yes
the oldest
profession
on steroids

no one asked their names
so screams the headlines
through the Arab world
as it should scream out
throughout this world.

The dead were:
Mohamed Daewood
Khudaydad
Nazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeenna

the other dead
included:

Yesenia Briseño
Trayvon Martin

all children
or women
all inocentes

The dead were:
Shatarina
Zahra
Nazia
Mazooma

the other dead
included:
those travelers
on the
Trail of Tears
Bataan
those in the
cargo holds
of slave ships
thrown overboard
worked to death
without a name
to their name.

The dead were:
Farida
Palwasha
Nabia
Esmatullah

The dead also
included:
those babies
in Appalachia
the Sonoran desert
those killed
by the Zeta and
Sinaloa Cartels.

The dead were:
Faizullah
Essa Mohamed
Aktar Mohamed

in this
make believe
war where only
the other
dies

where only we
deserve
justice
and all
else
“unfortunate and
unforeseen”

how many times
can you
ask a
man to kill
without killing
the man in him

no one asked
their names
to be added
to a dustbin
of
forgotten
massacres;

My Lai
Ponce
Tlatelolco
Rwanda
Birkenbau
footnotes in
history

Rivera
Jones
Mohammed
Brieseño
Martin
and the
hundreds
and
hundreds
more,
all names
etched forever
in my memory
etched forever
in my heart.
Poem 6 ~ Being A Border
By Odilia Galván Rodríguez

I've been here all of my life
on the edge of this or that
a bridge between my people
crossing people
they come to me
to enter more worlds
than I can even fathom
all I am is a border
something of a fence sitter
except in my case I am not neutral
I take both sides, I am from and for
both sides, yes
I live the in-betwixt and in-between
I am the center and the balance
I see good and bad
at every turn
at every crossroads
and every crossing is a ritual
what do you offer to enter?
seven shiny dimes to the mother
of all mothers, of the salty waters
or nine pennies to the wind whisperer
the keeper of the last door we enter...
I've been here all of my life and
all I want to do is cross that line
myself, want to pass the torch
having now been totally scorched
by this playing at blind justice
is there really such a thing?
I think not.
someone always has to win
and someone loses
even if I know the secret
that losing you win
still, that's because
I'm a different kind of thinker
having the luxury or curse
of being from the middle
living on that fine line
between this or that
here or there
it's a fact
being a border is no fun
you have to let some in
and keep some out...
then all those
convoluted routes
people take to get here --
even when they know in their heart
it's not for them, and
they should've stayed put
they figure that out later
sometimes, when it's too damn late
but wait, why'd I let them in

in the first place?

oh yes, because it was a lesson...
lofty this job of mediator
border deity
job seems too big
too pretentious
somehow playing god
when all I really am
is a bad idea

I am a border
a door
a hoarder of hopes
of injustices
tucked inside promises
of new lives,
lives not new or better
simply different
I am a border
a line
una línea
a big lie.
WORDS CAN SET THE METER OF HEALING
By John Martinez

Para El Maestro, Francisco X. Alarcón


If I could give myself,
Without speaking,
To the suffering,
To the clenched body,
I’d give that part of me
That does not hate,
That does not want
When others
Cannot have

I’d give the song
That has no sadness.

If I could give
In silence,
Just a piece
Of myself,
To those who have lost
Everything to greed,
I’d give my soul,
All 21 grams

If I could give myself
Like a hush
To the mother,
Whose child
Weeps in the corridors
Of death, wanting to
Hold her like air,
I would give
My two hands,
Touch her face
With fingers of rain,
Assure her, with my eyes,
That he will be waiting
Near the fountain
With the others

If I could rise one day,
Knowing that pain
Is being lifted like a shawl
From the Countries
Beneath the boot
Of my U.S.A,
I would rise with
A greater love

Today, I have words,
Not guns,
Not the rabid teeth
Of a killer

I have words
That I can shout,
That I can throw
Like brown birds into
The audience,
Because these birds
Know the meaning
Of peace
And these words
Can push
A convoy of donkeys
Down an indigenous path,
With medicine to treat
The sick, the starving

Words yes words
Can set the meter
Of healing

If I could give myself,
Wholeheartedly,
To the suffering,
I would give myself
With words,
Words yes words
Can set the meter
Of healing



© 2012 John Martinez


Mudos Across the Ocean Divide
By Andrea Mauk

I shed the flag in which I'm draped
so I can see myself bare breasted
unadorned by donkey tails and elephant tusks.
I pluck the stars one by one
from the field of blue
and launch them out the window sill
wonder if they can still
fly
but they twirl back to earth
in a tailspin
and melt like snowflakes
as they touch down.

I come from an island
a goddess
of red, white and blue
Spain's last outpost,
one star, her voice
washes between
coastlines
loudly unheard,
testing ground
for the pill,
breeding ground of
beauty queens...
And here, we are hemming skirts
and stocking shelves
rolling up sleeves,
as they're trading coffee beans
and sugar cane
for tax-free trade
and tourism.
Would you like an umbrella with that?

I sew the stripes together
and wind them 'round me
walk to the nearest polling place
enthusiasm of a mummy,
close the curtain
and cast my net across the wide
froth of Atlantic blue
catch my fill of calamar
and octopus,
fry them up with
Green Party platano
but loving arms, tostones and tentacles aside,
I am awash in my own
milk and honey land,
they call me
that other kind
of Mexican (?)

I am not a slave but I am owned,
possessed like a noun
watched over by the eye
and the pyramid.
And I question the Goddess,
does she really want
to be a state
when the state of the nation
is unraveled, just broken
coming unglued
link by link
on the partisan spine
and the laborious backs,
to be owned by the
boardroom masters on the
87th floor?

I run down the stairs
out the front stoop
to gather the stars
that have yet to dissolve
upon the bodega's
sidewalk
place them in my eyes,
their sparkling hope
fleating,
let the ribbon of stripes sewn
red after white
fly towards home from the boardwalk
on this starless night,
send my voice
spinning out to sea,
a gift to those who stayed behind.

We are citizens both here and there.
We are mudos across the ocean divide,
our borders drawn by Poseidón.
We are peripheral,
between the shores.
I have given away my stars and stripes
left only with the yellow fringe
belted around my nakedness.
It doesn't really matter.
No one will even notice me
on this election eve.


Recipe For Peace
By Devreaux Baker

Bare your feet
roll up your sleeves
oil the immigrant's bowl
open the doors and windows of your house
invite in the neighbors
invite in strangers off the street
roll out the dough
add spices for a good life
cardamon and soul
cumin and tears
sesame and sorrow
add a dash of salt
pink as new hope
add marjaram and thyme
rub lemon grass and holy basil
on your fingers and pat the dough
bless the table
bless the bread
bless your hands and feet
bless the neighbors and strangers off the street
bake the bread for a century or more
on moderate heat
under the olive trees in your back yard
or on the sun filled stones of Syria
in the white rocks of Beirut
or behind the walls of Jerusalem
in the mountains of Afghanistan
and in the sky scrapers of New York
Feast with all the migrant tongues
until your mouth understands
the taste of many different homes
and your belly is full
so you fall asleep cradled
in the skirts of the world
in the lap of peace.
A House Full of Light (Psalm 1000)
By Victor Avila

I was born in a house
full of light.

In one where corners
have never known shadows.

I stand before windows
that have never known night.

I stare out its doors-
This house free of sorrow.

Yes, I was born in a house
full of light.

I grew up amid melodies
joyful,

that awoke me from the deepest
of slumber.

And the luminous voice,
perhaps of an angel

calmed every fear
and whispered remember-

You were born in this house
where one day is a thousand.

Here all time is sand
and each second eternal.

So come share these walls
for you are the Father's.

He knows you are here
and delights.

He welcomes you here
to his house full of light.
ULTIMATE MIGRANTS: MONARCH BUTTERFLIES’ LIFE MANTRA
By Francisco X. Alarcón

we defeat time, the cold
and all borders –we are
the ultimate migrants

thousands of miles
we fly North–South and East–West–
beauty is our might

the Sun guides our flight–
nothing can really stops us,
no even our short lives

to return to the land
where our great–grandparents
once emerge from

four generations
we undergo in a year —from eggs
to caterpillars

and then to pupa
to emerge from cocoons
as beautiful butterflies–

we are fearless
in our commitment to life
beyond our own lives–

we defeat time, the cold
and all borders –we are
the ultimate migrants


MIGRANTES POR EXCELENCIA: BIO-MANTRA DE LAS MARIPOSAS MONARCA
Por Francisco X. Alarcón

vencemos el tiempo
y toda frontera –somos migrantes
por excelencia

miles de millas volamos
del Norte al Sur y del Este al Oeste–
la belleza es nuestro poder

el Sol no guía–
nada puede pararnos,
ni nuestra corta vida

para volver a la tierra
de donde nuestros bisabuelos
emergieron

cuatro generaciones
pasamos en un año —de huevos
a orugas

luego a pupas
para del capullo emerger
como bellas mariposas—

no tenemos miedo
al compromiso a la vida
más allá de la propia–

vencemos el tiempo
y toda frontera —somos migrantes
por excelencia
Tapestry of Dawn
By Nancy Aidé González

Sun, summoning dawn
truth will come with portraits of consciousness
narratives of shelter

interlocked woven fabrics
find equilibrium
strings of transcendence in cosmos

beyond ancient knowledge alive
planets orbit echoing memory of universe
saffron stars manifest wholeness

nimbus treasures – rain
jaguars roam spirit realm
leave prints where

trees take root
in tierra firme
drawing humanity closer.
The Day of Little Comfort
By Sharon Elliott

the day of little comfort
and no food
began as any other day
the sun came up

pale
wistful
resting on the horizon
lifeless
there was no heat
radiating from its yellow eye

outside
the crows were quiet
sitting in echelons on telephone wires
like mourners in black babushkas
eyeing the humans below them
with sadness

green and growing things
struggling to push through concrete
dirt solid as granite
compacted by the soles
on hundreds of shoes
gave it up
nodded their two
or three
leafy shoots
and toppled over

she peeked outside the curtains
wondering why
there was so much silence
she hummed softly
a lullaby that soothed
her 6 year old heart
opened the window a crack
stuck her head out
into the full force of

nothing

where had all the creatures gone?
hiding
from her?
from them?
from what?

a low rumble began
like a ruined growl
deep in the throat of
an archangel
breathing holy asthma

a tree across the street
tried to hide
but the respiration resurrection
caught it in a lie
rattled its twigs and
leavings
bent it double
snapped it in half

she started to pray
a lonely supplication
too young to be heard
older than endless

she didn’t notice the rain
pouring wet blessings
into clandestine passages
full of people
catapaulted out
by invincible water
ejected by a depraved howitzer
spraying unsanctified bullets on the streets

her mother scrambled to close the window
was sucked out into the rain
fell from a great height
to splash into the villainous river
in the street

her father
rushed down the stairs
trying to save her mother
sank into the same torrent
they disappeared

she wondered
about where her breakfast would come from
who would tuck her into bed
when she should get ready for school
who would help her tie her shoes

and then

the lights went out
Calling Forth the Seeds of Winter
By Elena Díaz Bjorkquist

Dedicated to my Comadres of Sowing the
Seeds who endured the cold outside on
the porch at our last meeting!

In cold truth, Summer ends,
Seeds prepare to rest.
Something about that cold.
Things come out of it,
Settle in our writer’s heart.

Sun vanishes, temperature drops,
We endure head-clearing cold,
Recall, recognize, honor
The seeds of our wisdom’s harvest.

Winter winds like sacred voices
Call forth abundance,
A time to resurrect
Our natural creativity,
A joy for all.

Time to remember the gifts
From loved ones who’ve gone on.
Time to select seeds of wise actions
To plant for future harvest.

Cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
Seed time and harvest time,
Suggest a definite time of harvest.

But there's no fixed time for harvest,
We can call it forth at will.
The harvest is clear—memories
Reveal the lessons of what's passed.

We become aware,
Accept the creative power of now,
Conceptualize, visualize, energize
A world of beauty, good relationships.

The heart of awareness,
Is the dance of arising worlds,
Soul seeds planted in winter.
Herencia
Por Sonia Gutiérrez

for Poets Responding to SB 1070

Soy la lengua de Frida—vulgar
como la de mi abuela.

Y la punta del bolígrafo azul,
doblegando al papel callado.

También soy la flor de tuna,
asomándome por la madrugada.

Soy orejas de olla de barro, escuchando
el paladar de mis antepasados.

Mujer de cara redonda
como la tortilla de maíz y nopal.

Cuerpo de abeja punzante
de donde nace el mañana.

Y soy, por supuesto, letras armadas
con azadones arreando nuestro destino.

La mariposa sedienta, bebiendo
del sudor de una mano humedecida.

Soy las garras del jaguar, rasgando
las líneas esclavas del bufón de vista corta.

Soy la poeta que las leyes escupen muy lejos—
al exilio de los poetas.

Soy herencia—que pinta de mil matices
de verde a esta nuestra tierra natal.

Pero definitivamente soy una manita de puerco
si tu horquilla del diablo asoma su feo rostro.

A esos los vestimos de esqueletos
y los ponemos a bailar por las calles, eternamente.


Legacy
By Sonia Gutiérrez

for Poets Responding to SB 1070

I am Frida’s tongue—vulgar
like my grandmother’s.

And the tip of a blue ballpoint pen
kowtowing shy paper.

I am also the prickly pear flower
peering at dawn.

The ears of a clay pot, listening
to the palate of my ancestors.

A woman with a round face
like the corn and cactus tortilla.

Body of a throbbing bee
where tomorrow is born.

And I am, of course, armed letters
with hoes spurring our destiny.

The thirsty butterfly drinking
from the sweat of a moist hand.

I am the claws of the jaguar, tearing
the enslaved lines of the nearsighted fool.

I am the poet whom laws spit far away—
to the exile of poets.

I am legacy—who paints this our homeland
a thousand shades of green.

But I am most definitely an arm twist
if your devil’s pitchfork shows its ugly head.

To those, we dress up like skeletons
and make them dance through the streets, eternally.
Commitment Otra Vez
By Carmen Calatayud

For R.V.

Some generations ago,
you were a Zapatista
inside your great-grandmother’s
womb, black eye sockets of
revolution, carrying roses
with the pink blown out,
dando gritos in earshot
of the Americas.

But now your doubt
is strewn across the room
like petals from dead maravillas,
even in this space you rent
where spiritual warriors
pray for your country
and you can finally sleep
through the night.

Listen, amigo de los desamparados,
this is your time, again,
beyond gut-level fear
and black and white film:
The explosions just keep coming,
and you are chewing on history,
and never let it be said
that all you could do was cry.
Walking on the Shards of Broken Dreams
By Hedy Garcia Treviño

Walking on the shards of broken dreams
scattered voices call
from underneath the desert sand
where nothing grows
Lies still the seed of hope
Awaiting the furrow of the plow
unearthing hope that never sleeps
gaining strength from every storm
Lies still the seed of hope
Called forth by footsteps on the desert floor
keeping rythm with the heartbeat of the sun
comes forth the seed of hope
Tejiendo la niebla
Por Claudia D. Hernández

Descalzo uno emigra
a tierras extrañas

hay quienes no olvidan,

hay quienes se ensartan
su patria en el alma.

—La tierra no tiene fronteras
murmuran los pies reventados

las huellas que implantan
trasmiten nostalgia;

hay tierras calientes
que a veces se enfrían;

hay campos dorados
que tejen la niebla;

hay volcanes que arrojan
sus piedras de pomo.

Y uno aquí, escupiendo
cenizas en la lejanía

—La tierra no tiene fronteras
suspira la arboleda

El árbol exiliado no logra evitar
que su fruto florezca

¿Qué culpa tiene la almendra
que el viento la arrastre
y la engendre en tierras ajenas?



BIOS

Tara Evonne Trudell has resumed writing poetry after a break of almost ten years and is passionate about combining poetry and film to create a visual art form of her own. She is a mother of four children and raising them to be socially aware and conscious of the injustices that plague our society. This is a top priority of hers as a she rediscovers her own word in a world that only attempts to silence the Indigenous spirit. She advocates strongly on behalf of Earth and incorporates this into her poetry, film, and life as part of her love and commitment to give back and represent her own connection.

Ramón Piñero. Ex Bay Area poet living in the buckle of the Bible Belt, aka Florida. Where good little boys and girls grow up to be republicans who vote against their own interest. Father of three and Grandfather to six of the coolest kids ever.

Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet/activist, writer and editor, has been
involved in social justice organizing and helping people find their
creative and spiritual voice for over two decades.  Her poetry has been
widely anthologized, and she is the author of three books. Her last editing
job was as the English edition editor of Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba.
Odilia is one of the founding members and a moderator of Poets
Responding to SB 1070 on Facebook.  She teaches creative writing
workshops nationally, currently at Casa Latina, and also co-hosts,
"Poetry Express" a weekly open mike with featured poets, in Berkeley,
CA. For more information about workshops see her blog http://xhiuayotl.blogspot.com/
or contact her at Red Earth Productions & Cultural Work 510-343-3693.

John Martinez studied Creative Writing at Fresno State University under Phillip Levine and has published poetry in El Tecolote, Red Trapeze and in The LA Weekly. Recently, he has posted poems on Poets Responding to SB1070 and this will be his 14th poem published in La Bloga. Martinez has performed (as a musician/political activist, poet) with Teatro De La Tierra, Los Perros Del Pueblo and TROKA, a Poetry Ensemble, lead by poet Juan Felipe Herrera. He has toured with several cumbia/salsa bands throughout the Central Valley and in Los Angeles and has just completed first book of Poems, PLACES. For the last 18 years, he has worked as an Administrator for a Los Angeles law firm. He makes his home in Upland, California, with he wife Rosa and four children.

Andrea García Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality, and her poetry is featured in the 2012 Mujeres de Maiz “‘Zine.” She is a regular contributor to Poets responding to SB 1070. Her poems have been chosen for publication on La Bloga’s Tuesday Floricanto numerous times. She is also a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry. Her production company, Dancing Horse Media Group, is currently in pre-production of her independent film, “Beautiful Dreamer,” based on her original screenplay and manuscript, and along with her partners, is producing a unique cookbook that blends healthful recipes with poetry and prose from the community.

Devreaux Baker is a Pushcart Prize nominee and winner of the 2011 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry Prize for her book; Red Willow People. She is the recipient of the 2012 Hawaii Council of Humanities International Poetry Prize, and the Women’s Global Leadership Initiative Poetry Award. Her poetry fellowships include a MacDowell Fellowship, the Hawthornden Castle International Fellowship, three California Arts Council Awards and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship. She has published three books of poetry; Red Willow People, Beyond the Circumstance of Sight, and Light at the Edge and conducted poetry workshops in France and Mexico. She has taught poetry in the schools with the CPITS Program and produced the Voyagers Radio Program of original student writing for KZYX Public Radio.

Victor Avila is an award-winning poet.  Two of his poems were recently included in the anthology Occupy SF-Poems From the Movement.  Victor has taught in California public schools for over twenty years.

Francisco X. Alarcón, Chicano poet and educator, is the author of thirteen volumes of poetry, including, Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation  (Chronicle Books 1992), recipient of the 1993 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002). His latest book is Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010). His most recent book of bilingual poetry for children is Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008). He teaches at the University of California, Davis. He created the Facebook page, POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070: http://www.facebook.com/PoetryOfResistance

Born and raised in Seattle, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Lukumi priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scottish history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong.

Elena Díaz Björkquist. “I have enjoyed being a moderator on Poets Responding to SB 1070 since its creation by Francisco and Odilia. It’s a pleasure opening poems and reading so many wonderful works, but always difficult to select the ones for La Boga’s Floricanto. I like being a friend and mentor to many great poets on Facebook. Reading poetry is an inspiration for writing my own poetry.”

A writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Elena writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. Elena is co-editor of Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems, anthologies written by her writers collective Sowing the Seeds.

As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena has performed as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation and done presentations about Morenci, Arizona for twelve years. She received the 2012 Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the 2012 Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities. She was nominated for Tucson Poet Laureate in 2012.

Her website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/.

Sonia Gutiérrez is part of this generation of Chican@ poets of the New Sun. Sonia writes about pressing social issues that haunt her and demand our immediate attention. La Bloga’s On-line Floricanto is home to Sonia’s Poets Responding to SB 1070 poems, including “The Books”/“Los libros,” “Careful with the River”/“Cuidado con el río,” “Memografía”/“Memography,” “Mi bandera”/“My Flag,” “My Heart Is a Strawberry Field,” “The Passing,” and “La maza y cantera de una poeta”/“A Poet’s Mallet and Quarry” (10 Best Poems of 2011). Her bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press) is forthcoming in 2013. Sonia is at work on a novel, Kissing Dreams from a Distance, among other projects. Her website www.soniagutierrez.com is coming soon.

Carmen Calatayud's first poetry collection In the Company of Spirits was published in October 2012 as part of the Silver Concho Series by Press 53. In the Company of Spirits was a runner-up for the 2010 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, Gargoyle, La Bloga, PALABRA: A Magazine of Chicano and Latino Literary Art, Red River Review and the anthology DC Poets Against the War. Carmen is a Larry Neal Poetry Award winner and recipient of a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship. She is a poet moderator for Poets Responding to SB 1070, a Facebook group that features poetry and news about Arizona’s controversial immigration law that legalizes racial profiling. Born to a Spanish father and Irish mother in the U.S., Carmen works and writes in Washington, DC

Hedy M. Garcia Treviño. Has written poetry since the age of eight. Her first poem came as a result of being punished for speaking Spanish in school. Her poetry has been published in numerous journal's and other publications. She has performed her poetry at numerous cultural events. She continues to write poetry, and inspires others to use the written word as a form of self discovery and personal healing. Hedy is also one of the moderators for Poets Responding to SB 1070.

Claudia D. Hernández was born and raised in Guatemala. She's a bilingual educator, poet, writer, photographer and translator in the city of Los Angeles. She's pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. Her photography, poetry, and short stories have been published in: The Indigenous Sovereignty Issue of The Peak, Hinchas de Poesía, KUIKATL Literary Journal, nineteen-sixty-nine an Ethnic Studies Journal, Blood Lotus, REDzine, Kalyani Magazine, Along the River II Anthology, among others.

She’s currently working on a project titled: TODAY’S REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN OF COLOR. This is a yearlong project that will tentatively culminate on November 2013, with a walking photography exhibit and the publication of a photography book.

To stay updated with the latest interviews of these phenomenal women, please visit and ‘like’ TODAY’S REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN OF COLOR Facebook page @
http://www.facebook.com/TodaysRevolutionaryWomenOfColor?ref=ts&fref=ts

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