by Rudy Ch. Garcia
continued from last week's post. . .
As with mainstream literary works, U.S. gringo-corporate publishers shy away from SciFi featuring latino characters, cultural settings and Spanish dialogue/prose. We all know why. And yes, it has changed, somewhat.
But despite the mushrooming, latino demographics, the unspoken corollary persists--Chicanos, Latinos don't read, i.e. buy, sci-fi lit. So why publish or write it? I asked such questions on the new LinkedIn discussion group, "Latino and Latina writers group" last week and got one response. Getting so few wasn't surprising. It reflects the sci-fi that's out there.
[To focus and develop this topic according to genre terms and history, I relegate fantasy lit to the next part of this series. There are several reasons for this, which I'll get to.]
A search at Amazon for "Chicano science fiction" produced 3 books, only one of which was sci-fi, Ernest Hogan's classic, Cortez on Jupiter. Next came: "Science Fiction, Canonization, Marginalization, and the Academy," a nonfiction book that intends to "give special attention to multicultural and feminist concerns," but in the 100 books it cites, there's not one novel by a (recognizable) latino. I can't speak to the overall content of the book.
Third came, Dogs Descend on Chiapas: Proof of Tzoquito by Dominic Ambrose, who looks like a latino, though I couldn't verify his latinismo. Nevertheless, Tzoquito appears to be a fantasy novel, rather than sci-fi.
Even a search on Wikipedia--not the final word on veracity--for Chicano sci-fi turned up 0, cero, zero.
In contrast to this paucity of material, the first La Bloga post generated several comments. Below are my takes [tagged RG] on those comments, to encourage wider discussion than just my posting.
Fellow sci-fi/fantasy author and Thursday's Bloguero Ernest Hogan wrote:
"A lot of food for thought here. We need to make contact with the Spanish-speaking, sci-fi world -- there are several blogs en español that I'm following . . . As for this side of the Border, it's an interesting story -- my dad read science fiction magazines in East L.A. back in the Forties -- in the Seventies, some Chicano activists thought that sci-fi and technology were tools of the Anglo oppressors. Of course, today Chicano hackers are part of Aztlán landscape. I guess I have some work to do . . . I almost forgot! Spic Spec Fic! I can see it on a book cover!"
RG: Sophia Flores, a bilingual boriqua at scifilatino.com, has been carrying her own torch for sci-fi on her website for years, and other than mondoernesto.com--your website--no hay mucho. Connecting to the español sci-fi world would seem appropriate.
Manuel Ramos commented:
"The cu
don't forget rosaura sanchez and beatrice pito's lunar braceros on mars. http://labloga.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-lunar-braceros-2125-2148.html
Those early morning typos!
¡Guao! This will definitely be an influence on my next Chicanonautica. You've probably hit on why I haven't read or seen HUNGER GAMES -- it's like Ishmael Reed said about 1984 being about white people being treated they way black people have been for centuries. (I spotted two armed security guards in my barrio while my wife did our evening walk last night.) It's good to hear from Latinos who are writing sci-fi -- that's where it's going to happen. It's the 21st century -- time to seize the future!
Actually it was my first novel, UNDER THE MESQUITE (realistic, comtemporary, YA), that won the Pura Belpre. SUMMER OF THE MARIPOSAS (fantasy) will be coming out in October of this year.