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By: Olga Garcia Echeverria,
on 4/20/2014
Blog:
La Bloga
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All The Odes: Pablo Neruda,
Doris Pilkington Garimara,
Pablo Neruda,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
Ilan Stavans,
Me Talk Pretty One Day,
Gerald Martin,
Rabbit Proof Fence,
David Sedaris,
Add a tag
Olga Garcia Echeverria
I don't have much to say about Easter. Like Thanksgiving and Santa Claus Day, it's a holiday that makes me feel awkward and rebellious. Pastel colors and Catholic mass make me nauseous. I've never been into wicker. I hate fake grass. I confess I have in my lifetime eaten my good share of chocolate bunnies and yellow marshmallow chicks, but nowadays I mostly feel resurrected by the literary word. Here are a few treats to sink your teeth into on this Easter Sunday. Enjoy!
Marquez On Writing from Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin
(Alfred A. Knopf 2009).
|
GGM on his 1st Birthday |
I am a writer through timidity. My true vocation is that of magician, but I get so flustered trying to do tricks that I’ve had to take refuge in the solitude of literature. Both activities, in any case, lead to the only thing that has interested me since I was a child: that my friends should love me more.
In my case, being a writer is an exceptional achievement because I am very bad at writing. I have had to subject myself to an atrocious discipline in order to finish half a page after eight hours of work; I fight physically with every word and it is almost always the word that wins, but I am so stubborn that I have managed to publish four books in twenty years. The fifth, which I am writing now, is going slower than the others, because between my debtors and my headaches I have very little free time.
I never talk about literature because I don’t know what it is and besides I’m convinced the world would be just the same without it. On the other hand, I’m convinced it would be completely different without the police. I therefore think I’d have been much more useful to humanity if instead of being a writer I’d been a terrorist.
David Sedaris: An Easter Excerpt
One of the funniest stories I have ever read is "Jesus Shaves" by David Sedaris. His entire collection Me Talk Pretty One Day (Little, Brown and Company 2000) is hilarious and highly recommended. In "Jesus Shaves," Sedaris describes his experience as an adult second language learner in a French class in Paris, France. In their limited French, Sedaris and fellow students attempt to explain the meaning of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim classmate.
The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the teacher’s latest question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, “Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”
It would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” she said. “I have no idea what you people are talking about.”
The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.
The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is," said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and …oh, shit.” She faltered and her fellow country-man came to her aid.
“He call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two…morsels of …lumber.”
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
“He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”
“He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.”
“He nice, the Jesus.”
“He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody make him dead today.”
Part of the problem had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as “to give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.
“Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb,” the Italian nanny explained. “One too many eat of the chocolate.”
“And who brings the chocolate?” the teacher asked.
I knew the word, so I raised my hand, saying, “The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.”
“A rabbit?” The teacher, assuming I’d used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wriggling them as though they were ears. “You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?”
“Well, sure, “ I said. “He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have a basket and foods. “
The teacher sighed and shook her head. As far as she was concerned, I had just explained everything that was wrong with my country. “No, no, “ she said. “Here in France the chocolate is brought by a big bell that flies in from Rome.”
I called for a time-out. “But how do the bell know where you live?”
“Well,” she said, “how does a rabbit?”
It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That’s a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth-and they can’t even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character. He’s someone you’d like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It’s like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up all night so they can see a bell? And why fly one in from Rome when they’ve got more bells than they know what to do with right here in Paris? That’s the most implausible aspect of the whole story, as there’s no way the bells of France would allow a foreign worker to fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work cleaning up after a French bell’s dog-and even then he’d need papers. It just didn’t add up.
Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate; equally confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention back to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder. Adios Querida Doris Pilkington Garimara author of Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence |
Doris Pilkington Garimara and her mother Molly |
It's midnight, Easter Sunday, and I've just heard that author Doris Pilkington Garimara passed away last week of ovarian cancer. Among the many books she wrote, Pilkington Garimara documented her Australian aborigine mother's escape from a government camp and her amazing 1,500-mile trek home. Her book,
Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, brought to light the systematic racist policies to forcibly assimilate Australian natives by tearing them away from their families. Her book was later made into the highly acclaimed film,
Rabbit Proof Fence. Like all great literature and art,
Rabbit Proof Fence is a story that touches the heart in powerful and timeless ways. Through the years, I have returned to it numerous times--for its bravery, its mastery, and its poetic resilient spirit.
Last but not least, and in honor of our recently departed Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Doris Pilkington Garimara, I leave you with a few lines from one of my favorite Pablo Neruda poems. What is there not to love about Neruda?
This excerpt is from "Ode to a Few Yellow Flowers," which is translated by Ilan Stavans in All The Odes: Pablo Neruda.
Polvo somos, seremos.
Ni aire, ni fuego, ni agua
sino
tierra,
solo tierra
seremos
y tal vez
unas flores amarillas.
We are dust, we shall become.
Not air, or fire, or water
but
earth,
we shall be
mere earth
and maybe
a few yellow flowers.
NEW BOOKSThis week the spotlight is on two new books dealing with aspects of immigration.
[publisher blurbs]
Black Alley
Mauricio Segura, translated by
Dawn CornelioBiblioasis, May 2010
In the Côte-des-Neiges area of Montreal, the first stop for many new immigrants, live people of more than 100 nationalities. Marcelo, the sensitive son of Chilean refugees, and Cléo, a shy boy from Haiti, find friendship on the track, winning a major relay race together. Years later, in the same streets, two violent gangs, the Latino Power and the Bad Boys, confront each other, and their leaders must decide whether they will be united by their childhood friendship, or divided by race.... A seminal statement about multicultural societies, this brilliantly constructed, deeply felt novel set off a controversy when it was first published in French. Its appearance in English is a literary event not to be missed.
Mauricio Segura was born in Temuco, Chile in 1969 and immigrated to Quebec with his parents as a child. The author of two novels and a book about French perceptions of Latin America, Segura lives in Montreal, where he is well known as a journalist and commentator on immigrant issues.
Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing Edited by
Ilan Stavans Library of America, October, 2009
Immigration is the essential American story. From London or Lvov, Bombay or Beijing, Dublin or Dusseldorf, people have come to America to remake themselves, their lives, and their identities. Despite political obstacles, popular indifference, or hostility, they put down roots here, and their social, cultural, and entrepreneurial energies helped forge the open and diverse society we live in. The history of American immigration has often been told by those already here.
Becoming Americans tells this epic story from the inside, gathering for the first time over 400 years of writing—from 17th-century Jamestown to contemporary Brooklyn and Los Angeles—by first-generation immigrants about the immigrant experience. In sum, over 80 writers create a vivid, passionate, and revealing firsthand account of the challenges and aspirations that define our dynamic multicultural society.
In nearly 100 selections—poems, stories, novel excerpts, travel pieces, diary entries, memoirs, and letters—
Becoming Americans presents the full range of the experience of coming to America: the reasons for departure, the journey itself, the shock and spectacle of first arrival, the passionate ambivalence toward the old country and the old life, and above all the struggle with the complexities of America. Arranged in chronological order by date of arrival, this unprecedented collection presents a history of the United States that is both familiar and surprisingly new, as seen through the fresh eyes and words of newcom
Mr. Spic Goes To Washington
Ilan Stavans; Illustrated by Roberto Weil
Soft Skull Press (September 1, 2008)
I asked for this book at a couple of comic book stores where I have done a good deal of business. At the first, the young white men who looked up the book on their computer obviously were uncomfortable with the title. They breathed an audible sigh of relief when the book turned up in their search as legitimate. Can you imagine what they must have been thinking? But I knew what they were going through - I had been a bit uneasy myself about asking for something with spic in the title and I rushed through my query so that the word wouldn't hang in the air too long. It's ugly, and when I heard that Stavans had published a graphic novel under the title of Mr. Spic Goes to Washington, I thought the ugliness would hamper sales. And I wondered what he was up to.
The older guy at the second store impliedly agreed with my speculation. He rolled his eyes when I asked for the book, but when I mentioned that I didn't particularly like the title he nodded and said something like, "But, you know, sometimes political correctness gets in the way of the reality of the streets."
We engaged in a conversation that evolved from our musings about the word spic. He had grown up in a city other than Denver (Chicago, if I remember correctly), in a Latino neighborhood, and he knew the word and its ugliness. He had been surprised that in Denver the word wasn't used all that much. I concurred - there were plenty of hate words for Chicanos and Mexicanos in the Colorado where I grew up, but I can't remember that spic was one of them. At least, not one that confronted me directly.
He remembered the Japanese American who had run a convenience store across the street for years and how the old man was grouchy and unfriendly, but that eventually the two of them got along okay - "he treated me all right." The comic book guy learned from the store owner that the Japanese American had been interned in a camp in Colorado during World War II. "I hadn't known that there were those camps in Colorado," he said. I nodded and added what I knew about Camp Amache, near Granada, and he remarked that it "must have been racism" that produced the camps since no Germans were locked up, and, after all, the Germans were "more likely" to cause problems during the war than the Japanese Americans.
He said he didn't have the book in the store, but I should check again at the end of the month, when I promised to return for a few other books on my reading list.
The hero of Stavans' book is Samuel Patricio Inocencio Cárdenas, alias S.P.I.C. ¡El vato loco! Ex-gangbanger who straightened out his life and managed to get himself elected Mayor of Los Angeles.
Along the way he participated in a crime that haunted him for his entire life. César Chávez became his hero and Mr. Spic was compelled to become "active in the Chicano Movement." Roberto Weil's black-and-white artwork shows the young hero with icons of the Movement: Rubén Salazar, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Reies López Tijerina, and Rodolfo Corky González, as well as Chávez.
As L.A.'s mayor, Mr. Spic tries to remain true to his principles but the realities of the political arena intrude, and his radicalism is toned down. His big opportunity comes with the death of one of California's senators. The party bigwigs tap him as a replacement, sure that he will "play by the rules - our rules." Of course, he doesn't, and with unabashed enthusiasm for Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stavans takes Mr. Spic through the corrupt and bizarre offices, meeting rooms, and congressional halls of Washington, D.C., culminating in a fantastic filibuster on the Senate floor that transforms Mr. Spic into a national hero, and, thus, a threat.
Stavans gives his readers a few surprises. For example, he peppers the pages with guest appearances by Paquito D'Rivera, Juan Felipe Herrera, Jorge Ramos, and the ghosts of Che Guevara and Abraham Lincoln; his characters allude to Lolita Lebrón and Puerto Rican nationalism. Liberal hypocrisy and conservative conspiracies play important roles in the story.
The book is a tragedy. Probably not a surprise in an election year in post-9/11 U.S.A. Sometimes with tragic endings the reader is still left with a sense of hope. I can't say I got that from Mr. Spic Goes to Washington. The hero is admirable and his causes are just, but one of the last images in the book is a poster of Uncle Sam, his finger to his lips, with the caption, "Shut The F#*&k Up!!"
And that's how it ends.
LA BLOGA'S GREAT BOOK GIVEAWAY
Remember that on Saturday (September 27, deadline noon, Pacific Time) La Bloga will be giving away books. All you have to do is provide answers to questions about La Bloga (of course.) Michael Sedano explained the contest in his post earlier this week; go back to Tuesday and get the details. Here are the books that you can win:
Dream in Color by Linda Sánchez, Loretta Sánchez
Gunmetal Black by Daniel Serrano
The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters by Lorraine López
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Brownsville by Oscar Casares
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Urrea
The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome
Tomorrow They Will Kiss by Eduardo Santiago
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS CELEBRATES WITH FICTION
I posted a few weeks ago the Rocky Mountain News' initiative to celebrate Denver's 150th birthday with fictional short stories about the city's history. The project is called A Dozen On Denver and it is exactly that. Twelve writers will take a crack at a story about Denver, each from a different decade, beginning in 1860 and working up to the present, with the final story set in the future. That final story will be the winner of a fiction contest sponsored by the News. The contest is now closed; good luck to all of you who entered. Four of the twelve stories have already been published, and I think they are excellent, each in its own way. The writers and stories are a diverse and intriguing lot, just like Denver and its people. The writers so far include: Margaret Coel, Joanne Greenberg, Pam Houston, and Nick Arvin. You can find all of these stories on the News' website, in print as well as recorded versions available with just a mouse-click, and interviews with the writers. My contribution to this project, Fence Busters, is set for publication on October 14. I think the Rocky Mountain News deserves un aplauso - in these days of shrinking book sections in major newspapers, the disappearance of book reviews and reviewers from the Sunday pages, and the general newspaper malaise that has stymied journalists around the world, it is indeed refreshing and encouraging that one of Denver's major dailies has devoted a great deal of its resources and newsprint to the often overlooked art of the short story. I'm grateful to be a part of it.
Later.
MR. SPIC GOES TO WASHINGTON
Ilan Stavans
September (Soft Skull Press)
Ilan Stavans' latest is a graphic novel that tells the story of Samuel Patricio Inocencio Cárdenas (Mr. Spic.) Soft Skull's website says: Weaving humor with social commentary, Stavans tells a tale of a Latino man taking Los Angeles' mayoral office by storm and refusing to stop there. Illustrated throughout by Roberto Weil, the story follows the life and political development of Mr. Spic as he upends the political machine by owning up to and embracing his rough-and-tumble past, refusing to bend to corporate pressures, and using his influence to promote pacifism and tolerance. The book can be ordered for $15.95 from the publisher.
CHEECH AND CHONG ON TOUR AGAIN
The comedy duo announced plans for their first comedy tour in twenty-five years. Light Up America (or is it What's That Smell?) kicks off September 12 in Philadelphia and continues through December 20 with a smokin' finish in Denver. You can see tour dates here.
Cheech is 62; Chong 70. That's funny by itself. We've gotten to the age where we don't feel like fighting anymore, Marin said, because the end is a lot closer than the beginning. I hope Dave shows up.
JULIA ALVAREZ IN DENVER
August 20, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue
Julia Alvarez, the bestselling author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, will discuss and sign Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA (Plume). According to the Tattered Cover: The quinceañera, the fifteenth birthday celebration for a Latina girl, is quickly becoming an American event. The must-haves for a “quince” are becoming as numerous and costly as a prom or wedding, and yet, this elaborate ritual also hearkens back to traditions from native countries and communities, offering young Latinas a chance to connect with their heritage. In Once Upon a Quinceañera, Alvarez explores this celebration, offering an enlightening, accessible, and entertaining portrait of contemporary Latino culture as well as a critical look at the rituals of coming of age and the economic and social consequences of the quince parties.
MISS PROTHERO'S GRAND OPENING, GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE
Nan Wigington posted the news that she is closing the doors on her book store, Miss Prothero's Books at 1112 Santa Fe Drive, Denver. Sad news, for sure. A sign of the times? No future in books?
But Miss Prothero is going out in style. Here's her notice: Need a bookcase? Bookends? A bent wood rocker? We're selling it cheap -- books, furniture, fixtures and equipment! Starting August 1 at 6 p.m. Books will be half off. Bookcases will go at $20 per shelf full or $15 per shelf empty. We have stackable bookshelves and bookcases. The cases and shelves are all made of wood. The cases are approximately 7' tall, 2' wide, and 1' deep. The stackable shelves are 10" tall, 2' wide, and 1' deep. Furniture includes a book press, a bent wood rocker, an antique saddler stapler and an antique telegrapher's desk. Have too much stuff already? Bring a sturdy box and some bucks. Fill the box with some books. We'll use the bucks to ship the box to Biblio Charitable Works, an organization which supports literacy projects worldwide. If you can't make it on the 1st, we should be here until the 15th. Call 303-572-2260 for hours and information.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BOOK & PAPER FAIR
The 24th Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair takes place August 1 (5 - 9 PM, $6) and 2 (10 AM - 5 PM $4) at the Denver Merchandise Mart, 58th and I-25.
More than 65 exhibitors from around the world will offer thousands of books, maps, prints, posters, art, postcards, photographs, and other ephemeral and collectible items. Questions or information about RMBPF 2008:
[email protected].The
Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Association (RMABA), sponsor of the fair, has been joined by the
Book Arts League and the
Guild of Book Workers for this year’s event,
The Art of the Book. The fair will feature a Book Arts Row where members of these groups will present displays and demonstrations on the processes and art of bookmaking.
More info in this press release.THE END OF THE BOOKThere's a certain irony in the above listing of people on the move. The news highlights a veteran writer and critic challenging his audience by producing a political book in an under-appreciated format, the graphic novel. A respected Latina writer promotes the paperback edition of her book that honors an old tradition presented as a new "American event." Then there's an event centered on collectible books and the ancient art of bookmaking set against the backdrop of yet another book store closing.
Meanwhile, the death knell has sounded for the Sunday book review section at
The Los Angeles Times, and it's the
talk of the blog world. Check out
Daniel Olivas'
letter to the editor.
The question of the day seems to be: Does it really matter that bookstores are closing and newspapers are giving up on book reviews? Because, after all, it's about the Internet, isn't it? The future is paperless, and books will float invisibly on electrical ribbons, always available for the magical "click" that will drop literature onto the computer screen of any teenager, housebound grandmother, caffeine-drenched housewife, bored student, and frustrated writer. Classic tales of love and courage, cold-blooded murder and supernatural fantasy, poetry and haiku and limericks will be at our fingertips, if not free, certainly easy, and the world will move into an eternal era of literacy and profundity and connection.
Or are we kidding ourselves? Are we about to drop off the edge into a chasm of pickled imaginations and dulled senses, carpal tunnel syndrome of the brain? Is this the final revenge of the nerds?
On the other hand, there is hope; don't give up on the future of the book, paper or otherwise. Just read the recent posts from
Thania Muñoz about the great gathering of writing and writers known as
Semana Negra. In straightforward, cogent prose, Ms. Muñoz narrates how dozens of writers converged in circus tents to dazzle audiences with words. How poets were celebrated. How a million people attended the party, and more than 50,000 books were sold - in ten days. How good versus evil monsters was the topic of debate. How respect was paid to writers who fought fascism with their sentences and paragraphs, and lives. How a labor of love by a writer and his family has created an annual wild festival built around the once-forbidden belief that reading is a necessity.
Good grief, she describes book riots!
As long as people are willing to get pushed and shoved and hit on the shins with chairs just to get their hands on a book, I think we are okay.
Later.
Two very different author events coming up in June at the Tattered Cover. They each sound intriguing but I admit I'm drawn to 6 Sick Hipsters. Here are the book store announcements.
GIRLS RULE! DENISE VEGA, LYNDA SANDOVAL, TERRI CLARK
Time: Saturday, June 21, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Location: Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue, Denver
As part of Booked, a new series of interactive events for young readers, three local authors will discuss and sign their new books for teens. Denise Vega will present her book Fact of Life #31 (Random House), and Lynda Sandoval and Terri Clark will discuss their new book Breaking Up is Hard to Do (Houghton Mifflin). This will not be your ordinary panel discussion. It will be three of our favorite authors with their guards down, taking questions, reading, offering a playlist for one of the books, and more!
Request a signed copy: [email protected]
RAYO CASABLANCA - 6 SICK HIPSTERS
Time: Friday, June 27, 2008 7:30 p.m.
Location: Tattered Cover Historic LoDo
Denver author Rayo Casablanca is a film and music critic who has contributed short fiction and pop culture criticism to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Geek Monthly, Splendid and Juked among others. In the late '90s Rayo self-published Sinema Brut, a critically acclaimed 'zine devoted to European Trash Cinema. Casablanca will read from and sign his debut novel 6 Sick Hipsters (Kensington), a hilarious, frenetic, adrenalin-charged murder mystery, that does for modern day Williamsburg, Brooklyn, what Bret Easton Ellis's Less than Zero did for '80s L.A. - but with a knowing grin and a far cooler soundtrack.Request a signed copy: [email protected]
PRIMERA PÁGINAThe
Latino Writers Collective of Kansas City announced the publication of
Primera Página: Poetry from the Latino Heartland, described as the first of its kind to feature Latino writers of the Midwest.
Francisco Aragón, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Letras Latinas and Institute for Latino Studies, writes, “
Primera Página is more than a book, more than an anthology. It’s a community—one borne of community-building in the best sense of the term.” Poet
Virgil Suarez writes, “This first anthology ... by the Latino Writers Collective, is a breath of fresh air. The voices here have verve and power.” This anthology includes poems by such established poets as
Gloria Vando, editor of
Helicon Nine Editions and winner of the Latino Literary Hal of Fame for her poetry collection
Shadows & Supposes (Arte Publíco Press). Also included are former Taco Shop Poets member
Tomás Riley of California, who was featured at the collective’s reading series in Kansas City last year, and
Andrés Rodríguez, author of
Night Song (Tía Chucha Press). Newer voices include
Chato Villalobos, a Kansas City, Mo., police officer;
Marcelo Xavier Trillo, a former gang leader and past intern to poet
Jimmy Santiago Baca;
Gabriela N. Lemmons, who has work forthcoming in
Just Like a Girl: A Manifesta (Girlchild Press), and
Angela Cervantes, a recent runner-up in The Missouri Review’s Audio Competition. Other contributors include
José Faus, editor of the
Kansas City Hispanic News, and
Linda Rodriguez, author of the forthcoming
I Don’t Know How to Cook Mexican (Adams Media).
The Latino Writers Collective, based in the Kansas City metropolitan area, organizes and coordinates projects for the larger community, especially to showcase national and local Latino writers and provide role models and instruction to Latino youth. The collective sponsors an annual reading series in Kansas City and plans release of a performance CD later this year.
Primera Página is $16.95 in trade paperback, 173 pp. For more information or to request a media review copy, contact
Ben Furnish at (816) 824-6814 or
[email protected]. This book is available to bookstores and libraries through Baker & Taylor.
Scapegoat Press, P.O. Box 410962, Kansas City, Missouri 64141
WHEN PIGS FLY, MEN HAVE BABIES, AND PEACE AND JUSTICE RULE THE WORLD
One night only! Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 7:30pm in the Ricketson Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Complex downtown. Tickets are $22 general, $18 students/seniors/NPAC participants, with a special $16 comadre group rate. Call El Centro Su Teatro at (303) 296-0219 to purchase your tickets today! Seating for this performance IS ASSIGNED. The first buyers get the best seats! Celebrate summertime with this hilarious barrio fairytale. Call now!
ARTICLE ON ILAN STAVANS The
Stanford Daily carried a piece about
Ilan Stavans, prolific writer, professor, editor, etc., who recently visited the Stanford campus. The article reported that Stavans's lecture touched on a variety of subjects including the "cultural phenomenon" of Spanglish; why he thinks it's important to translate
Don Quixote into Spanglish; and how Mexican immigrants in the U.S. are in some ways the Jews of today, arguing that “no other groups would accept such [verbal abuse]” like the abuse immigrants receive. The article is worth a look.
Later.
how disgusting that slavery persists in the united states today, and in your back yard. will the report create justice for the shepherds, or merely a bit of discomfort for the slaveholders?
What's even sadder is that there still exist conditions in the world that make people willingly come to the sheepherding jobs and their incredibly harsh working conditions. If people were able to make a decent living at home they wouldn't have to "sell" themselves into or accept these terrible conditions
did you check out the comments of some of the people at the denver post? these are some of the same types that are willing to exploit the workers
Manuel - you have every reason to be proud of your organization. Thank you for the work of Colorado Legal Aid
to msedano - I'm not sure this report will even cause discomfort for the slaveholders; they are obviously so callous and have no concern for the human condition - but who knows, the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword may be applicable here