Entries Tagged as 'bilingual'

COLIBRÍ

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COLIBRÍ   AMNESIA what are stars but question marks left in grass dew-form hiatuses in the longing the hand has searching for its soul the distant and perfervid traffic of nerve and sinew echoing some archaic rock come to rest on the western edge of water where the likely sun will set its dizzy head […]

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Eulogy for Súper Pancho from the Land of Maíz

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Eulogy for Super Pancho from the Land of Maíz Illustration by Víctor Ochoa Crowned with a black sombrero, a halo of dust trails behind Súper Pancho from the Land of Maíz as his tan steel-toe work boots touch the ground. Súper Pancho’s tamale arms and legs don’t hide from the scorching sun to sell diamond-faced […]

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¡Presentes!

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  Alfred Arteaga We could talk about how his heart was taught the secrets of the serpent’s tail. We could confer hours incalculable upon the small chamber that holds the ultimately unknowable blue bed embodied within his very core and how our own beetle and bug infested poor mats and cots and bags of straw […]

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Superman for a Day

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Superman for a Day                                     (It ain’t what it’s all cracked up to be) “Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superman!”   Was all we needed to hear to drop everything and run en chinga to grab a front row seat on the cold linoleum floor in […]

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Floricanto en Mictlan

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alternaCtive publicaCtions would like to honor contemporary Chicano/a authors who have preceded us in the journey to Mictlan. In the tradition of the Floricantos, we have gathered quotes from their work, book covers, and pictures. May they serve as one way of remembering these writers. We have included in this hommage those who published during […]

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Selected Works

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In Mexico, there are dark places in the midst of the squalor and the pollution where there is no noise, little motion, where one can sit undisturbed. I live in the little village several miles from here. Here is El Toro, a bar or café. What could you call it? The men sitting at the […]

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Conjuro (Selecciones)

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Cabezas olmecas Secretos de húmeda selva Guardados en labios de obsidiana. Entre árboles putrefactos Se esconden los dioses jaguares. Cabezas olmecas, Colosos de cultura madre. No hay pantanos que traguen La historia en piedra. De los manantiales secos, Resurgen los guerreros olmecas. Labios de selva negra Sellados con inmortalidad. Ojos celestiales que buscan Las constelaciones […]

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SHADES OF BROWN

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A Quick Quihúbole   Truth is, I wrote this for the Chicanao Mestizaje del Valle Imperial, for the shades of brown.  And so, even though I know this might not shade everyone in The Desert, I hope the Shades stretch and reach that certain someone…or two or 70-something-percent. See, I’m not coming to you with […]

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La gente de los girasoles

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Prefacio:
The principal narrator, Petra Leyva, is intrigued by Sebastián, a young Chicano academic who was born in Mexico but was raised in California. His father abandons him, his mother and other siblings by tricking them after bringing them to California from Mexico to live. His mother and his family work in the flower seed fields for a northern California company, including vast fields of sunflowers. Feeling the absence of his father, in later years he wonders as he is traveling through the streets of Michoacán whether he has passed his own father, half-brothers or sisters without knowing who they were. His cycle also explores being a Chicano gay or lesbian.
Petra elaborates the story of Jesús, a young Chicano activist who worked for the UFW and became close to César, the campesino leader. He and his best friend, Vickie Dee, were American-born, bilingual Chicano activists, who like Petra Leyva, learned about the farm-workers’ struggle and the goals of the Chicano Movement through their involvement with on-campus organizations for Mexican-American youth. Jesús and Vickie Dee differ in that in his case, his family at first did not always support his increasing activism. Vickie Dee, on the other hand, came from a family with grass-roots community involvement. Like Sebastián, Jesús and Vickie Dee are involved in the Chicano civil rights struggle.
More recently, at her sister Belita’s funeral, Petra Levya remembers other deaths of loved ones, including that of the young Jesús, and ponders the need to make several journeys which will ultimately enlighten the role of her own extended family in shaping her life’s direction. For instance, she felt compelled to help her adopted sister, Lupita, find her own Mexican natural family in the rural mountain region of Mexico. She considers that she shared much with these various young people besides the obvious interwined relationships and interests. She also shares with Sebastián a desire to know a mysterious half-brother whom her own father never acknowledged.
Without idealizing the rural campesino experience reflected in the narrators’ stories, the telling of the stories helps bring closure to their search for meaning and inspiration.

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Cartas del Lost and Found

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To: Miss_Cuernavaca68@rocketmail.com From: elpocho66@writeme.net Subject: Encuentros Mi estimada Miss C, you were right. A veces el mundo es tan grande que uno pensaría que nunca se podría topar con la misma persona más de una vez. Y a veces el mundo es tan pequeño de que sí, efectivamente, se encuentran de nuevo y se dan […]

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