In the title poem of Tato LavieraÍs fifth poetry collection, ñMixturao,î he celebrates the mix of diverse cultures and languages that make up America, and challenges those who advocate a monolingual existence: ñWe who integrate / urban America / simmering in each otherÍs / slangs indigenous / nativizing our tonguesÍ / cruising accents / who are you, English, / telling me, ïSpeak only English / or die?Íî Laviera deftly combines English and Spanish in this poetic celebration of his own bilingual, bicultural existence and the ever-increasing use of both languages in all fields, from music to technology. In his poem entitled ñSpanglish,î he writes: ñpues estoy creando spanglish / bi-cultural systems / scientific lexicographical / inter-textual integrations / two expressions / existentially wired / two dominant languages / continentally abrazàndose î Divided into sections that examine borders, women, men, neighborhoods, and folklore, Laviera continues his life-long poetic exploration of his Afro-Puerto Rican roots planted in the urban cacophony of New York City. In ñNideaquinedeallàî (ñNeither from Here nor from Thereî), he writes about the sense of alienation that all immigrants face when they are considered foreigners in both their native and adopted lands. The poems of Tato Laviera are complex and engaging, and through his words, his spirit, his bilingualism, and his dual identity, he offers the reader poems that are a celebration of life and identity.
Border Killers delves into how recent Mexican creators have reported, analyzed, distended, and refracted the increasingly violent world of neoliberal Mexico, especially its versions of masculinity. By looking to the insights of artists, writers, and filmmakers, Elizabeth Villalobos offers a path for making sense and critiquing very real border violence in contemporary Mexico. Villalobos focuses on representations of "border killers" in literature, film, and theater. The author develops a metaphor of "maquilization" to describe the mass-production of masculine violence as a result of neoliberalism. The author demonstrates that the killer is an interchangeable cog in a societal factory of violence whose work is to produce dead bodies. By turning to cultural narratives, Villalobos seeks to counter the sensationalistic and stereotyped media depictions of border residents as criminals. The cultural works she examines instead indict the Mexican state and the global economic system for producing agents of violence. Focusing on both Mexico's northern and southern borders, Border Killers uses Achille Mbembe's concept of necropolitics and various theories of masculinity to argue that contemporary Mexico is home to a form of necropolitical masculinity that has flourished in the neoliberal era and made the exercise of death both profitable and necessary for the functioning of Mexico's state-cartel-corporate governance matrix.
For more than twenty years, Luis Valdez, the most distinguished Latino playwright and director, has reserved most of his scripts for live stage productions. His two landmark published collections, Early Works and Zoot Suit and Other Plays, are only a sampling of his early master works and of the later plays that made it to the stage in the 1980s. Now, Valdez has finally opened his trunk to release print editions of a revised early work and two brand new, major dramas. Mummified Deer is ValdezÍs mature exploration of the Yaqui Indian roots of Mexican American culture and ValdezÍs own family. Returning to the format of the tent show, Valdez mines maternal psychology and Yaqui mysticism to demand that characters scale the full gamut of emotions. In this gut-wrenching piece, Mama Chu is the dominant, imposing figure who must reconcile the present with the past and unify the conflicting histories and identities of her family. Mundo Mata is the long-awaited drama of unionizing farm workers battling the agribusiness power structure in California while Mexican Americans are being sent off to battle brown-skinned enemies in Vietnam. Valdez assesses the toll that families have to pay to remain united against divisive forces. It all comes down to Reymundo, the antihero, who in the end must weigh existential and political questions. The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa, ValdezÍs re-worked first play, still holds all the vision, spunk, and innovation of the young playwright. Injecting black humor into domestic drama, disembodied heads talk, mothers exchange roles with the patriarch, pachucos banter, and sell-outs become the mouthpieces for an oppressed communityall characters and themes that would dominate future plays of Valdez and subsequent Chicano literature.
Roberto entra al consumo de las drogas de la forma en que TODOS lo hacen; "Gradualmente", no se trata de una narración de hechos externos solamente, Roberto narra sus experiencias psíquicas, emocionales y sobre todo espirituales, en un drama de prostitución, homicidio, narcotráfico, corrupción, alcoholismo, drogadicción y espiritualidad. El alimento a sus apetitos perversos son satisfechos a su antojo pero, el espíritu también reclama su alimento que lo encuentra al alcance de su respiración, solo que al inhalarlo lo exhala rápidamente, los fantasmas de su mente nacieron en su infancia traumatizada por el abuso sexual, el alcoholismo de su padre y la drogadicción de sus hermanos mayores. La miseria interna es mezclada con la divinidad de su espíritu llevando en sus poros la lucha eterna del amor y el odio, la paz y la guerra, la muerte y la vida, la condena y la emancipación. La novela es narrada con lenguaje cotidiano e intencionalmente prosaico tocando la vulgaridad para remontar en la belleza de la descripción subjetiva y refinada para el disfrute de la lectura. En ningún momento es tediosa o predecible, contrario a esto va de un drama catastrófico familiar hasta llegar al culmen de la perversión individual en un intenso desarrollo existencial. Su vida se desarrolla en la ciudad de México encontrando su desenlace en un país tan lleno de paradojas sin sentido y que irónicamente es ahí donde el final se desarrolla. Los hijos de Dios... no es una novela religiosa, tampoco es una novela de superación personal, es una novela de realidad subjetiva vista desde un mexicano Drogadicto. A pesar de ello no deja de ser una historia ficticia mezclada con elementos reales, aunque los escépticos pueden muy bien leerla tendrán que responder a muchas preguntas que surgirán en su mente en el transcurso de la lectura. Por lo tanto la novela no busca dar solución a problemas existenciales, plasma los problemas existenciales más comunes para provocar empatía y analizar las alternativas de clarificación so pretexto de las adicciones. La motivación surgió después de muchos años de escuchar historias de adictos y, que a pesar de la diversidad de experiencias y que muchas de ellas son sorprendentes, todos ellos tienen algo en común: "El adicto usa droga por que busca algo", los adictos son buscadores y muchos de ellos se pierden en esa búsqueda. Su búsqueda no se centra en cosas tangibles, como posesiones económicas o materiales a pesar de las apariencias, su deseo de encontrar va mas allá de lo físico, por eso la mayoría de los drogos son metafísicos, su atención se detiene en lo misterioso, en la subjetividad y sobre todo en lo espiritual. Lo más curioso es que cada adicto encuentra su propio camino de búsqueda, los expertos opinan que la puerta de entrada al universo de las drogas inicia casualmente con el uso de una droga legal para terminar con las ilegales, sin embargo; se observa que hay un comportamiento previo a esto, conducta dirigida a la obtención del placer proporcionado por los instintos en el cuál el mas destacable es el sexual, cosa que no es de sorprenderse porque el efecto de cualquier droga es orgiástica...y es así querido lector que esta obra esta impregnada de erotismo pero descrita desde el interior del protagonista sin acudir a la descripción literal.
“I think in Spanish / I write in English / I want to go back to Puerto Rico / but I wonder if my kink could live / in ponce, mayagúez and Carolina.” Born in Puerto Rico but raised in New York City, Tato Laviera’s poetry reflects his bilingual, bicultural Nuyorican existence while celebrating the universality of the human condition and his European, indigenous and African roots. Tato Laviera explores identity, community, urban life, oppression and much more in these multi-layered pieces that spanned his too-short life. Many deal with themes specific to the immigrant experience, such as the sense of alienation many feel when they are not accepted in their native or adopted land. In “nuyorican,” he writes about returning to his native island, only to be looked down upon for his way of speaking: “ahora regreso, con un corazón boricua, y tú / me desprecias, me miras mal, me atacas mi hablar.” Music and dance, an integral part of Puerto Rican life, permeate Laviera’s verse and pay homage to the Caribbean’s African roots. “i hear merengue in French Haiti / and in Dominican blood, / and the guaracha in yoruba, / and the mambo sounds inside the plena.” Including all of his previously published poems and some that have never been published, these are bold expressions of hybridity in which people of mixed races speak a combination of languages. He skillfully weaves English and Spanish, and frequently writes in Spanglish. The importance of language and its impact on his identity is evident in poems entitled “Español,” “Bilingüe” and “Spanglish.” Known for his lively, energetic poetry readings, Bendición represents an internationally recognized poet’s life work and will serve to keep Tato Laviera’s words and the issues he wrote about alive long after his death.
From the Harvey and Lulu award–winning creator of Artbabe comes a riveting story of a young woman’s misadventures in Mexico City. Carla, an American estranged from her Mexican father, heads to Mexico City to “find herself.” She crashes with a former fling, Harry, who has been drinking his way through the capital in the great tradition of his heroes, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Harry is good—humored about Carla’s reappearance on his doorstep—until he realizes that Carla, who spends her days soaking in the city, exploring Frida Kahlo’s house, and learning Spanish, has no intention of leaving. When Harry and Carla’s relationship of mutual tolerance reaches its inevitable end, she rejects his world of Anglo expats for her own set of friends: pretty-boy Oscar, who sells pot and dreams of being a DJ, and charismatic Memo, a left-wing, pseudo–intellectual ladies’ man. Determined to experience the real Mexico, Carla turns a blind eye to her new friends’ inconsistencies. But then she catches the eye of a drug don, el Gordo, and from that moment on her life gets a lot more complicated, and she is forced to confront the irreparable consequences of her willful innocence. Jessica Abel’s evocative black–and–white drawings and creative mix of English and Spanish bring Mexico City’s past and present to life, unfurling Carla’s dark history against the legacies of Burroughs and Kahlo. A story about the youthful desire to live an authentic life and the consequences of trusting easy answers, La Perdida—at once grounded in the particulars of life in Mexico and resonantly universal—is a story about finding oneself by getting lost.
Don't sound like una momia--add a little sizzle to your Spanish! If someone called you tragaldabas would you be insulted or flattered? If you shouted ¡Mota! in the street, would you expected to get a cab or get arrested? Thanks to The Red-Hot Book of Spanish Slang and Idioms, you'll always know your tejemaneje (scheme) from your merequetengue (mess) no matter where you find yourself in the Spanish-speaking world. Five thousand words and phrases--plus helpful hints as to what's cordial and what's vulgar--keep you in sync with Spanish slang. Spanish to English niños popis (upper-class kids) Spoiled brats Contigo ni a China me voy. (I'm not even going to China with you) You're impossible La cruda (rawness) Hangover English to Spanish Ugly as sin ser un espantapájaro (to be a scarecrow) To be lucky tener leche (to have milk) Why are you staring at me? ¿Tengo monos en la cara? (Do I have monkeys on my face?)
A unique book that reveals the hip talk and occasionally lewd eloquence of the Spanish commonly used in Mexico and Latin America. Also includes examples of slang commonly found in graffiti on buildings, bridges and fences.
How does witnessing a crime change a person? This powerful collection of stories by a star-studded roster of contributors examines this very question, with proceeds benefitting the Alliance for Safe Traffic Stops. Inspired by recent true events, the all-original stories in Witnesses for the Dead are set in motion by the act of witnessing. The characters who populate these pages are not themselves the perpetrators of the crimes they see, but as they grapple with what to do—take action or retreat into the shadows—their lives are indelibly changed. In “Envy” by Christopher Chambers, a sweet, shy wallflower looks on as something horrific happens in his neighborhood—revealing something horrific about himself. Agatha Award–winner Richie Narvaez’s “The Gardener of Roses” sees a Puertorriqueña college student on the run from the FBI for her accidental involvement in a “terrorist” plot. Anthony Award–winner Gary Phillips confronts police corruption in “Spiders and Fly.” And the protagonist of “A Family Matter” by IPPY Award–winner Sarah M. Chen investigates the murder of a stranger, leading her to question the political structure of Taiwan entirely. Other stories feature a brothel, the film industry, immigrant detention centers at the Mexico-US border, World War II–torn France, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The stories are incisive, unflinching, wry, dark, and, in some cases, terrifying. You’ll ask yourself: If I saw what they saw, what would I do? Edited by Anthony Award–winner Gary Phillips and Shamus Award–winner Gar Anthony Haywood, the collection includes contributions from NAACP Image Award–winner Pamela Samuels Young, New York Times bestsellers Cara Black and Tod Goldberg, Edgar Award–winner SJ Rozan, Agatha Award–winner Richie Narvaez, and more.
