Eduardo Lalo is a writer, essayist, and artist from San Juan, Puerto Rico. His many books include the award-winning novel Simone, which we published in translation. Suzanne Jill Levine is a leading translator of Latin American literature who runs the translation doctoral program at UCSB. A tale of social, spiritual, and intellectual yearning, Uselessness follows the life of its narrator, a young Puerto Rican writer studying in Paris, the city of his dreams. There he finds an appreciation of the arts that he has always longed for, yet he remains alienated from it because of his uncertain identity. Meanwhile, he grapples with two long, tumultuous love affairs. He conveys these events in a dark yet witty tone, as if aware of the futility of his youthful follies. After some time he chooses to end perhaps his greatest love affair, that with the city of Paris itself, and return to San Juan. Upon his return, he finds himself just as estranged and alienated at home as he felt abroad. In his writing and academic careers he gains little notoriety, but he tries to help a student whose struggles in many ways reflect his own early days. As he observes this young man's mistakes, the narrator confronts a path he very nearly traveled down himself and, in doing so, accepts his small place in the narrative of countless generations.
He has been called "the father of Chicano music" and "the original Chicano hepcat." Now, Lalo's autobiography takes readers on a musical rollercoaster, from his earliest enjoyment of Latino and black sounds in Tucson to his burgeoning career in Los Angeles singing with Los Carlistas, the quartet with which he began his recording career in 1938.
A disillusioned writer in San Juan finds himself stalked by a Chinese immigrant student, and as the two realize that they share a similar plight, they move towards bitter-sweet collaborations in passion, grief, literature, and art.
The prologue describes a letter of complaint written by the author in 1988, addressed to the Secretary of Tourism, Mexico City, Mexico. The letter details a frightening event that had taken place at Chemuyil. The story then begins in December 1986 when BARBARA (49) and husband EDDY (58) cross the Rio Grande in a motor home prepared to spend months exploring Mexico. Brief travel descriptions are sprinkled with humor as they make their way to the Caribbean where they discover Chemuyil, a dream come true beach. At Chemuyil they meet LALO, the proprietor of the palapa beach bar concession. Intermittent details describe how the couple liquidated assets to prepare for a once in a lifetime adventure, traveling in their new motor home indefinitely. The gist of the narrative is a first person view of both ordinary and extraordinary lives encountered during lengthy stays at Chemuyil, but the charismatic Lalo carries the book from the moment the readers meet him. A Don Juan character for sure, yet a much respected man, Lalo's personality defines the ebb and flow of the story. Barbara and Eddy become immersed in Lalo's web of passion, money, business, drugs, gambling, and government conflict. Lalo's biography is that of a hero/anti-hero who is very well known in Quintana Roo. However, Lalo suffered from delusional pain. His anguish revolved around losing his beloved Chemuyil, followed by mental conceptions of returning to Chemuyil, and finally psychological obsessions about how he would obtain another Chemuyil. Because Lalo's highs are both humorous and tragic, the author describes the book as a tragicomedy. Although Lalo's palapa bar is at the core of the drama, mixed into the story is nature at its best in an area of sea and jungle. Vivid descriptions also cover the after effects of hurricane Gilbert, as well as the role of the modern day Maya in the Yucatan. Barbara's fascination with Maya culture, Mexican politics, and her newly adopted Mexican family, connected her to insider information about another society. Her writing is an objective view of her inside connection, a summary of journal entries recorded while living in a motor home for three years . . . wintering at Chemuyil.
A Fallen Alien? Marli has a few problems. For starters Lalo, an alien, fell from the sky into her yard. An alien! These things haven’t scientifically been proven to exist yet. How could she communicate with Lalo without making him upset? Fortunately for Marli, Lalo is kind. When Marli uncovers a better way to talk to Lalo, she finds out he has a problem— amnesia, he can't remember why he is on Earth. Lalo only knows he needs to protect Marli. On the other hand, Marli feels she needs to shield Lalo from humans. Too bad her neighbor, Kallen, becomes very suspicious the morning after Lalo arrives. The news story of a possible kidnapping makes Kallen even more anxious about strange things occurring. To find answers to Lalo's memory loss, Marli and Lalo become wrapped up in solving the kidnapping mystery. But after Lalo starts to remember and rediscover his abilities, will Marli find out that Lalo has secrets of his own? Suggested reading order: 1. Fallen (or) 2. Naya's Invasion 3. Marli and Lalo: A Fallen Mystery Notes: 1. This story continues from "Fallen" 2. This story stands alone from Naya's Invasion. However, if Naya's Invasion is read first, the story is a little richer *****Slight Spoiler***** 3. The main mystery is solved, but the story will continue african american, african american science fiction, african american mystery
"Stupid America, remember that chicanito / flunking math and English / he is the Picasso / of your western states / but he will die / with one thousand masterpieces / hanging only from his mind." In his poem, "Stupid America," Chicano activist poet Abelardo "Lalo" Delgado decries the lack of opportunity faced by his people: children let down by the educational system; artists and poets unable to express their creativity. "That chicano / with a big knife / he doesn't want to knife you / he wants to sit down on a bench / and carve … / but you won't let him." Known as the "poet laureate de Aztlán" and called "the grandfather of Chicano literature" in his 2004 obituary in The New York Times, Delgado used his words to fight for justice and equal opportunity for people of Mexican descent living in the United States. A twelve-year-old when he emigrated from northern Mexico to El Paso, Texas, Delgado's development as a poet and writer coincided with the Chicano Civil Rights movement, and so his poems both reflect the suffering of the oppressed and are a call to action. "We want to let america know that she / belongs to us as much as we belong in turn to her / by now we have learned to talk / and want to be in good speaking terms / with all that is america." Available for the first time to mainstream audiences, Delgado's poems included in this landmark volume were written between 1969 and 2001, and are in Spanish, English, and a combination of both languages. While many of his poems protest mistreatment and discrimination, especially as experienced by farm workers, many others focus on love of family and for the land and traditions of his people. Delgado wrote and self-published 14 books of poetry—none of which are available today—and five of them are included in this long-awaited volume. These poems by a pioneering Chicano poet and revolutionary are a must-read for anyone interested in the Chicano Civil Rights movement and the origins of Chicano literature.
A chef’s gripping quest to reconcile his childhood experiences as a migrant farmworker with the rarefied world of fine dining. Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes. Mexico City–based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo’s story: from Máximo’s kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai’s first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo’s hometown of San José de las Pilas. What emerges is a moving portrait of Lalo’s struggle to find authenticity in an industry built on the very inequalities that drove his family to leave their home, and of the artistic process as Lalo calls on the experiences of his life to create transcendent cuisine. The Migrant Chef offers an unforgettable window into a family’s border-eclipsing dreams, Mexico’s culinary heritage, and the making of a chef.
Lalo is tired of being Lalo Ramos, so he tries another, more "normal" name on for size. When his Hispanic grandparents start calling him by his new name, Lalo is worries that he may be losing his identity.