June 2017 | Vol. 30 Issue 5
San Antonio, Tejas
Luz Calvo & Catriona Rueda Esquibel authors of Decolonize Your Diet — Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing, will be at Esperanza on June 24 & 25, 2017
I grew up in an eastside barrio of Austin, Texas with chickens running free in our backyard and a rooster who would chase us trying to peck our legs when we went out to play. Our mother always had tomatito plants around the yard that I would lay under and eat, one by one. Mom’s yard was always full of plants and flowers that she would share with las comadres in the barrio. Her love of plants came from her mother, Epifania, ‘buelita grandma, who lived across la calle ancha, 7th street, in another barrio. ‘Buelita Grandma June 2017 kept a backyard full of tomates, chiles, corn, papas and calabacitas. Both, mom and Grandma, vol. 30 Issue 5 always had cilantro, yerba buena, ruda, yerba anis and other herbs in their yards. We also had nopales, savila and all kinds of rosas. Editor Gloria A. Ramírez Our maternal great grandmother, ‘buelita Salomé, was always ready to administer curaciones Design Elizandro Carrington for susto, empacho, nervios, or other ailments. She often prescribed yerbitas to be administered in Contributors teas or placed on the area of the body as directed. ‘Buelita Salome would also use small glasses Luz Calvo, Catriona Rueda Esquibel, to create suction with a match on areas of the body that needed massage. When we had earaches, María R. Salazar, Nadine Saliba, ire’ne lara silva my father would roll up a paper cone and set it aflame with the point of the cone in the ear canal. The flame at the open end would blow out and relieve the pressure inside. La Voz Mail Collective My father loved to plant fruit trees. Peaches were his favorite. He had up to 15 peach trees Alicia Arredondo, Olga Crespin, Elisa in our backyard and grew hybrids by grafting the branches of other fruit trees onto the peach Diaz, Juan Díaz, Charlie Esperiqueta, Ray McDonald, Angelita Merla, Lucy trees. I swear he grew hybrids of apple-peach, pear-peach and plum-peach! & Ray Pérez, Maria Reed, Mary Agnes At the Esperanza Center, we work toward the recovery of ancestral knowledge like what I Rodríguez, AM Huy Salr, Sapopo Sánchez, Guadalupe Segura, Roger Singler, Tomasa experienced in my childhood as one of our goals. That includes the use of plants for healing. Torres, Sherrie V., Alma R. Yuenca In 2005, we hosted Doña Enriqueta, a curandera from Oaxaca at the Casa de Cuentos on the Westside. The workshops were swamped with Westside gente who identified with the ancesEsperanza Director Graciela I. Sánchez tral knowledge of plants that Doña Enriqueta presented. At the Paseo por el Westside, Don Jacinto Madrigal’s pláticas on plants are always full and he always sells out of plants. Blanca Esperanza Staff Imelda Arismendez, Elizandro Carrington, Rodríguez’s chiles workshop have also become very popular. This year Margarita Elizarde and Paty de la Garza, Jessica González, Susana Segura introduced plant tours of the barrio and foraging of plants like verdolagas for Eliza Pérez, Natalie Rodríguez, Gianna use in meals and yerba anis in healing. Ay vamos. We are reclaiming our ancestral knowledge. Rendón, Natalie Rodríguez, René Saenz, Susana Segura, Amelia Valdez At El Rinconcito de Esperanza on the Westside, our work continues with the recovery of history and cultural practices that were commonplace a couple of generations ago in all barConjunto de Nepantleras rios—but that now are disappearing. My childhood home in East Austin is in the process of —Esperanza Board of Directors— Rachel Jennings, Amy Kastely, Jan Olsen, being sold and the neighborhood is being gentrified. Folks coming into the neighbordhood are Ana Lucía Ramírez, Gloria A. Ramírez, starting gardens, keeping chickens and trying out Rudy Rosales, Tiffany Ross, Lilliana Saldaña, Nadine Saliba, Graciela I. New Age healing practices—but we know it is our Sánchez, Lillian Stevens ancestors that taught us all of that. On June 24 and 25, we will have a rare opportu• We advocate for a wide variety of social, economic & environmental justice issues. nity to extend and share our ancestral knowledge with • Opinions expressed in La Voz are not necessarily those of the Esperanza Center. Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel who will talk about their own journey in reclaiming native foods for nourishing their bodies and their spiritual wellLa Voz de Esperanza being. The events will include a convivio where food is a publication of and recipes will be shared. Come and find out what Esperanza Peace & Justice Center decolonizing your diet could mean for you and your Doña Enriqueta published her Plantas de la Canasta de Doña Enriqueta in the December 2010/ 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, family’s health and happiness. See the back page for January 2011 issue of La Voz de Esperanza. TX 78212 more information. —Gloria A. Ramirez, editor 210.228.0201 • fax 1.877.327.5902
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5•
La Voz de Esperanza
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Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing
DECOLONIZE YOUR DIET by Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel
Editor’s Note: This excerpt (text) from Chapter I of Decolonize Your Diet published by Arsenal Pulp Press is reprinted in the June issue of La Voz with permission from the authors and publisher. Check the back page for a full slate of events sponsored by the Esperanza with the authors who will be visiting June 24th & 25th.
There are all sorts of vegetables, and especially onions, leeks, garlic, borage, nasturtium, water-cresses, sorrel, thistles, and artichokes. There are many kinds of fruits, amongst others cherries, and prunes, like the Spanish ones. They sell bees-honey and wax, and honey made from corn stalks … also honey of a plant called maguey … They sell maize, both in the grain and made into bread, which is very superior in its quality to that of the other islands and mainland; pies of birds, and fish, also much fish, fresh, salted, cooked, and raw; eggs of hens, and geese, and other birds in great quantity, and cakes made of eggs. Historical descriptions of the food markets in Tlatelolco (near modern-day Mexico City) speak to a plethora of foods and culinary techniques. In 1520, Hernán Cortés describes his first impression of the city market in a letter written to Charles V of Spain. He estimated that there were more than 60,000 people
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Reclaiming Native Foods Before contact with Europeans, native peoples in what is now Mexico, Central America, and the US Southwest ate many foods unknown to Europeans. At the time of Conquest, the lifespan of the Aztecs exceeded that of the Spaniards by ten years. The Aztecs were purported to describe the Spaniards’ food as “sick people’s food,” contrasting it to their own cuisine, which included an array of delicious fruits, vegetables, sauces, and meats prepared with a wide variety of cooking techniques. Foods indigenous to the Americas (e.g., tomatoes, potatoes) have, in the past 500 years, changed the diet of the planet. However, Mexican and Central American cuisine also changed. The Spanish colonizers introduced white flour, cane sugar, and beef, among other products. They also introduced new methods of cooking, such as frying. After colonization, the grain base in the Americas has shifted from a reliance on corn and amaranth to predominantly wheat and rice.
in the daily market, twice the size of its contemporary in Salamanca, Spain. Each section of the market featured an entire street devoted to a particular kind of food. The meat vendors sold fifteen kinds of game birds, as well as rabbits and venison. The description of fruits and vegetables is also impressive: From this description, we see a glimpse of the incredible biodiversity available in pre-Conquest times. As we looked at the list of foods that Cortés encountered at the market, we were surprised to see onions, garlic, plums, and cherries listed, for those are commonly thought to have originated outside the Americas. However, research reveals that wild onions (Allium drummondii), wild garlic (Allium canadense), plums (Prunus americana), and cherries (Eugenia uniflora) were all confirmed in the Americas before the Conquest. The original inhabitants of the Americas cultivated and harvested a staggering variety of plant-based foods. The four food staples of ancient Mexico were corn, beans, amaranth, and chia, which provided abundant bioavailable protein. Moreover, it is important to note that extensive trade routes existed before colonization, with indigenous people from diverse cultures and locations involved in exchanges of food, seeds, and cooking utensils, not only in the Tlatelolco marketplace but throughout the hemisphere. While there is much to learn from our abuelitas’ (grandmothers’) kitchens, where food was home cooked and often home grown, we want to look to even earlier generations, before white flour, sugar, and milk entered into the picture. Most people fluent in Mexican cuisine believe that a traditional red chile sauce begins with a roux made of white flour and vegetable oil or lard, but it wasn’t always prepared that way. In Pre-Conquest Mexico, people used chia or pumpkin seeds or corn masa (dough) to thicken sauces. When Spanish explorers returned to Europe with corn, it was regarded only as a grain to be prepared and used like wheat, rice, or barley. Corn became a staple in Italy, where it was peasant food. When the poor Italian peasants ate it as a staple, they developed pellagra, a disease cause by lack of niacin in the diet. Native peoples, however, knew that when corn is hulled and treated with wood ash or slaked lime (a process called nixtamalization) it was more nourishing; the process unlocks the niacin, making it bio-available. The Florentine Codex, a 2,400-page document (in twelve volumes), details many aspects of Mexica (Aztec) food, agri-
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calpullis, which take their name from a Nahuatl word originally meaning villages, pueblos, or barrios (neighborhoods). All over North America today, calpullis meet weekly or monthly, teaching and performing traditional dances. There is a dance to Tlaloc, the Rain God, to Tonantzin, the Earth Goddess, and to Maíz, which acts out the many steps to planting and harvesting corn.
culture, and ceremony as practiced at the time of the Conquest. The Codex was written in Nahuatl and Spanish by Mexica scribes and informants under the direction of Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590). The purpose of the Codex was to document all aspects of Mexica culture in great detail. We are especially drawn to the elaborate descriptions of the tamalli vendor in Volume Ten. The good tamalli vendor is described as selling tamales of various shapes and sizes, with a wide array of fillings: some round, some tied, some folded; some wrapped in corn husks, some in banana leaves; some with sweet, fruit-studded masa, some with savory spiced masa or tangy, fermented masa; some stuffed with turkey, beans, seeds, fish or other meats; some baked and some steamed. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ways to make tamales. They describe sweet fillings including fruit, honey, and beeswax. The savory tamales include chile—“they burn within!”— or tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin, or squash blossoms. Good tamales are described in enticing language: “very tasty, Florentine Codex: Tamalli vendor very well made ... savory ... of very pleasing odor ... Where [it is] tasty [it has] chile, salt, tomatoes, gourd seeds: shredded, crumbled, juiced.” The long, detailed description of the tamales in the pre-Columbian era fills us with awe and wonder, but it should be noted that the Florentine Codex also delineates the person who sells “bad” tamales: “The bad food seller is one who sells filthy tamales, discolored tamales—broken, tasteless, quite tasteless, inedible, frightening, deceiving … [tamales].” Like all cooks, when we cook with each other’s families, with our friends, and with cookbooks, we come across the inevitable argument about the “right” way to cook a dish, with each side arguing that theirs is the “authentic” version. These arguments might be based on regional preferences, such as how to wrap tamales: Folded or tied? Wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves? Or the argument could be about a preferred ingredient: Lard or shortening? Meat or pumpkin? By reading the codices, we’ve learned that indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica have always made many different kinds of tamales, and this encourages us to be creative and bold, instead of imagining that there is one “authentic”
recipe that we need to emulate. Generation after generation, our ancestors fed their families and communities by being clever, adaptable, and ingenious and by making use of different available ingredients.
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As descendants of Mexican and Central American immigrants, many of us know very little about our indigenous ancestors. Many of us don’t have a single community or indigenous group to claim. Some of us participate in ceremonies that rekindle those lost connections. For example, Mexica (Aztec) dance continues to the present day, kept alive in social/spiritual groups called
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Liberate the Kitchen For many Mexican and Central American women, cooking is something they have been forced to do, part of the construction of womanhood, something to which they may submit or resist or which they may resent. Since the 1970s, for many Chicanas the image of the Mexican mother making tortillas was held in direct contrast to that of the liberated Chicana daughter who earned her own money and set her own terms. The problem is that sometimes, in our haste to liberate ourselves from the kitchen, we ended up devaluing the work that our mothers and grandmothers performed. Our liberation from the kitchen meant that we lost touch with how our foods formed an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage and our health. Likewise, for every story of an angry young Chicana who resisted and resented learning to cook, there is a story of a young Chicano shamed for wanting to spend time in the kitchen, warned to walk away from women’s work, and challenged about his masculinity and his sexuality. We believe that any activity that is forced or coerced becomes oppressive. We understand that under conditions of patriarchy, food preparation often becomes an unpleasant task. In the midtwentieth century, advertising and the food industry promised quick fixes such as frozen or processed foods or prepackaged meals that could feed everyone cheaply and quickly. Family cooks were told not to “waste time,” and the work of preparing food was not acknowledged as essential to survival and building community. Fast food seems like liberation from the sexual politics of food preparation, but this so-called solution is having disastrous consequences. We are, in effect, giving up control of our sustenance to an industry whose primary concern will always be to turn a profit. Fast food is toxic to our people, our animal relatives, and Mother Earth. We need to find another way. We believe that any cookbook and discussion of food preparation that doesn’t address the gendered Verdolagas/Purslane
Indigenous Action for Food Sovereignty As more Chicanas/os and Central Americans come to recognize
our indigenous heritages, we support and draw from the struggles of contemporary Native peoples. Our project is influenced by American Indian and First Nation scholars, activists, and chefs who are challenging the devastation wrought on indigenous communities by the Standard American Diet. Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe) writes that, “Indigenous communities have survived an incredible set of ordeals related to food, nutrition, medicine and life, and continue to keep their cultural traditions alive. They also continue to plant seeds passed from ancestors a thousand years ago so that they can eventually pass them on to their grandchildren.” We cannot overemphasize the importance of seeds: like recipes, they are a cultural inheritance passed down from generation to generation. At this point in history, we see an urgent need to resist GMO seeds and to support the struggle against GMOs in Mexico and Central America, where people have been organizing against GMO corn, in particular. Agribusiness focuses on monoculture, raising one crop in huge fields and applying pesticides and herbicides. In contrast, indigenous ways of cultivation use intercropping, which grows more than one crop in the same field. One well-known example of intercropping is the “Three Sisters” technique, where corn, squash, and beans are grown together. Among the many benefits of this technique is that the beans “fix” nitrogen in the soil, which helps the corn grow tall and strong without the need for chemical fertilizers. We are indebted to Devon Abbott Mihesuah (Choctaw), who makes the argument that, “One symptom of accepting colonization is adhering to the typical American Diet, even while it is killing us.” Her words summarize our entire project: we must reject colonization because this diet is literally killing us. Mihesuah makes clear that diseases such as diabetes are the legacy of a 500year effort to eradicate indigenous peoples. She points out the contradictions in dietary guidelines that promote dairy products despite widespread lactose intolerance among Native peoples and in spite of the fact that dietary calcium is readily available from dark leafy greens. Upon exploring how US government policies
COLONIZED DIET
DECOLONIZED DIET
White Supremacy and Americanization programs
respect for indigenous knowledge, cultural revitalization
disavowal, thoughtlessness
intentions, blessings, and gratitude
refined foods: white sugar, white flour, high fructose corn syrup
whole foods: nixtamalized corn, whole grains, mesquite, local honey
wasteful
resourceful
advertising, marketing, and fads
ancestral knowledge, oral tradition
pesticides and monoculture
permaculture, intercropping, organically grown
GMO seeds
heritage seeds, seed saving
NAFTA, agribusiness
small farms, local control, truly fair trade
food for profit assimilation
food to sustain life Florentine Codex: Harvesting quelites
resistance, resilience
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conditions of labor may be seen to reinforce oppressive relations. We are not calling for a return of Chicanas and Central American women to the kitchen. We are calling for the liberation of the kitchen. We understand that food is one of the pillars of our survival as a people. We need to find ways to truly value the labor that goes into all Thistle/Cardo aspects of food preparation: growing, gathering, raising, distributing, and cooking food as well as the labor of keeping the kitchen clean and well-stocked. In every household, communal living space, or calpulli, the division of labor needs to be open to discussion and negotiation. In concrete terms, this means identifying the different kinds of work essential to feeding the group— gardening, meal planning, shopping, cooking, or cleanup—and dividing these tasks in ways that are equitable. The ultimate goal should be to reconfigure the tasks themselves so that, as much as possible, the activities of procuring and preparing food can be experienced as a playful, spiritual, creative practice by everyone. In short, we want to rework the activities of the kitchen so that they become central to the revolutionary practice of love. We welcome the fact that most people now recognize that families are configured in many ways and that families can be units of people related by blood, as well as units that come together by choice. Similarly, the labor within families can also be organized in many ways. There is no one right way to be a family, and there is no one right way to divide the tasks that go into cooking fresh, healthy meals. As queer Chicanas/os, we recognize that the kitchen has been a space to which many women have been confined, yet also one in which many (men, women, and two-spirit) have laid their own claim. Activist meetings should include feeding each other healthy foods. If one person prepares a pan of enchiladas, another a pot of beans, another a nopales salad, and another a pitcher of hibiscus tea, then the whole group is strengthened, nourished, and sustained.
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have destroyed the agriculture specialty items online. We and radically changed the diet embrace a made-from-scratch of American Indians, Mihesuah approach to cooking, and our issues a rallying cry to Native recipes range from very simple peoples: “Eating the foods this society to more complex. The great majority of presents without questioning the coningredients in our recipes are native to the tents of those dishes and the damaging or Americas. We cook with native vegetables healthful benefits of those foods is one of such as green chiles, nopales, tomatoes, the manifestations [of colonization]. One squash, corn, chayotes, and green beans. huge step we can take to regain our culture Native fruits we feature include berries, and pride is to grow, cultivate, and prepare currants, avocados, papayas, passion fruit, our own foods that our ancestors ate.” pineapples, and prickly pears. We are big Codex Mendoza: Making tortillas Mihesuah connects her knowledge of and fans of foraged greens, such as verdolagas, research on Choctaw culture to a plan for reclaiming traditional quelites, and watercress, and we incorporate them into many of foods and emphasizing traditional forms of physical exercise like our recipes. gardening, running, stickball, and walking. Most cookbooks highlight Mesoamerican food as a producOur project has also been deeply inspired by the Tohono tive encounter between indigenous and Spanish ingredients, proO’odham in Arizona, an American Indian nation whose members ducing a splendid hybrid cuisine. Our recipes take another path, have been active in reclaiming native foods as a way of restoring focusing on the indigenous history that is embedded in contemhealth. The Tohono O’odham, who have one of the highest rates porary Mexican and Central American cuisine. We try to recreate of diabetes in the world, worked with Native Seeds/SEARCH co- dishes as they might have existed before the Conquest, before founder Gary Nabhan in a study that reconstructed a nineteenthwheat flour, sugar, beef, dairy, or cooking oils. That said, we are century O’odham diet and examined its effects on the people. not purists. Our overriding concern is to create dishes that nourish After two weeks on a diet of traditional foods high in fiber and the body and the spirit. We include small amounts of cheese and complex carbohydrates and low in fats, the participants saw a bit of oil when we feel that those ingredients help to balance significant improvement in their blood sugar levels. They then or develop flavors. All of our recipes are vegetarian, with many spent two weeks on a Standard American Diet based on foods providing vegan options. Likewise, because there was no wheat available in a local convenience store. During the second two flour before colonization, most of our recipes are also gluten-free. weeks, the participants showed dramatically higher blood sugar We go back to the old ways and thicken our sauces, stews, and levels, “severe enough to trigger diabetes if that diet had been soups with masa harina (corn flour) or ground pumpkin seeds, maintained.” The activist group Tohono O’odham Community instead of white flour. All of our recipes feature whole, real foods Action (TOCA) has a self-published book, From I’itoi’s Garden: that are unrefined and unprocessed, or in the case of flours, made Tohono O’odham Food Traditions (2010) that offers a beautiful from whole grains. cultural resource featuring history, traditional stories, growing, We envision these recipes as living documents that you can foraging, and harvesting techniques, songs, and recipes. change and revise to meet the needs of your friends and family. The authors focus on ten native foods of the Sonoran Don’t be afraid to substitute based on what you have on hand or desert: squash, acorns, cholla buds, saguaro cacwhat is readily available. Our recipes sometimes call for tus, mesquite pods, prickly pear fruit, agave, wild seasonal fruits or vegetables that may not be available greens, sixty-day corn, and tepary beans, plus in all areas. We offer substitutions as a short-term other domesticated and wild foods. Through acsolution, but we hope that by introducing you to tively reclaiming their heritage foods, the Tohono using beautiful ingredients like local green chiles, O’odham are fighting the diseases inflicted on their quelites, or verdolagas, we will entice you to people by the Standard American Diet grow them yourselves or inquire about them at These examples of direct action by indigenous your local farmer’s market. We hope more people groups demonstrate clearly the ways in which personal will take up this project and share and publish recifood choices are also political acts. We honor our ancespes that recover foods from their own regions and tors and their wisdom by learning how to cook beans, make backgrounds. corn tortillas from scratch, and forage for and grow wild Finally, the most important ingredient for our recifoods like quelites. By sharing our knowledge with each other pes is not listed anywhere. This secret ingredient is the and by becoming active in our communities, we can begin to love that you put into preparing your food. Whether you decolonize our diets. are the cook, the gardener, or part of the clean-up crew, please know that your labor is sacred and that somewhere Our Decolonial Kitchen the ancestors are smiling to know that you are taking an Our recipes feature farm fresh fruits and vegetables, dried active role in healing your friends and family from the ravbeans, fresh herbs, spices, and whole flours made from naages of the ¡Qué SAD! diet. tive grains like amaranth, corn, and quinoa. To us, “farm fresh” means ingredients that come from our backyard garden, farmer’s markets, or the produce section. We shop at the local Leek/Puerro Mexican market, Asian markets, health food stores, and grocery stores that sell organic produce. We occasionally buy some
Broccoli by Maria R. Salazar Photos: María with Mom, Raquel and with her Dad, Aurelio.
I sat across the table from Mrs. Blue Hair. Dressed in my slacks and white button-down shirt. Mrs. Blue Hair was an alum and the wife of one of the university trustees. She, along with all the big donors, were meeting that weekend at Willamette, a small liberal arts college known as the Harvard of the West. As student body vice-president, I was there to welcome the trustees to campus. Everything in the room was a huge contrast to what I had known all my life. The silverware polished. The table linens white. The dining chairs cushioned. The food served to us.
Lunch was served on white plates with a gold border. Hot rolls and butter in a basket sat between Mrs.Blue Hair and me. How I wanted those rolls to be my mother’s tortillas with mantequilla. Mrs. Blue Hair took a roll from the basket. As she spread butter on her roll, I noticed her shiny, diamond ring. Her dainty, thin hands were such a contrast to my grandma’s hands which where
Lunch was served: Chicken Cordon Blue. I had never had it, but I liked it. Who doesn’t like blue cheese? Broccoli was served on the side. I immediately thought of the rows and rows and rows of broccoli fields behind my Uncle Jesse’s home in Salinas, California. I could picture all the workers hunched over boxing the broccoli when it was ready to be picked. And I wondered, if our broccoli had come from those fields? Was this broccoli picked by my mother’s neighbor back home? I could see Mrs. Gomez walking out of her apartment, with her lunch in one hand, in her long-sleeved shirt and the handkerchief wrapped around her face to keep the chemicals and sun off her caramel skin. The labor contractor’s bus for the workers stopped in front of my mother’s apartment building to pick up the workers and drive them to the fields owned by Del Monte Continued on Page 10
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I was self-conscious of my calloused earth-hands and was hoping that my hair was not so unruly that day. I managed NOT to freeze solid. I found comfort seeing my student advisor, J. Pai, at the other end of the table. She and I were the only people of color in the room. Everyone else was white, rich and very much at ease on the fifth floor of the university center that overlooked the huge, manicured lawn of the campus with a creek that ran down the yard; a creek guarded by Guido, the killer goose. I managed to chit to chat with Mrs. Blue Hair about the concerts and lecture series scheduled for the fall. She seemed pleased to hear about all the “cultural programing” for students. She was especially excited to hear about the string concerts featuring Vivaldi. “I love hearing Vivaldi in the morning over my coffee and toast,” said Mrs. Blue Hair. I thought about Ramon Ayala’s Puño de Tierra. The song I heard in the background when I spoke to my mother earlier that morning. Did Mrs. Blue Hair listen to Norteño music? Probably not.
wide, fleshy and always warm around my cheeks when she kissed me good-bye in a blessing. My Abuela’s hands were strong; able to lift 50 pound bags of frijoles just like that! The huge, gaudy diamond ring seem to weigh down Mrs. Blue Hair. I wondered, did Mrs. Blue Hair ever pray to La Virgencita? Did she know about La Virgen de Guadalupe? Probably not. She was Lutheran. I knew that for some reason. I looked out the window, I could see Guido chasing Alfonso, my classmate across the bridge over the creek. “¡Correle, Alfonso! ¡Correle!” At that moment, I realized that I was thinking in Spanish and English. I overheard Mrs. Blue Hair telling our server, who was wearing white gloves, that when dessert came, she would prefer “Earl Grey tea, not coffee.” Were servers told to wear white gloves so that rich, white people didn’t have to see brown or black hands? Suddenly, I was very conscious of my calloused wide- hands. I kept them on my lap. Mrs. Blue Hair smiled at me. So, different we were. I knew so much about her. I knew where she lived, where she was schooled, where she shopped, where she prayed. What did she know about me?
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Esperanza: 30 Years of Q Editor’s Note: In the first 10 years of the Esperanza, the LGBT community came out to the San Antonio public via the Esperanza’s programming. Esperanza eventually paid a price in 1997 with the defunding of city arts monies — however, the investment in the queer community contributed to Esperanza’s 30 years.
ELLAS, a Latina lesbian
group, that was founded in 1987 met at the Esperanza. In 1993, they began sponsorship of an annual lesbian dance, ELLAS Night Out. Pictured are Margarita Elizarde and Irene Rodriguez (deceased) at an Esperanza anniversary celebration.
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The TX Lesbian Conference
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began in Dallas in 1988 and continued each year until 2014. In 1990 the 3rd TLC co-sponsored by the Esperanza was held at the Menger Hotel in downtown San Antonio. It included a film festival screened at the Guadalupe Theater that caused a furor with over 300 calls to City Hall protesting the use of a public facility for lesbian films. The calls demanded that the Guadalupe be closed down. Pictured are panelists at a ’90 TLC workshop with Lety Gomez, Janice Pichler and María Limón.
Algunos foto The Black Experience through the Media Arts: An Evening with Marlon Riggs (now deceased) was co-sponsored
with the Guadalupe Center. It screened Ethnic Notions and Tongues Untied in 1991 on the evening War broke out in the Middle East. A vicious conservative backlash, locally and nationally, prevented the films from being screened in most PBS stations except for San Antonio where the films premiered on the local PBS affiliate, one of the few stations in the nation to screen them.
Out at the Movies, initially sponsored by The Media Project and Esperanza began in 1992. Pictured at the 4th OATM in 1995 are Vangie Griego, Dennis Poplin, Sterling Houston, Daryl Chin, Eric Deemer, Robert Karimi, Gertrude Baker, Gloria Ramirez and Graciela Sánchez (seated). OATM films would eventually be a source of the defunding of the Esperanza that happened in 1997.
SA Coalition for Racial Unity members in front of the San Antonio city hall for the Anti-KKK Rally & Cultural Celebration of 1996 (right). The poster (below) shows La Muerte who takes a Klansman away yelling, “¡Qué, qué, qué?!!!” Pictured (below left): Kate Herrington, Gloria Ramírez, Philip Ávila, Dennis Medina, Mike Rodríguez, Antonio Díaz and friend. The Queer community was present at the Anti-KKK Rally & Cultural Celebration en force with poets, performers and speakers including (right) Victoria Zapata Klein with son Paco, Jesus Alonzo, Graciela Sánchez, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Karen Whitney and Peggy Apple. The event planned with Eastside leaders had participants of all ages from throughout the city.
Queers Presentes! Part I
os y recuerdos
It’s queer to be different—queer to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, Two-Spirit, transgender, intersex or to have any “other” kind of gender or sexual identity. But in San Antonio, it’s also queer to have a progressive political voice— queer to be out as anti-war, anti-capitalist, pro-choice—queer to talk about sexism, homophobia, racism, classim and all of the other oppressions that permeate our daily lives. Our commitment to resistencia y conciencia has marked us as queer—other—different throughout our history.
The Race Plus series formalized Esperanza’s belief in connecting communities with seminars on race, class, sexuality and more. It featured, among others, (above, left to right) Loretta Ross, director of the National Center for Human Rights, Scott Nakagawa, former NGLTF Field Coordinator, Mab Segrest, author of “Race Traitor” and Barbara Smith, author. Group pictured: Gertrude Baker (deceased), Graciela Sánchez, Barbara Smith and Michael Marinez. Laura Aguilar’s photo, Sandy’s Room,
2nd floor & stairwell of La Nueva Esperanza. Pictured above are Jan Olsen and Martha Prentiss who served as disc jockey for the evening dance.
in November 1998 with Amy H. Kastely, Sharon Bridgforth, Yolanda Chávez-Leyva, Gloria Anzaldúa and Maria Elena Gaitán initiated conversations on art, culture, and politics that eventually led to the community’s decision to file a lawsuit to counter the Esperanza’s 1997 defunding by San Antonio’s City Council.
Three Poets and a Lawyer Cherríe Moraga has graced Esperanza
stages many times. In 1998 she came for a reading of Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood. Pictured are Gloria Ramirez, Graciela Sánchez, Celia Herrera Rodríguez and Cherríe.
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5
The Spring Dance of May 1997, celebrated the opening of the
stirred controversy at Engendros, an exhibit on gender and sexuality in 1996. It was the subject of derision by a columnist who called for censorship of fat women. Monica Palacios, lezbo comic, star of Greetings From A Queer Señorita (above left) was also under fire by the columnist in 1998. Astrid Haddad (above right), Lebanese Mexican cabaret singer and satirist, also a lesbian, performed at the Guadalupe theater in Heavy Nopal in 1996 co-sponsored by the Esperanza.
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Continued from Page 7
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5•
Farms, a corporate farm. In my mind, I could see the bus, waiting there at the corner with the porta potty hitched to the back. Mrs. Gomez would board the bus and work El Brocceee, as she called it. At the end of the day, Mrs. Gomez returned tired but would press on to make fideo y carnita for her three chavalitos. Her children attended school down the street. My mother would watch for them, making sure they arrived home. Did Mrs. Gomez clean and pick this broccoli for us? I wondered. Mrs. Blue Hair pushed her broccoli to the side, wrinkling her nose, saying that it had been overcooked. Something about her hand with the gaudy ring pushing the broccoli away with such disdain offended me—offended me to the core.
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It angered me, in fact. I could feel my neck getting hot and turning red. I wanted to say to her—“Do you have any idea how that piece of broccoli got to your plate?” “Do you have any idea what it takes to get broccoli to your table all served up on white plates with gold trim next to the chicken cordon blue!?!” “Do you know anything? Do you know anything at all about broccoli!?!?!?” My head was spinning with all the knowledge I had in my head. I wanted to tell Mrs. Blue Hair…
Photo: María working the broccoli fields as a girl.
Photo: María at Willamette College.
break time. I wanted to tell Mrs. Blue Hair about Mrs. Gomez and hundreds like her who walked the broccoli fields pulling and cutting out weeds every season. And that at harvest, women like Mrs. Gomez stood over a combine machine for hours and hours sorting out bad broccoli as it passed on a conveyer belt. I wanted to tell Mrs. Blue hair about the boy who lost his arm because his arm got caught on the conveyer belt. Or about the Maldonado girls who got real sick one summer after spending a day working a field where pesticides were being sprayed from a small plane over an adjoining cabbage field. I wanted to tell Mrs. Blue Hair about the 17-year-old kid, Arnulfo, de Jalisco, who came to work for my father but broke his leg after the produce truck suddenly stopped and he fell. ¡Y asi! ¡Las cajas de broccoli encima de el! All the boxes fell on top of him – his leg broken. My head was spinning, with all this knowledge. Did Mrs. Blue Hair know any of this? Did she know anything at all? Her broccoli pushed to the side, and Mrs. Blue Hair looking down her nose. I grew more offended. I wanted to tell her… “Do you realize that my mother worked in a freezer shed for hours packaging that broccoli? A freezer shed at 28 degrees! She stood for hours, packaging broccoli to be shipped to a local grocery store. Don’t push the broccoli away like that.” I wanted to tell Mrs. Blue Hair that my Tia Delia worked in a packing shed, too. She would get to work at five in the morning to take the crates off the trucks and package the broccoli for local delivery. I wanted to tell her that my Uncle David, in turn, would load broccoli onto a produce truck and drive all over the northwest delivering produce.
“Do you realize that before you can grow broccoli, you must clear a field? You must till it.” I wanted to tell her that in the spring, when a new field is being prepared, men like my father, cut down wild weeds and thick brush with machetes. Then my daddy runs the field over with a blade hitched to a tractor to cut down the field some more. Once it is all cut down and cleared, Brown men like Photo: María reading her story at the book launch of my father, with calloused hands and wide Las Nalgas de JLo at the Esperanza, April 28, 2017. backs, walk the fields picking and tossing large rocks onto a flatbed. I wanted to tell her that my Uncle Did Mrs. Blue Hair have any idea what it took to get the Nick was an Ox of a man, who still did this, even though he broccoli on her plate? was over 60 years old and all gray! All this work, all these hands to get this little broccoli on I wanted to tell Mrs. Blue Hair that my cousin, who was lean her plate, and and quick on his feet would lead a crew of 20 families to thin Mrs. Blue Hair had the audacity to push it away because out the broccoli sprouts when they started to peak. I wanted to it was a little overcooked? tell her that I could not thin broccoli sprouts for nothing! That I wanted to yell at Mrs. Blue Hair, my father grew frustrated with me when I could not grasp how “EAT YOUR DAMN BROCALLI!!!!” to space out the new sprouts with my back hoe, and that is why But I didn’t. I needed to go to college! “Mija, tienes que estudiar porque no Instead, I sat there with all this knowledge. And realized just how la vas hacer en el labor.” My father grew so frustrated with me much Mrs. Blue Hair didn’t know about me and that I knew so much. that he sent me to the truck to pass out water to the workers at
“Articulating Homeland: A Sensuous and Political Journey”
by Nadine Saliba Editor’s note: This excerpt was previously published in a full essay in Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzalduan Borderlands, edited by ire’ne lara silva and Dan Vera. An earlier version also appeared in La Voz in March 2013.
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5
semble yesterday’s. “The US-Mexico border is an open wound,” wrote Gloria Anzaldua, “where the third world grates against the first and bleeds.” Just like the olive trees in my village took me to Palestine, Palestine brought me to San Antonio, whispering its pre-colonial “I said: Where are you takname in my ear, Yanaguana. ing me? I claim San Antonio as home He said: Toward the because it is the Palestine of beginning, where you were my “new world.” Because born.” (Mahmoud DarPalestine is a metaphor for a wish) settler colonial world where The union that begat a project of erasure against me was a marriage made indigenous peoples and across borders. My Syrian cultures has been underway mother, Georgette, crossed by the “bulldozers of history” national borders into Lebasince 1492, as Palestinian poet non to wed my father NaMahmoud Darwish said. hil, a history teacher whom Chance brought me to this she never tired of teasingly city but she was waiting for reminding that Lebanon me. Revealing herself, she used to be part of Greater said, I’m not a stranger to Syria before the colonial you, you know me, you will powers of the time, France recognize me, I bear scars of Photo: Nadine ‘s mother, Georgette and Nadine with her father, Nahil. and [the not so] Great your history on my body. Britain, divided the Arab world after the first World War. And yet, that place “where you were born” doesn’t leave you. Upon getting married, my parents lived in the seaport city of It tugs at your soul like a child clinging to her mother’s dress. Tripoli, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Tripoli And perhaps like most immigrants, we try to recreate home any is endearingly referred to as al-Faihaa, the Fragrant One. It got way we can. In my family, we’ve attempted to grow a piece of it its nickname from the orange and lemon orchards surrounding in our garden where, if you come visit us in the spring, you will it, whose blossoms soak its neighborhoods during the blooming be inundated by the scents of jasmine, damascene roses and of season with a splendid smell. course, those orange blossoms. I was born to a city with a rich but burdensome history. The scent of jasmine in our backyard puts me in the garden of Tripoli was one of the victims of the new borders imposed by my father’s cousin on a hot summer night. Relatives and neighconquering powers. Cutting it off from the Syrian interior, the co- bors are visiting. Mom is there too, smoking. There must’ve been lonial map-makers wrenched it from its natural environment and no other children because I’m sitting on the marble steps, in my annexed it to Lebanon. Once a thriving economic, commercial floral dress that mama made for me, with one pretentious leg restand cultural center, it was systematically marginalized and turned ing over the other as my clog barely hangs off my toes. into the poorest city in the Mediterranean basin. Almond blossoms, on the other hand, take me to the street This is the place I was born to but separated from by war. outside our house, too narrow for pedestrians to be safe when a I was a child when my father, fearing sectarian strife after the car whizzes by. It’s a chilly early morning on a spring day. I am outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, decided to leave Tripoli and waiting for my daily ride to school but, today, I can smell the framove back to his village in al-Koura, an area famous for its large grance of almond blossoms in the priest’s garden. It doesn’t last swaths of uninterrupted olive groves. long at all, may be a week or two. I’ve never smelled something I did not know then that the olive trees that populated my so beautiful since. childhood and adolescent years with their seasons and rituals bore Bio: Nadine was born and raised in my visceral and spiritual connection to Palestine even before the Lebanon and immigrated to San Antonio Palestinian struggle entered my political consciousness. in 1993. She has a B.A. from University of It did not take me long after arriving in San Antonio to realize Texas at San Antonio and an MA from the that I left one borderland for another. After all, the city bears in University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the Alamo the marker of a border imposed by conquering powboth in Political Science. Nadine read this story at the Book Launch of Las Nalgas de ers. Place is emotion and every geography in my atlas has been JLo on April 28 at Esperanza. a source of pain. How closely does today’s bleeding border re-
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—A Father’s Day tribute
Bailando con los ojos —a short essay on my father and on dancing
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5•
By ire’ne lara silva
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and house parties and clubs. Danced in taquerias and outside taco shacks. Danced alone and with others. Danced late and early, sober My father was not a good man, and except for and drunk. After 27, the last time I tore the a phone call a few months before he died, I ligaments in my knee, I poured myself into didn’t speak to him the last four years of his writing and away from drinking and clubbing. life. When he died, it was a heavy burden off The last great dance I remember was with my soul. I don’t know how much happiness my friend Erin almost ten years ago—though my mother found at his side. I do know none I spent half that dance remembering how to of my siblings escaped unscathed, though I dance. The last ten years have had more pain think my brother Moises, being dark-skinned and exhaustion than dancing. and gay and the youngest, received the brunt The last fifteen years or so of his life, of it. between diabetes and arthritis, my father went But the best of what my father was lived from dancing all night to resting longer and on the dance floor. He knew how to jitterbug longer between dances until it got to the point and mambo, knew cumbias and polkas and that he couldn’t make it through an entire huapangos. I was eight the first time I undersong. And then, eventually, he couldn’t make stood what he could do. The first beats of a it to the dance floor at all. But he would say, huapango started and he was off and running “Estoy bailando con mis ojos.” (I’m dancing and the irrepressible stamping of his feet lifted with my eyes.) And he would tap his fingers to every person in that church hall off their feet the beat and watch the dancers dance. And he and on to the floor. He led them all. And the ire’ne’s parents, Eduarda Lara Silva and would remember favorite dances and favorite Guadalupe V. Silva, Jr. floors and the walls and the roof shook with partners and all the nights he’d ever danced. every beat and it was glorious. The best of what Which makes me think of what I’d always thought of as a he was, he was when he was dancing, skill and talent married to dicho but is actually a quote from Gabriel García Márquez: Lo passion and a complete lack of self-consciousness. bailado nadie te lo quita. (No one can take away what you’ve My father didn’t teach me how to dance—I don’t know if he thought I wouldn’t have any aptitude for it or if he thought no one danced.) And in this last decade, I’ve lived in my memories of past dances and often danced with my eyes. Though lately, I think would ever ask me. He often predicted that I’d grow up to be fat I might almost be strong enough again to hit the floor. and unsuccessful and due to my stubbornness, married to a man A few years ago, I was surprised by what I wrote during a who’d beat me. 3-minute free-write. Something about my father’s amputated feet I learned how to dance from some very friendly Latinos my stamping a huapango in their black boots in the afterlife. And freshman year in college. Though I never could get salsa quite how when he died, he went to reclaim them. I don’t believe we right, substituting a modified cumbia step. And samba remained elusive even though one of my favorite songs in this life is Sergio remain who we were when we die. I think our energy rejoins the universal creative energy. I hope that what was violent and abuMendes’ “Magalenha.” sive in my father was laid to rest when he died, and that the best I tore up dance floors from one coast to another from age 18 of him, the part that danced, flowed back into the universe. to 27. Danced barefoot on the earth. Danced in reception halls
New Anthology Release from
Aunt Lute Books! Award-winning poets ire’ne lara silva and Dan Vera have assembled the work of 54 writers who reflect on the complex terrain—the deeply felt psychic, social, and geopolitical—borderlands that Gloria Anzaldúa inhabited, theorized, explored, and invented. Visit auntlute.com for your copy of Imaniman!
ire’ne lara silva, author of Bailando and an editor of Imaniman
Giomara Bazaldúa, dancer & fire-eater Children from J.T. Brackenrdige Elementary singing, directed by Adriana Netro Joaquina La Arlekina (aka Cristal González), emcee, dancing with Don Enrique Sánchez
Children at Paseo enjoyed a variety of activities including making tortillitas.
The 2017 Paseo, Carpa Esperanza, was a success because of YOU! ¡Gracias!
Don Serafin Álvarez Sánchez enjoys the show at Paseo
Juan Díaz assists Gloria Hernández at the aguas frescas
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5
Josie Merla Martin with Tomás Ybarra Frausto
13 Cristal González was emcee for Paseo performances
People’s Power Coalition meets last Thursdays | 210.878.6751
Bexar Co. Green Party: Call 210. 471.1791 or bcgp@bexargreens.org
PFLAG, meets 1st Thurs. @ 7pm, University Presbyterian Church 300 Bushnell Ave. | 210.848.7407.
* community meetings *
Amnesty International #127 For info. call Arthur @ 210.213.5919.
Celebration Circle meets Sun., 11am @ Say Sí, 1518 S. Alamo. Meditation: Weds @7:30pm, Friends Meeting House, 7052 Vandiver. 210.533.6767. DIGNITY SA Mass, 5:30pm, Sun. @ St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1018 E. Grayson St | 210.340.2230 Adult Wellness Support Group of PRIDE Center meets 4th Mon., 7-9 pm @ Lions Field, 2809 Broadway. Call 210.213.5919. Energía Mía: (512) 838-3351 Fuerza Unida, 710 New Laredo Hwy. www.lafuerzaunida.org | 210.927.2294 Habitat for Humanity meets 1st Tues. for volunteers, 6pm, HFHSA Office @ 311 Probandt. LGBTQ LULAC Council #22198 meets 3rd Thursdays @ 6:45pm @ Luby’s on Main. E-mail: info@ lulac22198.org
NOW SA Chapter meets 3rd Wed’s. For time and location check FB/satx.now | 210. 802.9068 | nowsaareachapter@ gmail.com
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5•
Pax Christi, SA meets monthly on Saturdays. Call 210.460.8448
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Parents of Murdered Children, meets 2nd Mondays @ Balcones Heights Community Ctr, 107 Glenarm | www. pomcsanantonio.org. Rape Crisis Center 7500 US Hwy 90W. Hotline: 210.349.7273 | 210.521.7273 Email: sgabriel@ rapecrisis.com The Religious Society of Friends meets Sunday @10am @ The Friends Meeting House, 7052 N. Vandiver. | 210.945.8456. S.A. Gender Association meets 1st & 3rd Thursday, 6-9pm @ 611 E. Myrtle, Metropolitan Community Church. SA AIDS Fdn 818 E. Grayson St. offers free Syphilis & HIV testing | 210.225.4715 | www.txsaaf.org. SA Women Will March: www. sawomenwillmarch.org|(830) 488-7493 SGI-USA LGBT Buddhists meet 2nd Sat. at 10am @ 7142 San Pedro Ave., Ste 117 | 210.653.7755. Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Tues. 7pm & Sun. 9:30am 257 E. Hildebrand Ave. | 210.222.9303.
Proyecto Hospitalidad Liturgy meets Thurs. 7pm, 325 Courtland.
S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). Contact Barbara at 210.725.8329.
Metropolitan Community Church services & Sunday school @10:30am, 611 East Myrtle. Call 210.472.3597
Voice for Animals: 210.737.3138 or www.voiceforanimals.org
Overeaters Anonymous meets MWF in Spanish & daily in English | www. oasanantonio.org | 210.492.5400.
SA’s LGBTQA Youth meets Tues., 6:30pm at Univ. Presby. Church, 300 Bushnell Ave. | www.fiesta-youth.org
Be Part of a
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¡Todos Somos Esperanza! Start your monthly donations now! Esperanza works to bring awareness and action on issues relevant to our communities. With our vision for social, environmental, economic and gender justice, Esperanza centers the voices and experiences of the poor & working class, women, queer people and people of color. We hold pláticas and workshops; organize political actions; present exhibits and performances and document and preserve our cultural histories. We consistently challenge City Council and the corporate powers of the city on issues of development, low-wage jobs, gentrification, clean energy and more. It takes all of us to keep the Esperanza going. What would it take for YOU to become a monthly donor? Call or come by the Esperanza to learn how.
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Brief news items on upcoming community events. Send items for Notas y Más to: lavoz@esperanzacenter.org or mail to: 922 San Pedro, San Antonio, TX 78212. The deadline is the 8th of each month.
June 2017
content knowledge and pedagogical skills regarding Mexican American Studies. It will be held at UTSA’s Institute of Texan Cultures (801 East Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78205). Contact: mas. ssacademy@gmail or call 210.458.2675. Ángel Rodríguez-Díaz: A RetrospecProfessional development hours/credit will tive, 1982-2014 presented by City of San be offered. See education.utsa.edu/mas/soAntonio Dept. of Arts & Culture continues cial_studies_teachers_academy/ at Centro de Artes until June 11th. It is the A Compassion Vigil sponsored by the largest and the widest-ranging exhibit ever devoted to Ángel Rodríguez-Díaz (b. 1955), peaceCENTER and the Interfaith Welcome Coalition takes place on 4th Thursa Puerto Rican native whose great portraits days from 6-7pm in front of San Fernando engage in social commentary. Centro de Cathedral. Next dates are June 22 and July Artes at 101 S. Santa Rosa is next to Mar27. Contact them on facebook. ket Square. Call 210-207-1435. Free! Be sure to take advantage of H-E-B Free Tuesdays at SAMA, the San Antonio Museum of Art from 4-9pm. For current exhibits and events check samuseum.org/ or call 210.978.8100.
e u n B a s G a ent i c a
G
Thanks to all who donated May 4th for the Big Give SA!
We were touched by your sentiments telling us why Esperanza is important to you and our community!
You helped us win $4,000: • 2nd place for most donors in Arts & Culture • 3rd place for Social justice • 4th place for Community Advocacy!
Your generosity has made 30 years of women centered, people of color, LGBTQIA+, working class programs and activism possible. Your continued support will keep us going for 30 more years!
We reached our goal of
$15,458!
Galería E.V.A. Summer Program June 12 through August 11, 2017
Playing & Learning for Kids Artistic expressions through play Age groups 6-8 years, 9-11 years, 12-14 years
www.centrogaleriaeva.com
Full-time — (5 days, 7 hours) with breakfast and lunch Part-time — (5 days, 3.5 hours) includes breakfast only
Clay workshops for Adults— Every Weekend Clay Sculpting and Painting from the utilitarian to the artistic Friday 6-9pm, Saturday 4-7pm and Sunday (Family Day) 12-3pm
Call 210-503-5663 or email verozteca@yahoo,com.mx to register Galería E.V.A (Ecos y Voces del Arte ) 3412 S. Flores St. San Antonio, Tx 78204
LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5
The Mexican American Studies Program at UTSA invites schools to participate in our 2017 MAS Social Studies Teachers’ Academy June 19 to 23. The Academy engages teachers in intellectually oriented readings, workshops, and discussions to increase
r
!
La Villita will also host the San Benito High School Flamenco dance troupe from McAllen, TX on June 9: 2:30pm - 3:30pm (Fri) at the Arneson River Theater. Free! Call 210-207-8614.
Latino Heritage is the theme for the 2017 Fall Semester (September thru December 2017) ACHP-SI Cultural Heri-
Geminiink will sponsor a Writers Conference on July 21 @ 8am to July 23@ 5pm at 1111 Navarro St. Call conference organizer, Alexandra van de Kamp, at 210.734.9673 or go to: geminiink.org/writers-conference/ for more.
e!
Tejano Thursdays from June 1 - September 28, is sponsored by Univision at La Villita. Come enjoy great Tejano music this summer with KXTN 107.5 in Maverick Plaza. June dates are June 1, 15, and 29. Gates open at 5 pm. FREE! Check events at getcreativesanantonio.com
tage Fellowship, a joint experience with the Smithsonian Institution and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. As defined by UNESCO—cultural heritage is more than monuments and collections of objects, it also includes traditions or living expression inherited from our ancestors and passed on to descendents. Grants Deadline: July 15, @ 11:59pm EDT See: www. smithsonianofi.com/chp-fellowship/
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LA VOZ de ESPERANZA • June 2017 Vol. 30 Issue 5
Sun June 25 @ 4 pm
Cantinflas
#queergrito
<title>
Homage to Latin America’s most loved comic actor. The man Charlie Chaplin called “The world’s greatest comedian.
NocheAzul This Summer Admission $7 más o menos
Doors open 45 min. before program starts.
<title>
A CRY OF>BY>FOR THE TIMES BY LGBTQ+ ARTISTS/CULTURAL WORKERS
EXHIBIT Opening Reception 6PM — Saturday, June 10, 2017 Esperanza, 922 San Pedro Ave., San Antonio, TX 78212 Esperanza Peace & Justice Center
922 San Pedro San Antonio TX 78212 210.228.0201 • www.esperanzacenter.org
Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID San Antonio, TX Permit #332
Haven’t opened La Voz in a while? Prefer to read it online? Wrong address? TO CANCEL A SUBSCRIPTION EMAIL lavoz@esperanzacenter.org CALL: 210.228.0201
July 2017 marks Frida’s 110th birthday. We will be honoring her with Tangos
Frida
& songs written by Aaron Prado & Azul in this event!
July 15 & 16 • Sat 8 pm & Sun 4 pm
Esperanza’s 30th Year Celebration! Coming August 12, 2017!
SAVE TH
Come and celebrate one of San Antonio’s cultural treasures!
E DATE!
n-American Recipes for Health a c i x e and H sed M a B eali tn ng a Pl
Call 210-228-0201 • Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, 922 San Pedro, SA TX • www.esperanzacenter.org