Año 2/Vol. 1 LA TOLTECA Autumn Equinox 2012 Issue

Promoting the advancement of a world without borders and censorship

FREE

LA TOLTECA

Interview with Rudolfo Anaya * Bless Me, Última: The Movie

and more on El Padrino of Chicano Literature *

Shakespeare BANNED in Arizona! *

The Struggle for Higher Education for undocumented students continues * Workshopistas’ Workshopistas’ Pallette

La Tolteca First Best Photo Contest! Details

. Inside......

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PICTURE HERE

EDITOR AND PUBLIHER PUBLIHER

Ana Castillo Managing Editor: Editor: Samuel S. DuBois

Contributors: Contributors: Curtis Acosta Marcelo Marcelo Castillo Christina Gutiérrez Gutiérrez Yvani Flores Paul McClennan Cemelli de Azlan

Proofreaders: Juan Carlos Hernández Janine Stubbs

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CONTENTS DEPARTMENTS 4 Ana Castillo’s Page 54 Letters to the Editor 55 Announcements photo contest /workshops ESSAYS & REVIEWS 6 Why Shakespeare is banned for Chican@s in Tucson Curtis Acosta 13 La Lucha Continua: The Struggle to Pass the Dream Act Paul McLennan 25 Going Home: Home: Randy Lopez Goes Home Marcelo Castillo 28 Curandera’s Alter at the Film Release of Bless Me Ultima Cemille de Azlan INTERVIEW 18 Interview with with Rudolfo Rudolfo Anaya Cristina Gutiérrez and La Tolteca WORKSHOPISTAS’ ORKSHOPISTAS’ PALETTE 36 Nothing New Adrianna Herrera Amparán 43 In Her Image Laura Manning 46 Modern Curanderismo Patricia Padilla 48 Moving Margins from Humboldt Park to the Desert Floor

Yovani Flores 3

LA TOLTECA welcomes writing from anyone who has participated in a workshop or class with Ana Castillo. Submissions may be in any genre or artistic medium. We also welcome new books to review: Castillo/P.O.B./Anthony, NM 88021/U.S.A. If you would like to send a donation to be attributed toward payment to new writing contributors—how miniscule it may be—please send check to Ana Castillo at the same address. Indicate what it is for or go to your Paypal account and do the same at: sales@anacastillo.com. 4 times a year!

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Dear La Tolteca Readers: La Tolteca starts its third year with the current issue. In our endeavors to keep this on-line effort going we are pleased to announce the first Best Photo Contest. Please submit your favorite snapshots and masterpieces. We are equally pleased to showcase, in this labor of love produced quarterly, exclusive interviews with distinguished writers and artists, reflective reviews of new and the not-so-new original essays, photography, new works and the writings of individuals who’ve attended my classes whom we affectionately call, Workshopistas. While as a Latina who makes her home in the Southwest of the United States, we often include these perspectives as La Tolteca embraces the arts and literature of all peoples.

In this issue we are proud to showcase master New Mexican story teller, Rudolfo Anaya whose classic, Bless Me, Ăšltima has just premiered in film. The story tells of an old curandera who, passes on her traditions to the young protagonist. La Tolteca brings here to its readers the views of a modern curandera 5

from the region as well as a review of the film by a social activist and divinity scholar. The legacy of Última continues.

December 12th is the Feast Day of the Mexican beloved saint, Our Lady of Guadalupe who is remembered and given thanks to in these pages.

We continue to observe the ongoing attack on Mexican and indigenous literature in Arizona and literature overall in an essay on the banning of Shakespeare in the Tucson Unified School District and the ongoing struggle for higher education for undocumented students who came to the U.S. with their migrant worker parents as children. It is an election year and this large ethnic demographic awaits expectantly for a response from Washington and state governments to acknowledge the contribution of Mexican labor to the building and sustaining of the country’s economy.

In our forthcoming issue, Writers on Stage, we will turn our attention to the theater as a venue for the playwright, comic, poet, scholar and hip hop performer.

We pay tribute to the artist Jean Michel Basquiat. We are excited to bring to our growing readership in the same issue with an exclusive interview with the Mexican poet for peace and justice Javier Sicilia Álvarez by Rubén Martínez. As always, the zine features new writings by workshopistas and we will announce the winners of what is sure to be a splendid photo competition. (Don’t be shy. Send us your digital creative endeavors.) Finally, we will also observe the meaning of the ‘End of the World’ according to the ancient Mayas and the stars. As La Tolteca dedicates its focus on breaking down communication barriers we do not limit ourselves to the planet which we inhabit.

Have a healthy and lovely autumn season. Thank you for reading La Tolteca. Our gift to you. Please subscribe to let us know you have enjoyed it.

Ana Castillo 6

Letter to La Tolteca ---------------------------------"No pude parar de leer hasta la ultima pagina! Yo solo soy un humilde lector que por divina gracia tuve maestros que me inspiraron a leer y a comprender lo que leo. Es impresionante la labor de Ana Castillo y de su equipo para ofrecernos tan fabuloso manjar. I will keep reading..... Y me quito el sombrero" Carlos Martinez, Graduate UPR

Yoli Mora 2012Š USA 7

Shakespeare is banned for Chican@s in Tucson Curtis Acosta

It was January 11, 2011, not even a full twenty-four hours after the Tucson Unified School District had voted to dismantle our Mexican American Studies classes in the wake of threats from state officials in Arizona to withhold millions of dollars in funding. I was sitting in the conference room adjacent to the principal’s office with Dr. Abel Morado and Assistant Principal David Mandel and a few colleagues. It’s called the Badger Room. Fans of symbolism may get a kick out of that.

Our administrators were conducting a meeting about the restrictions to our curriculum due to the actions of the governing board. At this point, the academic tragedy was still fresh and the conversation was more human than it eventually became as the meetings, threats and prohibitions would later be conveyed in a highly dictatorial and hierarchical manner. I knew that I would need to address the issue of The Tempest by William Shakespeare since it was the unit that I was about to start and I knew with the parameters that were being set by TUSD, that Wild Bill Shakespeare was about to get this vato teacher in trouble.

Earlier in the meeting we were told to avoid any academic unit that focused upon “race, class, or oppression” by Mr. Mandel. (For those familiar with The Tempest, you already know what a tough spot I was in, since one of the major themes of the play is the colonization of the Americas.) When I asked for clarity in 8

regard to the new parameters (which only affected former Mexican American Studies teachers and their classes,), I was told the following by Assistant Superintendent Morado: “I think you should throw it out… Once you begin to describe the natives and…delve into issues that are going to be from a critical race theory perspective, that’s when you’re not in that safe harbor, so to speak.”

Dr. Ronald Takaki’s benchmark work of American history, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, brought a new relevance to the play as a lens to discuss historical and contemporary issues of race and oppression in America. In that chapter, Takaki uses the play to illuminate the imperialistic notions and the attitudes toward race held by English colonizers. Time is where The Tempest can be fascinating. In Takaki’s own words: “Moreover, the timing of that first performance of The Tempest is crucial: It came after the English invasion of Ireland but before the colonization of New England, after Jon Smith’s arrival in Virginia, but before the beginning of tobacco economy, and after the first contacts with Indians but before full-scale warfare against them.”

[Takaki, 1993, p. 26] Thus, the greatest playwright of the English language wrote a play at one of the most pivotal moments in modern world history. The play was about the issues of colonization, race, slavery, gender, revenge, love, and forgiveness. These are themes that have engulfed our history in the United States and are as applicable to youth today as they have been for generations.

In our Mexican American Studies classes, we embraced indigenous principles and knowledge, which helped build a sense of a common humanity with our ancestors. Our youth has a healthy respect toward their elders and indigenous roots and heritage, and our classes helped cultivate this connection to the past, as 9

well as the cultural knowledge alive today. While analyzing Shakespeare was a daunting task that intimidated many of my students, it was this context and classroom climate that made reading The Tempest applicable to their lives. By reading Takaki’s work students understood the importance of the time period and were then intrigued to experience the perspectives and worldview of an Englishman who was a contemporary of those that landed on Plymouth Rock. So, what sayeth the bard?

Picasso said that great artists create, but geniuses steal. For those intimate with the work of Shakespeare, there are few geniuses that might fit the criteria better. Shakespeare’s catalogue of work is littered with stolen plots, stories, and histories. Much like hip-hop artists of today, he liked to sample. He always made the original better. This is why The Tempest is such an anomaly. It is one of the only plays, arguably his last work, in which he tackles the actual issues of his time and he had much to say.

For the English, and the rest of Europe for that matter, learning about the existence of a continent of bronze inhabitants must have been like hearing of spaceships landing on our high school campus. There had to be no other story more captivating in the pubs of London than the story of the Americas. Shakespeare’s insight is an astounding window into that period and hearing of the perspectives of this “brave new world, / That has such people in’t!”

Many Shakespeare scholars, including Takaki, have examined The Tempest through the lens of race. The character of Caliban, one of the natives on the island where the play takes place, is referred to as a monster by the European characters that are shipwrecked on the isle. The name of Caliban himself is believed to have been a rearranged version of the word cannibal. It was a bit of word play that 10

Shakespeare often liked to do with the names of his characters. It is often cited that Caliban was libidinous and savage by Shakespearean scholars and there is some validity to those claims. In Act I scene ii, there is a reference by the main character Prospero, the former Duke of Milan who has taken control of the island, that Caliban attempted to rape or sexually defile his daughter Miranda. Caliban responds to the accusation from the man that has enslaved him, by saying, “O ho, O ho! Would’t had been done! Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else this isle with Calibans.”

Further along in the play, a court jester named Trinculo describes Caliban as dark and strange, and cannot distinguish if he is a man or fish. He eventually settles upon the latter due to Caliban possessing an “ancient and fishlike smell.” However, it is later in the same monologue where Shakespeare provides a view into how the “discovery” of the Americas may be perceived by typical folks in London. …A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lazy out ten to see a dead Indian.

In a humorous moment, Shakespeare offers keen insight to how his contemporaries viewed the Americas and offers a comical critique of his own countrymen through the voice of his Italian character. After all, “any strange beast there makes a man.” According to Shakespeare, the new world provided an opportunity for profit and capital gain, since the English were ravenous for information and experience about the mystery of the Americas. Perhaps this is Shakespeare critiquing the motives and direction of English imperialism, since Trinculo is written as a fool and comic relief.

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Shakespeare’s choices are even more interesting later in the play when arguably the most poetic and beautiful monologue in The Tempest is given to the “savage” and “monstrous” native. In an ill-conceived and doomed plot to take back control of the island from Prospero with his newfound Italian partners, Caliban aims to calm their fears after hearing mysterious and magical noises in the air.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.

My students and I always find this section of the play fascinating. Why would Shakespeare give such a wondrous voice to Caliban if he only wanted to present him as a monster? Only the natives in his own land can recognize the beauty and his poetic expression emphasize his humanity regardless of the labels given to him by the European colonizers. In this scene, Shakespeare empowers Caliban by not only showing a lack of fear, while Trinculo and Stephano cower in comparison, but also brilliantly expressing the qualities of a romantic dreamer. It is the same expression and love that can be found by the cholo in his barrio, the farmer in her fields, or the vaquero on his rancho: Pure love for what is home.

It would be impossible to encapsulate here the other passages of The Tempest that contained such mystery and charm for my students. I can write pages focusing on student reactions, for example, how Shakespeare’s play foreshadow 12

the house slave-field slave dynamic that would play out in American history with the relationship of Ariel and Caliban, As an undergraduate I was fortunate enough to study in London, England.

While I was there I experienced an amazing production of the The Tempest directed by Sam Mendes in 1993 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford.

Mendes had Ariel spit in Prospero’s face upon the announcement that he was now free. It was a violent departure from most productions where Ariel is thankful to his master while he laughs and dances his way off stage.

At the conclusion of The Tempest the Europeans head home to Italy, apparently abandoning any idea of colonization.

This is what made The Tempest such a gorgeous fit for our Mexican American Studies classes. We embraced the theory of critical pedagogy, that is, inquiry based learning where we would analyze and examine human and institutional power dynamics. With that as the foundation, we never wavered in our focus, responsibility, and quest to create a more just, liberated and free world for all human beings. Who knows what Shakespeare really believed about race, colonization, and oppression, but he left us a powerful work to ask our own questions and examine our own beliefs.

This is why on that day in January I challenged the administrators of our school district to protect our classes, and the type of intense and critical study of texts that we provided. There was no better example than The Tempest to articulate the absurdity of the law that was being levied against our classes and our students.

And this is why my colleagues and I filed suit against the state of Arizona by disputing the constitutionality of the law in federal court. We are still optimistic 13

that the judge will rule our way, and have been brutally disappointed that the educational leaders in TUSD refused to act with like courage. We should never be afraid to investigate themes such as race, class, or oppression in our public schools.

After all, this is America.

One day, I truly believe, Chican@s will be able to think and study freely in our classes again. Until then‌la lucha sigue y Viva Guillermo Shakespeare!

References: Takaki, R. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Boston: Back Bay Books.

Shakespeare, W. (1994). The tempest. New York: Washington Square Press.

Curtis Acosta and La Tolteca Š 2012/USA

Curtis Acosta teaches at Tucson High School and is doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona.

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La Lucha Continua: The Struggle to Pass the Dream Act Paul McLennan

On August 15th, a major step toward implementing the DREAM (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act went into effect which allows undocumented immigrants to work and learn in this county if they meet certain qualifications. Under President Obama’s plan, they will be immune from deportation if they were brought to the United States before age 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from high school or earned a GED, or served in the military. They can also apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed.

The DREAM Act was first introduced as a legislative proposal in the U.S. Senate on August 1, 2001. Its intent was to provide conditional permanent residency for those meeting similar requirements as under Obama’s directive. The major difference is this new policy does not include a path to legal status or citizenship. It is a a policy that could be easily reversed if Obama is not re-elected.

Arizona and Georgia are two states where reactionary state governments have passed punitive legislation which denies certains rights to the undocumented.

Arizona took the lead in passing SB 1070 which was signed by the governor on 15

April 23, 2010. The bill made it a state misdemeanor crime for an undocumented person to be in Arizona without carrying required documents, required that state law enforcement officers attempt to determine someone’s immigration status during a lawful stop, arrest, or “lawful contact” not specific to any activity. The law barred state or local officials or agencies from restricting enforcement of federal immigration laws and imposed penalties on those sheltering, hiring, or transporting the undocumented.

The day before the law was to take effect, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that blocked many provisions in the law. In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the legal challenges to SB 1070 and upheld the provision requiring immigration status checks during law enforcement stops but struck down other provisions as violations of the federal government’s authority over states.

This law has arguably led to racial profiling which is defined by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as “the discriminatory

Yoli Mora 2012© USA

practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.”

In April of 2011, the governor of Georgia signed an “Arizona-style” immigration bill into law. In a similar way, the new law empowered police to check status, required employer verifications to confirm newly hired employees are eligible to work in the U.S, and penalizes people who transport or take in undocumented persons. On behalf of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the ACLU, the National Immigration Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit challenging the law on June 8, 2011. On June 27, a federal judge again issued an injunction temporarily blocking key provisions of the law just before it was to take effect.

However, racial profiling language, the employer new hire provisions, and requirement that anyone receiving public benefits provide a “verifiable” ID 16

document remained. When the Georgia legislature met again in January of 2012, they weren’t finished with their right-wing, anti-immigrant efforts. HB 59 was introduced with the intent of requiring the 35 public universities in Georgia to conduct citizenship verification for all students. Previously, undocumented students could attend if they were willing to pay out-of-state tuition. This new bill would have expanded a ban already in place barring undocumented students from enrolling in Georgia’s top 5 most competitive public colleges.

Commenting in January about the proposed law, undocumented student Georgina Pérez told the local CBS station, “We’ve been affected with HB 87 and this is just a complete insult. We already have to pay out-of-state tuition; we are already banned from the top 5 universities. There is no need for HB 59.” The courage and fearlessness of Georgia’s immigrant students to come out as “undocumented and unafraid” put them on the front lines of the struggle against both of these these anti-immigrant pieces of legislation. Throughout January and February of 2012, students attended the House Higher Education committee meetings on the legislation; rallied at the state Capitol; gave public testimony by telling their individual stories at Georgia State University; and engaged in civil disobedience. A student ally, Ben Williams, Georgia State vice president of Student Life said, “This [legislation] is racist. This is segregation of the University System. It’s saying that you’re not worthy and we’re not going to validate you.”

In support of the students, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) organized phone calls to legislators to say that HB 59 was against the principles of human rights. “All children who attend K-12 in Georgia should have the right to apply to study at the post-secondary level in our state. Please do not let Georgia become a place where hatred motivates and sustains irrational and harmful legislation.” It took a coalition of labor, other community groups, and, 17

most importantly, the students themselves to build a powerful movement. As a result, HB 59 was not passed as the legislature ended its session in March.

In the passing of the Arizona-type legislation in 2011, Georgia continued its long history of racist and segregationist practices. As in the past with slavery, the immigrant community in Georgia is used as a source of cheap labor, especially in agriculture. They are treated as second-class citizens and denied their human rights. Just as African-American students played a leading role in the civil rights movement that dismantled Southern apartheid, these Latino students are leading the way toward a more democratic society by their uncompromising struggle to secure their right to an education. The battle to pass the DREAM Act is not over and will continue to need the grassroots organizing and direct action that proved successful in the defeat of Georgia’s HB 59.

Paul McLennanŠ2012/USA

Paul McLennan is a social activist in the State of Georgia.

_____________________________________ Paul McLennan (Workshopista 2009, Chicago) He is a contributor to La Tolteca.

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Yoli Mora 2012Š USA

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- It Came to me In a Vision – Advice to Young Writers

Interview with Rodolfo Anaya This past summer Rudolfo Anaya agreed to give LA TOLTECA an interview. Mr. Anaya is the assiduous author of novels, a detective series, children’s stories, poetry, play and essayss, According to Wkipedia he is considered to be among the founders of contemporary Chicano literature. The following is the email exchange between workshopista Christina Gutiérrez (with Ana Castillo).and the author who corresponded from his home in Albuquerque.

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LA TOLTECA: The film adaptation of Bless Me, Ultima is scheduled for release by Arenas Entertainment in El Paso, Texas, on September 17, 2012. According to reports, you served as consultant to the film and received a private viewing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sources say you are very pleased with the film adaptation of your novel. Can you elaborate on the experience of watching the characters of Bless Me, Ultima brought to life on the big screen?

Rudolfo Anaya: I did read the Bless Me, Ultima scripts and Carl Franklin, the director, was kind enough to ask my advice on some points. I did not help write the screenplay. Carl did that and his vision of rendering the novel on to the screen is excellent. I did see the movie here in Burque at a private screening. I am extremely pleased with the movie. It is excellent! Every single soul who saw it came out praising the movie. Great direction and great acting.

Of course the entire novel and all its themes cannot be translated into a two-hour movie, but the bigger than life characters, landscape, the trajectory of the story, and everything else works. I'm happy.

LT: Can you elaborate ways your writing has developed or changed over the years from your earliest work of fiction, Bless Me, Ultima, to your most recent novel, Randy Lopez Goes Home?

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RA: My themes have not changed that much in my writing over the past 50 or 60 years.. Remember, I was writing a lot of stuff before BMU. I have always experimented with style, so a straight forward narrative changes by the time I write Randy Lopez Goes Home. (2009-2011). There are few allegories in Chicano/a literature. Randy Lopez is a first, the style is different, but in many ways it has been called a bookend to Bless Me, Ultima. I like that.

LT: What do you hope readers

“Souls in the world of spirits don't want to be forgotten. So we remember them, pray to them, and in my case, I write about them.”

take away from Randy Lopez Goes Home?

RA: That every life has a purpose and somehow that purpose serves the living long after we are gone.

LT: At the end of Randy Lopez Goes Home, you discuss briefly the moment when the vision of Randy Lopez came to you in “A Note to the Reader: How Randy Lopez Came to Me”? Will you elaborate further on your inspiration for this most recent novel of yours, the last in a lengthy career spanning four decades?

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RA: Randy Lopez came to me in a vision. All my major characters have appeared to me and asked that I tell their story. Souls in the world of spirits don't want to be forgotten. So we remember them, pray to them, and in my case, I write about them. The Randy Lopez vision was so powerful and clear it’s probably why the novel succeeds. Characters like people have spirits, every story we write must also be imbued with soul. That's just me.

LT: In “A Note to the Reader: How Randy Lopez Came to Me,” you write that you’re currently working on “a series of stories in which the grieving soul communicates with the departed soul.” Our condolences on the loss of your wife. Will you share what you have learned or discovered as a result of exploring the communication between grieving and departed souls?

RA: I just finished the novel, The Old Man’s Love Story. It is a story that deals with grief, love, memory, and arriving at a philosophy of life. What do I believe? You have to read the novel. It is complex, yet simple. Serious, yet funny. As an old man I am that way, the serious philosopher who hasn't forgotten how to laugh at myself as did my viejitos, of whom I am one now. ¡Vivan los viejitos y viejitas! (Want to rumble?)

LT: In better understanding your last novel,( Randy and maybe the new one to come), will you address how you are using your writing to connect with Patricia, your deceased wife, who was the long time #1 supporter of your production of work? (How many years?) Rudy, do you think that as a writer ages he turns to writing about (his) mortality?

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“I'm suggesting my influence did not come all at once; it has been an evolutionary adventure.

Kind of like life itself.”

RA: Sí. Our thoughts & memories turn to-- como dicen los del norte: Cuando se acaba la cuerda (the spring winds down). Pat and I are married for the last 46 years...aunque se fue todavia sigemos un par. I think there is a lot of "philosophy" of life in RANDY LOPEZ GOES HOME...which is why I hope young readers read it and don't waste their time being foolish, but get a true purpose in life. The new novel goes deeper in my view of love, grief and memory.

LT: Would you tell our young, aspiring writers how your writing process has changed throughout your writing career?

RA: Every writer has ups and downs and changes in style. My wife said my novel Tortuga was one of my best, ie., somehow not only the story but the style reached a high point. I mean soul/anima really got into the writing. I feel the same about the most recent Randy Lopez Goes Home. I just keep writing. Each story seems to dictate style. Keep writing and exploring, and remember, if you can't write better than a telenovela then get a day job, or write telenovelas. One can even study the elements of fiction writing in the teles. Explore!

LT: Is it possible for you to name for us the book(s) and/or author(s) that have influenced you most? And if so, why?

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RA: I guess I don't have a favorite book. The authors I studied as an undergrad and later a grad student in English and American literature all influenced me. I especially read the Romantics, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, later poets like Dylan Thomas, Eliot, the American novelists, especially Thomas Wolfe, much later the contemporary American writers and into multi-ethnic, multi-cultural literature. I'm suggesting my influence did not come all at once; it has been an evolutionary adventure. Kind of like life itself. I know some of our contemporary (read: younger) writers read Garcia-Marquez and say, "That's the only way to write." To be truthful I didn't read the Latin American honda until much later. They are fantastic writers, to be sure, but that wasn't my narrative stream. I came from the gente’s oral tradition, cuentos, the magic of the old people telling stories, stories of brujas, la Llorona, El Cucui, the stuggles of la gente just making a living, when in middle school--comic books, the plots and characters of Saturday matinees, and my llano and Pecos River Valley landscape that also shaped my imagination, My adventure has been listening to a variety of voices but most of all falling love with reading. Yes, love. Passion. Once in love I knew I ,too, could write stories. Same love I felt for my wife, Patricia. Love for familia, community, justice, the poor children of the world... Too many experiences to list. Life is organic and it evolves. [My advice is] read any literature, but read. Read world folklore and myths to understand universal human themes. Be involved in community and making a better world.

LT: You are a prolific writer and have written in multiple genres, including novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and plays. Do you have a favorite genre in which you write?

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RA: Novels are really what I love. but I told myself long ago to write for children and young adults. A friend asked me to turn The Legend of La Llorona into a play so I've written plays. I'm writing one now.

LT: Of all the literature you have produced over the last forty plus years, what is your favorite? If so, will you share as to why?

RA: Each work is a favorite at the time I am writing. It has to be.

I have to believe in the story at hand. So I don't have favorites.

Bless Me, Ultima is still the public's favorite, and for that I am grateful. Hitting gold the first time allowed me freedom to go on writing and to explore, not to be afraid. Just write the story that comes to tell you it's time to write.

LT: What projects do you envision working on in the future?

RA: My new novel will be published this spring. I'm writing a play. I have a children's story due this December, and I want to write more for children. I would like to get my poetry together. Maybe there's a little book there. I think therefore I write. __ Christina GutiĂŠrrez (Workshopist, San Antonio, 2010) is a doctoral candidate in the department of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

LA TOLTECA and Christina GutiÊrrezŠ2012 U.S.A.

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Going Home: A Tale about Love, Identity and What it Means to be a New Mexicano in The Southwest Marcelo Castillo

Randy Lopez Goes Home by Rudolfo Anaya; 978-0-8061-4189-3; 168 Pages; University of Oklahoma Press.

Don Rodolfo Anaya has outdone himself once again with his nuevo young adult novel, Randy Lopez Goes Home. At first glance, Randy Lopez is a comingof-age cuento de un joven who has traveled out into the World de Los Gringos to live amongst them, to learn from them, to enlighten himself in their ways and then returns to his small village Agua Bendita (or en inglés Holy Water, the home of his ancestors), nestled in the mountains of northern Nuevo Mejico with the directed purpose of reuniting with his one true love, Sofia of the Lambs. "Go and learn all you can, Sofia has told Randy, “I'll wait for you under the cherry tree."

However, in "A Note to The Reader: How Randy Lopez Came to Me" included at the edition, Anaya informs us that his wife Patricia "was dying, as Randy dies in the story.” What young readers and all readers then find is that the protagonist is finding a purpose in ‘the hereafter." What started as a simple, yet beautifully rendered coming-of-age story about true love becomes is an allegory.

Randy Lopez Goes Home is a tale about a young man who goes to heaven to 28

reconcile his past. According to Anaya it served the author to grieve the passing of his soul mate. Randy Lopez is a celebration of their final collaboration and Anaya's mastermind has invited everyone to una fiesta that includes the seven vices, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, La Llorona. Grendel, Tiresias the Soothsayer, Greek heroes and don Quixote and even his sidekick, Sancho Panza.

There are many themes at play, to be sure, from songs about nature, dreams, true love, Anaya's own philosophies on life and death, preserving cultural traditions, time itself, personal memory and God. At the heart of Randy Lopez Goes Home is the exploration of the main character’s Chicano. A young Chicano reader might ask: did Randy make the right decision by going to Gringolandia?

Or, how did he get the gringo nombre Randy, anyway? And specifically, for the sake of the book’s ‘message,’ did Randy change by living the ways of his ancestors? What Anaya has done, besides write another bone fide Chicano epic, is to create a story that brings the Chicano Movement up to the 21st Century.

The story’s hero tells of working in a bookstore and how times were changing. Books were now electronic and the world itself, seemed to be becoming virtual. Later on, a curandera named Única (an updated version of Última in Anaya's most popular book, Bless Me, Última), wakes Randy up from a dream within a dream and explains the importance of "deleting the dream within the dream," like he would delete a file on his computer. In other words, Anaya acknowledges the effect that modern technologies have on Chicano art. This conversation with Única causes Randy to reflect on his lost book, ‘My Life Among The Gringos,’ a theme recurrent throughout the novel. Randy wrote the manuscript on a used laptop he paid for by working as a gardener for ricos. He lost it when the express train he was riding to Sante Fe to show a potential publisher hit 29

a cow. The character had the chance to save his laptop or his trusty dachshund, Oso. Good choice, judging by Oso's loyalty later in the book and the Chicano dog’s sense of humor (Even Randy's perrito speaks Spanish!

Regarding identity, Anaya writes "¿Un Pocho?" and "Chicano?" when asked what he is to los mejicanos that help Randy build his bridge to Sofia, his true love, goddess of wisdom. Despite their simplicity of style these literary subtleties are thought provoking. Along with using the traditional spelling mejicano, Anaya teaches us that there are new as well as classic ways to perceive Chicano identity.

Anaya, el Profe, is on an eternal mission to teach us through his writing what is possible for aspiring Chicano writers if they are able to reconcile their mixed heritages and cultural backgrounds. Through Randy, Anaya explores the plentitude of Chicano concepts: Indo-Hispanos, Spanish Americans, Mexican Americans, Hispanos, Chicano, Latino, and even the old derogatory names of Greaser and Wetback. Randy reflects on what it means for a nuevo mejicano to be un Americano today. Where did the word gringo come from, anyway? Randy asks. There were other labels for them tambien: bolillos, güeros, gringos salados, y gabachos. After having a deep conversation with his godfather about the indio blood coursing through his veins, Randy concludes that "the time of the mestizo had arrived!" and that “maybe” the two cultures, gringo y mestizo, may eventually mix together.

The fact is, mestizo blood has mixed for over five hundred years, but it is Randy’s personal discovery here that seems to be the author’s intention.

In the story, the protagonist also ponders what it means to be "Anglicized."

New Mexico became a state a mere century ago. Gringos, preceded by Spaniards 30

or ‘gachupines,’ as they were often called, were there long before. Miscegenation occurred on that land, even in the rural areas of a place like Agua Bendita. The term Anglo is generally used for Whites in the Southwest Randy wonders, however, how so many brown Chicanos could give up their skin color? Admitting to himself that there were indeed light-skinned Chicanos, he decides that "culture was more than skin." Cultura was "Language. History. Legends. Music." We see Randy debate his identity for surely these aspects of Chicano culture did not pertain to the Anglo’s legacy.

The novel is a potpourri of storytelling. Anaya spins no less than seventy-seven lessons on life and thirty-five myths, what may be the author’s own hard earned experiences. Ever the master storyteller, Anaya uses the burning and then re-building of a bridge called The Bridge of Life, as a metaphor for mending the discrepancy that has been created between Mexican Immigrants who travel al Norte looking for work and the proverbial better life and their Americano/gringo counterparts.

Yoli Mora 2012© USA

Randy must build this bridge across The River of Life to be reunited with his true love. Right after Randy resists the final temptation of el Diablo to go back to the land of the living, towards the end of the novel, there is a heartfelt scene when the bridge, freshly built by mejicano the workers yell, "!Viva México! !Vivan los gringos!" It is perhaps meant to be a symbolic cheer, a genuine gesture of the desire of mejicanos to come to the United States, of their willingness to incorporate their customs with those of the gringo, to blend the two cultures and hopefully, evolve into Americanos themselves. Randy tells them "’You have to learn English, customs, history, movies, music, so much.’ ‘We can do it!’ They cried."

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In response to his collection of short stories, The Man Who Could Fly and Other Stories, Tony Hillerman wrote of Rodolfo Anaya that he is the "godfather and guru of Chicano literature." In this humble reader’s opinion it is la verdad. In Randy Lopez Goes Home Anaya has created a story that teaches us the importance of reading the classics, confronts questions of Chicano identity, and shows aspiring writers the necessity to create fresh mythologies to convey modern life's lessons.

He calls for the future generations of Chicanos to reconcile their mestizo heritage and to rejoice in it. In the ‘Notes,’ Anaya states, "that is the lesson of Randy's odyssey, the message from Agua Bendita, the strength and faith Patricia gave us.

We learned we must renew our purpose daily. We must bless all of life." While it is considered a Young Adult novel, this story will touch many grown up readers as they peel back its layers like the sweet maize from the husk during the harvest time of Anaya's beloved homeland.

Marcelo Castillo©2012.USA

Marcelo Castillo is an ongoing contributor to La Tolteca

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Blessed Me, Ultima: The Movie Cemelli de Aztlán

It’s rare to call a movie a blessing, but in this case, Bless Me, Ultima, may be just that. The long awaited filmed based on the classic by Rudolfo Anaya has re-birthed through film and manages to accomplish what the book did when it was first published in 1972. The novel was a sort of ‘coming out party’ for the Mexican-American Southwest culture, coming out without the fear or shame that we had felt for so long.

The landscape of Santa Fe and Abiquiu, New Mexico where the film was shot drew me in close, with the assurance that I was entering into territory I knew in my blood. Already in tears with the first scene, my emotions tangled by the magic happening before my eyes and a sense of enchantment overcame me. A story about an eighty year old woman and an eight year old boy doesn’t seem like the kind of film a big name production company would be interested in, but director and screenwriter, Carl Franklin knew that this was a story worth telling.

Upon first meeting Última, the curandera (played by MiriamColón), her touching beauty contradicts the fear that people have of her. Stigmatized as a bruja by the community which is heavily influenced by Catholicism, the boy, Antonio, (played by Luke Ganalon) doesn’t know what to expect when they meet. Yet, he 33

instantly feels a connection. Última reminds Antonio that she met him before; the day he was born she was the midwife at his birth.

The film, staying close to the novel’s narrative, depicts the struggle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, but more so, it depicts the struggle between the indigenous and the invasion of the Whites. Antonio, young and innocent, finds the contradiction between what the church teaches as good and evil, to be at odds with what he sees in Última, who is a traditional curandera. Última takes Antonio under her wing and shows him the songs of nature and the spirit of the land, and through those teachings he’s left wondering why man is so disconnected. He asks Ultima, “Do you think if God was a woman, she’d forgive them?” I hope that communities everywhere embrace this film and perhaps through the blessing of Última on the big screen, we too, can begin to heal. _____________________ Cemelli de Aztlán©20012.USA.

34

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Nothing New

Adrianna Herrera Amparán i.

I found what is love on this freeway in land which is my land my eyes suddenly clear as I nick thru cobwebs from my mind’s habitat I’m made conscious of by trance a realization of meandering fears spooned aside faced now impurity as bacteria a focus I am twirling this kaleidoscope into inquisitive reflection of story a spiritual spin where whose history I have lived has been another’s not my skin’s to speak in lucidity ~ the conventional escapes of people feeling fortunate or forsaken in a society where churches admire jeweled egos who humbly keep to cruelty during change they had not prescribed and rigidly judge those outside of status quo. In that contempt is an absconding from difference since this declaration of independent freedom is blamed to spoil privileged comfort in a loose-knit country with its dose of people in plastic smiles of pumped esteem who in their superficiality exploit for what they have meanwhile conventionally asking wwjd? Escaping from their own captivity is absurd, and I confront with my reply that liberators do as Jesus did while oppressors act malevolently unjust. ii. dna of my being forms my path into a forward ray from a strong sun who wills with an embrace a rise for today where past and future are much like cousins in la frontera meeting on a summer’s day in México even if problemas there are greater than el itching of mosquito bites most have here where I linguistically engineer my languages for a strength which yours complains about: I’m grateful not for membership into a fading “English Only.”

This native tongue speaks en líneas haciendo los pirámides del sur suspirar aire del cielo renovando la circulación después de inercia sofocante cargada con rabia de los acusadores quienes con malicia dan a los sueños de la vida la espalda; prefieren darle la mano para bailar con los huesos del esqueleto quien sólo se mueve la cadera como péndulo, los aburridos, mientras estrellas del otro mundo no sé que hacen, si les importamos unas piñas para las niñas y 35

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crearlas con imaginación rebelde - porque aquí importa más el no tener amor de tu propio ser, y tu esfuerzo pesado de dudar es fácilmente regalado a tus antagonistas quien les compra a los amiguitos Feo Celos y Traición & Lujo Sinvergüenza e Ignorante unos boletos para asistir al teatro sentados en asientos con números fijados en sus almas vacías llenados por unas tonterías de unos que al principio parecen fieles del país queriendo leyes sino de hipocresía y racismo. Harta de esas leyes, como si papel blanco solamente existe para replicar la mentalidad antigua de esas personas discutidas inicialmente, busco principios para el día nuevo en que tendremos que dar voz al pleito para obtener nuestras licencias de amor hogar comida familia educación salud seguridad paz y vida. iii.

I’ve discovered new forms of love from out of the hate imposed by those fearing - immigrants energy marijuana equality - issues surfacing aflame or not to television’s news by hidden acts causing beings of brittle power who by just looking at us anywhere their angered wrinkles crinkle more in patriotic valves uneasy with hypertension: As metals for being inanimate objects eventually become steel bones of cybernetic towers, their function not simply made as brushing off grains of sand from starfish on this Earth a globed jungle although we who are more than just material goods, who are more than animal also, is it ruthless killers who have been into becoming since last they measured a growth in consciousness? For what great reason to rabidly strengthen after a supposed defeat to construct iron fences since their own fabric with something lesser they have construed, that the loss has been that of superimposed ego, a most highly prized trait poisoned more so to be vindictive which is unmasked on their stern faces as they enjoy from their view our weary commotion pitted one against the other…

Darwin knew nothing of an innate soul with its truths buried for those at the top to capitalize on the ones below who are assumed asymmetrical although with street and book educations. Both are marked quite differently by habitats each one was born into, yet those below seem to await for anything to trickle down so in neighborhoods a hand extends, at least that is how it used to be now being lost while at the top only caring about their control. what one has + what one doesn’t have = comparing success in this country that unbeknown to those with innocent ignorance they buy into façades of materialism yet bicker about the have-nots who to 36

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those haves, have nothing to show as their proof of worthwhile existence except to cause political strife for those who are like serial killers choosing their victims in order to default the blame for present catastrophes onto the have-nots, a society of fringed cotton in spectacles of color where humans are more soul than scientific and nature hasn’t been lost nor mold been made of its shape who resist to be another cog in a machine. This nonhegemony, like foreign nations, seeks autonomy rather than malpractice placed from the top onto a people who form the base of a pyramidal structure synchronized intentionally in order to disconnect our energies with a forced might of power by governing markets who manage thought body soul as if they were from another planet with inhumane thoughts residing in their flesh, their souls not having incubated here with time enough to see whether their bodies carry an alma of lion flamingo snake bear, these oppressors satisfied that those humans made of brittle power determine surface area as a focus of human merit by measurement, yet the body slowly decays, stomachs remain unfed, posh jeans only go so far unfittingly to most voluptuous thighs, and ingestion of acne medication that screwed my brain’s neurotransmitter pathways are still not liable for damaging that which before absorption was symmetrical in life and a bit conscientious even before I had left my mother.

Even on this earthen home deflowered fruits of a ufo crash-landing hours from my birthplace are still worth more than ones never having taken flight from heavy black boot marches stomping on a twist, turn, a pirouette in air as butterflyana worried none by effect on whether she would lose a wing or not because she asked what is out there? I left and having haunted me more than one may know, I grow wild thick tentacles in deep oceans of my wonder to see truth when revealed ~ several are only flesh with recycled souls of dinosaurs. They eat and drink without any thanks, have the smallest of hearts, and stomp on my brain. So how can I believe in this humanity? Repeating itself over again? With thousands being romantic about ideals? How clever can war get? How difficult is a tackle? What happened to queen warriors? Into their tube spermed consciously principles of fertile earth changed human psyches that miserably ¾ alive i’m mad crop rising out of cotton’s milk. iv.

That a form of love is as an owl in which he sees through dark to quickly seize movement of my vibrations he also keeps his devilish flame constantly lit as a trick to mask his efforts inhumane slumping in alcohol a people’s brain where magnetism resonance 37

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reverberation drown to sounds points of Earth give ~ seven chakras on body as well stomped upon since time when all gods and goddesses were forced into a brute state of domination. I just never really understood how he pushed this form of love: He tries to rip my thought from my pulsation. My chords nearby he tries to suck as a vampire. My energy he uses to nurse his wealth.

He tries to incarcerate my body. He has caused discord among my family and friends. He tries to shame my name. He tries to take away joy in my will to live. He will sell, kick, or kill you out.

I had accepted since I had yielded. I had assumed his wings protection on my shoulder although he had imprisoned my aura to cause no harm unto him. Not realizing his division of my whole self into quarters, I misadjusted to a role in mixed states of despairfear-uncertainty his ongoing brainwash. I have found in me against his wars, dinosaurs turning into and from black gold. v.

I am aware even in this density when I faintly hear whistles in wind Éhecatl stirring moves unsettling surfaces to unbury fathoms existing from my thought’s original blueprint truth to who I am never a delusional woman my sanity breathing for another morning light refuting coercions de maladaptivos donde anciently forms of harmony accompany my soul only weakened by hell’s pounding still desert flowers beside my door blooming bold manifestations of rays ~ my own mind my own body to music never damaging or tearing my drum beating in my womb’s heart.

AdriannaHerreraAparan©2012.USA

38

In Her Image Laura Manning

My early attempts to understand God yielded scant opportunities for exploring feminine aspects of divinity. From having been raised Catholic, I had only the Virgin Mary to reference. I found it difficult to kneel before her after confession (the priest’s absolution ringing in my ears), her porcelain-pale face, apple-painted cheeks, eyes averted, avoiding.

Her sightline following the fall of her drab black robe. The green snake under foot made me fear for her ankles and mine. I would rattle through strings of Our Fathers and Acts of Contrition, saving the Hail Marys for last.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. . . .

From where I knelt, the entirety of Mary’s life seemed relegated to the role of Christ’s mother for which her only rewards were a haunting from an iconic kaleidoscope of Seven Sorrows and the Assumption. The domain of her sainthood is unduly restricted to fertility, child bearing, and mourning the death of Jesus. In the canonical Bible, there is no mention of Mary’s life before the Annunciation. Of her devotion, her struggles and triumphs. She is not mentioned outside the story of Jesus. But I had questions about why she had been chosen. And fears that God might fix me in his crosshairs to be just like her.

39

Then during my first year of college, I was raped. Following an interview with a priest who asked what I had been wearing, I left the church. Suddenly, I had reasons to question the “givens” of my life. And knowing that I would not be whole without faith, I began seeking. I was drawn away from my native New England and into the desert of the American Southwest where I learned to meditate.

Fifteen years later, I encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was coaching a lacrosse team at a Catholic high school in Utah, sharing stories about the game’s origin. In return, the players told me the story of Guadalupe. The encounter on Tepeya Hill. From a radiance, her request spoken in the Nahuatl tongue. An archbishop’s doubt, his need for proof of her identity. How she filled the peasant’s tilma with Castilian roses from a barren hill in the middle of December. The spill of those flowers upon stone floor. The imprint of her image left on the tilma—the revelation that grabs my attention almost 500 years later.

Salt Lake City is home to the Cathedral of the Madeleine, whose high walls surrounding the apse depict characters from biblical antiquity. A sword-wielding Saint Joan of Arc donned in bright armor. Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary (and grandmother of Jesus). The widow Judith carrying purse-like the severed head of Holofernes. For these murals, Felix Lieftuchter interviewed people from the neighborhood surrounding the cathedral. He made sketches of them then worked their likenesses into the murals throughout the sanctuary. An interplay between biblical and modern days.

The church also holds a large painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is her I visit, kneel before, reflect upon. Her turquoise robe bespeckled with gold stars 40

aligned as they were on the day she appeared in 1531. Brown skin depicting her native origins. Her glance is reflective, reflexive of everything that comes before her. The Purkinje effect1. If I look directly into those eyes, what might I see? What does it mean to be held in the eyes of God? There was a time when this would have been too much for me to bear. As though past guilt stirs up a self-imposed fear with which we avoid the bumpy few steps it might take to question how we are (or are not) cast in a divine image. And for me, it took Our Lady, this feminine face of God, to recognize this and find release.

----------------------------------1

The characteristic of live human eyes that produces a triple reflection. Resulting images are located exactly where they are supposed to be according to such effect. As well, distortion of the images agrees with the curvature of the cornea.

LauraManning.WorkshopistaŠ Las Cruces, NM, 2009

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Modern Curandera Patricia Padilla

What has differentiated shamanism, curanderismo, and other ancient practices from Western medicine is primarily that the ancient forms deal with interdimensional, no-time states of consciousness where the ‘idea’ of an illness takes root and informs the physical body. (This is a large subject for a different time but one worth investigating.)

Through ritual, prayer, singing, dance, stories and other modalities, curanderas have always addressed any earthly concern. The rituals, incantations, strings, eggs, lemons, and springs of various plants have always been employed to ‘sweep’ away any malady, physical, mental or spiritual. There is no separation of illness from thought, no differentiation between the physical body and the spirit; no separation between the environment in which you live and the state of your health.

La curandera/curandero talks to your dead ancestors, divines a direction for a confused traveler or suggests herbs for fertility. S/he might receive messages on the wind about someone’s future or consult with eagles and owls to offer an individual advice. It has been practiced this way for thousands of years. We still perform rituals, prayers and treatments but the role of teacher is every bit as important as a cure. Today’s curandera will ask you to take a greater responsibility for your own healing using many modalities. Perhaps she might suggest the 42

practice of meditation, prayer, practicing yoga or tai chi; diet changes, life-style adjustments and the use of herbs or neutraceutical supplements.

For one who practices curanderismo, the connection to Grandmother Earth is critical. Our planet has a heartbeat that resonates with our own hearts; she sustains us in all ways, from providing food to the grounding we receive from spending time in nature.

Grandfather Sky provides light, which we respond to in ways that we don’t think about often enough. The frequencies of the wind, the ebb and flow of the tides thousands of miles away from my native desert affect the way the blood flows in our veins.

The raw, unadulterated nutrients of homegrown food and wild crafted herbs, which is the practice of harvesting herbs from their natural habitat, are the most important medicines one can use for any illness known to man. Whether it is a soul sickness, a festering wound or cancer, there is a remedio in nature. Although there are many natural approaches to dealing with cancer, it is very important to assess the individual’s constitution, worldview and lifestyle before suggesting remedios.

For the very basis of your wellbeing, start a garden; cultivate herbs and a deep relationship with the elements of nature. One does not need to live on a farm to do so. Gardens may be cultivate in containers on high-rise balconies. Develop an 43

interest in what sustains you and a healthy respect for the forces of nature that interface to produce the food you eat.

I came to the practice of curanderismo by being born into a lineage of curanderas. Each village or pueblo needed moccasin makers, protectors or farmers; my lineage was one of healers. There are many expressions of this art.

There are yerberas (herbalists), sobradoras (massage therapists), parteras (midwives), espirituistas (people who talk to the dead), curanderas de los huesos (bone setters), and Curanderas that specialize in dealing with soul sickness. I come from a lineage that is Curandera Mejor or one who does everything from birth to death. My specialization has been in dealing with cancer but my ordination is to take people through the door of death.

Our contract is with Creator. It is an act of gratitude for all that we receive, all that we are. This practice, for me, is a vocation, not a job. Although people leave donations or exchange services for the work I do with them, money is never required.

Today, there are courses in curanderismo, studies that help sustain and preserve the ancient practices. In a weekend, you can get a certificate in curanderismo and talk about it intelligently; however, like any practice, it takes time and experience to find a rhythm and your own preference for how you want to work with people. The people that seek help are the greatest teachers for they raise questions that force you to keep learning and expanding.

As we approach the birthing place of our own galaxy we will face many changes, personally and collectively. At this time, we are all called to be ‘one who 44

cures.’ With true generosity of spirit, La Curandera may teach you to heal yourself (and others), and serve as a touchstone as you sprout your own wings of wisdom and vision.

The one idea I would conclude with is, that in this life that we share, who we are, whatever we do, we must remember one thing: It is only and ever and always about LOVE.

Workshopista, Taos, 2012 REFERENCES: • e-mail: sunbehindclouds@msn.com • blog: www.curanderapadilla.wordpress.com • Author/Artist: Star Road Map: Divination Beyond Time and Space; Schiffer Publishing (Release Nov 2012) • Author: Blue Corn Wisdom Series; Amazon Marketplace (Release Winter 2012-13) • Podcast-“The Art of Curing”; Theatre of the Mind; [http://www.brainsync.com/podcasts/search-podcasts/podcasts-by-date/197-the-art-ofqcuringg.html]

PatriciaPadilla©2012.USA

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Moving Margins from Humboldt Park to the Desert Floor Yovani Flores

Do you recognize my voice? The stories I told about knowing something--something written in the margins. Do you recall los relatos about carving lines as hard as the desert floor, like borders positioning movements, fences pushing the back stories about my gente, mi cuerpo and especially, my feet. The webbed lines carved in my soles like root systems buried under sheets of frozen glass below the Windy City floor. They soften and melt on the breast of spring mothering leaves of every tree from Pilsen to Wicker Park. From Little Village to 18th Street to the mist of Lake Michigan spraying over Lakeshore Drive. From every house on Mango Street to my house along the of edge Humboldt Park.

Everybody played in Humboldt Park: we were mesmerized by conga sighs and, salsa rhymes, the soles of my little feet covered miles of the Humboldt Park floor. Clumps of black dirt hid under my fingernails after every high-speed roll down a damp grassy hill, I felt bad for the helpless daisies clinging to my curls. Salty beads of sweat burned my scabby knees from all the crab apple trees I climbed while the hazy air swallowed Papi’s warnings, “Hey mona. Bajate de ayi quete va’ caer.”

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I couldn’t wait for our early release days from school to sneak off to the park with Cuca where we invented ridiculous contests like running backwards as fast as possible, or climbing trees with one arm. Nobody ever won. Then we’d race around a listless pond holding reflections of an old boathouse leading to a circular garden. An old bronzed statue of a giant Bison watched over endless rows of lilac eyes and trailing vines with white tiny blooms. I named her Ola. She carried a set of giant hips as wide as North Avenue beach. Her glossy bronzed skin shimmered like the morning waves I saw in Puerto Rico. Cuca hated Ola’s name she complained about her all the time, “No offense but that’s a really dumb name. She needs a high-class name like those novela stars?” she said.

I played along. “You mean a fancy name like Cuca?” I said.

I felt Cuca’s hot glare on the side my face.

“No dummy, I mean classy like Josefina o Esperanza,” she replied.

“Well I‘m not changing her name Cuca. If you like the names so much I can start calling you Josefina,” I said.

Cuca stood pouting while silence hovered between us. I perched myself on Ola’s back until Cuca touched my hand and I reached down to pull her up behind me just like the white cowboys do when they steal women and vanish into the sunset. Our bare feet resting on Ola’s thick shoulders. Cuca wrapped her arms around my waist leaning into my neck whispered, “Tell me the story about your first trip to Puerto Rico.”

“Okay...as long as you don’t fall asleep,” I said.

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Abuela took me to Puerto Rico when I was six years old. I was happy when she encouraged me to wear my favorite khaki suit which Mami didn’t like because it made me look machua - and too boyish.

Mami tried to push me into an itchy purple dress but I wore my suit anyway because Abuela was the boss of us. My khaki suit pants were like Pap’s Sansabelt pants but mine had more pockets: two in front two in back and a little one over my right hip bone. I wore my white Fruit of the Loom shirt under a matching jacket, which had two more pockets and a wide lapel. Me and my Abuela pierced chunky clouds without raindrops, or rumbles. Veils of glittery stars hovered around our window Abuela’s hands caressed my face and stroked my hair until my eyelashes got heavy and I was dizzy with sleep.

Once we landed I was off on my first road trip. Two hours on the road from San Juan to Abuela’s pueblo in Agüada; my hands weaved in and out of the window mocking birds with my fingertips, slicing through a thick salty breeze. Abuela chestnut eyes got lighter and light as we headed towards the open road. She smiled at me from the side mirror where I watched lines surround the corners of her mouth; strings of veins curved over her chocolate knuckles when she pointed out a güayaba tree directing our driver to pull off the road. My feet scaled up the tree as quick as a little monkey. I shook and jiggled branches until yellow balls of fruit finally threw themselves at Abuela’s feet. She pulled with her long blouse up to her belly plucked them off the ground dropping each one in her improvised apron. The driver handed her a pocket knife. And like a well trained surgeon she cut through its thick skin and placed a dripping wedge in my palm. My head spun with delirium the second my mouth slipped between a 48

pink and reddish slopes of that syrupy guayaba heart; my tongue crowned with scented seeds shaped like starfish.

We arrived at Abuela’s little wooden house her eyes confirmed the stories she told about years of hard work at Ramey Air Force Base ironing military uniforms to feed her six children: by the time Mami was seven years old she was ironing T-shirts for soldiers returning home for weekend visits. Abuela held my hand during my first walk into the ocean, foamy waves whipped and dipped between our brown toes - catching Abuela’s laugher when I gagged on a mouthful of saltwater. Then we found coconuts scattered around waiting to be claimed; spent our first day chewing chunks of coco, gathering seashells - and running from blankets of glittering Olas, “And that is why I will never change Olas name, Josefina!”

Summers at Abuela house went beyond my tenth birthday - our days ended too soon. That was the year the caribe sun marked me, left me marcada by a mass of freckles shaped like scattered islands. Stained my skin from my fingertips to my bony shoulders. A mass of disconnected earth formations separated from their land of origin. Suspended between margins in search of new terrains - reforming, reclaiming y mestizando.

Cuca rested her chin against my neck then we kissed while Jose set the sky on fire, You know that it would be untrue, you know that I would be a liar. If I was to say to you ehhh girl we couldn’t get much higher. Come on baby light my fire, Come on baby light my fire.”

Then her dreamy eyes got serious,“You’re not gonna go around telling everybody at school, right?” “No way, that stupid head Pedro would make fun of me forever.”

I replied. We laughed and stumbled down Ola’s back like pair of snails, watching

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the Sears Tower scraped horizons swaying like trees con el tumbao de Celia gotiando del cielo, Cucalaaa, cucalaaa, cuca cucala que’ella sale. Cucala cuca-cuca cucala que se hace....”

Shortly after that kiss I met faces of rejection for coming out to soon. I lived in that space of otherness in a community I adored - and the walls of my own home.

Mami went to great lengths to get us registered in a predominantly white high school on the North Side. For us it meant two long bus rides which only got longer - and colder in the winter. Eventually the North Side white boys shattered every window on our bus as we made our way out of their neighborhood. Once spring arrived, we just walked home.

During my first semester at the White school I discovered a group of gay Latino students. Back then we weren’t even queer yet; ”loh gays” that’s all we were. We even spoke our own language: between code switching, our Spanish contractions, and our inventive gay code which including assigning male pronouns to all my girlfriends. I told everybody I spoke three languages. Poor Mami. I was sure she already knew I was destined for gayness but, she still managed to get hysterical, especially when the gossiping lotería addicts started telling stories about me because I was a tomboy and never wore dresses--stories which happened to be true.

Well, Mami quickly got religion which I recalled her losing somewhere between Santeria practices and taking on selective Católica traditions like cameo 50

appearances at Saint Marcus Church on Ash Wednesday, and Easter Sunday. She cried and yelled forcing me to my knees en el altar de Yemaya. Mami wanted to hear me say I was not gay that none of it was true if said in front of Santa Barbara.

I lied, and cried on her porcelain feet while Maria’s voice (from West Side Story) echoed in my head, “Make it don’t be true, Pleez, make it don’t be true...”

The gay circle claimed me. Together we healed, claiming place on Belmont rocks along the edge of Lakeshore Drive where my lägrimas stained pages of my journals. And I...began to breathe. And words became my life and breath.

In 1989 I pulled up my roots and left my Chicago community for the desert landscapes of Phoenix, Arizona. The desert taught me something about losing raíces about the constructs of homophobia polite racism intellectualized. I was unidentifiable like scattered bones waiting to be recognized and found. I was thirsty like the desert waiting for July monsoons, storms washing over margins, scattering lines, exposing the roots of my voice. But I already knew something about crossing thresholds and, moving margins.

YovaniFlores©2012.USA

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FIRST BEST PHOTO CONTEST:

Open to any 18 years and over. Both

amateurs and professionals are invited.

Ist Place Winner: Winning photograph will be featured on La Tolteca cover, Summer Solstice Issue (A単o Tres, Volumen Cuatro) $100.USD cash award.

Links to website and/or contact information will be included inside edition.

2nd Place Winner: Winning photo will be featured in the above edition. Links to website and/or contact information will be included inside edition.

3rd Place Winner: Winning photo will be published in a subsequent edition.

Guidelines/Requirements: Submit by email to: tolteca@anacastillo.com * Subject for your email submission: Photo Contest Submission All photos must be original, unpublished and copyrighted to the individual who submits the email.

Include your name in the email and titles for each photo submission.

Any theme or subject. (with the exception of sexually explicit, violent or any other images that might be considered offensive.)

Black & white or color. Digital images only. Images must be sized-300 dpi.

Images must be in JPEG only; zipped files will not be accepted. $20. Entry fee via Paypal. (Up to 3 images per entry per photographer may be submitted.)

Paypal: www.anacastillo.com Click the Paypal button on the Website to take you to the account to make your payment. Payment must be received at the time photos are submitted.

DEADLINE: FEBRURARY 28, 2013.

Winner announcement: Spring Equinx issue in La Tolteca, March 21, 2013. (Winners notified beforehand.)

Judges announced in same issue. *(No snail mail submissions.)

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September 22, 2012 One Day Workshop: Memoir Writing with Ana Castillo

1:00 - 3:30 PM | Salt Lake City Community Writing Center | 210 East 400 South, Suite 8 Celebrated poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist Ana Castillo will guide participants through exercises to start on a memoir essay. Cost: $125. Registration is required.

October 19, 2012 Ana Castillo - The Utah Humanities Book Festival

Utah Museum of Contemporary Art | 20 West Temple, Salt Lake City, Main Auditorium Ana Castillo, Westminster’s visiting writer for Fall 2012, is a distinguished novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She has taught as a scholar and writer in residence for many years at schools such as MIT, Mt. Holyoke, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

She publishes the zine La Tolteca, a literary forum working toward a world without borders and censorship.

Her novels include The Guardian and So Far From God; poetry collections, Watercolor Women, Opaque Men, and I Ask the Impossible; her collection of essays, Massacre of the Dreamers.

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Let us hear your comments.

Donations welcome: Paypal: ac@anacastillo.com

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