Año 4/Vol. 1 LA TOLTECA Autumn Equinox Issue 2013

Autumn Equinox 2013

Año Cuatro/Volumen Uno

¡Cuba Presente!

Interview with

Cristina García & a new novel, King of Cuba

¡Música, Maestro!

Michael Colina

H.G.Carrillo Is ‘Splaining Himself

Publisher & Editor in Chief Ana Castillo Los Toltecas

Ama Billi Marcelo Castillo Saankhu Maa El-Bey Gibrán Güido Paul McLennan

Contributors

Elena García Ansani H.G. Carrillo Electra Gamón-Fielding Marisa Pawelko Joanna Pham Andrew Reynolds

On the Cover

Blue Façade Havana, Cuba Marisa Pawelko © 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITOR’S PAGE Ana Castillo

IN MEMORIAM 5 Dolores Prida

PHOTO MEMOIR

6 Visiting My Mother’s Home Marisa Pawelko

IN HIS OWN WORDS

10 ¡Mùsica, Maestro! Michael Colina Marcelo Castillo

INTERVIEW

18 Interview with Cristina García Electra-Gamón Fielding, Ph.D.

REVIEW

21 King of Cuba by Cristina García 22 In the House Un-American by Benjamin Hollander Andrew Reynolds, Ph.D.

ESSAY

27 Splaining Myself H.G. Carrillo

AUTUMN/WINTER READS WORKSHOPISTAS’ PALETTE

29 I Have A Daughter Adriana Herrera Amaparán 30 Her Hands Socorro Pasco 31 Spit and Passion by Christy C. Roads Joanna Pham

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Editor’s Page

We are very happy to present our first issue

of our 4th year with the personal narratives of Cuban American artists. In memoir writing while we tell about our own life journey we invariably must explore that of our legacy. Sons and daughters of immigrant parents often inherit family accounts that have reached near myth status. If the country of origin is inaccessible for whatever reason, the first generation begins a process of shaping her or his identity with the family’s new country and the stories heard about the one left behind. We hope you enjoy the bittersweet stories told in this issue, the current photographs of Habana taken by Marisa Pawelko as she re-traced her mother’s early life there and that the courage of the contributors here inspire you to tell your own personal history.

While I offer few memoir writing workshops I invite you to try to join me at one. We announce them in the back page of the zine and on our FB page, the Official La Tolteca ‘Zine. You may inquire about workshops at anacastilloworkshops@gmail. com.

La Tolteca’s small staff of volunteers enjoy putting together this labor of love based on our commitment to the arts and freedom of speech. We showcase established writers and artists and feature new ones with a preference for those who have attended my workshops. It is a process of developing an ongoing collaborative relationship from initial ideas to publishing the results. However, it is a demanding project and we want to make sure we offer the public a quality ‘zine. Therefore, this year we have reduced the number of issues from 4 to 2. Our next issue is Spring Equinox, 2014. The theme will be: ¡Sí Se Puede! Visit our FB page in the weeks preceding publications for previews of the excellent writers and topics we are working on to bring to you.

We are running a poetry contest. Details are also in the back pages here. For anyone who has considered herself or himself a modern poet the challenge here is to submit an original sonnet. All topics are welcome and it may be in either English or Spanish. We will announce the winner and judges in the spring issue.

On behalf of los Toltecas here, we wish you a productive and healthy autumn and winter. Do take the time to read through these ethereal pages. We have put them together for you with love and respect.

Ana Castillo

AC © 2013; New Mexico

IN MEMORIAM Dolores Prida, (1944 – 2013) A Cuban-born journalist and playwright who wrote candidly and wittily about local and national politics, romance and other personal matters, and the joys and vexations of the Hispanic experience in America, died in Manhattan. Ms. Prida wrote several plays and the libretto for “4 Guys named José... and Una Mujer Named María!” a high-spirited musical that appeared off Broadway in 2000. More prominent as a journalist she wrote a monthly column in English for The Daily News in New York and a weekly column for El Diario/La Prensa, the New York Spanish-language daily, and translating it into English for the Web site VoicesofNY.org. In addition, she wrote the column “Dolores Dice” — Spanish for “Dolores Says” — for Latina magazine, dispensing romantic advice, mediating family disputes and counseling mutual respect among factions in the Hispanic world. A selfconfessed media hound who devoured newspaper and television news reports across the political spectrum, Ms. Prida remained frustrated by the lack of coverage of Hispanic Americans by mainstream news outlets.

Ms. Prida is the U.S. translator of Ana Castillo’s novel, “Peel My Love like an Onion.” “Carmen la Coja” is the U.S. Spanish edition, published by Vintage, Random House; NY. She will be missed.

DOLORES PRIDA (1944-2013)

A

My Cuban Experience: A Memoir

By Marisa Pawelko

Top: © Marisa Pawelko Bottom: “Marisa in Cuba” © Marisa Pawelko

s a kid growing up I always remember folks asking my mom about her accent.

Personally, I never noticed that she had an accent and I still don’t hear it! In any event, I caught on pretty early that the question annoyed her almost as much as their response did when she would say, “I was born in Cuba.” 99.9% of the time they would say “But you’re so white?” with a very perplexed expression on their faces.

It’s funny because I get the same response today when people learn that I am the daughter of a Cuban exile. At some point during my childhood my mom explained that she immigrated to the USA at age 15 during Operation Pedro Pan. I’ve since done research into the history and despite the cute name (Peter Pan), a whimsical adventure for her it was not. Here’s my basic understanding of my mother’s experience as a Cuban exile, a story assembled from the marked moments she’s shared throughout my life. My grandfather Justo was a businessman and owner of a highend textile import business. The family lived a comfortable life - one might even call it luxurious. Country clubs, transatlantic cruises, a beautiful apartment in Havana decorated with life-size portraits of our ancestors. Kids would wait around my mother’s school just to catch a glimpse of my fashion plate grandmother Dulce’s outfit of the day. For them daily life was the epitome of Cuban glamour. Then all of a sudden everything changed just prior to the revolution when Castro’s rebels began detonating lethal and destructive bombs in crowded areas. After the revolution, assets were seized. Lots of people left. De-

spite all this, my grandfather’s desire was to continue his business and retain ownership of his personal property. Apparently his views were unacceptable to the folks in charge, which led to the fallen aristocrat being brutally institutionalized at the Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital and subsequently tortured for years on end. The political prisoner’s weight fell to 95 pounds, as he was doused with water and subjected to electric shock treatment to his brain, body and genitals at the hands of Eriberto Mederos, nicknamed “The Devil” and his diabolical assistants.

Designed by Marisa Pawelko © Marisa Pawelko Needless to say my grandparents didn’t bounce back quite the same after the traumatic experience. But before his torture began, the government gave my grandparents a choice. Send your fifteen-year-old daughter to the mountains where she will learn to handle a rifle and teach poor kids how to read, or opt out with the Operation Pedro Pan program. So in 1961 they chose the latter, but Pedro Pan, the largest exportation of over 14,000 unaccompanied minors was supposed to be temporary. Or at least that was the understanding at the time. My mom went to live with her maternal aunt and her family. Many of the Pedro Pan children were not as lucky, however, and ended up in orphanages all over the United States.

Throughout the following years my mom and her mami wrote to each other. The letters took a long time to get there and the government would read their mail. Before their life as they once knew it ended in Cuba, my grandparents and the Henderson’s (CEO of The United Fruit Company) were in talks to marry off my mom to one of their sons (which ever one she would choose). Mr. Henderson’s family’s company was “Retracing My Mother’s Footsteps” © Marisa Pawelko confiscated in spite of their support for the revolution, and they subsequently left the country to live in North Carolina. Later the Hendersons returned to Cuba because they were horrified by the racist attitudes that prevailed in the South during that period. They were hailed as heroes and faithful revolutionaries, just as my mom was leaving the country.

My mom did not see her parents or her baby sister again until 1968. When her parents were finally able to leave Cuba, they could only exit through Spain. My grandfather came from a very old family with a lot of history in Galicia. In Spain, they got a VISA to come to the United States days before my mom’s wedding to my dad.

She left with little more than the clothes on her back and to this day mom has not returned to her homeland. Understandably, these and other tragic Cuban stories heard over the years have had an effect on my political outlook. Some people in the United States seem to view Cuban communist icons as cool retro kitsch or representative of utopian values, but for me those images are simply reminders of my mother’s stolen childhood and the destruction of all that my ancestors had built over generations. I do not understand how people can glorify a regime that they themselves never experienced, and whose conditions they would never want to live under.

“My Abuelos” © Marisa Pawelko

until I Recently, I had the opportunity to visit my mother’s tierra to see firsthand the city where she was born and her childhood cut short. I’d heard so many times from folks who’ve never been there that the people there are poor, but they are happy, healthy and live a life of fairness and equality. I wanted to see for myself if this was really the case and make my own determination. I did not tell mom about the trip until I was at the hotel. was at the hotel.

With emailed instructions, she guided me on a bittersweet mission of discovery throughout the city. She has regretted the separation from her family, the destruction of her country, the loss of her family’s assets for no reason, the exile of her family, the sorrow of her grandparents and the fact that she can never show her kids the Cuba she knew when growing up. Perhaps, most of all, my mother regrets the martyrdom of her father.

With camera in hand, I went in search of her childhood home and school, my grandfather’s textile warehouse and the Centro Gallego. I toured Havana with its incredible historic architecture that has all but disintegrated due to decades of total neglect. I witnessed firsthand the little newly legalized privately owned fruit stands and the famous park corner where a license is required to talk about baseball. My goal in sharing this story is not to change anyone’s political ideology. We are each products of our unique experiences, which shape our diverse views and beliefs. Regardless of your political leanings, my advice for everyone in any situation is to check things out for yourself before claiming to know and understand. ◆ References: Eriberto Mederos of Cuba’s notorious Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital Copyright Marisa Pawelko © 2013

_____________ Marisa Pawelko is the author of Crazy-Cool Duct Tape Projectspe Projects.

“My Mom In Cuba” © Marisa Pawelko

¡Música, Maestro!

Interview With Modern Composer Michael Colina

by Marcelo Castillo

Composer Michael Dalmau Colina (b.1948) is a multiple GRAMMY® winning composer and producer based in Ponte Vedra, FL. While born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Colina has deep musical roots in his adoptive father’s homeland of Cuba. “My musical core is more that of a folk musician than a classical academic.” At nine years of age he wrote his first compositions.

With a true passion for music, Colina’s vibrant mix of life experiences has given him a unique musical voice in contemporary classical music. Much of his youth was spent traveling between the U.S. and Cuba. While simultaneously being exposed to Latin music and the soul and gospel sounds of the American south, he also discovered a great love of classical music. “My early years were blanketed in the heat of racial unrest and my personal struggle against old family hatreds and prejudice. It was an unprecedented mix of sensory input, cultural fracturalization, intellectual and artistic counter-currents.” Colina studied composition at the North Carolina School of Arts with Vittorio Giannini, Louis Mennini (brother of composer Peter Mennini) and Robert Ward. He continued studies at the Chigiana in Sienna, Italy with Thomas Pasatieri and Roman Vlad, and was the first recipient of the Vittorio Giannini Memorial Scholarship award.

In 2011, Colina released a CD of his Violin Concerto, Three Cabinets of Wonder, his Guitar Concerto, Goyescana, and the Orchestral Suite, Los Caprichos on the Fleur de Son Label. The recording features the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ira Levin, with guitarist, Michael Andriaccio and violinist, Anastasia Khitruk.

Mr. Colina has written music for television, film, theatre, dance and live performances on concert stages throughout the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. As a jazz musician, composer, producer and engineer, he has won three Gold Records, an Ace Award for Best Film Score for the 1985 film “Finnegan Begin Again,” and three GRAMMY® awards in the field of Contemporary Jazz. He has worked alongside a wide range of artists including James Taylor, David Sanborn, George Benson, Michael Brecker, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Hornsby, Bob James and Herbie Hancock.

In 1999, Colina and his late father made a pilgrimage to Cuba, where he had not visited since his early childhood. This experience was eye-opening and inspiring. “Since reawakening my Cuban roots…a deeper appreciation and integration of my Cuban heritage takes hold in my life, new elements continue to pour into my writing and find their expression in my very personal blend of music…” Michael Colina’s near future performances include “Requinauts” and a Requiem for Chorus Orchestra and Soloist is in the works with The Royal Scottish National Orchestra for January 2014 and will be released on Fleur de Son/ Naxo.

Marcelo Castillo corresponded with el maestro as he prepares for a visit to Cuba to attend the 29th Havana International Jazz festival and in hopes of connecting with familia there.

LA TOLTECA: Tell us about your forthcoming visit to Cuba. Will you be working on a collaborative project, giving a concert, workshops, etc.?

MICHAEL COLINA: This trip is to coincide with the 29th Havana International Jazz festival (Dec 15-22). Unfortunately, we will not be giving concerts but rather attending the Rumba performance at the Callejón de Hamel Santería ritual with Afro-Cuban spiritual folklore, music and dance with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. Also, we will be attending Guaguancó and batá demonstrations and a Timba workshop by musicians of the acclaimed Pupy y los que Son Son. There will be open rehearsals of Camarata Romeu at the Basílica San Francisco de Asís, the Coro Diminuto children’s choir and lots of other interactions.

And more importantly, I’ll be looking to connect with my cousins Eves and Evon Dalmau who are still living in Habana.

LT: Cuba, your father’s country--what does it mean to you? How does the home of the mambo speak to your music? ¿Te sientes cubano?

MC: I am living in Northeast Florida, Ponte Vedra, twenty minutes north of St Augustine. As far as

feeling Cuban, there’s no simple answer.

My father was educated by Jesuits in Cien Fuegos and he brought to my life that sense of physical discipline as well as the Hispanic male’s rather lax attitude toward the practice of religion. Early on he was tough, a college boxer. Later in life, he mellowed and his sense of compassion and warmth expanded to an overwhelming love. That’s what I want to hold onto.

For me, Cuba was a powerful sensual experience.

From the time I was 6 months old until I was eleven, we traveled back and forth until it became dangerous (about 1957-1959).

We were caught in street fighting during the summer of ‘59 in Trinidad. That event terrified my mother.

Being a southern belle, she vowed never to return.

In 1999, my father and I traveled back to Cuba when he was 80, after forty years exile.

This was a profound moment in our lives.

This I knew was the salmon returning to his spawning ground and I bore witness.

That experience changed the way I utilized Afro-Cuban musical influence in my work.

You can’t hear it in every work of mine, but sometimes it is overt, sometimes it is in the sense of rhythm, sometimes not at all.

I am an odd mix as my friend Esmeralda Santiago expressed in “When I was Puerto Rican.” You become someone new while trying to hold on to your ingrained cultural self. You wear the overcoat of your new national identity like a concentric ring in a tree. For me, the reverse - being primarily brought up in the South (Charlotte, NC) my overcoat was a beautiful Cuban guayabera, wonderful smells, cigars, Cuban rum, café. An atmosphere where visual memories linger, naked children running, bare feet, a tropical paradise and the crystalline blue of the sea. Like other second generation children of Cuban-Americans living in the US, my Spanish speaking skills wore thin after growing up primarily with American kids. Today, I am appalled that US political policy, driven by aging bitter exiles, keeps Cuba out of reach for so many Americans. What pain we have inflicted, a monumental expression of hypocrisy.

ually he could be best friends. We argued bitterly in the early 60’s when I chose friends who were black and he hit the roof. I used all these religious arguments, i.e. God made us all in his image, love thy neighbor etc., all to NO AVAIL! The secret he held most of his life was that his half-brother was born of an Afro-Cuban woman (his father’s concubine). In America, he hid the fact that our Cuban family was racially mixed. Later in life, he softened. He told me in the end of his life that Olagadio, our family’s cook was his brother. I was stunned and told my mother after Papi passed. She said I was a big mentiroso cerdo!

LT: What are your fondest memories visiting Cuba?

MC: I was adopted at five weeks of age by Gilberto & Marguerite Colina. Gilberto is from Casilda Cuba and came to the US in 1934 to attend Brevard boys’ school in Ashville, NC.

MC: The festival of Santa Elena always happened in August, when we were usually in the small town of Casilda. It would turn into a festival of food, dancing, music, and games. I will never forget seeing, smelling, and eating my first roast pig; slipping into a dance hall after midnight and watching (God knows what was going on to my eleven-year old mind) the men and women writhing in a smoke--swirled sensual atmosphere; and the music of the bongos, congas, picollo and tres - everyone dancing along with their hopes.

LT: Wikipedia mentioned that you were adopted.

Does that mean that your adoptive parents were of Cuban Descent or that you got the opportunity to meet your biological parents and that they were the ones from Cuban descent?

My biological mother’s age or background is unknown. I have chosen not to dig deeper in to her origins. At first, I thought it would hurt my Marguerite’s feelings but now that I’m 64 years of age, it seems so unimportant.

I was given the love, care and nurturing that every abandoned child deserves, Chosen by my immigrant Cuban father and treated as if I were his, I feel like the luckiest man. I was taught very early to LT: You had a “personal struggle against old family welcome the stranger and embrace the unknown. hatreds and prejudice.” What do you mean?

LT: At what age did you realize that you would like MC: My father was racist in his own unique way; to be a musician and become a composer? as a group he disliked African-Americans, individPhoto © Marisa Pawelko

MC: Early, probably six, but by nine I had written my your work there)? first compositions.

MC: Being a prolific year, part of 2010 included LT: Which one of your musical compositions was in- my travels there. At first, it was hard to explain spired the most by your Cuban upbringing/influence? why I felt extremely comfortable in Brazil. The first night I slept on the soil of that country I MC: The Shadow of Urbano. As I convey in my Cuba had the most insane dreams imaginable. A wild Diaries, my great Uncle Urbano was my father’s men- bacchanalian party was being held in my honor tor, traveling everywhere together. Urbano even came welcoming me home. with Gilberto when he was Sometime fourteen to NYC after my trip where they lived in 2010, on in Spanish Hara whim I lem. They were decided to do so close that my a DNA test grandmother to find out called Gilberto, where my geUrbano’s shadow. netic origins came from. I LT: How do you was not surdecide the titles prised that and instruments there was a for your con60% chance Photo © Marisa Pawelko certs/performances? that my ancestors were from the Mediterranean region; i.e. Sicily, Yugoslavia, Albania. But I was MC: Instrumentation is often chosen because there’s a stunned to find the other spike in my DNA data particular soloist or group I’m working with or want included a 90% chance that I had ancestors from to work with, sometimes it’s a commission. The titles Brazil. I could not believe it. come from works of art or novels or poems, or word play! For instance, I took mambo and bossa nova and Back to the Music: I worked with the Sallescreated “Mambosa.”

Barrenechea Piano trio based in Rio. They performed and recorded my “Idoru Trio.” The LT: How was it to study music in Italy?

Duo Brasilias (Ana Claudia Brito & Davson De Souza) also gave the world premiere of my work MC: Italy felt like a second home--the life style, the for Piano and Flute “Isles of Shoals,” repeating it love of art and beauty. Living in Sienna Italy, in anin concerts from Belem, Sao Paulo, Brazilia, and other Latin culture was natural.

Rio. I traveled with them, meeting their friends and seeing an extraordinarily varied and beautiLT: How did you find Brazil (when you presented ful country.

The National Orchestra of Brazil, conducted by Ira Levin, also commissioned me to write a work called Los Caprichos. It was based on the prints of Francisco Goya (by the same name) which depicted the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. Maestro Levin has become one of my closet musical friends and mentor.

MC: When it’s happening, for me it felt exactly like I thought it should. I was cocky and said “Hey, that’s how it’s supposed to be!” Years later, I realize what a dumb ass I was. It didn’t happen that often and it was hard to repeat. So I’d say: Humbled!

LT: What advice do you have for up-and-coming composers? A few words from you about your composing?

LT: I noticed that in the beginning of your career, one of the first albums that you engineered was also produced by the famous Robert Moog. Did you get MC: Composing… you must do even a tiny bit the chance to work with him? every day, even if you only turn your mind’s eye to this idea…”I will create something using my MC: I had just graduated from NCSA had moved voice…” When you listen to music, fragments, evto NYC. I was living and working as a superinten- eryday sounds, listen as if it is yours to draw upon dent with friends in a building on 92nd St. and 2nd for inspiration someday.

Ave. I found an extra job in a little boutique music studio on 45th street called “Eddie at the Moog.”

Allow your mind to start registering, fragments of There I was taught how to use the new Moog syn- music/sound you love…. but the intention is to use thesizer, vacuum the floors, make coffee and given it at one point as your own. Do you feel that a great an occasional opportunity to write music for hire. piece of music belongs to its composer? Or is this Edd Kalehoff had one of the 3 Moog Synthesizers a gift of the creator spirit that blows like a wind in NYC in 1973 and Robert Moog called to ask if he through us, something we are meant to share…? could record the artist who was the inspiration for Your unconscious must be given permission to his invention, the moog synthesizer. begin its work. Plant seeds, they will flower, don’t be anxious about it, and especially, at first, don’t Her name was Clara Rockmore and she played the be judgmental…I give myself permission to make Theramin like no one in the world. I was given the giant mistakes compositionally. You know how job to engineer and record these sessions. Bob and I much I throw away? But first I go ahead and really worked side by side for three days. He was the pro- work it out--give it a chance to be born… even a ducer and I his happy minion, drinking in what I few measures…a theme, a passage…this part of knew would be a once in a lifetime experience. You your brain must get its exercise too, but like any get to know someone more deeply and immediately wise athlete, start slow…have patience only write when you share either a physical threat or an artistic what you love! ◆ experience. Bob and I remained in touch until he passed in 2005.

LA TOLTECA © USA 2013 LT: How does it feel to be a 3 GOLD RECORD and 3 GRAMMY AWARD winner?

Michael Colina In His Own Words

My eyes opened slowly to a Tropicana sunrise, soft, slatted light through slowly passing palm trees. I felt the muffled motion of the bus slow to a stop underneath me. Those sensations were suddenly brought to a halt as I saw the barbudos climbing on board; waving their old US Army M-1s at us, gesturing in the unmistakable signal, get your hands up, get your ass up and get off the bus. We were taken prisoner, our luggage confiscated and searched. I was humiliated and even more frightened when the soldiers found my stuffed teddy bear and bunny rabbit that at least until that moment I had never been separated from.

Four years later, I would proudly perform my 1st Piano concerto with my High School Orchestra in Charlotte, North Carolina. It consisted almost entirely of triumphant passages for my two best friends, a timpanist and a trumpet player; Terry & Jim. Nonetheless, my mother, father, sister and I were pulled from our summer vacation dream, on a bus from Habana to Trinidad that early June morning 1959. They lined us up against a wall and my pre-adolescent mind, gorged on World War Two movies, envisioned my family’s impending slaughter. I began to quietly weep, trying to hold back tears as my father was taken away to we knew not where.

We were told that we had two choices: either we would be stuffed into the next passing stranger’s car and taken to the next village where my tío Urbano fortunately happened to live or we could stay and face whatever fate awaited---all this without my father.

Forty years later, I wrote a piece that was a tribute to my father entitled “The Shadow of Urbano.” Bitterly, I now understand that he would never comprehend the music I had written, its subtle complexity, its haunting harmonies, the tilted tampering of form. He would never understand except on his own terms and those were as an object, something that “my son” had made, almost as if it were a painting or a sailor’s knot.

Growing up, both my mother and father would literally yell at me while my music was playing on the CD player, “Oh, Michael, that’s so pretty, how is that ole’ corn on your toe?” “Do you remember Uncle ‘PD’? Well he passed away…”

“I wonder if you forgot to get our peanut butter from the store again?” “Tell your wife she dresses like a little whore sometimes.” All this as I wore my heart on my sleeve in my music. I’d mutter to myself: “Goddamnit, you shits are not hearing a thing I’m sayin’!” And they’d call out: “What did you say?” And I’d say, “I’ll get it all tomorrow.”

So, my mother grabbed her children, got us into the next car and within the hour we were delivered to the front door of my uncle’s small apartment in Trinidad. That evening we were told there would be a city wide blackout. As the sun went down, I lay out on the second floor balcony observing an emptying street as a lone plane flew overhead. I could hear the engines wind down as it prepared to land at the small dirt air strip about a mile outside of town.

Dusk fell completely, and with the darkness came bursts of machine gun fire, screams, explosions, shouts and orders, shadows darting in and out of the dark in the street below. I was

frozen with terror but utterly fascinated; somehow I felt immune to danger. My mother did not share my sense of invulnerability and yelled for me to come in the house.

They had hidden under the bed. The machine gun fire sounded as if it came from right behind my uncle’s small home. Exploding grenades outside in the street caused someone to grab me by the leg.

It was Mom begging me to get the hell inside and join her and my sister. The fighting lasted well in to the night. Gunfire dwindling, sporadic, the gunshots farther and farther apart, until there was nothing but silence from which emerged the indifferent sound of coquís and crickets and the night, its stillness finally enveloping us and our fears.

Morning came and with it a huge relief as my father came walking up the cobblestone street, bedraggled, exhausted but smiling, our luggage strapped to the back of a struggling burro, surely, with a story of his own to tell. I can still hear my mother and sister’s cries of joy, their skirts flapping in the breeze as they ran ahead of me into my father’s arms.

Years later, 1976 saw the commissioning of music for Pauline Koner’s modern dance company.

The work was named “A Time of Crickets.” inspired by the poetry of TS Eliot and that savage night we left Cuba. ◆

Photo © Marisa Pawelko

Recent & Future Performances In October 2012, the Jacksonville Symphony premiered a Concerto for Orchestra and Organ, entitled “Sobre las Olas,” especially commissioned by the orchestra and conductor, Fabio Mechetti with organist, Felix Hell.

The Indianapolis Symphony will play Colina’s “Nesting Dolls” May 16th & 17th in a program called String Evolution, featuring cornerstones from the chamber music repertoire from the Baroque period to the 21st century.

In August 2013, “Three Dances for Cello & Orchestra” will have its world premier with Sharon Robinson, soloist and Jaime Laredo conducting at the Chautauqua Music Festival.

“Requinauts”, a Requiem for Chorus Orchestra and Soloist is in the works with The Royal Scottish National Orchestra for January 2014 and is will be released on Fleur de Son/ Naxos.

Other classical works include: Three Cabinets of Wonder, Violin Concerto; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ira Levin, conducting; Anastasia Khitruk, Soloist Unbearable Lightness of Being, for String Orchestra; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ira Levin, conducting; Nov 2011 Baba Yaga, Fantasia for Violin & Orchestra; Chautauqua Symphony; Ira Levin, conducting; Anastasia Khitruk, Soloist Nesting Dolls for the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra; Finalist in Mozart’s 250th Anniversary Celebration.

Mambosa, a Cuban Dance for Orchestra, premiered June 2010 by the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra, JoAnn Falletta conducting.

Stairway to the Midnight Café; Mr. Colina presented a master class at the Imani Winds Summer Music Festival last August in NY , where movements from Stairway to the Midnight café were performed.

Shadow of Urbano, Sextet for Piano & Strings premiered by the Quartet San Francisco with jazz pianist Bob James; 2007 Los Caprichos, Commissioned by the Orchestra National of Brazil; Premiered 2006 Los Caprichos US premier May 2010 Fabio Mechetti and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, It was subsequently performed in Seoul, South Korea, Bogata, Colombia and Montevideo, Uruguay.

Goyescana Guitar Concerto premiered by the Imperial Orchestra of Lakeland Florida. 2008; Dr Robert Phillips Soloist

Mambosa by Michael Colina: https://soundcloud.com/user179592/michael-colinas-mambo-new

Photo © Marisa Pawelko

Two Sides of the Cuban Peso: An interview with Cristina García

The following interview was conducted on line for La Tolteca by Electra Gamón Fielding, Ph.D.

La Tolteca: What prompted you to write King of Cuba?

Cristina García: Some of my favorite Latin American books are about these caudillos. There’s El Presidente by Miguel Angel Asturias and I absolutely love Autumn of the Patriarch. I loved also the one about Bolivar and also Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Feast of the Goat. And I just thought... I don’t know whether I dared try it for Fidel Castro. I mean, I felt like he deserved one of these fictional books. He’d been in power for so long, so much of the whole Cuban, Cuban American and Cuban diasporic existence in one way or another trails back to him. It’s because of him, or in spite of him, or whatever, he is so central to several generations of Cubans and Cuban Americans, that I just thought it was time to tackle him. And so I did, I immersed myself in all these other caudillo books, I felt like I was in a Fidel Castro immersion program, I just sucked myself in, so I read everything I could get my hands on. Then I put it all away and I just tried to write the man. And in no way do I maintain that it is even a fictional portrait of him, it really is almost a rift off of what I had absorbed and what I had imagined, and so in a way there is yet another version that references him but isn’t him. It’s how I see it, anyway.

LT: As you said, El Comandante is based on Fidel Castro, but you don’t give him a name in the book. Do you think that this anonymity is necessary for the development of the character?

CG: Yes, I mean, he’s technically anonymous, but not really anonymous. I think by not saying Fidel Castro I had a lot more maneuverability, I had a lot more freedom to make up all the things I did. Even though there are such historical facts around which I worked, all his intimate moments, his remembrances, his railing against his fate in the privacy of his own room, all of that I imagined, and if I were saying it was Fidel Castro, I couldn’t have taken the same liberties. El Comandante in a way gave me one of those cloaks, magic cloaks, that let me pretty much write whatever I felt was necessary for the character, not for Fidel Castro, but for this character.

LT: In your book Dreaming in Cuban there are various narrative voices, most of them coming from a woman’s point of view. In contrast, King of Cuba revolves around the perspective of two men. What do you think that the masculine narrative of Goyo and El Comandante contributes to the tone of novel?

heard these versions and these stories before, and so, at some point, fairly far along in the novel, I came up with this idea of these other voices that would be constantly contesting and skewering and undermining all this official history. What I was trying to do was sort of layer in a way a kind of cross-section of what history generally looks like, the surface of what we get, the men in charge, the men who end up writing the history, and then all these other voices where the history gets lived out in a sense. That’s what I was up to there. And at the same time, even with the official history, or so-called official histories or representatives thereof, again, I take a lot of liberties. There are a lot of contradictions. These are not smooth narratives, they’re not without their own troubles and regrets. I was just messing around with the nature of history and legacy too.

LT: Yes, I really enjoyed those snippets of news, the confessions, the dialogues. I thought they added a lot to the story.

Would these commentaries be more of an unofficial history as opposed to the history represented by Goyo and El Comandante?

CG: Yes, I would say that, and I would just make it plural: unofficial histories. I think in a way that’s CG: I think everything, really, because they are in always where my interest has been, even back with a sense the official history of Cuba... the official Dreaming in Cuban: we’re looking at one family and history of the island told by El Comandante, and the fall out from big historical events like the Cuban the official exile history as represented by Goyo.

Revolution, this one family and the relationships But really, they only represent a fairly small sector particularly among the women within this family. I of Cubans, Cuban Americans and diasporic Cuwas a political science major and I’m interested in bans. At one point, the book was just two men, policy and big picture things, but I’m much more and it was too desiccated in a way. We all have interested especially when it comes to

fiction on the intricacies of that fall out. That’s why all these other voices are so necessary.

LT: One thing that intrigued me of the two main characters, Goyo and El Comandante, is the similarities between them. It’s almost like they are a reflection of each other. There is a line in the book, “There simply wasn’t enough room for eleven million stars. Just one” (167). Goyo seems to also want to be the star. Could Goyo have been El Comandante if circumstances would’ve allowed?

CG: Yes, absolutely. I think that in some ways by portraying these two men in a detailed fashion as I did and with a sort of almost a ground water similarity to them, I was really in a way trying to show the false dichotomy between the two. They really are flip sides of the same Cuban coin. One doesn’t exist without the other. They’re really the same and had certain historical circumstances been different, Goyo might’ve been in the National Palace and Fidel Castro might’ve been in Miami railing against Goyo. I think Goyo has a sort of sympathy for his son... They are different personalities and Goyo is more sentimental in a way and maybe easier to fall in love. But he shares many qualities with El Comandante. Yes, I think they are the flip sides of the same coin and this thing that “we are so different,” the Cubans on the island and off... I couldn’t disagree more, I really do think that they’re one and the same. They’re just on different sides of the divide.

LT: What are your next projects? Are you going to keep on writing about Cuba?

CG: One of the reasons I have been in Berlin the Photo © Marisa Pawelko last few months is because I’m thinking of setting a book here and I haven’t been here since the 70’s. A lot has changed and so, yes, I’m working on it. I think my books will always have some Cuba in them, they may not necessarily revolve around the Revolution... other books haven’t, but I think it’s still too early to say. I’m thinking about a contemporary book set in Berlin that has some Cubans in it.

LT: I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to La Tolteca. I really enjoyed reading your book.

Thank you and best of luck in your future projects. ◆

La Tolteca © 2013 USA Electra Gamón-Fielding, Ph.D. is currently researching representations of the “exotic” in Spain’s cultural production.

REVIEW

KING OF CUBA In her latest book, King of Cuba, Cristina García delves into the lives of two octogenarian men: El Comandante and Goyo. El Comandante, an unnamed Cuban dictator, is preparing for an extravagant birthday party that will also commemorate his military achievements.

Goyo, a Cuban exile living in Miami, faces the challenges of old age and family problems while obsessing over how to kill El Comandante and die a Cuban hero.

García utilizes three main strings of voices to construct a vision of today’s Cuba and cubanidad. These voices correspond to three versions of Cuban history: the official, the diasporic and the marginal.

Although humanized by his physical frailty and the consequences of old age, his familial problems and the loss of friends, El Comandante shines in those moments when he demonstrates that he’s still able to inspire fear and respect. García never refers to El Comandante by name. Instead, she uses various forms of address such as El Líder, the despot or the tyrant.

Although the connection to Fidel Castro may seem clear, the small discrepancies successfully separate the world of fiction from reality, allowing for more flexibility while developing this fictionalized version of an anonymous Cuban dictator. El Comandante remains the voice of the leader, the voice that defends the Revolution and sees its benefits, but also recognizes (albeit begrudgingly) the less positive aspects.

Goyo’s voice is the voice of the diaspora. Through him we learn of the challenges he faced when arriving to the United States: the loss of a comfortable life, the new beginnings, his mistresses and the troubles of his personal life. Even though Goyo thrives in the United States and becomes wealthy, he is bitter about the fact that he had to leave his country. As is to be expected in diasporic narratives, Goyo’s memories of Cuba are frozen in a moment in time, idealizing his life on the island. He himself recognizes that “perhaps Cuba had become nothing more than an imaginary place, unrelated to any truth” (130). However, it is this “imaginary” Cuba that he mourns and that he blames El Comandante for taking away from him. With his

King of Cuba García, Cristina.

Scribner: New York, 2013.

235 pp.

wife dead and his children beyond his help, Goyo concentrates in his efforts to outlive El Comandante. For Goyo, “El Comandante had fossilized into a monstrous constant, into time itself ” (16). Old age and the consequent realization of the finiteness of time become Goyo’s motivations in his efforts to outlive El Comandante and to dream up and plan various scenarios where El Comandante dies. Goyo wants to die a “Cuban hero”, and in his mind dying a Cuban hero is killing “the tyrant” and freeing Cubans from his presence.

Besides the voices of Goyo and El Comandante, other voices appear in the novel. Side comments, in the form of news snippets, short interviews and dialogues are dispersed throughout the novel. These marginal side notes are in many cases imbued with a fine humor and give the main story the feel of a documentary, even a reality show, in which Goyo and El Comandante are unwitting participants. The author herself, Cristina García appears in one of the footnotes, musing about Cuba’s uncertain future (108). Once again, the tenuous line between fiction and reality blurs thanks to the usage of names and testimony perceived as real, mingled with the fiction that García weaves. These voices contribute to the main narrative by offering multiple perspectives and commentaries about the Revolution and its consequences for Cuba and Cubans. They are a counterpoint to the solid, masculine, more traditional narration of Goyo and El Comandante, as they constantly challenge the official history of the Revolution and the history of the diaspora.

King of Cuba provides a study on Cuban identity through various narratives and differing perspectives of history: the official history and the histories of those who are not always the big players. This identity has been directly affected in various degrees by the actions and the presence of El Comandante. At one point in the novel, El Comandante recognizes that “Every last cubano craved the limelight, but there simply wasn’t enough room for eleven million stars. Just one” (167). That star and its influence, for better or worse, is El Comandante.

However, it is Goyo’s drive and single-minded obsession, his yearning for Cuba, and his love for his children and late wife that in the end steal the show. ◆

Dr. Electra Gamón Fielding is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Weber State University.

REVIEW

In The House Un-American a review by Andrew Reynolds

In the House Un-American is a letter to the “Mothership;” a discordant homage to an ambiguous homeland ripe with internal contradictions. Benjamin Hollander, an immigrant himself, reveals a voice of unstable language where past and present grapple with each other and produce images such as a white Indian chief on the wall of an Italian restaurant; a skateboarder with a shaved head interviewing an old man from a faraway land; and a green baseball bat given as a gift upon arrival to the U.S. Each image, space and figure in the book is American, yet remarkably Un-American.

Hollander’s text represents a discourse familiar to all those that have passed through the national institutions of security, immigration and cultural assimilation. The young yet discerning protagonist, Carlos ben [....] Carlos Rossman, takes readers through the complexities of America and its fluctuating and endless borderlands. Carlos’ constant questioning shapes the genre of the innovative book. It is a literary sandbox, playfully building to then tear down and critique the experiences of the immigrant. I would like to emphasize the book’s playfulness here. In the House Un-American is not a novel, nor a memoir or poetry in prose. It is a conglomeration of historical documents, epistolary, first and third person narratives, dialogues and fragments of American poetry. Nevertheless, the seven sections of the book flow together like a river carrying strands of divergent identities that are essentially American, yet concurrently Un-American.

Perhaps the most tragic parts of the book are the sections of testimony between the American congress and German poet Bertolt Brecht and Austrian composer Haans Eisler. These testimonies are based on misunderstanding, mistranslation and the act of talking past one another. Putting on trial the Un-American and thereby providing her with a voice becomes an act seeped in what it means to be American.

Hence, the paradox of this extraordinary book lies in an understanding of American misunderstanding.

The Un-American is the essence of all things American.

The book ends on a powerful and rather Un-American/American account. The narrator gently prods; “Carlos ben [....] Carlos Rossman could only guess the great secret no one would confess [...], being only that the Heart of Islam was American and that there was nothing to fear” (139). This unknowing optimism is etched on the faces of the boys in the cover image, a photograph reproduced in the last page of the book. We are here but not of here they seem to say. In a way young Carlos is all of us - youthful, wary, quick to embrace his brother, without guile, unwilling to mimic American confidence yet here anyway, whatever the future may hold. ◆

Andrew Reynolds is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at West Texas A&M University and the author of The Spanish American Crónica Modernista, Temporality and Material Culture. Bucknell University Press, 2012.

A Man Named Henry:

Director, Actor, Professor & Star of Chicago Theater

by Elena García Ansani, Ed.D

What do Pedro Páramo, the STARZ network television series Boss, the Chicago Latino Theatre Festival, and Northwestern University all have in common? Enrique (Henry) Godínez! Mr. Godínez, a native of Havana, Cuba, is a critically acclaimed actor, director and stellar artistic leader within the Chicago theater community who has triggered a positive ripple effect that transcends boundaries. The stars were aligned for me in 2006, when I was invited to meet Henry at the Athenaeum Theater in Chicago during the rehearsal of Ana Castillo’s play, Psst, I have Something to Tell You, Mi Amor. Having grown up in Chicago during the 60s and 70s at a time when Latino leaders were pretty much nonexistent, I was in awe.

I first read about Henry Godínez in a local newspaper that told the story about how he and Edward Torres co-founded Teatro Vista: Theatre with a View, in 1990. They started the Latino theatre company to address the lack of opportunities for Latino artists, and other artists of color. Although Godínez left Teatro Vista in 1995, he has proven to be an unstoppable force that continues to astound local, national and international theatre goers. Godínez, 54, currently resides in my town, Evanston, Illinois with his wife and family. By happenstance in June, I crossed paths with the director at a workshop conducted by EvanstArt. I felt as if I had won the lottery when he agreed to find time to answer my questions for La Tolteca: La Tolteca: Within the Chicago theater community and beyond, you are recognized as a pio-

neering leader for Latino artists and actors. You have made the Latino voice heard through your theatrical productions and performances. You have also ‘paid it forward,’ so to speak, for many Latinos within the arts community. Would you please elaborate on your personal journey as an actor, writer and director? Who do you credit as your greatest mentor?

Henry Godínez: When I was in high school theatre kept me engaged, so when I went to col-

lege I was a drama major, of course. I fell in love with Shakespeare and went on to a rigorous three year classic training program in graduate school. I came to Chicago because I was cast in a play called Kabuki Medea; then I was fortunate to keep working in film and TV, as well as with Barbara Gaines in the early years of what is now Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I started directing when Eddie Torres and I got the idea to start Teatro Vista while doing a play together as actors at The Goodman Theater and I became artistic director. I was never a writer, not yet, but have been blessed to work with some of the best Latino writers in the U.S. I have to say my greatest mentor was Michael Maggio, who was the associate artistic director at Goodman, where he directed me in two productions and mentored me in my first few directing gigs at Goodman. But Michael also got me into teaching at Columbia College Chicago, and then at De Paul when he became the dean of the theatre school there. Sadly, he passed away the summer before I was to start teaching at the theatre school. Great man. I wouldn’t be where I am today were it not for him.

LT: How were you encouraged to follow your

LT: Psst, I Have Something to Tell You, Mi Amor, by

heart’s desire when obstacles impeded your path for success?

Ana Castillo is based on the true story of Sister Diana Ortíz who was kidnapped, tortured and raped

by U.S. sponsored Guatemalan forces in 1989. It is an emotionally charged story that brings forward the dark side of military abuse which too often occurs in South American countries. Castillo’s play shines light upon the injustices that were suffered

by Sister Ortíz and reminds us of the many others who have suffered the same or often worse fates. As the director of Ana Castillo’s play, you had an opportunity to advocate for social justice through her story, can you please share how you think this goal was achieved?

HG: I have always been inspired and encour-

aged by what I saw my mother accomplish. She came to this country from Cuba with me and my nine brothers and sisters when she was 40 and after my father basically left to start another family. She raised us and worked two jobs until we all left home. She was an amazing woman who deeply believed that you could do anything in this country if you were willing to work hard enough.

LT: What advice can you offer to young aspiring

Latino artists who are overwhelmed by the cost of higher education but want to pursue their passion for acting?

HG: I would say, don’t

let the cost stand in your way. Don’t let anything stand in your way. There is financial aid available to those that need it, whether it be in the form of loans or scholarships. I paid off two loans from graduate and undergraduate and it was the best feeling in the world.

Strive to achieve your full potential in what you love and schools will be fighting over you.

HG: Working on Psst…I have something to tell you,

mi Amor is probably the most meaningful and fulfilling piece of theatre I’ve ever been involved with. I had worked on a film years earlier also based on the injustices in Latin America during that time, so I was very aware of the terrible situations throughout that region, but Ana’s beautiful piece made it even more personal. We were also fortunate to have two amazing and brave actresses, Maricela Ochoa and Sandra Márquez, and then having Sister Diana in the theatre opening night truly made it a magical experience.

LT: We’d like to ask about your recent produc-

tion that took you to Cuba. Please tell us briefly, about the Pedro Páramo project? It was a take on Juan Rulfo’s story set in revolutionary México (in which you play the lead), a combination of Cuban and Mexican feel.

HG: Of the many beautiful blessings I have had

in my theatrical career, getting to work with Flora Lauten and Teatro Buendía on Pedro Páramo were definitely the most personally meaningful.

We were finally able to bring Buendía to the Latino Theatre Festival at Goodman in 2010, and then we began to dream of doing a project together. Flora and her writing partner Raquel Carrió were so inspired by the Mexican community here in Chicago, and the National Museum of Mexican Art in particular, that Pedro Páramo became the perfect choice. With the collaborative support of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Northwestern University, we developed the piece here last spring, then in Cuba for three weeks with four actors and two musicians, Victor and Zacbe Pichardo. Finally, we brought the Cubans to rehearse and open the play. With half the cast being Cuban and the majority Mexican from Chicago, the play took on a unique blend of both cultures commenting on the revolutionary history of both countries.

LT: Tell us about your Cuba experience.

HG: Bueno, as I said above, I was born in Cuba and came when my family left in ‘61 after the revolution.

I was only three, but grew up hearing stories and seeing pictures of our homeland. I am still the only member of my family to ever go back. For me, art trumps politics, and while I do not agree with how the revolution ultimately went, I believe theater can instigate change much more effectively than bitterness and resentment. ◆ Fall season 2013 Henry will be remounting a production of “A Year with Frog & Toad” for Chicago Children’s Theatre in addition to directing a new play by Elaine Romero at Chicago Dramatist. Later in the year, you can find him directing Quiara Alegria Hudes’ 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning play, “Water by the Spoonful” for the Court Theatre, also in Chicago. You can learn more about Henry Godínez by reading his Artist Bio at: http://www.goodmantheatre.org/artists-archive/collective/henry-godinez/

Elena Garcia Ansani, Ph.D. is an educator, researcher, and activist. (Workshopista, Chicago, 2006)

Splaining Yourself From Black Male Bodies with Spanish Speaking Tongues: An Essay

H.G. Carrillo

O

ye, hombre, aquí en los Estados Unidos de América,

the story of Cuban immigration must begin with the loss of a finca—a great main house, land as far as the eye can see—that culminates in a flight in the middle of the night, and ends in Miami with a hatred, and a painful longing for a place to which you can never return. Apparently, here, Jefferson never attempted to negotiate Cuba away from Spain and adopt it as a state with the hope of reducing the cost and expediting the traffic of the U.S. slave trade, José Marti never made a landmark visit that challenged U.S. scholars’ notions of color, and Saturnino Orestes Armas “Minnie” Miñoso Arrieta was never signed to the Cleveland Indians in 1949.

It also seems that on this side of The Bay, it’s easy to forget that up until Castro’s 1959 revolt, there was what can only be Photo © Nicco Tucci defined as “a shuttle” that travelled daily from Manhattan to La Habana that—in addition to offering sultry tropical nights, gambling and inexpensive entertainments—provided enough distance from scrutiny to those who had a penchant for las negras they couldn’t find in Harlem.

Which could be why with a population of over 11,000,000, the fact that over 38 percent of Cubans might be non-white seems disruptive to the concept of Ricky Ricardo or, por ejemplo, the newer model of Cuban-American male identity, the dark-eyed, olive-skinned, Richard Blanco—both of whom, as you know, asere, are considered white only on the island. Pero, you will need to abandon the question ¿Quién se hubiera imaginado que Desi Arnaz no era blanco? They Photo © Marisa Pawelko don’t nor do they want to hear it, y they will make sure you look like a comemierda for asking. It will only make you sound silly in your failure to recognize the cost for both Arnaz and Blanco of crossing el Estrecho de Florida was a racial claim to whiteness. They are the Cubans, you are black, and everyone knows who everyone is just by looking at each other. Y, ahi-nama, pendejo, is the subtle difference between who you are and what you are.

Aquí, they insist there is a difference between who and what, but it is unclear and le ronca el mango, the way you could spend a lot of your time trying to figure it out. ◆

Copyright 2013 © by H. G. Carrillo H. G. CARRILLO is the author of Loosing My Espanish, a novel, published by Pantheon Books and in paperback from Anchor Books. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at The George Washington University.

autumn & winter reads

Survival Lessons

by Alice Hoffman.

HighBridge Company: 2013 60pp/$11.17

“My hope is that Survival Lessons will reach readers who need this book most, along with their friends and loved ones. It’s the book I would have wanted to be given during my most difficult times, one that doesn’t take itself to seriously while taking the need for hope and joy very seriously indeed.” -- Alice Hoffman

Loosing My Espanish: A Novel

by H.G. Carrillo Anchor Books/Pantheon Books: 2005 336pp/$15.26 In this literary debut Oscar Delossantos is about to lose his job as a high school teacher in Chicago when he embarks on a valiant last history lesson of his own that chronicles the flight from Cuba of his makeshift extended family.

Queer in Aztlán: Chicano Male Recollections of Consciousness and Coming Out Ed. by Adelaida R. Del Castillo and Gibrán Güido; Cognella Academic Publishing, USA; 2014 Paperback $29.95 ISBN: 978-1-62131-805-7, 452 pages The anthology gives readers the opportunity to experience deeply personal narratives from queer Chicanos/ Mexicanos, and explores issues of youth identity, masculinity, homophobia, sexism, and violence. It challenges current scholarship in Chicana/Chicano studies to expand beyond the traditional confines of male sexuality. The book contains a valuable historical bibliography useful to anyone interested in pursuing further reading on the subject.

I Have A Daughter The thickness of my cervix is / only an inch / making it easy for a 4.12 pound baby to channel through my canal as a rat swallowed alive does through the entire length of a snake but she, she is for life, and she, my daughter, is not a rat nor am I a snake.

She did not enter through my mouth.

I did not spit her out.

I gave her life through my pussy.

I only fed her a little through my breast.

I use cash to buy her clothes.

I bathe her, rock her, talk and sing to her.

I give her my little besitos.

Workshopistas’ Palette Photo © Marisa Pawelko

I soothe her, I make her laugh.

My orgasm makes no joke of her.

FUCK YOU She was born descalza … … I will sew her shoes.

Click Click Click Adrianna Herrera Amparán © USA (Wokrshopista, Española, NM 2011)

Her Hands

(In the memory of Comfort Women in the Philippines during World War II) Socorro Pasco © USA (Workshopista, San Diego and Chicago, 2010)

Photo © Marisa Pawelko

Her hands wiry Brown almond-hued She stoops and the sugarcanes On her back Like the memories of Her father Her grandmothers And the mothers before her She walks with a tiredness That time cannot erase Erase that day When the soldiers Came Forged their way Into and out of her That day Even the ocean Muffled her voice Into its depths They have left since then She knows this As she gathers herself From the mud, silt and sand In this land That was hers all along Her eyes see the infinite Earth Her granddaughters Walk like warriors Babayin scripts On their tongues Who speak their mind Speak with the force of ancients Her silence not born in them Where her silence Seeped into her Asleep in them Their voices sharp Knowing the world’s place in theirs Sa tiempo/the time Ang dagat/ and the ocean Ang langit/ and the heavens Sa ila/are theirs

review Spit and Passion

by Cristy C. Road The Feminist Press 2012 157 pages $15.95 US

What It Is and What Is Coming

by Joanna Pham

It’s the remnants of things like flannel, messy hair, Friends, and Madonna’s “Vogue” that truly made the 90s an overwhelming time period for adolescents, teenagers, and, frankly, anyone else who had to endure another episode of Ally McBeal. Being a child of the 90s and its strange array of pop culture, I can honestly say that it was all very frightening. With so much buzz and the coining of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it’s no wonder this decade was the perfect setting for Christy C. Road’s Spit and Passion—a graphic novel.

With a title like Spit and Passion, I think it’s safe to assume that this graphic novel would be filled with thick, edgy lines and contrasting grays that literally convey an oozing. And it is. Each frame is filled with shadowy details and profiled body parts—especially regarding hair, skin follicles, and all things mouth; with a title like Spit and Passion, it’s safe to call this novel visceral. What better way to convey the grit and noise of the 90s and the discombobulated head than with a combination of aggressive visual art and text that is COMPLETELY WRITTEN IN CAPS? It is because of the bridge between visual art and words that the experience of reading a graphic novel is unconventional. Being unconventional herself (to say the least), Road uses this particular medium to evoke immediacy in emotion that you wouldn’t necessarily get in just a picture, or a separate body of text.

Road uses this medium to create a certain relatability to tell a tale that we all know: coming of age, or Bildungsroman, as some of us know it.

Autobiographically, Road recounts her life as an introverted middle school kid wading her way through multiple cultures: the 90s, her peers, gay culture, and a gang of “boisterous Cuban women.” With such a mesh of noise and people, it’s not difficult, as we all know, to feel the effects of isolation, and angst.

Much like Craig Thompson’s Blankets, Charles Burns’ Black Hole, and Alison Bechdel’s Funhome, Spit and Passion recounts the awkward trials of not only growing into unknown adulthood, but growing into said adulthood with a concept—an idea of who we are supposed to be in this world and how it is we’re going to get there.

In Road’s case it’s exploring the finicky concept of acceptance through her newfound love for Greenday and her sexuality, and let’s be honest: it’s not Bildungsroman without the exploration of sexuality (see page 103 for the fierce illustrations of genitals resembling fruit, or page126 for genius display of fallopian tubes in the shape of fists!).

Ultimately, this graphic novel explores what it is to both fight and accept multiple comings: be it the coming of age, coming out of the closet, or literally coming. By cleverly playing with all the connotations of the word, Cristy C. Road—with great volume—speaks that stagnancy and angst are unarguable no matter what decade or place in which we live.

While treading through the perceivably intolerable mess of just growing up, it’s easy to forget that there are better things coming.

Finally, it’s safe to say that a graphic novel composed by a woman like Cristy C. Road is anything but safe, rather, as Billie Joe Armstrong (lead singer of Greenday) calls it: Badass. ◆

Joanna Pham (Workshopista, Westminster College, UT, 2012)

Memoir Writing Workshops with Ana Castillo

Announcements

Southwest Festival of the Written Word

Where: Silver City, NM When: September 28, 2013 www.swwordfiesta.org

MA/MFA Program Introductory Memoir Writing Workshop

Where: English Dept. - Northwestern University - Chicago, IL When: Fall Semester

contact anacastilloworkshops@gmail.com for all workshop inquiries

2-credit Memoir Writing Workshop with emphasis on spirituality

Where: Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco When: Spring Semester contact ac@anacastillo.com for all workshop inquiries

Upcoming Book Releases from Ana Castillo Give It To Me (novel) The Feminist Press; NY. Release: May, 2014 (National Book Tour) Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma: 20th Anniversary Revised Edition Gustavus Myers Award in Human Rights University of New Mexico Press; NM. Release: Fall, 2014.

LA TOLTECA SONNET CONTEST

•Must be original and unpublished; any theme.

•English or Spanish (No translations)

•No multiple submissions. (No poems that are being submitted for consideration for publication elsewhere. Submissions submitted elsewhere will be disqualified.)

•Deadline: February 14, 2014 •Entry Reading Fee: $20 USD per entry. Up to three sonnets per entry (Paypal: ac@anacastillo.com) •Grand Prize: $100.00 USD, publication and feature in LT Spring Equinox Issue 2014 •Second Place: $50.00 USD, publication in LT Spring Equinox Issue 2014 •Submissions and queries: tolteca@anacastillo.com

Become La Tolteca’s Sonneteer!

What Is A Sonnet?

Famous Sonnet Excerpts How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace…

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

(And when love fades… )

Photo © Marisa Pawelko