Blog

 

posted by Ana on 5/12/2008

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Cinco de Mayo and I'm in the East Coast...*(In the U.S. Cinco de Mayo has become a day for celebrating popular Mexican culture more than anything. Below is an excerpt from this wk's Chicago Tribune. In my own family, on my father's side, we have roots going back nearly 100 years--4 generations. In any case, I don't know about anyone else's abuela's cooking but in my family, my tía--born in el De Efe, a Pilsen resident for some 45 years, is a peerless cook.)




"Her secret is when she cooks she uses a low flame for a long time," said Vargas, who comes from Solis' hometown of Navojoa in Mexico's northern state of Sonora.

"I think her secret is love," Michelle Solis added.


Love. Food. Heritage. Maria Solis is not alone in dishing all these things out to her family and friends.

All over the Chicago area, more than 1 million residents of Mexican ancestry are serving up the beloved, authentic dishes they were raised on, especially now for Cinco de Mayo. Whether born in Mexico or the United States, they're making what you could call "Real Mex"—as opposed to the "Tex-Mex" or "Cal-Mex" of the ubiquitous restaurant chains.

And the food is becoming ever more visible in the wider community. Mexican is the largest immigrant community in Metropolitan Chicago, according to a 2007 study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which puts it at 1.2 million people. And the numbers are increasing, as is the awareness of other Chicagoans of the culinary and cultural treasure in their midst.

"When you look at the Mexican food in Chicago, you see it's the closest to real Mexican food than anywhere else in the United States," said chef Rick Bayless. "But it also has its own little Midwestern stamp which seems appropriate. It's just an evolution of dishes."

Bayless, award-winning restaurants, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, said he moved to Chicago because the Mexican food was genuine and true.

"If you really wanted to know about Mexican food, you went to the Mom and Pop place, it wasn't food conceptualized by some gringo guy," he said.

Mexicans have been living in Illinois since at least 1850.* Over a million Mexicans alone in Chicago? Not to mention the many varied other Latinos/Hispanics? If only one out of ten went out and bought a copy of my last novel I'd be on the New York Times Best Seller list! I know for some people that will sound completely self-serving but numbers mean nothing in this world if they don't join together. What better way than reading the most recent novel of their one of their favorite native daughters? Mexican AND born in Chicago! :-)
posted by Ana on 5/04/2008

IF'S IT'S MAY FIRST IT MUST BE NEW YORK
FEELING THE LOVE AS IT WERE AT THE WORLD VOICES PEN FESTIVAL




(After our storyslam experience--telling a prepared story without notes-- at the Moth Theatre event--Annie Proulx and I--troopers til the end...survived.)


(A quick hola--w/ Jessica Hagedorn)

(The inimitable translator Edith Grossman)

(While Salman Rushdie comes by to say hello Vargas Llosa and Humberto Eco give a few words in the patio.)
PUBLIC LIVES/PRIVATE LIVES was the theme of this year's writers' festival. Some don't like their pictures taken, I'm usually one of them. I post these with cariño while I have a matinee gras this Sunday...b4 hitting the road again...
LA last weekend was about 100 degrees, East Coast can't seem to shake the early spring nip in the air. Meanwhile, this writer has a tremendousy busy season as she traverses all kinds of terrain.
Whether they be good reads or bad reads, interminably long ones or all too brief, whether they be pulp or classics--just read, gente. Read.
(If you haven't picked up a copy of The Guardians or asked your library to order it or you haven't read any of my last books...what're you waiting for?) :-)
posted by Ana on 5/04/2008

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Aztlán Books y Más, Las Vegas, NV. April 17, 2008: Featuring
A Moment with Ana la Amazona reading from her most recent novel, The Guardians.
The crowd was small, the venue modest but I was there.
In the fastest growing city in this country--where were all the Xican@s? Their teens and kids? Teachers? Social workers? Activists and journalists? Where were the mothers and fathers? The carnicero y partera?

Maybe the long history of Mexicans in the Southwest is a non-topic for most people in this country who think all Mexicans are immigrants and recent immigrants are the reason for the dollar's drop in the world economy, gas hikes, unprecedented foreclosures, school loan crisis, the ongoing invasion in Iraq, Guantanamo, water depletion, toxic waste, morbid obesity, AIDS and the return of polio, e-coli, mad cow disease, the diminishing membership of unions, the increasing membership in unions, the broken levees in New Orleans, the meth scene in their neighborhood, spam on the Internet, telemarketers on their cell phones, why their kids are lousy students and the high rate of divorce and basically every other problem in this country...

But those of us who have been on this side of the Border through ancestry for hundreds of years know better.

For all our numbers we don't love our writers and poets enough to always show them. (Yes, I know. I mean me.)

Join me at my next reading.
Bring your copy of The Guardians or any of my earlier works. I'm with you.
Let me know you are with me, too.
posted by Ana on 4/29/2008

last weekend at the L.A. Times Book Festival on a panel with J.F. Herrera, el poeta Californio and Gustavo Arellano, journalist. The panel centered on the hot issue of undocumented Mexicans. Some hostility in the air. with The Guardians I've not given a reading anywhere without some audience walking out.
Arellano, announcing his generation, said he felt energized to fight the antagonism.
That is a good thing. When you've been around for over half a century and have gone full circle, waiting for the signs to come up any minute, No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed, since you can read all the other signs, you need the yunguns with fresh blood to pick up the...well, they'll know what they will have to pick up.
src="http://anacastillo.com/ac/blog/uploaded_images/P1010019_2-734866.JPG" border="0" alt="" />


(Espedrilles, silk, Mexico City)
(A reunion in West Hollywood w/ 3 original "Voladoras.')

(Photo Credit: YoMo--please ask permission to reprint)

(Modeling Diosa dress by Alberto Ibarra and Toltec necklace by Cristy Burgos--Xican@ L.A. artists)
Ana Castillo, whatever happened to your Xicanisma? I was asked last fall in an interview. It's ALIVE and not just mine. It's doing fabulously in L.A., artistas, Xican@ fashions, amazing art, performance, music and jewelry-- a virtual celebration of la cultura that is alive and ain't goin' nowhere, so get used to it.
¡Qué Viva Xicanism@ en L.A.!

posted by Ana on 4/29/2008

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

TRADE starring Kevin Kline, a 2007 film based on the article about pedophile slave trade that came out in the NYT a fews year back. (It's worth looking up.)


Mexican women have been getting some attention in movies in recent times. Except for Selma Hayek, they're usually not bound for Hollywood and related to the current horrific reality of body trafficking.

Due to my ongoing interest in the subject I viewed the above movie, a modest production with international cast, in Spanish and English. Well done but they went for the feel-good Hollywood ending. Of course, in reality, international slave trade estimates about a million human beings a year.

Children from Thailand and China to Mexico and Brazil, women from Russia and Mexico and men, too. People who set out to find a 'better life' in the States or out right kidnapped. Most of us don't want to imagine what happens to the children and women.

Summer's upon us. So kids, as you go out and travel, especially young women but everyone, do not think the world is your playground and do not think your American passport is going to help you out of any trouble. Remember what your mum always said: Don't talk to strangers. Of course, you won't take my advice. So, if you insist on not believing that body trafficking is the biggest criminal business today, bigger than drugs, do yourself and your loved ones a favor, when out and about, always listen to your instinct. Be safe. It's always better to err on the side of caution than to find yourself in a car trunk, live or dead.
posted by Ana on 4/23/2008

Virtual fence on Mexican border deemed insufficient

posted by Ana on 4/23/2008

Saturday, April 19, 2008

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK FESTIVAL NEXT WEEK!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Please note: Participants and panel times may change. Please come back to see updates.

PANEL 1105

4:00 PM
Immigration Beyond the Border
Moderator Mr. Marcos McPeek Villatoro
Mr. Gustavo Arellano
Ms. Ana Castillo
Mr. Juan Felipe Herrera

posted by Ana on 4/19/2008

(Yet another Latina discovers her Jewish history. She asks that I post her site. Here it is, folks. Please contact her directly w/ any questions.)



Original Poetry:
miriamherrerapoems.googlepages.
com

Chicano Resources page:

miriamherrerapoems.googlepages.com/chicanoarts&culture

Site Description:

Poetry Collection by Author, M. Miriam Herrera

A collection of original poetry from Kaddish for Columbus: Images of
nature, life, and folklore from Chicano, Native American, and crypto-Jewish
(anusim) cultures. The site also offers quality annotated link pages in
poetry: Tools for Getting Published; Writers Workshops & Residencies;
Organizing a Poetry Manuscript; Manuscript Preparation & Publishing Tips;
and also in Chicano, Native American, and crypto-Judaic studies of the
American Southwest.



posted by Ana on 4/19/2008

A note to students and teachers:

On a regular basis, via the miraculous expediency and efficiency for communication that has resulted from the Internet I receive an email like the following:

I am a student and I just finished reading So Far From God. I am
trying to research the legends and myths you use in your story. One in
particular, when the two girls (Caridad and her friend) jump off the cliff
and are swallowed by the earth. I was hoping you could tell me where you
heard of this legend. What Native American tribe does it come from? Where
can I read more about it?

First off, I have been gratified to know that my books have long been adopted in courses and classrooms. However, my web site has long stated that I am not available for academic interviews. In other words, I am not prepared to stop my work to to students' homework.

(And believe me, everyone, any time you contact me, I am working. That's is why I've checked my emails. I am at the computer.)

When that is ignored by a student who has gone to my website and obtained an email address of me and writes anyway, in addition to my time and privacy being intruded upon, it is further off putting to be written to as if I were a friend on MySpace. My mother, a woman of humble background and little formal education nevertheless taught me how to how to write letters and the first consideration was to properly address the person to whom you are writing. In my case, from a student or perfect stranger, it should be, Dr. Castillo.

By tradition or vocation, long before writing was a 'career choice' and people went out and got MFAs to become poets which seemed to signify that its purpose was to earn money like any profession and perhaps garnish some popularity, creative writers spent much of their time hard at their craft, devoted to telling the best story they could out of personal dedication. Their only desire was to some day be read. Most of us still wish for that. Poets, notorious for not making money from their art, nevertheless spent to their last cent on books they couldn't afford but prized them above all other possessions that could be had. All writers spent most of their time reading. All writers still spend much of our time reading. Moreover, novelists are not autobiographers, writing only on personal experience, we must research. During this time, we might have to earn our living doing other work, our children must be cared for and it is true, the writer's life is lonely because writing is normally a solitary experience. All this, to deliver to the reader all that they have to give. And our task and dream is done.

Therefore, I personally beseech students to not use the convenience of the Internet to contact me to help them to do their homework. I would not dream of contacting a famous surgeon to explain a surgical procedure they have developed and I am curious about but would respect the protocol of the medical profession and make an appointment--if indeed I might get one.

I am certain this does not apply to most but teachers: do not be remiss of your own duties when assigning literature to your students by encouraging your students to contact the author to give answers about the text that could be found in various sources.

Writing a book takes more than most people can imagine.
I remember many years ago, i offered to trade one of my books of poems for the small print an artist had at a street fair. He considered his print to have the monetary value he had given it but did not consider the book as a product to be worth as much. He asked me how much time it had taken me to write. It was a collection of poems, slender in pages, to be sure. "It is the sum of a lifetime of passion and dedication to the verse," I said. That is how each book should be viewed. And once read, the reader should know they have all that the poet or story-teller had to give, and much, more more.





posted by Ana on 4/19/2008

Friday, April 18, 2008

The Moth presents

Under Cover: Stories about Public Lives and Private Lives

Part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature

Thursday, May 1

The Moth teams up once again with the revered PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature for an evening of stories about public and private lives. Annie Proulx and other PEN writers will examine the line between what is offered for public consumption and what is reserved for special guests only. The artist's life, inside out; the exhibitionist's secret; the undercover agent's big reveal.

Featuring stories by:
Ana Castillo, author of The Mixquiahuala Letters
Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart
Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain
Gonçalo Tavares, author of Jerusalém
among others

Hosted by: Andy Borowitz

at the newly restored Museum at Eldridge Street
12 Eldridge Street
(between Canal and Division)

Doors open at 7:00PM
Stories start on stage at 8:00PM

$30 Tickets available now at www.smarttix.com or by calling 212-868-4444
(ticket price includes open bar sponsored by Flor de Caña Rum)


Artistic Director: Catherine Burns
Executive and Creative Director: Lea Thau
Senior Producer: Sarah Austin Jenness
Curator and Producer: Jenifer Hixson
Associate Producer: Meg McIntyre
Program Manager: Marianne Gadeberg

About the Storytellers:

Andy Borowitz (host) is a comedian, actor and writer whose work appears regularly in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and at Newsweek.com. He is the first winner of the National Press Club’s humor award and has won seven Dot-Comedy Awards for his website, borowitzreport.com. He has appeared on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday, CNN’s American Morning, VH1’s Best Week Ever and has acted in the films: Marie and Bruce starring Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick and Melinda and Melinda starring Will Ferrell and directed by Woody Allen. He is the author of five humor books, including Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO’s Guide to Surviving in Prison, and The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers, a 2005 Finalist for the Thurber prize for American Humor.

Ana Castillo is a celebrated poet, novelist, short story writer, and esaayist. Castillo was born and raised in Chicago. She has one son, Marcel Ramón Herrera, born in Evanston, Illinois, on September 21, 1983. Long considered one of the leading voices to emerge from the Chicana experience, Castillo is a prolific author whose work has been critically acclaimed and widely anthologized in the United States and abroad. Castillo’s books include the novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters (Bilingual Review Press, 1986; Doubleday, 1992), for which she received the Before Columbia Foundation’s American Book Award in 1987. Her awards include an American Book Award for The Mixquiahuala Letters, the Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry. In 1998 she was awarded the Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago. In 2006 she was winner of the Independent Publisher Story Teller of the Year Award.

Rian Malan began his career as a reporter on the Johannesburg Star. He left South Africa in the late 70s to avoid serving in apartheid’s army, spent a decade in Europe and America and now lives in Johannesburg. Over the past two decades he has written books, including My Traitor’s Heart, a nonfiction best-seller, served as a contributing editor on Rolling Stone and Esquire magazines, contributed articles to Time magazine, The Spectator, The Observer and various other publications, made documentaries, written screenplays, and written songs for various South African artists. He has in recent years become a newsmaker in his own right, attracting international coverage for his crusade on behalf of Solomon Linda, the illiterate Zulu labourer who created ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, and for his controversial questioning of African Aids estimates. His recent venture into music prompted SA novelist and songwriter Koos Kombuis to dub him ‘a one-man cultural revolution’.

Annie Proulx did not start writing until she was in her late fifties. Since then, she has received many literary awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dos Passos Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Irish Times International Prize for her novels and short stories. A new collection of short stories, Fine Just the Way It Is, will be published in 2008.

Gonçalo Tavares was born in 1970. In 2005 his novel Jerusalém won the Saramago Prize. In his speech at the award ceremony, Saramago commented "Jerusalém is a great book, and truly deserves a place among the great works of Western literature. Gonçalo M. Tavares has no right to be writing so well... One feels like punching him!" The novel also appears alongside works by Philip Roth and John Banville in the European edition of "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die". In addition to writing novels, Gonçalo M.Tavares has invented a fictional writers´neighborhood, using playfully philosophical stories to introduce in book form characters such as Mr. Brecht, Mr. Juarroz, Mr. Calvino, Mr. Walser, Mr. Duchamp and Mr.Eliot.

---

posted by Ana on 4/18/2008