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Summer Reading Suggestions
To contact us Click HERE
When I look at the summer reading suggestions from the “mainstream”print media, I seldom see a book by a Chicano/a or Latino/a writer…bigsurprise, right? Do I soundannoyed? Well, I shouldn’t be at thispoint in my middle age. Anyway, since wehave La Bloga, we can remedy this. So,here are several book recommendations (all published in 2012) to fill yoursummer days with fiction, poetry, memoir and literary scholarship by wonderfulwriters you may or may not know. And ifyou have some recommendations, please feel free to make a suggestion in thecomments below. And remember: ¡Lea unlibro!
◙ WovenVoices: Three Generations of Puertorriquena Poets Look at Their American Lives(Scapegoat Press) by Anita Vélez-Mitchell,Gloria Vando and Anika Paris (with an introduction by Linda Rodriguez)
“This is not yourusual book of poetry. It was designed tobe a...conversation of poetry among three very different but truly relatedpoets, Anita Vélez-Mitchell, grandmother and mother, Gloria Vando, mother anddaughter, and Anika Paris, daughter and granddaughter. The work of each woman has been divided amongcommon subjects and placed in relation to work of the other two women, forminga poetic conversation…, the poetic equivalent of pulling up a chair and sittingwith a cup of tea or coffee to listen to the three generations of women talkingtogether about the important issues of their lives and often laughing together.”–Linda Rodriguez, from the Introduction
◙ RoseHill: An Intermarriage before Its Times (HeydayBooks) by Carlos E. Cortés
From the publisher: “The son of a MexicanCatholic father with aristocratic roots and a mother of Eastern European Jewishdescent, Carlos Cortés grew up wedged between cultures, living a childhood in ‘constantcrossfire-straddling borders, balancing loves and loyalties, and trying to fitinto a world that wasn’t quite ready.’ Inhis new memoir, Rose Hill: An Intermarriage before Its Time, Cortéslovingly chronicles his family’s tumultuous, decades-long spars over religion,class, and culture, from his early years in legally segregated Kansas Cityduring the 1940s to his return to Berkeley (where his parents met) in the1950s, and to his parents’ separation, reconciliation, deaths, and eventualburials at the Rose Hill Cemetery.” Youmay read La Bloga’s previous interview with Prof. Cortés here.
◙ TheTemptation: A Kindred Novel (HarperCollins) by Alisa Valdes
From the publisher (teen fiction): “Shane isnear death after crashing her car on a long stretch of empty highway in ruralNew Mexico when she is miraculously saved by a mysterious young man who walksout of nowhere. She feels an instantenergy between them, both a warmth that fills her soul and a tingle that makesher shiver. But who, or what, is he? For the first time in her life, she believesin the term ‘soul mates’—Travis is her destiny, and she is his. But she soondiscovers that Travis is dead and strict rules govern kindred spirits ofdifferent dimensions. Even a kiss coulddestroy both their souls. And whileTravis is almost impossible to resist, temptation proves to be the kindestenemy they encounter. In this partromance, part supernatural thriller, true love discovers it may not be able tosurpass all—especially the power of pure evil.”
◙ BuenasNoches, American Culture: Latina/o Aesthetics of Night (Indiana UniversityPress) by MarÃa DeGuzmán
From the publisher: “Oftentreated like night itself—both visible and invisible, feared andromanticized—Latina/os make up the largest minority group in the US. In hernewest work, MarÃa DeGuzmán explores representations of night in art andliterature from the Caribbean, Colombia, Central and South America, and the U.S.,calling into question night's effect on the formation of identity for Latina/osin and outside of the U.S. She takes asher subject novels, short stories, poetry, essays, non-fiction, photo-fictions,photography, and film, and examines these texts through the lenses ofnationhood, sexuality, human rights, exoticism, among others.”
◙ NotMyself Without You (BilingualReview Press) by Lourdes Vázquez
From the publisher: “In NotMyself without You, a working-class Puerto Rican family of the 1950s livessurrounded by spirits, ghosts, and witches, a result of incantations performedin their living room. Chronicling nearlytwo decades of the family's history including their occult activities the storyinvolves characters who are centered in Puerto Rico but who move through theCaribbean, Central America, Spain, and New York as they are pulled by theeconomic, political, and social conditions of the times and by their own intensedesires. Lacking the tools to understandthe complexity of the world around them, these entities often travel withoutclear concepts of place or time and in a constant aura of exile. As their stories come to light throughfragments of prayers, sayings, poems, newspaper articles, and excerpts frombooks as in a family scrapbook, the characters themselves speak of intimate,political, or social issues in voices that are familiar, erotic, satirical, andhumorous. Based on oral history andresearch, Not Myself Without You isthe author’s own memoir with astrong fictional twist.”
◙ Traces: ABook of Poetry (BilingualReview Press) by Danny Romero
From the publisher: “In simple, wistful verse, Danny Romero gives usa glimpse into a man who recognizes the connections between himself and hisworld. He acknowledges his nobleancestral roots, and he juxtaposes them with memories of a harsh youth in thebarrios of 1970s Los Angeles. Theseaccessible and straightforward poems explore topics that are decidedly not. The poet points to the uncertainty of life,facing the daunting and the delightful with equal honesty, and touches on adepth of emotion we desperately want to understand. Romero expertly yet lightly reveals that therichest parts of life are often small and fleeting, challenging us toappreciate them.”
When I look at the summer reading suggestions from the “mainstream”print media, I seldom see a book by a Chicano/a or Latino/a writer…bigsurprise, right? Do I soundannoyed? Well, I shouldn’t be at thispoint in my middle age. Anyway, since wehave La Bloga, we can remedy this. So,here are several book recommendations (all published in 2012) to fill yoursummer days with fiction, poetry, memoir and literary scholarship by wonderfulwriters you may or may not know. And ifyou have some recommendations, please feel free to make a suggestion in thecomments below. And remember: ¡Lea unlibro!
◙ WovenVoices: Three Generations of Puertorriquena Poets Look at Their American Lives(Scapegoat Press) by Anita Vélez-Mitchell,Gloria Vando and Anika Paris (with an introduction by Linda Rodriguez)
“This is not yourusual book of poetry. It was designed tobe a...conversation of poetry among three very different but truly relatedpoets, Anita Vélez-Mitchell, grandmother and mother, Gloria Vando, mother anddaughter, and Anika Paris, daughter and granddaughter. The work of each woman has been divided amongcommon subjects and placed in relation to work of the other two women, forminga poetic conversation…, the poetic equivalent of pulling up a chair and sittingwith a cup of tea or coffee to listen to the three generations of women talkingtogether about the important issues of their lives and often laughing together.”–Linda Rodriguez, from the Introduction
◙ RoseHill: An Intermarriage before Its Times (HeydayBooks) by Carlos E. Cortés
From the publisher: “The son of a MexicanCatholic father with aristocratic roots and a mother of Eastern European Jewishdescent, Carlos Cortés grew up wedged between cultures, living a childhood in ‘constantcrossfire-straddling borders, balancing loves and loyalties, and trying to fitinto a world that wasn’t quite ready.’ Inhis new memoir, Rose Hill: An Intermarriage before Its Time, Cortéslovingly chronicles his family’s tumultuous, decades-long spars over religion,class, and culture, from his early years in legally segregated Kansas Cityduring the 1940s to his return to Berkeley (where his parents met) in the1950s, and to his parents’ separation, reconciliation, deaths, and eventualburials at the Rose Hill Cemetery.” Youmay read La Bloga’s previous interview with Prof. Cortés here.
◙ TheTemptation: A Kindred Novel (HarperCollins) by Alisa Valdes
From the publisher (teen fiction): “Shane isnear death after crashing her car on a long stretch of empty highway in ruralNew Mexico when she is miraculously saved by a mysterious young man who walksout of nowhere. She feels an instantenergy between them, both a warmth that fills her soul and a tingle that makesher shiver. But who, or what, is he? For the first time in her life, she believesin the term ‘soul mates’—Travis is her destiny, and she is his. But she soondiscovers that Travis is dead and strict rules govern kindred spirits ofdifferent dimensions. Even a kiss coulddestroy both their souls. And whileTravis is almost impossible to resist, temptation proves to be the kindestenemy they encounter. In this partromance, part supernatural thriller, true love discovers it may not be able tosurpass all—especially the power of pure evil.”
◙ BuenasNoches, American Culture: Latina/o Aesthetics of Night (Indiana UniversityPress) by MarÃa DeGuzmán
From the publisher: “Oftentreated like night itself—both visible and invisible, feared andromanticized—Latina/os make up the largest minority group in the US. In hernewest work, MarÃa DeGuzmán explores representations of night in art andliterature from the Caribbean, Colombia, Central and South America, and the U.S.,calling into question night's effect on the formation of identity for Latina/osin and outside of the U.S. She takes asher subject novels, short stories, poetry, essays, non-fiction, photo-fictions,photography, and film, and examines these texts through the lenses ofnationhood, sexuality, human rights, exoticism, among others.”
◙ NotMyself Without You (BilingualReview Press) by Lourdes Vázquez
From the publisher: “In NotMyself without You, a working-class Puerto Rican family of the 1950s livessurrounded by spirits, ghosts, and witches, a result of incantations performedin their living room. Chronicling nearlytwo decades of the family's history including their occult activities the storyinvolves characters who are centered in Puerto Rico but who move through theCaribbean, Central America, Spain, and New York as they are pulled by theeconomic, political, and social conditions of the times and by their own intensedesires. Lacking the tools to understandthe complexity of the world around them, these entities often travel withoutclear concepts of place or time and in a constant aura of exile. As their stories come to light throughfragments of prayers, sayings, poems, newspaper articles, and excerpts frombooks as in a family scrapbook, the characters themselves speak of intimate,political, or social issues in voices that are familiar, erotic, satirical, andhumorous. Based on oral history andresearch, Not Myself Without You isthe author’s own memoir with astrong fictional twist.”
◙ Traces: ABook of Poetry (BilingualReview Press) by Danny Romero
From the publisher: “In simple, wistful verse, Danny Romero gives usa glimpse into a man who recognizes the connections between himself and hisworld. He acknowledges his nobleancestral roots, and he juxtaposes them with memories of a harsh youth in thebarrios of 1970s Los Angeles. Theseaccessible and straightforward poems explore topics that are decidedly not. The poet points to the uncertainty of life,facing the daunting and the delightful with equal honesty, and touches on adepth of emotion we desperately want to understand. Romero expertly yet lightly reveals that therichest parts of life are often small and fleeting, challenging us toappreciate them.”
A Beginner's Guide to Beans, Plus 42 Bean Recipes
To contact us Click HERE
This article first appeared in October 2009.
Some will balk at their flavor and size. Many will have texture issues. And still others just won’t enjoy the farting.
But know this: there are few cheaper, healthier, and more versatile foods than the humble bean. Members of the legume family, beans can be found everywhere from gourmet restaurants to campfire cauldrons. They’ve been vital to the survival of certain populations, and instrumental to the development of particular cuisines. Also, they taste good.
Still, there are folks out there unfamiliar with chickpeas and pintos, kidney and black beans. And for them, CHG proudly presents the following: a breakdown of why beans are wonderful, plus 42 tried-and-true recipes in which to use them.
HEALTH BENEFITS
Low in fat, high in protein, and astronomically high in fiber, beans work beautifully as the main components of recipes, but also as fabulous alternatives to meat. This is for a few reasons: A) they create a complete protein when paired with nuts, seeds, or grains, B) their chemical composition makes you feel sated longer than a lot of other foods, and C) they have a bulky and substantial mouthfeel, so you never feel deprived. Studies have found them to be solid tools in weight loss and maintenance, and integral to the prevention of all kinds of diseases.
If that ain’t enough for you, this WebMD blurb is pretty convincing: “In a recent study, bean eaters weighed, on average, 7 pounds less and had slimmer waists than their bean-avoiding counterparts -- yet they consumed 199 calories more per day if they were adults and an incredible 335 calories more if they were teenagers.” Sweet.
P.S. True to the well-known rhyme, beans make you both smartier and fartier. They contain both certain vitamins that improve brain function AND undigestable sugars, which lead to exciting intestinal activity, which leads to gas. So there you go.
PRICE
Grown globally from Ethiopia to Australia, beans are some of the most plentiful - and subsequently cheapest - edibles anywhere. A pound of dried beans in Brooklyn will generally run about $1, and will produce four to six cups of food after rehydration.
Compare that to meat. In my neighborhood, a pound of chicken breast (one of the healthier animal options) runs $1.69 on sale. It shrinks slightly when cooked, ultimately producing around two cups of poultry.
Let’s do some math, then. One cup of cheap chicken is $1.69 divided by two, or $0.85. One cup of beans is $1.00 divided by five, or $0.20. Using these (incredibly) rough numbers, chicken breast is 425% the price of dried beans.
Of course, the numbers will vary by area, sales, and math skills, but you get the idea.
DRIED OR CANNED?
It’s a controversy as old as storage itself: dried or canned beans? On one hand, dried beans are universally cheaper, and widely considered to possess a creamier consistency and better overall flavor. On the other hand, canned beans aren’t terribly expensive themselves, and the taste difference is pretty negligible when you’re talking about everyday kitchen use.
The tiebreaker, then, is time. If you have the wherewithal, forethought, and 90 to 480 minutes to rehydrate a bag of dried chickpeas, you’ll be rewarded in kind. If you‘re throwing dinner together and an hour-long prep time is crazy talk, canned beans are the way to go.
It’s worth noting that if respected cooks aren’t using canned beans already (Giada DeLaurentiis, Sara Moulton, etc.), they’re starting to come around. Even die-hard dried fans like Mark Bittman have been giving props to metal dwellers recently. Meaning: don’t fear the Goya.
INTRODUCING … THE BEANS
If you’ve ever tried chili, hummus, minestrone, Texas caviar, Mexican food, Indian food, Italian food, or, er, refried beans, you’ve already experienced the wonder of the bean. They’re omnipresent in cuisines all over the world, and come in a range of flavors and sizes that can be adapted to thousands of dishes. Here are six of the most common found in the U.S., along with a few recipe suggestions for each.
(A quick note before we get to the beans themselves: there are a zillion types of legume, and some [like the soybean] are rocketing in popularity stateside. But to keep things manageable, we’re sticking to a few big ones.)
Black Beans
Used frequently in Latin cuisines, the black bean is a small, ebony bean with an earthy flavor. I find it pairs very well with grains, and makes for a stellar soup.
Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa
Black Bean Brownies
Black Bean Burrito Bake
Black Bean Salad with Fresh Corn
Black Bean Soup
Calabacitas Burritos
Stuffed Peppers with Black Beans and Corn
Black-Eyed Peas
A terrible band, but a wonderful food, black-eyed peas are all over Southern cuisine. Like other beans, they’re great sources of fiber, folate, and protein. Unlike other beans, you will always feel like they’re looking at you.
Black-Eyed Pea (Texas) Caviar
Black-Eyed Pea Salad
Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Peas
Cannellini/White Beans
There are a ton of variations on the white bean, but I dig cannellinis in particular for their creaminess and flavor. Found in many Italian dishes, you’ll find that Microsoft Word often corrects its spelling to “cannelloni,” which is annoying.
Escarole and White Beans
Garlicky Long Beans and Beans
Grilled Zucchini with Quinoa Stuffing
Guacamole Bean Dip
Penne with Lemon, Potatoes, and Cannellini
White Bean and Tarragon Soup
White Chicken Chili
Spinach and Cannellini Bean Dip
Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans)
Without chickpeas, there would be no hummus. And without hummus, there would be no joy. Vital to Italian, Indian, and Middle Eastern cuisines (among others), the plentiful and versatile garbanzo bean can be found in virtually every form, from dip to stew to flour (though I have yet to see a chickpea smoothie). Due to its subtle flavor and increasing ubiquity in the U.S., I like to think of the chickpea as a gateway bean; if you like it, odds are other legumes will soon follow.
Beets and Greens Curry with Chickpeas
Chickpea Salad
Couscous with Chickpeas, Tomatoes, and Edamame
Curry in a Hurry
Greek-Style Chickpea Salad
Lemony Light Hummus
North African-style Chickpea Salad
Pasta e Ceci
Pasta with Zucchini and Chickpeas
Pasta with Broccoli and Chickpeas
Pindi Chana (Spicy Chickpea Curry)
Roasted Chickpeas
Shredded Zucchini and Chickpeas Over Polenta
Kidney Beans (red and pink)
Substantive and quite large in comparison to other common legumes, kidney beans go great on salads and substitute fabulously for meat in chilis and stews. And seriously, what’s a frugal kitchen without red beans and rice?
Chili Corn Pone Pie
Pumpkin Turkey Chili
Pinto Beans (Frijoles)
Wonderful on their own and even better mashed, these pink-brown legumes claim the great honor of being the only bean my mom likes. Also, I could be talking out my neck here, but I find pintos a little sweeter than black beans and chickpeas.
Refried Beans
Swiss Chard with Pinto Beans and Goat Cheese
Multiple Beans
Each of the following recipes use more than one type of bean.
Bodega Beans (any)
Camp Stove Veggie Chili (black, kidney)
Curried Chickpeas and Black Beans (chickpeas, black)
Easy Vegetarian Bean Chili (any)
Gallo Pinto (pinto, black)
Indonesian Curried Bean Stew (chickpeas, black, kidney )
Light Leftover Turkey Chili (black, kidney)
Turkey Chili with Beans (white, pink, kidney)
And that's our ballgame. Readers, how about you? What are your favorite bean recipes?
~~~
If you like this article, you might also dig:
Some will balk at their flavor and size. Many will have texture issues. And still others just won’t enjoy the farting.
But know this: there are few cheaper, healthier, and more versatile foods than the humble bean. Members of the legume family, beans can be found everywhere from gourmet restaurants to campfire cauldrons. They’ve been vital to the survival of certain populations, and instrumental to the development of particular cuisines. Also, they taste good.Still, there are folks out there unfamiliar with chickpeas and pintos, kidney and black beans. And for them, CHG proudly presents the following: a breakdown of why beans are wonderful, plus 42 tried-and-true recipes in which to use them.
HEALTH BENEFITS
Low in fat, high in protein, and astronomically high in fiber, beans work beautifully as the main components of recipes, but also as fabulous alternatives to meat. This is for a few reasons: A) they create a complete protein when paired with nuts, seeds, or grains, B) their chemical composition makes you feel sated longer than a lot of other foods, and C) they have a bulky and substantial mouthfeel, so you never feel deprived. Studies have found them to be solid tools in weight loss and maintenance, and integral to the prevention of all kinds of diseases.
If that ain’t enough for you, this WebMD blurb is pretty convincing: “In a recent study, bean eaters weighed, on average, 7 pounds less and had slimmer waists than their bean-avoiding counterparts -- yet they consumed 199 calories more per day if they were adults and an incredible 335 calories more if they were teenagers.” Sweet.
P.S. True to the well-known rhyme, beans make you both smartier and fartier. They contain both certain vitamins that improve brain function AND undigestable sugars, which lead to exciting intestinal activity, which leads to gas. So there you go.
PRICE
Grown globally from Ethiopia to Australia, beans are some of the most plentiful - and subsequently cheapest - edibles anywhere. A pound of dried beans in Brooklyn will generally run about $1, and will produce four to six cups of food after rehydration.
Compare that to meat. In my neighborhood, a pound of chicken breast (one of the healthier animal options) runs $1.69 on sale. It shrinks slightly when cooked, ultimately producing around two cups of poultry.Let’s do some math, then. One cup of cheap chicken is $1.69 divided by two, or $0.85. One cup of beans is $1.00 divided by five, or $0.20. Using these (incredibly) rough numbers, chicken breast is 425% the price of dried beans.
Of course, the numbers will vary by area, sales, and math skills, but you get the idea.
DRIED OR CANNED?
It’s a controversy as old as storage itself: dried or canned beans? On one hand, dried beans are universally cheaper, and widely considered to possess a creamier consistency and better overall flavor. On the other hand, canned beans aren’t terribly expensive themselves, and the taste difference is pretty negligible when you’re talking about everyday kitchen use.
The tiebreaker, then, is time. If you have the wherewithal, forethought, and 90 to 480 minutes to rehydrate a bag of dried chickpeas, you’ll be rewarded in kind. If you‘re throwing dinner together and an hour-long prep time is crazy talk, canned beans are the way to go.
It’s worth noting that if respected cooks aren’t using canned beans already (Giada DeLaurentiis, Sara Moulton, etc.), they’re starting to come around. Even die-hard dried fans like Mark Bittman have been giving props to metal dwellers recently. Meaning: don’t fear the Goya.
INTRODUCING … THE BEANS
If you’ve ever tried chili, hummus, minestrone, Texas caviar, Mexican food, Indian food, Italian food, or, er, refried beans, you’ve already experienced the wonder of the bean. They’re omnipresent in cuisines all over the world, and come in a range of flavors and sizes that can be adapted to thousands of dishes. Here are six of the most common found in the U.S., along with a few recipe suggestions for each.
(A quick note before we get to the beans themselves: there are a zillion types of legume, and some [like the soybean] are rocketing in popularity stateside. But to keep things manageable, we’re sticking to a few big ones.)
Black Beans
Used frequently in Latin cuisines, the black bean is a small, ebony bean with an earthy flavor. I find it pairs very well with grains, and makes for a stellar soup.
Black Bean and Tomato QuinoaBlack Bean Brownies
Black Bean Burrito Bake
Black Bean Salad with Fresh Corn
Black Bean Soup
Calabacitas Burritos
Stuffed Peppers with Black Beans and Corn
Black-Eyed Peas
A terrible band, but a wonderful food, black-eyed peas are all over Southern cuisine. Like other beans, they’re great sources of fiber, folate, and protein. Unlike other beans, you will always feel like they’re looking at you.
Black-Eyed Pea (Texas) Caviar
Black-Eyed Pea Salad
Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Peas
Cannellini/White Beans
There are a ton of variations on the white bean, but I dig cannellinis in particular for their creaminess and flavor. Found in many Italian dishes, you’ll find that Microsoft Word often corrects its spelling to “cannelloni,” which is annoying.
Escarole and White Beans
Garlicky Long Beans and BeansGrilled Zucchini with Quinoa Stuffing
Guacamole Bean Dip
Penne with Lemon, Potatoes, and Cannellini
White Bean and Tarragon Soup
White Chicken Chili
Spinach and Cannellini Bean Dip
Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans)
Without chickpeas, there would be no hummus. And without hummus, there would be no joy. Vital to Italian, Indian, and Middle Eastern cuisines (among others), the plentiful and versatile garbanzo bean can be found in virtually every form, from dip to stew to flour (though I have yet to see a chickpea smoothie). Due to its subtle flavor and increasing ubiquity in the U.S., I like to think of the chickpea as a gateway bean; if you like it, odds are other legumes will soon follow.
Beets and Greens Curry with Chickpeas
Chickpea Salad
Couscous with Chickpeas, Tomatoes, and Edamame
Curry in a Hurry
Greek-Style Chickpea SaladLemony Light Hummus
North African-style Chickpea Salad
Pasta e Ceci
Pasta with Zucchini and Chickpeas
Pasta with Broccoli and Chickpeas
Pindi Chana (Spicy Chickpea Curry)
Roasted Chickpeas
Shredded Zucchini and Chickpeas Over Polenta
Kidney Beans (red and pink)
Substantive and quite large in comparison to other common legumes, kidney beans go great on salads and substitute fabulously for meat in chilis and stews. And seriously, what’s a frugal kitchen without red beans and rice?
Chili Corn Pone Pie
Pumpkin Turkey Chili
Pinto Beans (Frijoles)
Wonderful on their own and even better mashed, these pink-brown legumes claim the great honor of being the only bean my mom likes. Also, I could be talking out my neck here, but I find pintos a little sweeter than black beans and chickpeas.
Refried Beans
Swiss Chard with Pinto Beans and Goat Cheese
Multiple Beans
Each of the following recipes use more than one type of bean.
Bodega Beans (any)
Camp Stove Veggie Chili (black, kidney)Curried Chickpeas and Black Beans (chickpeas, black)
Easy Vegetarian Bean Chili (any)
Gallo Pinto (pinto, black)
Indonesian Curried Bean Stew (chickpeas, black, kidney )
Light Leftover Turkey Chili (black, kidney)
Turkey Chili with Beans (white, pink, kidney)
And that's our ballgame. Readers, how about you? What are your favorite bean recipes?
~~~
If you like this article, you might also dig:
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Students Vote to Support Tobacco Ban
To contact us Click HERE
On March 8-9th, the voice of the students here at MSU was heard with a 61 percent in support of creating a tobacco free campus. According to a recent Chronicle article:
This resolution, passed by a vote of 1,350 in favor to 849 votes against, recommends President Cruzado's administration create a policy that bans both smoking and chewing tobacco on campus within the next two years.
Compared to previous years, voting turnout was higher with 21.5 percent of the 10,374 eligible voters.
Health advocates argued the tobacco industry is marketing new forms of smokeless tobacco to young people, and it is important to send the message that no form of tobacco is safe.
If the university administration decides to follow the student's referendum, MSU would joining five other Montana campuses, including the University of Montana.
MSU now bans smoking within 25 feet of the building, though people on both sides of the agree this rule in not really enforced. Smokers often huddle near the entrances to the Renne Library and other major buildings on campus.
This resolution, passed by a vote of 1,350 in favor to 849 votes against, recommends President Cruzado's administration create a policy that bans both smoking and chewing tobacco on campus within the next two years.
Compared to previous years, voting turnout was higher with 21.5 percent of the 10,374 eligible voters.
Health advocates argued the tobacco industry is marketing new forms of smokeless tobacco to young people, and it is important to send the message that no form of tobacco is safe.
If the university administration decides to follow the student's referendum, MSU would joining five other Montana campuses, including the University of Montana.
MSU now bans smoking within 25 feet of the building, though people on both sides of the agree this rule in not really enforced. Smokers often huddle near the entrances to the Renne Library and other major buildings on campus.
General Crockery Guidelines: By - Linda J. Hogg, RD, LN
To contact us Click HERE
General Crockery Guidelines:
By - Linda J. Hogg, RD, LN
1) Begin cooking on low heat until all ingredients are added.
2) Start by adding a base of moisture (exp. low sodium beef broth, chicken broth, BBQ sauce with one part water or broth).
3) Then add your choice of protein (lean pork or beef tenderloin,
chicken breast, beans or legumes, wild game meat chunks).
4) The broth/meat should fill the crock full-leave some room.
5) Cook for at least 1-2 hours on low heat.
6) After 2 hours, add carrots, potatoes, or other starchy vegetable which needs to be cooked until tender.
7) Remove liquid if necessary to allow 1/2 of the crock to be filled with veggies and the upcoming starch source of your recipe.
8) Change to high heat for the final hour of preparation.
9) Cook for at least Y2 hour before adding rice (wild), pasta, (whole grain, enriched) and then continue for a 1/2 hour.
1 O) Use various herbs and spices to flavor. If unsure, use a standard lemon pepper seasoning or Mrs. Dash for ease in preparation. Add ground black pepper if desired.
Cookbooks to Consider:
The Complete Crockery Cookbook:
Create Spectacular Meals in Your Slow Cooker by Wendy T. Louise
The Weeknight Survival Cookbook:
How to Make Healthy Meals in 10 minutes by Dena Irwin, R.D.
Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger
Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes by Better Homes and Gardens
By - Linda J. Hogg, RD, LN
1) Begin cooking on low heat until all ingredients are added.
2) Start by adding a base of moisture (exp. low sodium beef broth, chicken broth, BBQ sauce with one part water or broth).
3) Then add your choice of protein (lean pork or beef tenderloin,
chicken breast, beans or legumes, wild game meat chunks).
4) The broth/meat should fill the crock full-leave some room.
5) Cook for at least 1-2 hours on low heat.
6) After 2 hours, add carrots, potatoes, or other starchy vegetable which needs to be cooked until tender.
7) Remove liquid if necessary to allow 1/2 of the crock to be filled with veggies and the upcoming starch source of your recipe.
8) Change to high heat for the final hour of preparation.
9) Cook for at least Y2 hour before adding rice (wild), pasta, (whole grain, enriched) and then continue for a 1/2 hour.
1 O) Use various herbs and spices to flavor. If unsure, use a standard lemon pepper seasoning or Mrs. Dash for ease in preparation. Add ground black pepper if desired.
Cookbooks to Consider:
The Complete Crockery Cookbook:
Create Spectacular Meals in Your Slow Cooker by Wendy T. Louise
The Weeknight Survival Cookbook:
How to Make Healthy Meals in 10 minutes by Dena Irwin, R.D.
Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger
Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes by Better Homes and Gardens
GROCERY LIST: Helps support minimum energy and nutrient needs on a daily basis
To contact us Click HERE
GROCERY LIST: Helps support minimum energy and nutrient needs on a daily basis
Breads/Grain
Oatmeal, Nature’s Way
Bagels, Alternative Brand
Rice (variety), Seeds of Change
100% Whole Wheat Bread
WW Pasta (Barilla Plus)
Sourdough Bread
Whole Grain Flake Cereal
WW English Muffins
Meat/Meat Substitute
Oven-Roasted Turkey Slices
Oven-Roasted Ham Slices
Skinless Chicken Breast
Tuna Packed in Water
Extra Lean Ground Beef
Turkey Jerky
Natural Peanut Butter
Eggs (omega-3s added)
Vegetarian Refried Beans and
Other Beans, variety (desired)
Hummus, all-natural
Fruits
Berries, frozen or fresh
Apples, variety
Peaches, fresh/packed in water
Oranges or Clementines
Mandarin Oranges, in water
Melon, variety, fresh
Craisins or Raisins
Grapes, red or green
Bananas, small or medium
Applesauce, 100% Vitamin C
Vegetables
Spinach, onions, tomatoes
Salad mix (variety)
Tomato Sauce, Natural
Baby Carrots
Mixed Veggies, frozen or fresh
Cucumbers
Stir-Fry Veggies, frozen or fresh
Salsa, natural (no added sugar)
Milk/Milk Products
Yogurt, low or non fat
String Cheese, part-skim
Cottage Cheese, low or non fat
Skim or 1% Milk
Low fat cheese (shredded)
Fats/Oils
Ground flax (bulk)
Olive-oil based Vinaigrette
Raw Almonds, lightly salted
Lite Ranch Dressing
Nutella Spread
Olive/Canola Oil (small bottles)
Walnuts (diced or whole)
Herbs/Spices
Mrs. Dash Lemon Pepper
Onion and Garlic Powder
Fresh varieties (as desired)
Other
Herbal Tea
Re-usable Bottle for Water
By: Linda J. Hogg, RD, LN, linda.hogg@montana.edu
Breads/Grain
Oatmeal, Nature’s Way
Bagels, Alternative Brand
Rice (variety), Seeds of Change
100% Whole Wheat Bread
WW Pasta (Barilla Plus)
Sourdough Bread
Whole Grain Flake Cereal
WW English Muffins
Meat/Meat Substitute
Oven-Roasted Turkey Slices
Oven-Roasted Ham Slices
Skinless Chicken Breast
Tuna Packed in Water
Extra Lean Ground Beef
Turkey Jerky
Natural Peanut Butter
Eggs (omega-3s added)
Vegetarian Refried Beans and
Other Beans, variety (desired)
Hummus, all-natural
Fruits
Berries, frozen or fresh
Apples, variety
Peaches, fresh/packed in water
Oranges or Clementines
Mandarin Oranges, in water
Melon, variety, fresh
Craisins or Raisins
Grapes, red or green
Bananas, small or medium
Applesauce, 100% Vitamin C
Vegetables
Spinach, onions, tomatoes
Salad mix (variety)
Tomato Sauce, Natural
Baby Carrots
Mixed Veggies, frozen or fresh
Cucumbers
Stir-Fry Veggies, frozen or fresh
Salsa, natural (no added sugar)
Milk/Milk Products
Yogurt, low or non fat
String Cheese, part-skim
Cottage Cheese, low or non fat
Skim or 1% Milk
Low fat cheese (shredded)
Fats/Oils
Ground flax (bulk)
Olive-oil based Vinaigrette
Raw Almonds, lightly salted
Lite Ranch Dressing
Nutella Spread
Olive/Canola Oil (small bottles)
Walnuts (diced or whole)
Herbs/Spices
Mrs. Dash Lemon Pepper
Onion and Garlic Powder
Fresh varieties (as desired)
Other
Herbal Tea
Re-usable Bottle for Water
By: Linda J. Hogg, RD, LN, linda.hogg@montana.edu
8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar
Nutrition Services Available
To contact us Click HERE
NUTRITION SERVICES AVAILABLE
AT THE MSU STUDENT HEALTH SERVICE
Nutrition services are available to students at the Swingle Building (east of the Strand Union Building). Services are at no additional charge if the student is taking at least 7 credits and has therefore paid health fees. The first visit requires at least 60 minutes and follow-up visits, if warranted, require at least 15-30 minutes. The dietitian will decide upon regular follow-up, as deemed appropriate to the individual’s need and/or as requested by a physician or other care provider.
Services include…
Helping students to plan simple, economical meals.
Helping a person learn to live with food allergies or intolerances.
Helping a person plan his/her special dietary needs.
Helping sort out basic nutrition facts and media facts.
Helping persons who want to lose body weight or achieve fitness.
Helping persons who have an eating disorder – such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder (i.e. compulsive overeating).
Helping athletes and active adults with nutrition-related topics and meal planning for training and competition.
Helping with specific health problems such as anemia, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, diabetes, and high cholesterol.
Helping with referrals when necessary – trainers, counselors, doctors, nurse practitioners, foodservice dietitian, and more.
Please call us at 994-4380 to arrange an appointment and/or to gather additional information related to food and nutrition.
http://www.montana.edu/health/nutrition
Resources specific to the treatment of Eating Disorders
Student Health Service/Ambulatory Services: 994-2311
Physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants are available to provide general care to all individuals. In arranging an appointment, if a student mentions the possibility of an eating disorder, a care provider with education and advanced training in the field of eating disorders will be assigned for proper care. The care provider will coordinate with other team members (counselor, dietitian, family, etc.) as requested and deemed appropriate to the individual’s needs.
Student Health Service/Nutrition Services: 994-4380
A registered dietitian, licensed nutritionist is available to provide nutrition assessment, education, and care specific to the treatment of eating disorders. Nutrition therapy will be provided as long as the individual is an enrolled and eligible student at MSU/Bozeman. Referral will be provided.
Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS): 994-4531
Licensed counselors are available and assigned according to the individual’s needs. Any student with a potential eating disorder would be required to attend an “intake” appointment, during which time information is gathered; therapist is assigned who would provide counseling/skills specific to the ED.
Off-Campus Services: contact information varies per selected resource
Counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists are readily available within the Bozeman community. As a student with an eating disorder transitions away from the MSU campus, community referral may be warranted. At times, inpatient treatment is needed for an individual and SHS providers can make a referral and help with the transition to a qualified facility.
Other Services: contact information varies per selected resource
On the MSU campus, the Women’s Center educates men and women about eating disorder awareness, both in the preventative and treatment capacity. Guest speakers are often invited to campus to provide information about the role of eating disorders in an individual’s life and the impact factors have on a student as he or she transitions to campus from home or another setting. The Help Center is a 24-hour crisis counseling and referral service @ 586-3333.
AT THE MSU STUDENT HEALTH SERVICE
Nutrition services are available to students at the Swingle Building (east of the Strand Union Building). Services are at no additional charge if the student is taking at least 7 credits and has therefore paid health fees. The first visit requires at least 60 minutes and follow-up visits, if warranted, require at least 15-30 minutes. The dietitian will decide upon regular follow-up, as deemed appropriate to the individual’s need and/or as requested by a physician or other care provider.
Services include…
Helping students to plan simple, economical meals.
Helping a person learn to live with food allergies or intolerances.
Helping a person plan his/her special dietary needs.
Helping sort out basic nutrition facts and media facts.
Helping persons who want to lose body weight or achieve fitness.
Helping persons who have an eating disorder – such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder (i.e. compulsive overeating).
Helping athletes and active adults with nutrition-related topics and meal planning for training and competition.
Helping with specific health problems such as anemia, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, diabetes, and high cholesterol.
Helping with referrals when necessary – trainers, counselors, doctors, nurse practitioners, foodservice dietitian, and more.
Please call us at 994-4380 to arrange an appointment and/or to gather additional information related to food and nutrition.
http://www.montana.edu/health/nutrition
Resources specific to the treatment of Eating Disorders
Student Health Service/Ambulatory Services: 994-2311
Physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants are available to provide general care to all individuals. In arranging an appointment, if a student mentions the possibility of an eating disorder, a care provider with education and advanced training in the field of eating disorders will be assigned for proper care. The care provider will coordinate with other team members (counselor, dietitian, family, etc.) as requested and deemed appropriate to the individual’s needs.
Student Health Service/Nutrition Services: 994-4380
A registered dietitian, licensed nutritionist is available to provide nutrition assessment, education, and care specific to the treatment of eating disorders. Nutrition therapy will be provided as long as the individual is an enrolled and eligible student at MSU/Bozeman. Referral will be provided.
Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS): 994-4531
Licensed counselors are available and assigned according to the individual’s needs. Any student with a potential eating disorder would be required to attend an “intake” appointment, during which time information is gathered; therapist is assigned who would provide counseling/skills specific to the ED.
Off-Campus Services: contact information varies per selected resource
Counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists are readily available within the Bozeman community. As a student with an eating disorder transitions away from the MSU campus, community referral may be warranted. At times, inpatient treatment is needed for an individual and SHS providers can make a referral and help with the transition to a qualified facility.
Other Services: contact information varies per selected resource
On the MSU campus, the Women’s Center educates men and women about eating disorder awareness, both in the preventative and treatment capacity. Guest speakers are often invited to campus to provide information about the role of eating disorders in an individual’s life and the impact factors have on a student as he or she transitions to campus from home or another setting. The Help Center is a 24-hour crisis counseling and referral service @ 586-3333.
CDC publishes article on the public cost of excessive drinking
To contact us Click HERE
Excessive Drinking Costs U.S. $223.5 Billion
(From the CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/AlcoholConsumption/ )
A new study finds that excessive alcohol consumption cost the United States $223.5 billion in 2006, or about $1.90 per drink. By implementing effective community-based prevention strategies, we can reduce excessive alcohol consumption and its costs.
Excessive alcohol consumption is known to kill about 79,000 people in the United States each year, but a new study released by the CDC and The Lewin Group shows that it also has a huge impact on our wallets as well.
The cost of excessive alcohol consumption in the United States reached $223.5 billion in 2006 or about $1.90 per drink. Almost three-quarters of these costs were due to binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more alcoholic beverages per occasion for women or five or more drinks per occasion for men, and is the most common form of excessive alcohol consumption in the United States.
The researchers found that the cost of excessive drinking was quite far-reaching, reflecting the effect this dangerous behavior has on many aspects of the drinker’s life and on the lives of those around them. The costs largely resulted from losses in workplace productivity (72% of the total cost), health care expenses for problems caused by excessive drinking (11% of total), law enforcement and other criminal justice expenses related to excessive alcohol consumption (9% of total), and motor vehicle crash costs from impaired driving (6% of the total).
The study analyzed national data from multiple sources to estimate the costs due to excessive drinking in 2006, the most recent year for which data were available. The study did not consider a number of other costs such as those because of pain and suffering among either the excessive drinker or others that were affected by their drinking, and thus may be an underestimate. Nevertheless, the researchers estimated that excessive drinking cost $746 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. in 2006.
What You Need to Know About Binge Drinking
•Binge drinking is reported by about 15% of U.S. adults.
•Binge drinking is most common among men, 18- to 34-year-olds, whites, and people with household incomes of $75,000 or more.
•Most binge drinkers are not alcohol dependent.
How Can We Prevent Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Reduce Its Economic Costs?
There are many evidence-based strategies that communities can use to prevent excessive drinking, including the following:
•Increasing alcohol excise taxes.
•Reducing alcohol outlet density.
•Reducing the days and hours of alcohol sales.
•Holding alcohol retailers liable for injuries or damage done by their intoxicated or underage customers.
By implementing these evidence-based strategies, we can reduce excessive alcohol consumption and the many health and social costs related to it.
More Information
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/AlcoholConsumption/
Excessive Drinking Costs U.S. $223.5 Billion
(From the CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov/Features/AlcoholConsumption/ )
A new study finds that excessive alcohol consumption cost the United States $223.5 billion in 2006, or about $1.90 per drink. By implementing effective community-based prevention strategies, we can reduce excessive alcohol consumption and its costs.
Excessive alcohol consumption is known to kill about 79,000 people in the United States each year, but a new study released by the CDC and The Lewin Group shows that it also has a huge impact on our wallets as well.
The cost of excessive alcohol consumption in the United States reached $223.5 billion in 2006 or about $1.90 per drink. Almost three-quarters of these costs were due to binge drinking. Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more alcoholic beverages per occasion for women or five or more drinks per occasion for men, and is the most common form of excessive alcohol consumption in the United States.
The researchers found that the cost of excessive drinking was quite far-reaching, reflecting the effect this dangerous behavior has on many aspects of the drinker’s life and on the lives of those around them. The costs largely resulted from losses in workplace productivity (72% of the total cost), health care expenses for problems caused by excessive drinking (11% of total), law enforcement and other criminal justice expenses related to excessive alcohol consumption (9% of total), and motor vehicle crash costs from impaired driving (6% of the total).
The study analyzed national data from multiple sources to estimate the costs due to excessive drinking in 2006, the most recent year for which data were available. The study did not consider a number of other costs such as those because of pain and suffering among either the excessive drinker or others that were affected by their drinking, and thus may be an underestimate. Nevertheless, the researchers estimated that excessive drinking cost $746 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. in 2006.
What You Need to Know About Binge Drinking
•Binge drinking is reported by about 15% of U.S. adults.
•Binge drinking is most common among men, 18- to 34-year-olds, whites, and people with household incomes of $75,000 or more.
•Most binge drinkers are not alcohol dependent.
How Can We Prevent Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Reduce Its Economic Costs?
There are many evidence-based strategies that communities can use to prevent excessive drinking, including the following:
•Increasing alcohol excise taxes.
•Reducing alcohol outlet density.
•Reducing the days and hours of alcohol sales.
•Holding alcohol retailers liable for injuries or damage done by their intoxicated or underage customers.
By implementing these evidence-based strategies, we can reduce excessive alcohol consumption and the many health and social costs related to it.
More Information
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/AlcoholConsumption/
How to Build a Better BBQ
To contact us Click HERE
By: Nancy Collins, PhD, RD, LDN
This summer, challenge yourself to build a better BBQ. You'll enjoy your meal even more, knowing that you are saving calories, reducing fat, adding fiber and vitamins to your diet just by making a few easy substitutions. By planning ahead, you can have a healthy, hearty BBQ that’s just as good as those you enjoyed as a kid.
Instead of Ground Beef Burger
try Portobello Mushroom Burger or Vegetable Burger
Saves calories and reduces fat. A four-ounce hamburger patty made with 10% fat ground beef contains 200 hundred calories and eleven grams of fat. A veggie burger, such as the All American Flamed Grilled Boca Burger, has only ninety calories and three grams of fat.
Instead of White Buns
try Whole Grain Buns
Adds fiber to your diet by trading a white bread bun for a whole wheat or multigrain bun. The white version has almost no fiber while the whole wheat variety contains about three grams.
Instead of Mayonnaise
try Mustard
Hold the mayo and choose mustard instead. One tablespoon of real mayonnaise packs one hundred calories – all from fat. Opt for light or reduced calorie mayo or, better yet, select mustard. The same amount of mustard has about fifteen calories. Mustard comes in a wide variety of zingy flavors, so it should be easy to find one you like.
Instead of Potato Chips and Sour Cream Sip
try Baked Chips and Salsa
Cuts fat, fat and more fat. Regular chips have 150 calories and ten grams of fat in one ounce (about fifteen chips). Baked chips have 120 calories and only two grams of fat. The dip will do you in, too. Every tablespoon of onion dip adds another two grams of fat.
Instead of Macaroni and Potato Salad
try Grilled Vegetables
Adds fiber and cuts fat grams. Simply slice veggies such as eggplant, zucchini, onions, and green peppers. Lightly coat them with olive oil and grill over medium heat until tender.
Instead of Ice Cream Bar
try Frozen Fruit Bar
Cool off with a frozen fruit bar to save calories and slash fat. Read the labels and look for bars containing real pureed fruit and fruit juice. The typical premium ice cream bar will top your meal with another two hundred calories, while the fruit bar satisfies with less than half that amount.
Instead of Soda
try Iced Green Tea
Adds antioxidants to your diet. A twelve-ounce can of soda has about ten teaspoons of sugar, which is bad for your teeth as well as your waistline.
For more great nutrition tips visit http://www.montana.edu/health/nutrition/
By: Nancy Collins, PhD, RD, LDN
This summer, challenge yourself to build a better BBQ. You'll enjoy your meal even more, knowing that you are saving calories, reducing fat, adding fiber and vitamins to your diet just by making a few easy substitutions. By planning ahead, you can have a healthy, hearty BBQ that’s just as good as those you enjoyed as a kid.
Instead of Ground Beef Burger
try Portobello Mushroom Burger or Vegetable Burger
Saves calories and reduces fat. A four-ounce hamburger patty made with 10% fat ground beef contains 200 hundred calories and eleven grams of fat. A veggie burger, such as the All American Flamed Grilled Boca Burger, has only ninety calories and three grams of fat.
Instead of White Buns
try Whole Grain Buns
Adds fiber to your diet by trading a white bread bun for a whole wheat or multigrain bun. The white version has almost no fiber while the whole wheat variety contains about three grams.
Instead of Mayonnaise
try Mustard
Hold the mayo and choose mustard instead. One tablespoon of real mayonnaise packs one hundred calories – all from fat. Opt for light or reduced calorie mayo or, better yet, select mustard. The same amount of mustard has about fifteen calories. Mustard comes in a wide variety of zingy flavors, so it should be easy to find one you like.
Instead of Potato Chips and Sour Cream Sip
try Baked Chips and Salsa
Cuts fat, fat and more fat. Regular chips have 150 calories and ten grams of fat in one ounce (about fifteen chips). Baked chips have 120 calories and only two grams of fat. The dip will do you in, too. Every tablespoon of onion dip adds another two grams of fat.
Instead of Macaroni and Potato Salad
try Grilled Vegetables
Adds fiber and cuts fat grams. Simply slice veggies such as eggplant, zucchini, onions, and green peppers. Lightly coat them with olive oil and grill over medium heat until tender.
Instead of Ice Cream Bar
try Frozen Fruit Bar
Cool off with a frozen fruit bar to save calories and slash fat. Read the labels and look for bars containing real pureed fruit and fruit juice. The typical premium ice cream bar will top your meal with another two hundred calories, while the fruit bar satisfies with less than half that amount.
Instead of Soda
try Iced Green Tea
Adds antioxidants to your diet. A twelve-ounce can of soda has about ten teaspoons of sugar, which is bad for your teeth as well as your waistline.
For more great nutrition tips visit http://www.montana.edu/health/nutrition/
Skin Cancer Awareness: Protect Your Skin (From the CDC)
To contact us Click HERE
Skin Cancer Awareness: Protect Your Skin
When you're having fun outdoors, it's easy to forget how important it is to protect yourself from the sun. Unprotected skin can be damaged by the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays in as little as 15 minutes. Yet it can take up to 12 hours for skin to show the full effect of sun exposure.
Even if it's cool and cloudy, you still need protection. UV rays, not the temperature, do the damage. Clouds do not block UV rays; they filter them—and sometimes only slightly. Remember to plan ahead, and keep sun protection handy in your car, bag, or child's backpack.
Tan? There's no other way to say it—tanned skin is damaged skin. Any change in the color of your skin after time outside—whether sunburn or suntan—indicates damage from UV rays. Using a tanning bed causes damage to your skin, just like the sun.
Types of Skin Cancer
Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. The two most common types, called basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, are highly curable. But melanoma, the third most common skin cancer, is more dangerous.
Risk Factors
Anyone can get skin cancer, but some things put you at higher risk, like having—
•A lighter natural skin color.
•A personal history of skin cancer.
•A family history of melanoma.
•Exposure to the sun through work and play.
•A history of sunburns early in life.
•Skin that burns, freckles, reddens easily, or becomes painful in the sun.
•Blue or green eyes.
•Naturally blond or red hair.
How to Protect Yourself
Take precautions against sun exposure every day of the year, especially during midday hours (10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.), when UV rays are strongest and do the most damage. UV rays can reach you on cloudy days, and can reflect off of surfaces like water, cement, sand, and snow.
•Seek shade, especially during midday hours.
•Cover up with clothing to protect exposed skin.
•Wear a hat with a wide brim to shade the face, head, ears, and neck.
•Wear sunglasses that wrap around and block as close to 100% of both UVA and UVB rays as possible.
•Put on sunscreen with broad spectrum (UVA and UVB) protection and sun protective factor (SPF) 15 or higher.
•Avoid tanning beds and sunlamps. The UV rays from them are as dangerous as the UV rays from the sun.
When you're having fun outdoors, it's easy to forget how important it is to protect yourself from the sun. Unprotected skin can be damaged by the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays in as little as 15 minutes. Yet it can take up to 12 hours for skin to show the full effect of sun exposure.
Even if it's cool and cloudy, you still need protection. UV rays, not the temperature, do the damage. Clouds do not block UV rays; they filter them—and sometimes only slightly. Remember to plan ahead, and keep sun protection handy in your car, bag, or child's backpack.
Tan? There's no other way to say it—tanned skin is damaged skin. Any change in the color of your skin after time outside—whether sunburn or suntan—indicates damage from UV rays. Using a tanning bed causes damage to your skin, just like the sun.
Types of Skin Cancer
Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. The two most common types, called basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, are highly curable. But melanoma, the third most common skin cancer, is more dangerous.
Risk Factors
Anyone can get skin cancer, but some things put you at higher risk, like having—
•A lighter natural skin color.
•A personal history of skin cancer.
•A family history of melanoma.
•Exposure to the sun through work and play.
•A history of sunburns early in life.
•Skin that burns, freckles, reddens easily, or becomes painful in the sun.
•Blue or green eyes.
•Naturally blond or red hair.
How to Protect Yourself
Take precautions against sun exposure every day of the year, especially during midday hours (10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.), when UV rays are strongest and do the most damage. UV rays can reach you on cloudy days, and can reflect off of surfaces like water, cement, sand, and snow.
•Seek shade, especially during midday hours.
•Cover up with clothing to protect exposed skin.
•Wear a hat with a wide brim to shade the face, head, ears, and neck.
•Wear sunglasses that wrap around and block as close to 100% of both UVA and UVB rays as possible.
•Put on sunscreen with broad spectrum (UVA and UVB) protection and sun protective factor (SPF) 15 or higher.
•Avoid tanning beds and sunlamps. The UV rays from them are as dangerous as the UV rays from the sun.
Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report from the Surgeon General
To contact us Click HERE
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/preventing-youth-tobacco-use/factsheet.html
Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report from the Surgeon General
The Surgeon General's Report earlier this year describes the widespread problems caused by youth tobacco use. The tobacco industry is increasingly tailoring their marketing strategies towards youth, and rates of tobacco use in young people are no longer declining. Check out the full report to see just how big this epidemic has become!http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/preventing-youth-tobacco-use/factsheet.html
7 Temmuz 2012 Cumartesi
Cachaperismos 2012 o el libro del recuerdo
To contact us Click HERE
Por: Luz MarÃa UmpierrePoeta, Edumanista, Neohumanista
En mis manos la nueva edición de Cachaperismos queahora lleva la fecha del año 2012. Es ésta la segunda edición de una antologÃade poesÃa lésbica isleña/puertorriqueña que apareciera inicialmente en el 2010.Al salir el primer tomo, al cual este sigue como se/cuela, publiqué en La Blogaen California una meditación sobre la importancia del momento en que la mismaapareciera. Mi memoria era, más que nada, sentimental ya que veÃa la publicación desde mi perspectivahistórica como mujer que nació, se crió en Puerto Rico y que vivió el ser llamada“bombera” (despectivo de aquella época) o “macha” en una sociedad extremadamentedistinta de la cual surge esta antologÃa. Decido entonces, ya que esta vezcompré el libro de mi propio bolsillo y lo recibà sin dedicatorias, leerlodesde una perspectiva crÃtica. Añado que crÃtica para mà ya no es citar 25fuentes para apoyar un argumento. Según me auguraron mis profesores en BrynMawr y mi profesora en el Sagrado,llegarÃa un momento en el cual no necesitarÃa de esas muletillas que la gente aprincipios de su carrera necesita para hablar de un libro o de unaautora/autor. Mi labor ya “autorial” me da la libertad y el libertinaje deexpresar mis opiniones sin ser secundadas en mociones patriarcales.
En esta edición de Cachaperismos, encabezada en lacontraportada por la figura máxima de la literatura lésbica en la isla: NemirMatos, encuentro en mi lectura un motivo que me guÃa a través de los poemas yrelatos: el del recuerdo. El libro abre con un poema prosaico de Lilliana RamosCollado titulado “AnatomÃa de la memoria.” El poema, un tanto confesional, se nutredel recuerdo. Abundan los verbos en el tiempo pasado, la añoranza de un amordesaparecido, del “no encuentro” de la figura amada. Este motivo que impulsa yael primero poema de la colección, me señala, una necesidad de re/memorar no tansólo exhibida por el poema salvo de Ramos, sino también por el que continúa la antologÃaescrito por Maria Soledad Calero y titulado “Veinte no dan.” Charlene Gonzálezen “Jugábamos”,” “Frio” de Amárilis Pagán y por la misma Matos Cintrón en sunuevo poema “Illo tempore”completan esa vertiente con/memorativa.
Además de la memoria, y el recuerdo que tambiénnutre la nueva antologÃa, hay atisbos de la presencia de Julia de Burgos aún presentecomo influencia literaria, por ejemplo, en Amárilis Pagán. Quizás como poeta y crÃtica he pasado tantasnoches con Julia que la veo aparecer ahora con cierta sorpresa en esta nuevageneración literaria. El final de “Frio: “ “una con nada, cero,” me trae a lamemoria el inmenso poema de Julia “Nada” y el tema de las matemáticas del ser.Esa misma modalidad, se repite en otro escrito de Pagán: “Ofrendas” en el cualpersiste la definición en términos numéricos: “soy una, soy la primera.”
Por otra parte, existe también la necesidad de de/fin/ir en la colecciónquien se es y no se es pero a partir de cierta inocencia de la niñez, delpasado y la jugetoneria infantil que manifestaba: “What do I want to be when Igrow up.” Ello lo percato en el poema “Lo que quiero ser…”de Carmiña Pasos, porejemplo, y en “Plebeya” de Zulma Oliveras en donde el tema de la inocencia hacesu presencia desde el punto de vista de la auto-definición.
Completan la antologÃa escritos de Raquel Salas,Mercedes Garriga, Maria Soledad Calero, Yolanda Rivera, Meryland Cuevas yYolanda Arroyo. Garriga, quizás la figura más comprometida con la temática dejusticia social, aquà también nos regala un escrito en el cual el recuerdo y lamemoria nutren un encuentro endonde la inocencia y la enseñanza aparecen como temáticas que se une a latonalidad de la colección: recuerdo, memoria, vejez, “(H) il (l) o tempore.
Ciertamente, ésta colección ya no es una de“bellaqueras” ni lesboerotica únicamente sino una muestra más nutrida de otrostemas salientes que llevan al libro más allá de su llamado temporal de 2012.LaantologÃa se alimenta del pasado y lo perdido, pero mira hacia un futuro, alcual necesariamente tiene que llegar la literatura lésbica isleña, alincorporar temáticas que trascienden lugar y fecha. La colección, entonces, es,para esta lectora, un paso de adelanto en una vertitiente temática que yaestaba agotada: la puramente sexual y fÃsica, y se instala nutrida ahora de otrostemas en los que yace el futuro de la literatura lésbica isleña.
Luz Maria Umpierre is an established scholar in the fields of PuertoRican, Caribbean, Latina/o Studies, Poetry, and Gender Studies, with multiplepublications in leading journals, including Hispania, Latin American TheatreReview, Revista do Estudios Hispánicos, Bilingual Review, Chasqui, Explicacióndo Textos Literarios, Chicana/Latina Studies and The Americas Review. Publishedpoet; author of I’m Still Standing—30 Years of Poetry. Collected works andpersonal papers currently housed at De Paul University, Latina rare bookcollection housed at Bryn Mawr College.Recognized internationally as anauthority on the interdisciplinary study of Literature, the Social Sciences,History and Language, especially regarding race, culture, gender identity andethnicity.
Por: Luz MarÃa UmpierrePoeta, Edumanista, NeohumanistaEn mis manos la nueva edición de Cachaperismos queahora lleva la fecha del año 2012. Es ésta la segunda edición de una antologÃade poesÃa lésbica isleña/puertorriqueña que apareciera inicialmente en el 2010.Al salir el primer tomo, al cual este sigue como se/cuela, publiqué en La Blogaen California una meditación sobre la importancia del momento en que la mismaapareciera. Mi memoria era, más que nada, sentimental ya que veÃa la publicación desde mi perspectivahistórica como mujer que nació, se crió en Puerto Rico y que vivió el ser llamada“bombera” (despectivo de aquella época) o “macha” en una sociedad extremadamentedistinta de la cual surge esta antologÃa. Decido entonces, ya que esta vezcompré el libro de mi propio bolsillo y lo recibà sin dedicatorias, leerlodesde una perspectiva crÃtica. Añado que crÃtica para mà ya no es citar 25fuentes para apoyar un argumento. Según me auguraron mis profesores en BrynMawr y mi profesora en el Sagrado,llegarÃa un momento en el cual no necesitarÃa de esas muletillas que la gente aprincipios de su carrera necesita para hablar de un libro o de unaautora/autor. Mi labor ya “autorial” me da la libertad y el libertinaje deexpresar mis opiniones sin ser secundadas en mociones patriarcales.
En esta edición de Cachaperismos, encabezada en lacontraportada por la figura máxima de la literatura lésbica en la isla: NemirMatos, encuentro en mi lectura un motivo que me guÃa a través de los poemas yrelatos: el del recuerdo. El libro abre con un poema prosaico de Lilliana RamosCollado titulado “AnatomÃa de la memoria.” El poema, un tanto confesional, se nutredel recuerdo. Abundan los verbos en el tiempo pasado, la añoranza de un amordesaparecido, del “no encuentro” de la figura amada. Este motivo que impulsa yael primero poema de la colección, me señala, una necesidad de re/memorar no tansólo exhibida por el poema salvo de Ramos, sino también por el que continúa la antologÃaescrito por Maria Soledad Calero y titulado “Veinte no dan.” Charlene Gonzálezen “Jugábamos”,” “Frio” de Amárilis Pagán y por la misma Matos Cintrón en sunuevo poema “Illo tempore”completan esa vertiente con/memorativa.
Además de la memoria, y el recuerdo que tambiénnutre la nueva antologÃa, hay atisbos de la presencia de Julia de Burgos aún presentecomo influencia literaria, por ejemplo, en Amárilis Pagán. Quizás como poeta y crÃtica he pasado tantasnoches con Julia que la veo aparecer ahora con cierta sorpresa en esta nuevageneración literaria. El final de “Frio: “ “una con nada, cero,” me trae a lamemoria el inmenso poema de Julia “Nada” y el tema de las matemáticas del ser.Esa misma modalidad, se repite en otro escrito de Pagán: “Ofrendas” en el cualpersiste la definición en términos numéricos: “soy una, soy la primera.”
Por otra parte, existe también la necesidad de de/fin/ir en la colecciónquien se es y no se es pero a partir de cierta inocencia de la niñez, delpasado y la jugetoneria infantil que manifestaba: “What do I want to be when Igrow up.” Ello lo percato en el poema “Lo que quiero ser…”de Carmiña Pasos, porejemplo, y en “Plebeya” de Zulma Oliveras en donde el tema de la inocencia hacesu presencia desde el punto de vista de la auto-definición.
Completan la antologÃa escritos de Raquel Salas,Mercedes Garriga, Maria Soledad Calero, Yolanda Rivera, Meryland Cuevas yYolanda Arroyo. Garriga, quizás la figura más comprometida con la temática dejusticia social, aquà también nos regala un escrito en el cual el recuerdo y lamemoria nutren un encuentro endonde la inocencia y la enseñanza aparecen como temáticas que se une a latonalidad de la colección: recuerdo, memoria, vejez, “(H) il (l) o tempore.
Ciertamente, ésta colección ya no es una de“bellaqueras” ni lesboerotica únicamente sino una muestra más nutrida de otrostemas salientes que llevan al libro más allá de su llamado temporal de 2012.LaantologÃa se alimenta del pasado y lo perdido, pero mira hacia un futuro, alcual necesariamente tiene que llegar la literatura lésbica isleña, alincorporar temáticas que trascienden lugar y fecha. La colección, entonces, es,para esta lectora, un paso de adelanto en una vertitiente temática que yaestaba agotada: la puramente sexual y fÃsica, y se instala nutrida ahora de otrostemas en los que yace el futuro de la literatura lésbica isleña.
Luz Maria Umpierre is an established scholar in the fields of PuertoRican, Caribbean, Latina/o Studies, Poetry, and Gender Studies, with multiplepublications in leading journals, including Hispania, Latin American TheatreReview, Revista do Estudios Hispánicos, Bilingual Review, Chasqui, Explicacióndo Textos Literarios, Chicana/Latina Studies and The Americas Review. Publishedpoet; author of I’m Still Standing—30 Years of Poetry. Collected works andpersonal papers currently housed at De Paul University, Latina rare bookcollection housed at Bryn Mawr College.Recognized internationally as anauthority on the interdisciplinary study of Literature, the Social Sciences,History and Language, especially regarding race, culture, gender identity andethnicity.
Border Noir - No hablo inglés
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Here's the cover for the new anthology, Border Noir: Hard Boiled Fiction From The Southwest.
Nice, huh? This collection is edited by Ã�lvaroRodrÃguez (Machete), published by VAOPublishing, and due in bookstores and digital downloads by theend of July. I know fellow bloguero Ernest Hogan is in the collectionbut that's all I know. Well, I'm in it, too. My short story is entitledWhen the Air Conditioner Quit. I can tell you that what happens ain'tpretty when it's too hot, too dangerous, and there's no relief in sight.
Sorry, but at this point Idon't know the name of the cover artist. The cover actually could be the imagefor my story, but I have a feeling that a pensive guy drinking in a bar mightappear more than once in a collection of bleak stories from the heart ofAztlan.
In honor of the upcomingcollection, I thought I would reintroduce a story I published back in 2006 in acollection called, coincidentally, BorderlandNoir. This collection was edited by Craig MacDonald andappeared in the infamous but long gone e-zine, HardluckStories. The story begins in a bar ...
No hablo inglés
Manuel Ramos
The lone rayof sunshine streaming through a crease in the dirt-stained window caught thecorner of my eye and my head throbbed. A splinter of pain lodged itself in myeyeball. I sucked on a Tecate and a slice of lime whose rind had brown spots. Icouldn’t remember the name of the joint in Juárez that had produced thehangover.
“So, what’sthe deal, Manolo? Can you do any kind of lawyerin’, or is it like, you know,over for good?”
Nick knew Ididn’t talk about my disbarment, but he asked crap all the time.
“Nick,” Ianswered, looking him straight in his blood-shot eyes, “can you still say Mass?Give communion with the watered-down tequila you serve?”
He saidsomething like “fuck you” and turned his attention to wiping the far side ofthe bar with a gray, stiff rag.
I dropped twobucks and eased out of the clammy, musty-smelling air of Nick’s Cave and intothe white glare and oven heat of another El Paso morning.
I hated thetown, but that wasn’t El Paso’sfault. I hated myself and that meant I hated wherever I woke up. That summer itwas El Paso.
I waited inthe congestion and noise that led to the Santa Fe International Bridge, sweating throughmy shirt, as lost as if I had been abandoned naked in the desert. I lit up mylast American Spirit and crossed the street when the traffic slowed for aminute.
The diner wasbusy and I hesitated at the door until a fat old Mexican wearing apacking-house hardhat pushed himself from his table, stuck a few dollars underhis fork, and walked out with a toothpick hanging from his lip. I took hisplace before it had been cleared by the fat young Mexican busboy. He grimacedat me when he came to pick up the greasy plate and stained coffee cup but hedidn’t say anything. He also didn’t wipe the crumbs off the tabletop.
I opened mynotebook and stared at the pages of the great Chicano novel that I had decidedI would write that summer, seeing as how I didn’t have much else to do. Mywords didn’t make sense. Some of the sentences trailed off the edge of thepage. I must have been drunk when I wrote most of them.
The waitresscleared her throat and I realized that she stood next to me.
“What youwant, Manolo?” she asked in Spanish.
I answered,in English, “Eggs and chorizo, coffee. One of those grilled jalapeños.”
She said,“Whatever,” in English, and appeared to run away from me. What thehell, I thought. We used to be friends. At least one night not that long ago wewere really good friends. Why she act like that?
The dooropened and hot air rushed in. I smelled sweat and grease.
“You thelawyer?” The accent was thick but the words were clear.
She wassmall, pretty, dark, and afraid.
“No, I’m nota lawyer.”
“The man atthe bar across the street.” Her eyes were wide and her lips trembled. “He saidthe lawyer came in here and that he would be wearing a white shirt. You’re theonly man in here with a white shirt.”
I looked atthe diner’s other customers and she was right.
“But thatdoesn’t make me a lawyer.”
Tears welledup in her eyes but nothing rolled down her cheeks. She backed out of the diner,looked up and down the street, then raced in the direction of Mexico.
The frayedcuffs of my shirt had a thin border of dirt. I fingered the empty space where amissing button belonged.
The waitressappeared with my coffee. I stubbed out what was left of my smoke and carefullyplaced it in my shirt pocket. I said, “This used to be a very good shirt. Iwore it in court. I used to kick butt in this shirt.”
She rolledher eyes and shook her head.
“You are sofull of shit, Manolo.” She hurried away again.
I pulled outmy wallet and was relieved to see the twenty. For an instant I thought I mighthave left it all in Juárez. I had more back in my room, in the so-called safe,but I understood that it was running out. The dregs of what I had managed tosalvage from the Colorado Supreme Court’s order to reimburse my former clientscouldn’t last more than a few weeks.
I finishedthe breakfast, except for the chile, and drank several cups of coffee andfinally left when the waitress stopped coming by. I crossed the street againand forced myself into Nick’s.
Two men satat the bar, dressed in cowboy hats and shirts, jeans and boots. They talkedloudly with the speeded-up rhythm of Mexicans who have been too long on the Americanside of the border. I sat in one of the booths, almost in darkness. My eyestook their time adjusting to the change in light and when Nick asked me what Iwanted, I could barely make out his silhouette.
“Just a beer.Tecate.”
Nick had a CDplayer behind the bar and I thought I heard Chalino Sánchez. The slightlyoff-key, high-pitched voice of the martyred wannabe filled the bar with alament about bad luck with young women. An accordion, a tinny cymbal, brasshorns and drums emphasized the singer’s misery.
When Nickcame back and set down the beer can, I grabbed his wrist.
“What didthat woman want, Nick? Why did you send her to me?”
“The fuck Iknow? She said she was lookin’ for the Chicano lawyer. There’s only one assholeI know that fits that description. I told her you was across the street.” Hejerked his arm free of my grip.
“There areplenty of Chicano lawyers in this town. Too many. What made you think shewanted me?”
He had turnedaway. He stopped, looked down at me. “She didn’t have any money.”
I rubbed mytemples, took my time with the beer.
The two menat the bar stood up, arguing and shoving each other. Nick shouted at them toget the hell out but they ignored him. I squeezed myself into the corner of thebooth and watched as one of the men pulled a knife from somewhere and slashedat the other man. Drops of blood appeared on the slashed man’s shirt. Heslapped his chest with his left hand. Nick grabbed the man with the knife,knocked the weapon free, and wrestled him to the door. Curses and shouts filledthe bar and whoever had followed Chalino Sánchez on Nick’s CD player wasdrowned out by the familiar sound of men fighting in a bar. The wounded manstumbled to the doorway just as Nick tossed out the knife-wielder.
The formerfriends stood about two feet apart, in the middle of the sidewalk. The cutman’s fingers gripped his chest and were covered with blood. The other mangrinned. He finally laughed and walked away. His bloody companion slowlyfollowed.
“Look at thisfloor,” Nick shouted. “Goddam blood spots. Now I got to get the bleach.” Hisface was red and a thin line of blood traced his jawline.
I stood upfrom the booth and walked to where Nick examined the floor.
“That woman,Nick? What was her problem?”“You fuckin’kiddin’ me? Why didn’t you ask her yourself? She said somethin’ about hersister. Usual shit. Christ.” He shook his head and disappeared into a closet. Iheard him banging a bucket and shaking out a mop.
I made itback to my room and laid down on the bed. I sweated for an hour, listening tothe traffic in the street below, smelling the traffic. I blotted out everythingelse about the room, the town, the day. When I decided to leave, I took off thewhite shirt and replaced it with a blue shirt that I had never worn in court.
I walkedtoward the border, to the bridge where anyone with a quarter can cross into Mexicounless the bridge is closed because of a bomb threat. There had been such athreat the day before and that had been my excuse to stay in Juárez longer thanI had planned. That’s what I had told myself at dawn when I tripped on theAmerican side of the bridge and had trouble getting up.
I finishedthe butt saved from breakfast and scanned the line of people walking into Mexico.I looked over the vendors with their trinkets and gewgaws, tried to recognizethe face of the small, dark, pretty, and frightened woman who had wanted totalk to a North American lawyer about her sister.
“You everbeen to the shrine of Santa Muerte?” The boy asking the question had straight,thick hair, like some kind of Indian, and the darkest eyes I had ever seen on ahuman being. One of the eyes was crooked and it distracted me so that when hespoke I thought he was talking to someone behind and to the left of me.
“Saint Death?I don’t think so. I don’t have time, and I don’t have any money.”
“Hey, pocho,I don’t want your money. I’m talking about La Santisima Muerte, the only realsaint, the only one worth praying to anyway.” His English was good, better thanmy Spanish, so we talked in English. “She only promises what she will actuallydeliver, and she treats everyone the same — rich, poor, Mexican, gringo.”
The boywasn’t going anywhere so I asked a question. “What kind of shrine is this?”
“A specialplace. A girl got killed there and when her mother found the body it wascovered in roses that bloomed for weeks after. Now people go there to ask forhelp.”
“Why would Iwant to see this shrine?”
“You’relooking for something. Ain’t nothing she can’t help find, because everythingand everyone all end up with her anyway.”
I used myhandkerchief to wipe the sweat from the back of my neck. The monogrammed MT hadfaded from it’s original deep royal blue to a pallid gray. I stuffed thehandkerchief back in my pocket.“Tell me,boy. You think someone who is looking for a lost sister might go to theshrine?”
He smiled andexposed gaps in his teeth.
“She alreadyhas, pocho. About an hour ago. I took her myself.”
“Show me.”
“Two Americandollars.”
“You said youdidn’t want money.”
“That wasbefore you wanted something.”
I gave himthe two bills and I thought how that could buy me a cold beer at Nick’s. The boyveered from the bridge and we dashed across the street. He scrambled into analley, then another, turned back and headed to the outskirts of the town. Isweated like I had a fever, and my breath came hard and fast before we ended upin the basement of a broken-down apartment building.
We walkedalong a narrow concrete hallway that smelled of copal and marigolds. Candleslit the way into a dark, damp corner of the basement. Hundreds of candles. Theboy kept walking, didn’t look at me, didn’t say a word.
The statuteof the saint of death standing on a makeshift altar looked like the grim reaperto me. Various offerings surrounded it — food, money, photographs, pieces ofclothing. There were about a dozen people standing or kneeling around the altarand they mumbled prayers that I couldn’t understand. I walked around the smallroom and looked for the woman who had confronted me in the diner but the onlylight came from candles and the people kept their faces down and hidden behindmantillas and dusty hats. I didn’t see the woman.
I wanted toask the boy to take me back but he was gone. Some in the crowd started to leaveand I followed them down what I thought was the same candled hallway. Theymurmured to each other, stayed close and kept looking over their shoulders atme. They moved faster and I had to exert myself to keep up with them. Theyturned a corner but when I followed, they were gone. I was in another smallroom without candles, without any light. I heard Spanish words and phrases andthe brassy, loud grating music of a Mexican band. Then I heard words in alanguage I did not recognize and music that I had never heard before.
I waited. Afew minutes passed, then another group of people from the shrine entered theroom and shifted sharply to my left, toward an opening that I had not seen.
I said,“Wait, show me the way. I’m lost.”An old womanwearing a black shawl over her waist-long gray hair stopped. She looked at meand said, “No hablo inglés.”
I repeated myrequest in Spanish but she shrugged and trudged into the darkness. I followedthe sounds of her footsteps. After a few minutes I heard nothing but I keptwalking in the dark, sometimes feeling my way around corners, until I foundmyself in the stench and heat of adeserted El Pasoalley.
An hour laterI was back in Nick’s, drinking a beer.
“They’re ontheir way to lose their cherries, across the bridge.” Nick smirked at the boysat the end of the bar. I assumed he talked to me because the underage boys werethe only other people in the bar and he must have figured that he would be lesssusceptible to being shut down if he avoided them, even though he served themshots of tequila.I didn’t havea response.
“They foundanother one,” Nick said.
“Anotherwhat,” I asked, but I knew what he was talking about.
“A deadwoman, out in the desert by the wire. Cut up like the others. Been missin’ forweeks.”
“How many’sthat?”
“There’s noofficial count. Hundreds, thousands. Like that girl the woman was lookin’ for.Missin’ for weeks.”
“How do youknow that?”
He frowned.“She told me, what do you think? Anyway, she’s lookin’ for her missin’ sister,in Juárez and El Paso.What the hell you think that means?”
I got up toleave. “Why would she want to talk to me about that? I can’t do anything abouther missing sister.”
“Come on,Manolo. You can’t do anything about anybody’s problems. Remember? You screwed thatup, as I heard you explain one night.”
“Yeah, yeah.I screwed it up. So why would she want to talk to me?”
He shrugged,twisted his bar rag. “She heard about the American lawyer. That means somethin’to some people. She heard that the lawyer hung out in the bars. She tried totrack you down. She thought you might be able to help, maybe you knew somebody,maybe you heard somethin’. She had nowhere else to go, no one else to talk to.”He tossed his rag under the bar. “Dammit, Manolo, I don’t know.” He walkedover to the boys and said, “How about another one for the road?” They laugheduneasily and moved away when he tried to put his arm around the shoulders ofthe shortest kid.
I left Nickand his dingy bar and his ugly reputation and swore that I was done with all ofit. I had walked about two blocks when I saw her. She leaned against a brickwall, the side of a building that housed a mercado where every week touristsspent thousands of dollars on useless souvenirs and phony mementos.
She cringedwhen she saw me.
“I can’thelp. I don’t know anything, anyone.” I used my hands to help my explanation.
She cockedher head. Her face was smudged with the tracks of the tears that had finallyflowed.
She reachedinto her thin jacket and waved a small gun. I shook my head and put my hands infront of me but she pulled the trigger. The shot made me jump, then I fell tothe ground. The pain in my shoulder wrenched my torso. I twisted on the grimysidewalk.
I gurgled oneword: “What?”
“No habloinglés,” she said. She dropped the gun and walked away.
I sat up butdizziness bent me forward and I slumped to the sidewalk.
The hospitalreleased me two days later. I left El Paso andreturned to Denver.
When it snowsmy shoulder aches and I smell copal and marigolds.
END
Later.
Nice, huh? This collection is edited by Ã�lvaroRodrÃguez (Machete), published by VAOPublishing, and due in bookstores and digital downloads by theend of July. I know fellow bloguero Ernest Hogan is in the collectionbut that's all I know. Well, I'm in it, too. My short story is entitledWhen the Air Conditioner Quit. I can tell you that what happens ain'tpretty when it's too hot, too dangerous, and there's no relief in sight.
Sorry, but at this point Idon't know the name of the cover artist. The cover actually could be the imagefor my story, but I have a feeling that a pensive guy drinking in a bar mightappear more than once in a collection of bleak stories from the heart ofAztlan.
In honor of the upcomingcollection, I thought I would reintroduce a story I published back in 2006 in acollection called, coincidentally, BorderlandNoir. This collection was edited by Craig MacDonald andappeared in the infamous but long gone e-zine, HardluckStories. The story begins in a bar ...
No hablo inglés
Manuel Ramos
The lone rayof sunshine streaming through a crease in the dirt-stained window caught thecorner of my eye and my head throbbed. A splinter of pain lodged itself in myeyeball. I sucked on a Tecate and a slice of lime whose rind had brown spots. Icouldn’t remember the name of the joint in Juárez that had produced thehangover.
“So, what’sthe deal, Manolo? Can you do any kind of lawyerin’, or is it like, you know,over for good?”
Nick knew Ididn’t talk about my disbarment, but he asked crap all the time.
“Nick,” Ianswered, looking him straight in his blood-shot eyes, “can you still say Mass?Give communion with the watered-down tequila you serve?”
He saidsomething like “fuck you” and turned his attention to wiping the far side ofthe bar with a gray, stiff rag.
I dropped twobucks and eased out of the clammy, musty-smelling air of Nick’s Cave and intothe white glare and oven heat of another El Paso morning.
I hated thetown, but that wasn’t El Paso’sfault. I hated myself and that meant I hated wherever I woke up. That summer itwas El Paso.
I waited inthe congestion and noise that led to the Santa Fe International Bridge, sweating throughmy shirt, as lost as if I had been abandoned naked in the desert. I lit up mylast American Spirit and crossed the street when the traffic slowed for aminute.
The diner wasbusy and I hesitated at the door until a fat old Mexican wearing apacking-house hardhat pushed himself from his table, stuck a few dollars underhis fork, and walked out with a toothpick hanging from his lip. I took hisplace before it had been cleared by the fat young Mexican busboy. He grimacedat me when he came to pick up the greasy plate and stained coffee cup but hedidn’t say anything. He also didn’t wipe the crumbs off the tabletop.
I opened mynotebook and stared at the pages of the great Chicano novel that I had decidedI would write that summer, seeing as how I didn’t have much else to do. Mywords didn’t make sense. Some of the sentences trailed off the edge of thepage. I must have been drunk when I wrote most of them.
The waitresscleared her throat and I realized that she stood next to me.
“What youwant, Manolo?” she asked in Spanish.
I answered,in English, “Eggs and chorizo, coffee. One of those grilled jalapeños.”
She said,“Whatever,” in English, and appeared to run away from me. What thehell, I thought. We used to be friends. At least one night not that long ago wewere really good friends. Why she act like that?
The dooropened and hot air rushed in. I smelled sweat and grease.
“You thelawyer?” The accent was thick but the words were clear.
She wassmall, pretty, dark, and afraid.
“No, I’m nota lawyer.”
“The man atthe bar across the street.” Her eyes were wide and her lips trembled. “He saidthe lawyer came in here and that he would be wearing a white shirt. You’re theonly man in here with a white shirt.”
I looked atthe diner’s other customers and she was right.
“But thatdoesn’t make me a lawyer.”
Tears welledup in her eyes but nothing rolled down her cheeks. She backed out of the diner,looked up and down the street, then raced in the direction of Mexico.
The frayedcuffs of my shirt had a thin border of dirt. I fingered the empty space where amissing button belonged.
The waitressappeared with my coffee. I stubbed out what was left of my smoke and carefullyplaced it in my shirt pocket. I said, “This used to be a very good shirt. Iwore it in court. I used to kick butt in this shirt.”
She rolledher eyes and shook her head.
“You are sofull of shit, Manolo.” She hurried away again.
I pulled outmy wallet and was relieved to see the twenty. For an instant I thought I mighthave left it all in Juárez. I had more back in my room, in the so-called safe,but I understood that it was running out. The dregs of what I had managed tosalvage from the Colorado Supreme Court’s order to reimburse my former clientscouldn’t last more than a few weeks.
I finishedthe breakfast, except for the chile, and drank several cups of coffee andfinally left when the waitress stopped coming by. I crossed the street againand forced myself into Nick’s.
Two men satat the bar, dressed in cowboy hats and shirts, jeans and boots. They talkedloudly with the speeded-up rhythm of Mexicans who have been too long on the Americanside of the border. I sat in one of the booths, almost in darkness. My eyestook their time adjusting to the change in light and when Nick asked me what Iwanted, I could barely make out his silhouette.
“Just a beer.Tecate.”
Nick had a CDplayer behind the bar and I thought I heard Chalino Sánchez. The slightlyoff-key, high-pitched voice of the martyred wannabe filled the bar with alament about bad luck with young women. An accordion, a tinny cymbal, brasshorns and drums emphasized the singer’s misery.
When Nickcame back and set down the beer can, I grabbed his wrist.
“What didthat woman want, Nick? Why did you send her to me?”
“The fuck Iknow? She said she was lookin’ for the Chicano lawyer. There’s only one assholeI know that fits that description. I told her you was across the street.” Hejerked his arm free of my grip.
“There areplenty of Chicano lawyers in this town. Too many. What made you think shewanted me?”
He had turnedaway. He stopped, looked down at me. “She didn’t have any money.”
I rubbed mytemples, took my time with the beer.
The two menat the bar stood up, arguing and shoving each other. Nick shouted at them toget the hell out but they ignored him. I squeezed myself into the corner of thebooth and watched as one of the men pulled a knife from somewhere and slashedat the other man. Drops of blood appeared on the slashed man’s shirt. Heslapped his chest with his left hand. Nick grabbed the man with the knife,knocked the weapon free, and wrestled him to the door. Curses and shouts filledthe bar and whoever had followed Chalino Sánchez on Nick’s CD player wasdrowned out by the familiar sound of men fighting in a bar. The wounded manstumbled to the doorway just as Nick tossed out the knife-wielder.
The formerfriends stood about two feet apart, in the middle of the sidewalk. The cutman’s fingers gripped his chest and were covered with blood. The other mangrinned. He finally laughed and walked away. His bloody companion slowlyfollowed.
“Look at thisfloor,” Nick shouted. “Goddam blood spots. Now I got to get the bleach.” Hisface was red and a thin line of blood traced his jawline.
I stood upfrom the booth and walked to where Nick examined the floor.
“That woman,Nick? What was her problem?”“You fuckin’kiddin’ me? Why didn’t you ask her yourself? She said somethin’ about hersister. Usual shit. Christ.” He shook his head and disappeared into a closet. Iheard him banging a bucket and shaking out a mop.
I made itback to my room and laid down on the bed. I sweated for an hour, listening tothe traffic in the street below, smelling the traffic. I blotted out everythingelse about the room, the town, the day. When I decided to leave, I took off thewhite shirt and replaced it with a blue shirt that I had never worn in court.
I walkedtoward the border, to the bridge where anyone with a quarter can cross into Mexicounless the bridge is closed because of a bomb threat. There had been such athreat the day before and that had been my excuse to stay in Juárez longer thanI had planned. That’s what I had told myself at dawn when I tripped on theAmerican side of the bridge and had trouble getting up.
I finishedthe butt saved from breakfast and scanned the line of people walking into Mexico.I looked over the vendors with their trinkets and gewgaws, tried to recognizethe face of the small, dark, pretty, and frightened woman who had wanted totalk to a North American lawyer about her sister.
“You everbeen to the shrine of Santa Muerte?” The boy asking the question had straight,thick hair, like some kind of Indian, and the darkest eyes I had ever seen on ahuman being. One of the eyes was crooked and it distracted me so that when hespoke I thought he was talking to someone behind and to the left of me.
“Saint Death?I don’t think so. I don’t have time, and I don’t have any money.”
“Hey, pocho,I don’t want your money. I’m talking about La Santisima Muerte, the only realsaint, the only one worth praying to anyway.” His English was good, better thanmy Spanish, so we talked in English. “She only promises what she will actuallydeliver, and she treats everyone the same — rich, poor, Mexican, gringo.”
The boywasn’t going anywhere so I asked a question. “What kind of shrine is this?”
“A specialplace. A girl got killed there and when her mother found the body it wascovered in roses that bloomed for weeks after. Now people go there to ask forhelp.”
“Why would Iwant to see this shrine?”
“You’relooking for something. Ain’t nothing she can’t help find, because everythingand everyone all end up with her anyway.”
I used myhandkerchief to wipe the sweat from the back of my neck. The monogrammed MT hadfaded from it’s original deep royal blue to a pallid gray. I stuffed thehandkerchief back in my pocket.“Tell me,boy. You think someone who is looking for a lost sister might go to theshrine?”
He smiled andexposed gaps in his teeth.
“She alreadyhas, pocho. About an hour ago. I took her myself.”
“Show me.”
“Two Americandollars.”
“You said youdidn’t want money.”
“That wasbefore you wanted something.”
I gave himthe two bills and I thought how that could buy me a cold beer at Nick’s. The boyveered from the bridge and we dashed across the street. He scrambled into analley, then another, turned back and headed to the outskirts of the town. Isweated like I had a fever, and my breath came hard and fast before we ended upin the basement of a broken-down apartment building.
We walkedalong a narrow concrete hallway that smelled of copal and marigolds. Candleslit the way into a dark, damp corner of the basement. Hundreds of candles. Theboy kept walking, didn’t look at me, didn’t say a word.
The statuteof the saint of death standing on a makeshift altar looked like the grim reaperto me. Various offerings surrounded it — food, money, photographs, pieces ofclothing. There were about a dozen people standing or kneeling around the altarand they mumbled prayers that I couldn’t understand. I walked around the smallroom and looked for the woman who had confronted me in the diner but the onlylight came from candles and the people kept their faces down and hidden behindmantillas and dusty hats. I didn’t see the woman.
I wanted toask the boy to take me back but he was gone. Some in the crowd started to leaveand I followed them down what I thought was the same candled hallway. Theymurmured to each other, stayed close and kept looking over their shoulders atme. They moved faster and I had to exert myself to keep up with them. Theyturned a corner but when I followed, they were gone. I was in another smallroom without candles, without any light. I heard Spanish words and phrases andthe brassy, loud grating music of a Mexican band. Then I heard words in alanguage I did not recognize and music that I had never heard before.
I waited. Afew minutes passed, then another group of people from the shrine entered theroom and shifted sharply to my left, toward an opening that I had not seen.
I said,“Wait, show me the way. I’m lost.”An old womanwearing a black shawl over her waist-long gray hair stopped. She looked at meand said, “No hablo inglés.”
I repeated myrequest in Spanish but she shrugged and trudged into the darkness. I followedthe sounds of her footsteps. After a few minutes I heard nothing but I keptwalking in the dark, sometimes feeling my way around corners, until I foundmyself in the stench and heat of adeserted El Pasoalley.
An hour laterI was back in Nick’s, drinking a beer.
“They’re ontheir way to lose their cherries, across the bridge.” Nick smirked at the boysat the end of the bar. I assumed he talked to me because the underage boys werethe only other people in the bar and he must have figured that he would be lesssusceptible to being shut down if he avoided them, even though he served themshots of tequila.I didn’t havea response.
“They foundanother one,” Nick said.
“Anotherwhat,” I asked, but I knew what he was talking about.
“A deadwoman, out in the desert by the wire. Cut up like the others. Been missin’ forweeks.”
“How many’sthat?”
“There’s noofficial count. Hundreds, thousands. Like that girl the woman was lookin’ for.Missin’ for weeks.”
“How do youknow that?”
He frowned.“She told me, what do you think? Anyway, she’s lookin’ for her missin’ sister,in Juárez and El Paso.What the hell you think that means?”
I got up toleave. “Why would she want to talk to me about that? I can’t do anything abouther missing sister.”
“Come on,Manolo. You can’t do anything about anybody’s problems. Remember? You screwed thatup, as I heard you explain one night.”
“Yeah, yeah.I screwed it up. So why would she want to talk to me?”
He shrugged,twisted his bar rag. “She heard about the American lawyer. That means somethin’to some people. She heard that the lawyer hung out in the bars. She tried totrack you down. She thought you might be able to help, maybe you knew somebody,maybe you heard somethin’. She had nowhere else to go, no one else to talk to.”He tossed his rag under the bar. “Dammit, Manolo, I don’t know.” He walkedover to the boys and said, “How about another one for the road?” They laugheduneasily and moved away when he tried to put his arm around the shoulders ofthe shortest kid.
I left Nickand his dingy bar and his ugly reputation and swore that I was done with all ofit. I had walked about two blocks when I saw her. She leaned against a brickwall, the side of a building that housed a mercado where every week touristsspent thousands of dollars on useless souvenirs and phony mementos.
She cringedwhen she saw me.
“I can’thelp. I don’t know anything, anyone.” I used my hands to help my explanation.
She cockedher head. Her face was smudged with the tracks of the tears that had finallyflowed.
She reachedinto her thin jacket and waved a small gun. I shook my head and put my hands infront of me but she pulled the trigger. The shot made me jump, then I fell tothe ground. The pain in my shoulder wrenched my torso. I twisted on the grimysidewalk.
I gurgled oneword: “What?”
“No habloinglés,” she said. She dropped the gun and walked away.
I sat up butdizziness bent me forward and I slumped to the sidewalk.
The hospitalreleased me two days later. I left El Paso andreturned to Denver.
When it snowsmy shoulder aches and I smell copal and marigolds.
END
Later.
Spic vs spec - 4. Chicanos/latinos & sci-fi lit
To contact us Click HERE
continued from last week. . .
by Rudy Ch. Garcia
The last post in this series about latinos/sci-fi received some serious responses. I'm going to post one because it's from a publisher, and after all, that's what writers are always looking for. Discussion among writers is good, gets the brain synapsing, generates ideas, maybe disagreement, as well, but what good's a blog without meaningful input from the readers?
It's from Stacy Whitman, editorial director at Tu Books, an imprint of Lee and Low Books. She's got the latest word, at least about her company, and some of it will be news to those wondering about YA, at least, and sci-fi. There's some info on fantasy here, as well.
Before we get to that, in reference to my suggestion that there might be a niche in sci-fi for latino writers, here are numbers from Stacy's Grimoir website. She calls this her Multicultural SFF Booklist, in other words, sci-fi and fantasy aimed at kids that incorporate good elements of diversity. Guess what? There's only one latino--that I could identify--in the entire list. To me, the numbers indicate a probable latino niche for sci-fi. Here they are:
Multicultural SFF Booklist (5/12)
Middle Grade Fantasy - 21 books
Middle Grade Science Fiction - 2 books
Young Adult Fantasy - 39 Books [includes City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende]
Young Adult Science Fiction - 6 Books
Except for Allende, there are no identifiable latino authors in this multicultural list! And this is not only a list of her company's pubs; these are ALL the books by ANY publisher (in English) that she could identify at the time. Questions obviously arise: Did she miss any? (If so, send us the info.) Does the 21 to 2 and the 39 to 6 ratio of fantasy to sci-fi, mean that sci-fi sales are smaller? Obviously. Does it mean that there's not much call for sci-fi from publishers? Not necessarily. Below are Stacy's thoughts on that and related matters. I've bolded items very related to this discussion.
From Stacy Whitman:
I think the market is great for Latino YA and middle grade speculative fiction (both science fiction and fantasy), though fantasy still wins out over science fiction as far as number of books on the market. I think the balance will to be changing in the next few years, given the number of science fiction deals I've heard about recently. A great number of the YA deals are dystopian--which crosses over with SF when done well, but isn't always hard SF; many are either social science SF or not really SF at all. But I've also seen a number of solid SF deals announced--space, genetic engineering, post-apocalyptic, plague (medical SF), that sort of thing. Some have recently come out, including our own Galaxy Games: The Challengers, and Little, Brown's 172 Hours on the Moon.
I don't know that SF will ever become as huge as it once was in 50s and 60s--times have changed and we're kind of living in the future, and SF hasn't always adapted to that. We need more Westerfelds and Pearsons (including Latino/a authors), rather than more Heinleins, as innovative as his work was in the 50s and 60s.
I haven't yet had a full-length novel science fiction submission that stars Latinos, but I'm looking for one. We do have a short story in our fall anthology of dystopian tales, Diverse Energies (most strongly science fiction), a story about a Dominican/Arab/black teen who has to deal with random shifts in time (Uncertainty Principle by K. Tempest Bradford ).
As for the speculative umbrella, also coming this fall, Pura Belpre Author Award winner Guadalupe Garcia McCall's next book, Summer of the Mariposas, is coming out from Tu Books, a Mexican American retelling of THE ODYSSEY from the point of view of the eldest of five sisters. It's a fantasy/magical realism tale, but of course falls under the speculative umbrella.
I think it's really important for publishers to be thinking about diversity, including Latinos, for our speculative fiction, particularly for kids. Kids of color (including all minorities) now comprise 50% of kids 0-18 in the U.S. It won't be much longer, then, when kids of color make up 50% of kids in schools. These kids are readers (or we're working on helping them become readers), and they need to see themselves reflected in the books they read, just as all kids need to see a window into worlds that differ from their own. And realism isn't the only important place where we need these mirrors and windows (and, as one author put it, sliding glass doors we can open and walk through).
Speculative fiction is where we imagine all sorts of possibilities. And as La Bloga noted in the last post, an interest in science fiction can help kids become interested in studying science. More importantly, kids who are good readers in their spare time are more likely to succeed in getting into and through college, no matter what they decide to study. Reading fiction for fun helps kids gain fluency in reading, which helps them do better in school. Reluctant readers, especially, often find that speculative fiction creates that love of reading in themselves. It's great for both the avid reader and the kid who hasn't discovered he or she is an avid reader yet.
Market-wise, more and more Latino kids (and their parents) are looking for books that reflect them, books that represent their experience with the world, books that draw upon their culture as they imagine a far-flung future or alternate worlds.
And more readers of all backgrounds are starting to wonder why their books aren't as diverse as the world around them, and have started to look for more diversity in their reading.
By the way, one book that you haven't covered in your posts is the YA SF novel Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill. The author is not Latino, but the main character is--he's a mercenary on Mars. It's a good one, and I think it's done fairly well. The newest book in the series (a trilogy?) just came out.
More and more SF is coming out right now. I personally think the glut of fantasy in the market (compared to SF's relatively small presence in the last 10 years or so) is balancing out to at least a little more SF. Combine that with a greater emphasis on diversity and I think we'll see more diverse SF. I plan on publishing it!
Stacy Whitman, Editorial Director, Tu Books
I leave her post for readers to consider and respond to. Obviously, she's only one person from one publishing company--though I'd love to receive more from other editors to add to this discussion--and this is only her opinion. If anything, though, each of her points tell me there's something out there for Latino.
And consider this: the book Stacy points out as an SF novel with latino protagonist Durango was written (assumedly) by a non-Latino. He got it published with Harper Collins, one of big 8. Plus, they published another sci-fi novel with the same character called Invisible Sun. In no way to disparage his work, but, Latinos! Where's our sci-fi?
Es todo, hoy,RudyG
Rudy Ch. Garcia's magic realism story Mr. Sumac appeared this week in AQC Books' journal Kingdom Freaks and Other Divine Wonders, tho it's undetermined whether it was picked to be a freak or a wonder. Go here for a free preview and to order.
continued from last week. . .
by Rudy Ch. Garcia
The last post in this series about latinos/sci-fi received some serious responses. I'm going to post one because it's from a publisher, and after all, that's what writers are always looking for. Discussion among writers is good, gets the brain synapsing, generates ideas, maybe disagreement, as well, but what good's a blog without meaningful input from the readers?
It's from Stacy Whitman, editorial director at Tu Books, an imprint of Lee and Low Books. She's got the latest word, at least about her company, and some of it will be news to those wondering about YA, at least, and sci-fi. There's some info on fantasy here, as well.
Before we get to that, in reference to my suggestion that there might be a niche in sci-fi for latino writers, here are numbers from Stacy's Grimoir website. She calls this her Multicultural SFF Booklist, in other words, sci-fi and fantasy aimed at kids that incorporate good elements of diversity. Guess what? There's only one latino--that I could identify--in the entire list. To me, the numbers indicate a probable latino niche for sci-fi. Here they are:
Multicultural SFF Booklist (5/12)
Middle Grade Fantasy - 21 books
Middle Grade Science Fiction - 2 books
Young Adult Fantasy - 39 Books [includes City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende]
Young Adult Science Fiction - 6 Books
Except for Allende, there are no identifiable latino authors in this multicultural list! And this is not only a list of her company's pubs; these are ALL the books by ANY publisher (in English) that she could identify at the time. Questions obviously arise: Did she miss any? (If so, send us the info.) Does the 21 to 2 and the 39 to 6 ratio of fantasy to sci-fi, mean that sci-fi sales are smaller? Obviously. Does it mean that there's not much call for sci-fi from publishers? Not necessarily. Below are Stacy's thoughts on that and related matters. I've bolded items very related to this discussion.
From Stacy Whitman:
I think the market is great for Latino YA and middle grade speculative fiction (both science fiction and fantasy), though fantasy still wins out over science fiction as far as number of books on the market. I think the balance will to be changing in the next few years, given the number of science fiction deals I've heard about recently. A great number of the YA deals are dystopian--which crosses over with SF when done well, but isn't always hard SF; many are either social science SF or not really SF at all. But I've also seen a number of solid SF deals announced--space, genetic engineering, post-apocalyptic, plague (medical SF), that sort of thing. Some have recently come out, including our own Galaxy Games: The Challengers, and Little, Brown's 172 Hours on the Moon.I don't know that SF will ever become as huge as it once was in 50s and 60s--times have changed and we're kind of living in the future, and SF hasn't always adapted to that. We need more Westerfelds and Pearsons (including Latino/a authors), rather than more Heinleins, as innovative as his work was in the 50s and 60s.
I haven't yet had a full-length novel science fiction submission that stars Latinos, but I'm looking for one. We do have a short story in our fall anthology of dystopian tales, Diverse Energies (most strongly science fiction), a story about a Dominican/Arab/black teen who has to deal with random shifts in time (Uncertainty Principle by K. Tempest Bradford ).As for the speculative umbrella, also coming this fall, Pura Belpre Author Award winner Guadalupe Garcia McCall's next book, Summer of the Mariposas, is coming out from Tu Books, a Mexican American retelling of THE ODYSSEY from the point of view of the eldest of five sisters. It's a fantasy/magical realism tale, but of course falls under the speculative umbrella.
I think it's really important for publishers to be thinking about diversity, including Latinos, for our speculative fiction, particularly for kids. Kids of color (including all minorities) now comprise 50% of kids 0-18 in the U.S. It won't be much longer, then, when kids of color make up 50% of kids in schools. These kids are readers (or we're working on helping them become readers), and they need to see themselves reflected in the books they read, just as all kids need to see a window into worlds that differ from their own. And realism isn't the only important place where we need these mirrors and windows (and, as one author put it, sliding glass doors we can open and walk through).
Speculative fiction is where we imagine all sorts of possibilities. And as La Bloga noted in the last post, an interest in science fiction can help kids become interested in studying science. More importantly, kids who are good readers in their spare time are more likely to succeed in getting into and through college, no matter what they decide to study. Reading fiction for fun helps kids gain fluency in reading, which helps them do better in school. Reluctant readers, especially, often find that speculative fiction creates that love of reading in themselves. It's great for both the avid reader and the kid who hasn't discovered he or she is an avid reader yet.
Market-wise, more and more Latino kids (and their parents) are looking for books that reflect them, books that represent their experience with the world, books that draw upon their culture as they imagine a far-flung future or alternate worlds.
And more readers of all backgrounds are starting to wonder why their books aren't as diverse as the world around them, and have started to look for more diversity in their reading.
By the way, one book that you haven't covered in your posts is the YA SF novel Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill. The author is not Latino, but the main character is--he's a mercenary on Mars. It's a good one, and I think it's done fairly well. The newest book in the series (a trilogy?) just came out.More and more SF is coming out right now. I personally think the glut of fantasy in the market (compared to SF's relatively small presence in the last 10 years or so) is balancing out to at least a little more SF. Combine that with a greater emphasis on diversity and I think we'll see more diverse SF. I plan on publishing it!
Stacy Whitman, Editorial Director, Tu Books
I leave her post for readers to consider and respond to. Obviously, she's only one person from one publishing company--though I'd love to receive more from other editors to add to this discussion--and this is only her opinion. If anything, though, each of her points tell me there's something out there for Latino.
And consider this: the book Stacy points out as an SF novel with latino protagonist Durango was written (assumedly) by a non-Latino. He got it published with Harper Collins, one of big 8. Plus, they published another sci-fi novel with the same character called Invisible Sun. In no way to disparage his work, but, Latinos! Where's our sci-fi?
Es todo, hoy,RudyG
Rudy Ch. Garcia's magic realism story Mr. Sumac appeared this week in AQC Books' journal Kingdom Freaks and Other Divine Wonders, tho it's undetermined whether it was picked to be a freak or a wonder. Go here for a free preview and to order.
Fireworks in New Orleans 2012
To contact us Click HERE
The week began on a somber, but hopeful note. The humidity and 96-degree weather reminded me of Panama. Like Panama, New Orleans is one of my favoriteplaces, and one of the mostunique cities in the world. Many who don’t appreciate the beauty of the rivercity and its diversity would have written New Orleans off the map when thewater kept rising after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The city bounced back andmuch of the clean-up and rebuilding effort came from immigrants who now callNew Orleans home.
Last Friday, I stood with the Southern 32, agroup of jornaleros who experienced violations to their civil rights, who choseto stand up for justice.
Members of the community came out to support the Southern 32. Thanksto the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, www.nowcr.org, and the organization's vivacious leaders, such asJacinta Gonzalez, day laborers have a place to call when fear is used to abuse their civil rights.
The types of traps, wage theft, unconstitutional treatment,unlawful arrest, and “payday raids” by immigration agents, tipped off byemployers who refused to pay workers or provide safety equipment, is a move outof Arizona’s playbook.
In a powerful speech by Delmy Palencia, 35, spoke tothe group about the struggles she has endured. She has been humiliated andseparated from her nursing son, and undergone an unconstitutional arrest byICE. “As women we have to stand up for our children, our families, ourcommunities, and ourselves,” she said. Palencia left behind two daughters in Honduras.
Part of the reason why I wrote Ocotillo Dreams was to bringto light the different types of issues surrounding undocumented workers.
This week also brought a whirlwind ofbuzz for the novel, beginning with an interview by Adela Najarro at Letras Latinas, news that Ocotillo Dreams is the book of the month atthe Latina Book Club,and (the excitement continues), La Casa Azul Bookstore in New York named Ocotillo Dreams as the #1 Best Seller in June.
I am grateful to Aurora Anaya-Cerda for giving me one of thevery first book signing events at La Casa Azul Bookstore in East Harlem, two days after I had wonthe Mariposa Award for Best First Book and received an Honorable Mention in the Historical Fiction category at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan.I love New York.
What’s next?
On the fourth of July, Glimmer Train informed me that my new short story was a Finalist in their Family Matters competition and received an Honorable Mention. I earned extra sparklers, according to my friend Jocelyn. After 10 years of rejections from the literary journal,the editors finally gave me a nod. I’m one step closer to winning. And allbecause I am not afraid of rejection.
Events: Tomorrow in New Orleans, Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 2pm, I join the Poetry Buffet at the Latter Library.
Melinda Palacio
The week began on a somber, but hopeful note. The humidity and 96-degree weather reminded me of Panama. Like Panama, New Orleans is one of my favoriteplaces, and one of the mostunique cities in the world. Many who don’t appreciate the beauty of the rivercity and its diversity would have written New Orleans off the map when thewater kept rising after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The city bounced back andmuch of the clean-up and rebuilding effort came from immigrants who now callNew Orleans home.
 |
| Standing with the Southern 32 in front of the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans. |
Last Friday, I stood with the Southern 32, agroup of jornaleros who experienced violations to their civil rights, who choseto stand up for justice.
 |
| Jacinta Gonzalez with the Southern 32 and Delmy Palencia with her 16-month-old son Josue. |
Members of the community came out to support the Southern 32. Thanksto the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, www.nowcr.org, and the organization's vivacious leaders, such asJacinta Gonzalez, day laborers have a place to call when fear is used to abuse their civil rights.
The types of traps, wage theft, unconstitutional treatment,unlawful arrest, and “payday raids” by immigration agents, tipped off byemployers who refused to pay workers or provide safety equipment, is a move outof Arizona’s playbook.
In a powerful speech by Delmy Palencia, 35, spoke tothe group about the struggles she has endured. She has been humiliated andseparated from her nursing son, and undergone an unconstitutional arrest byICE. “As women we have to stand up for our children, our families, ourcommunities, and ourselves,” she said. Palencia left behind two daughters in Honduras.
Part of the reason why I wrote Ocotillo Dreams was to bringto light the different types of issues surrounding undocumented workers.
This week also brought a whirlwind ofbuzz for the novel, beginning with an interview by Adela Najarro at Letras Latinas, news that Ocotillo Dreams is the book of the month atthe Latina Book Club,and (the excitement continues), La Casa Azul Bookstore in New York named Ocotillo Dreams as the #1 Best Seller in June.
 |
| La Casa Azul Bookstore's best sellers display. |
I am grateful to Aurora Anaya-Cerda for giving me one of thevery first book signing events at La Casa Azul Bookstore in East Harlem, two days after I had wonthe Mariposa Award for Best First Book and received an Honorable Mention in the Historical Fiction category at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan.I love New York.
What’s next?
On the fourth of July, Glimmer Train informed me that my new short story was a Finalist in their Family Matters competition and received an Honorable Mention. I earned extra sparklers, according to my friend Jocelyn. After 10 years of rejections from the literary journal,the editors finally gave me a nod. I’m one step closer to winning. And allbecause I am not afraid of rejection.
Events: Tomorrow in New Orleans, Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 2pm, I join the Poetry Buffet at the Latter Library.
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