Rosa Martha Villarreal, a retired Adjunct Professor at Consumnes River College in Sacramento, California, is author of several novels important to American literature, including Doctor Magdalena, The Stillness of Love and Exile, and Chronicles of Air and Dreams, and a children's book, The Adventures of Wyglaf the Wyrm. ​

Rafael Jesús González, Prof. Emeritus of literature and creative writing, was born and raised biculturally/bilingually in El Paso, Texas/Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, and taught at University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, University of Texas El Paso (Visiting Professor of Philosophy), and Laney College, Oakland, California where he founded the Dept. of Mexican & Latin-American Studies. Also visual artist, he has exhibited in the Oakland Museum of California, the Mexican Museum of San Francisco, and others in the U.S. and Mexico. Nominated four times for a Pushcart prize, he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English and Annenberg CPB for his writing in 2003. In 2013 he received a César E. Chávez Lifetime Award and was honored by the City of Berkeley with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 13th Annual Berkeley Poetry Festival 2015. He was named the first Poet Laureate of Berkeley in 2017. His poetry collection Chalchihuixochitl, Flor de Piedra Verde, Flower of Jade was published by Nomadic Press in 2022. Visit http://rjgonzalez.blogspot.com/. 

The Editors of Somos en escrito Magazine extend their condolences to the family and friends of Rolando Hinojosa-Smith.

Rolando Hinojosa has been one of the most prolific Chicano writers over the past 50 years with much of his work set against the backdrop of a fictional small town, Klail City, that he created in south Texas. He sought to portray his hometown, Mercedes, Texas, from the perspective of being one with the land and the people. At the same time, he projected the universality of life along the border.

An essayist, poet and teacher as well, Rolando taught writing as Ellen Clayton Garwood professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The National Book Critics Circle honored him in 2013 with its Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Hinojosa was the first Chicano author to receive the prestigious Premio Casa de las Américas award for Klail City y sus alrededores (Klail City), and received the third Premio Quinto Sol Annual Prize in 1973 for his work, Estampas del Valle y otras obras.

In a lengthy interview published in Americana E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary, Vol. IX, Number 1, Spring 2013, he told the interviewer when asked what he considered the most relevant, either practical or theoretical, aspects that he felt important to share with students: “I teach creative writing at my home institution along with other courses, but in creative writing, I stress reading; we began the class sponsored by Graz University stressing reading. Why? Because reading is imperative; one begins to read, enjoys it, is captivated by it, and one day, begins to write, to create, based, of course, on reading. Some people think that imagination is everything. It isn’t; imagination can only take one so far; one needs to read and to learn from reading and living one’s life and learning how others live.” 

Is there any other practical wisdom, the interviewer asked, and Hinojosa declared: “Yes. I advise beginning writers to use clear, everyday language. To try not to show off how much one knows. An experienced reader will see through the phoniness of using high-toned language when none is called for. Writing is not about self-aggrandizement, that’s for amateurs. A professional has a story to tell, and learning how to tell it without resorting to pointing to oneself is an important part of writing.”
​
Here is a list of his major works, some in English only, others as “renditions” as he referred to his translations of his Spanish or English writings.

We Happy Few. 2006.
Dear Rafe/Mi querido Rafa. 2005.
Ask a Policeman. 1998.
Estampas del Valle. 1994.
El condado de Belken: Klail City. 1994.
The Useless Servants. 1993.
Los amigos de Becky. 1991.
Korea Liebes Lieder/Korean Love Songs. 1991.
Becky and her Friends. 1990.
Klail City. 1987.  
This Migrant Earth. 1987.
Claros varones de Belken. 1986.
Dear Rafe. 1985.
Partners in Crime. 1985.
The Valley. 1983. (Hinojosa's own translation of Estampas del Valle)
Rites and Witnesses. 1982.
Crossing the Line: The Construction of a Poem. 1981.
Mi querido Rafa. 1981.
Klail City und Umgebung. 1981.
Generaciones y semblanzas. 1979.
Generaciones, notas y brechas. 1978.
Korean Love Songs. 1978.
Klail City y sus alrededores. 1976.
Estampas del Valle y otras obras. 1973.
 
 
 

The title sums up the underlying roots of this collection; it takes Spanish, Nahuatl and English to tell the whole tale. This collection is a coming out party for raza re-interpreters of the past, the now and the future.

The line-up of authors includes:
Ernest Hogan, Mario Acevedo, Frank S. Lechuga, Martin Hill Ortiz, Pedro Iniguez, Nicholas Belardes, Armando Rendón, Lizz Huerta, Emmanuel Valtierra, Rios de La Luz, Beatrice Pita, Rosaura Sánchez, R. Ch. Garcia, Ricardo Tavarez, Rosa Martha Villarreal, Carmen Baca, Scott Russell Duncan, Gloria Delgado, and Kathleen Alcalá.

TO SCHEDULE INTERVIEWS, READINGS, MORE INFORMATION
Contact: editors@somosenescrito.com

Listen to a discussion of El Porvenir, ¡Ya! featuring top writers from the collection on the Reality Dysfunction podcast.

El Porvenir, ¡Ya! is available in paperback and e-book formats through online distributors, such as Amazon, your favorite bookstore, and at the Somos en escrito online Tienda/Store. Check Bookshop and Barnes & Noble in the coming weeks. 

Order your copy now and be a part of Chicanofuturism.

In November 2021, Somos en escrito will observe the 50th year of the publication of Chicano Manifesto, authored by the founder and editor of Somos en Escrito Magazine, with the second reprint of the seminal classic on Chicanismo.

We invite persons who read the book when it was released by Macmillan Company in 1971 and in the following years and decades to recount the impact of the book on themselves, what they learned from the book that guided them through the years, and a word about the importance of preserving Mexican American history and culture for future generations.

Email your comments to editors@somosenescrito.com. Commentaries will be published in a special feature in the magazine upon publication of the reprint.

​The Editorial Staff of Somos en escrito Magazine

The entirety of Somos en escrito's literary family is saddened to hear of Rudolfo Anaya's passing.  Not only has he brought joy and representation in literature and influenced us all, he unveiled the very presence of a Chicano literature to the world. His influence, artistry and authentic representation can't be understated. 

With Bless Me Ultima, he brought to the fore the internal struggles among Mexican Americans with the question of identity, the struggle in coalescing our indigenous, hispano and American worldviews, as well as honoring the place and times of rural New Mexico after World War II. 

​In remembrance, we run a review published in Somos en escrito Magazine on July 20,  2013 by Adelina Ortiz de Hill, with Jaima Chevalier, both of New Mexican heritage, of Anaya's The Old Man's Love Story. The book is remarkable for its blending of the human values of love and death with the natural realities of heritage and human struggle.

The Old Man's Love Story begins with the title character's loss of a partner, companion and lover in a poignant farewell at the dying woman's bedside, but the end of their life together brings forth a long dance between reality and conversations with a spirit. The opening sentence: "There was an old man who dwelt in the land of New Mexico, and he lost his wife" suggests a place where tradition and culture will play a key role in the story. By depicting how New Mexico's unique blend of Spanish Colonial, Native American, and Mexican history are melded together over the centuries, Anaya deftly weaves these legendary narratives into a study of death unfurled across a spiritual landscape through which Anaya offers the reader a lens with which to see life, love and loss.  

As the old man begins a dance between reality and conversations with a spirit, a photograph becomes a point of reference by which memories take on significance for his thesis. On page 17, Anaya refers to "Love, grief and memory. The sad, symbolic world of three, the old man's trinity." Thus begins the old man's interchange with the dead, and when he kisses the image, it is with an urgency borne of the need to recall her spirit. Rather than relying on the tired concepts of denial, anger and gradual acceptance, Anaya forges new territory in describing how the New Mexican experience brings geography and history into the survivor's experience of death. The role of geography and the pull of place factor heavily into his storytelling and remove it from the ordinary.

Anaya's poetic descriptions of huge cloud formations dwarfing the terrain below, sunsets captured by the mountains, and huge and unearthly moonscapes create an intensely beautiful backdrop for a story that is simultaneously ripe with the past and vividly in the present. Into this magically spiritual landscape, Anaya draws the reader into the many directions the story wanders. On page 54, he describes a Native American symbol that reiterates the multifaceted New Mexican approach to the world: "The four sacred directions were intrinsic to the worldview of many Native American communities. The emblem on the New Mexico flag was the Zia symbol, a bright sun with lines radiating out in the four directions."

This approach is intrinsic to Anaya's world view and views about death. His descriptions of Albuquerque's Sandia Mountains, vast thunderclouds, and gardens, create an extraordinary landscape through which the title character moves. This old man is not any ordinary old person. He is an educated man with profound memories of the literary journeys he has taken. He has also travelled the world, but is nonetheless at a loss to make these memories sustain him through the loneliness and sense of loss that overwhelms him when he loses his partner.

On page six, the character asks himself: "What would he learn from his journey into the world of spirits? What illuminations might ease the pain in his soul? His search would parallel her journey, and at some point in infinity the two must meet… He would find her."  For all his knowledge, he must still learn how to suffer through his loss, and his quest to find his lost partner creates parallel journeys. At the end of the book, the reader can believe that the old man's woman comes for him, and their transcendence to a world inhabited by cloud people traces back to the evocative New Mexico skies that Anaya has drawn.

As Anaya traverses the stages of death in novel ways that allow the reader to discover new insights into when and where renewal will be found, he offers wisdom about the nature of the most profound loss humans experience. Anaya employs the use of internal dialogue that portrays the old man's religious beliefs, his reliving of history. The on-going dialogue with a life-affirming spirit is not a straight trajectory to a happy ending.

The journey often reverts to loneliness and depression. Anaya depicts the old man's experiences at a senior center, with road rage, and a love affair.  If a survivor is detached from his own roots, the experience of grieving makes the world limited but freed from these confines, grieving in the spirit world is limitless and a safe place to communicate about the eternal questions.

Anaya portrays the state of New Mexico as a land of contrast, both in its dramatic physical features and in its mix of cultural traditions. The cultural mix surrounding mourning conjures images of times past, such as the Day of the Dead celebrations that meant taking a picnic to the cemetery for a day cleaning family graves. In traditional villages, honoring the dead meant holding a velorio (the form of wake traditional to many Spanish cultures) that pulled all parts of the community together, and ritualized memories of the dearly departed were a vital part of everyday life.

A loss experience by one person is a loss that belonged to everyone. So, in this sense, death is alive in New Mexico as nowhere else. Although the traditions are slowly dissolving, traces of them are literally carved into the bluffs and mesas, where crosses and Marian shrines stand as signposts to memory. In New Mexico, grieving families place roadside descansos (shrines or crosses marking the place where traffic deaths took place) alongside highways and byways.

These reminders of tragedy mark not only place, but stand as signposts to the past, a time when coffins were hand carried in procession from house to churchyard. Resting spots were marked along the way, and there was a community understanding that all grief was shared, no one suffered loss alone. The iconic image of the skeleton Grim Reaper, driving an empty carreta (carriage) evokes the dreaded image of the dead piled up to be carried away, and this reminder drives the living to comfort each other in communal ways as only social contact can provide.

Thus, these little practices of a culture, showing how death is dealt with, are a microcosm of the bigger picture. In impoverished times, death looms larger, in a way, given the higher incidence of death due to socioeconomic imbalance. The significance of sharing loss together as a community crosses the entire spectrum from the youngest to the oldest—a time when friends and family meant profound ritual and not a cell phone network. These rituals then ingrained cultural rite of passage with baptisms, communions, and weddings marking steps along the way to our ultimate destination.

In the chapter on" letting go" on page 127, the old man asks: "Is that all that's left in the end, photographs? The home we built. Every piece of furniture, books, her voice lingering here and there, favorite foods, friends—Is everything fading?" By coming  to terms with being among the living, the old man struggles with insights into his own spiritual beliefs in the classic “two steps forward and one step back” process, that of surrendering to the way of all things.

His on-going dialogue with a life-affirming spirit has frequent reversions to loneliness and depression, and railing against acceptance. American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead referred to two islands, one of the living and one of the dead and love as the bridge. This bridge-world is Anaya's territory, one that he deftly maps, capturing the essence of the hispano-indio experience where myths and mystery are part and parcel of the terrain, as well as ultimate necessities for the grieving process to conclude. Anaya lost his wife Patricia in 2010.

This book captures the essence of the hispano experience of New Mexico, and it solidifies Rudolfo Anaya's reputation as the quintessential author in this genre.

The Old Man's Love Story is available through University of Oklahoma Press. A chapter extract is available in “Somos en escrito”; look for the big red rose or type in the title in the search box. The movie version of his classic novel, Bless Me, Ultima premiered earlier this year.

Adelina Ortiz de Hill, MSW, has published works across a broad range of topics, including social gerontology research that she conducted about Spanish-speaking populations of Michigan. She has presented seminars on death and dying around the country, including her testimony in 1974 to a congressional sub-committee about homeless elderly. She helped found the website: www.vocesdesantafe.org, an interactive internet repository for area history, as recounted through the diverse voices of the people of Santa Fe and surrounding environs. Jaima Chevalier assisted in preparing the book review; she has authored La Conquistadora/Unveiling the History of Santa Fe's Six Hundred Year Old Religious Icon.​

​What: Join Us on Latino Thought Makers Page
When: Thursday, April 23, 2020 @ 6 p.m. PST
Where:FACEBOOK

LIVE #thoughtmakerthursday #thoughtmakers 
Here is the link for the invite: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/3541188132563925/

This is the link to watch the show starting at 6pm live on Facebook this Thursday, April 23rd:
https://www.facebook.com/LatinoThoughtMakers/
 
Why: Interview with Armando Arias, Ph.D. on his new book Theorizing Cesar Chavez: New Ways of Knowing STEM. A treatise in the social psychology of scientific thinking in daily life.

Check out the book in our BOOKSTORE LIBRERÍA page or buy it online here.