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By:
Aline Pereira,
on 7/18/2012
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My Life in the United States ~ by René Colato Laínez
Part 2 of 3 (Read Part 1 here)
For Christmas of 1984, my mother sent me a new pair of shoes from the United States. I still remember my father’s words, “These are good gringos shoes. These are very good shoes for the trip to the United States.”
On February 17 1985, my father and I left El Salvador. Two days later, we arrived in Mexico City. Then, we were stuck in Mexico City for almost two months. We could not continue our journey because Mexican immigration took all the money from my father. It wasn’t until April that my mother sent us more money for our trip. During my journey, my father and I crossed three countries and climbed the mountains from Tijuana to the United States. But we made it to Los Angeles. My shoes were not new anymore. They had holes everywhere. One shoe was missing the sole.
There are certain moments that mark your like forever. My journey and my new life in the United States as a new immigrant created a big impact in me and in my writing. In my book, My Shoes and I, I tell the story of my journey and in my other books I write about the new immigrant child in the United States. Most of my books are based in my life and some are autobiographical just like René Has Two Last Names/René tiene dos apellidos and I Am René, the Boy/ Soy René, el niño.
I experienced the silent period and many culture shocks. In El Salvador René is a name boy. I could not believe it that in 
the United States my beautiful name was a girl’s name, Renee. Children not only laughed because I had a girl’s name but also because I had two last names, “Your name is longer than an anaconda” “You have a long dinosaur’s name.”
I was able to adapt to the new country. I studied really hard and graduated with honors from high school. Then, I went to college and became a teacher. But I did not have legal papers yet. My mother became a resident thanks to the amnesty program. She applied for my papers but it was 1993 and I had not received my green card. I started to work as a teacher because I got a work permit. For two years, I received letters from LAUSD, “We need to have evidence of your legal status. Your work permit will expire soon.” But finally in 1995, I received the famous immigration letter. Yes! I had an appointment to get my green card. It was not green after all. It was pink!
The ideas to write many of my books are born in the classroom. One day, a first grader told me, “I want to write a letter to my mamá. She is in Guatemala and I miss her so much.” That night I wrote a story named
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 7/11/2012
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The War in El Salvador ~ by René Colato Laínez
When I was a child in El Salvador, I went to school, recited poetry, played with my friends and won a hula-hoop contest
on national television. I might say that I had a normal childhood. But then, everything was upside down. For many days the school closed because of civil revolts. The radio and the television always talked about the army, guerrillas and the revolution in the country. The mad game came to El Salvador. The country was involved in a terrible civil war.
As I child, I did not really understand what was really going on. I asked myself many times, Why? Why were they doing this to the country? Before the war, when I heard a “boom”, I clapped and jumped up a down. It was the sound of the fireworks for Christmas. A “boom” meant that Christmas was around the corner. But during the war, when I heard the first “boom”, I ran home and hid under my bed, while more “booms” went on and on. Because those “booms” were not the sounds of happiness, they were the sounds of war.
During the war, thousands of Salvadorans left the country looking for peace and better opportunities. Many of these Salvadorans traveled to the United States. My mom was the first one in the family who left the country. After many struggles, my father and I left El Salvador in 1985.
I arrived in Los Angeles, California and I had the determination to go to school to become a teacher. Now I am a kindergarten teacher at Fernangeles Elementary School. I am also the author of many children’s books.
In December 2010, Cinco Puntos Press contacted me to participate in a book. They were putting together an anthology about children and war and were wondering if I could consider submitting an essay for the anthology. Of course I said yes! I love Cinco Puntos Press books. I use their bilingual books in my classroom all the time. Participating in this anthology was an honor for me.
The name of the book is That Mad Game; Growing Up in a Warzone: An Anthology of Essays from Around the Globe. The editor of the anthology is J. L. Powers.
Now was the hard part. What to write about? I grew up during the war and I had so many memories. My fourth grade teacher was killed during the war. That morning, the school was closed. Instead of having class, all the students went to a funeral home that was located one block away from school. I also knew friends who were recruited and found dead days later in rubbish dumps.
But I wanted to write all the way from the bottom of my heart. I wanted to write about my family and how the war divided us. But it was hard! Remembering my mom saying good-bye at the airport, visiting my father in jail, listening to the terrible news that archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was assassinated and the final chaos at the cathedral during his funeral were all hard memories to put on paper. I must confess that I wrote my essay with tears in my eyes. Also it was a good therapy to write the essay. Yes, the war divided us but it could not destroy our love, faith and family bond.
The name of my ess
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 5/16/2012
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Later today we will be launching a new feature here on the PaperTigers’ blog entitled Global Voices. Each month we will be inviting a guest to join us and write three blog posts. The posts will be published on three consecutive Wednesdays within each month under the title “Global Voices”. Our guests, located around the world, are all involved in the world of kid and YA lit and include award winning authors and illustrators, bloggers, librarians, educators and more! It is our hope that through the Global Voices posts we can better highlight the world of multicultural kid lit and YA lit in different countries around the world. The Global Voices line-up for May, June and July is:
Holly Thompson (Japan/USA)
Holly Thompson was raised in New England and is a longtime resident of Japan. Her verse novel Orchards (Delacorte/Random House) won the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and is a YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults title. She recently edited Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories (Stone Bridge Press), and her next verse novel The Language Inside (Delacorte/Random House) will be published in 2013. Her picture book The Wakame Gatherers was selected by the National Council for the Social Studies in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council as ‘A Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People 2009′. Holly teaches creative writing at Yokohama City University and serves as the regional advisor of the Tokyo chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Visit her website: www.hatbooks.com
Tarie Sabido (Philippines)
Tarie is a lecturer of writing and literature in the Philippines and blogs about children’s and young adult literature at Into the Wardrobe and Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind. She is also on the staff of Color Online, a blog about women writers of color for children, young adults and adults. Tarie was a judge for the 2009 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (CYBILS) and the 2010 Philippine National Children’s Book Awards. At the 2010 Asian Festival of Children’s Content, Tarie and I joined Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal in the panel discussion Building a Nation of Readers via Web 2.0: An Introduction to the Kidlitosphere and the YA Blogsphere.
René Colato Laínez (El Salvador/USA)
René Colato Laínez was born in El Salvador. At the age of fourteen he moved to the United States, where he later completed the MFA program in Writing for Children & Young Adults at the Vermont College. René is the author of I Am
by Rudy Ch. Garcia
On a planet-wide, historical scale, ascending to the cima of Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Sun [something I did when it was still permitted and the vista wasn't marred by the effrontery of having to look down at a WalMart] makes you realize the awesomeness of one of the Siete Maravillas of the World. Others have told me how visits to Machu Picchu similarly impressed themselves into memory. Unforgettable.
What most of us regularly experience outside of vacations or treks rarely reaches such heights, being of a smaller scale, but maybe that imparts them with a more unique charm, since the scale acts to concentrate the experience, the way a magnifying glass focuses sunlight--short of grandiose or monumental--but making for a more personal experience. Like watching the birth of your child in a delivery room, or maybe the feelings Melinda Palacio underwent when she read from her first published novel to an Arizona audience last week. Exhilaration, internalized, even if surrounded by sixty people in the same room.
Last Friday, me and my eighteen first-grade bilingual students were privileged to experience one of those smaller wonders. René Colato Laínez, in Denver for the REFORMA Nat. Conf., kindly agreed to visit the elementary school where I work, along with Mara Price who shared her book El Chocolate de Abuelita. Mara gave us Maya history, the discovery of chocolate and made the kids hungry for more than treats.
In Rene's thirty-minute presentation, largely in Spanish, he burst the envelope of what I've seen of author readings. René pranced and danced, he sang, chimed, and theatrically stroked us with descriptions and quotings from his books, primarily The Tooth Fairy meets El Ratón Perez. Accompanied by a powerpoint of his making, René transported us his audience to a small moment where entertainment was left behind and wonderment took us elsewhere.
MEDIA ALERT
WHAT: Meet René Colato Laínez, Salvadoran award winning author, and Priscilla Burris, Children's Book Author and Illustrator at the Arbitron Children's Reading Corner during Fiesta Broadway on April 25th. Both will sign and give away copies of their books compliments of Arbitron! Rene will read aloud from his new book "The Tooth Fairy Meets El Ratón Pérez" and will sign and give away copies of the book. Priscilla will do LIVE illustrations, sign and give away copies of her illustrated books.
WHEN: Sunday April 25, 2010 11am-3pm
WHERE: Broadway, between Broadway and Spring on First Street, Los Angeles, CA (Booth 428 &429).
BACKGROUND: Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) brings its Children's Reading Corner to Fiesta Broadway, the largest Cinco de Mayo celebration in the world. For the second year, Arbitron is proud to bring award winning authors to sign and distribute copies of their books to local children.
The Arbitron Children's Reading Corner reinforces community values and the importance of connecting children with cultural heritage through reading and offers Arbitron the opportunity to reach out to the local community at a grassroots level.
"It is important that we bring our Children's Reading Corner to the largest Hispanic event in the largest Hispanic market in the US," according to Stacie de Armas, Director, Multicultural Marketing at Arbitron. "This program was designed to reach out to families and talk about the importance of audience measurement in their communities, and let them know that they can truly have a voice by participating in research when called upon "
Each child in attendance leaves with a new book, compliments of Arbitron, as well as Arbitron branded pro-literacy materials.
Since its inception in 2009, approximately 1,000 children have visited the Arbitron Children's Reading Corner and have received free books and educational games at various events throughout the country.
By René Colato Laínez
When I lost my first tooth in El Salvador, a fantastic
ratón (mouse) took it. He was the same
ratón that took my
mamá’s,
papá’s and
abuelito’s teeth. Every child knew him. He was El Ratón Pérez and in exchange for a healthy tooth, I always received a surprise. Sometimes, I received money and other times toys and even tickets to the circus! I always eagerly awaited the next visit from El Ratón Pérez.
When I moved to the US as a boy, I wrote an essay about El Ratón Pérez. My teacher called me to her desk and asked me what I was trying to write. I told her all about El Ratón Pérez and she said, “Oh, you are writing about the Tooth Fairy.” She crossed all the Ratones Pérez and asked me to change then to Tooth Fairies. I could not envision El Ratón Pérez with wings and carrying a magic wand. Where was El Ratón Pérez?
I became a teacher at Fernangeles Elementary School in Los Angeles. One afternoon, I heard the teacher next-door running and screaming through the hallway, “Ah, one of my students has a mouse in his room! I need to go to the office and call social services.”
The teacher was ready to faint from the impression. I asked her what was happening and she told me that one of her students lost his first tooth and that a mouse came to his room last night and took it. But this was not the worst part. All the other students said they knew the mouse, too.
“The boy said he wants the mouse to visit his house every night!” the teacher said.
“I knew that mouse and as a child, I also waited for his visits.” I told the other teacher. “ He is El Ratón Pérez, the Hispanic tooth collector. Last night this famous and adventurous mouse visited your student because he lost his first tooth.” The teacher started to laugh and did not go to the office. Instead, she went to celebrate with her student.
After this incident, I wondered what would happen if the Tooth Fairy met El Ratón Pérez for the first time? What would they say to each other? Would they get along? Read and find out. My new book,
The Tooth Fairy Meets El Ratón Pérez, was released by Tricycle Press/Random House on March 23, 2010.
For more info, visit:
www.renecolatolainez.comEarly praise for the book:“A marvelous story merging cultures seamlessly and with great humor. Adults will enjoy this read-aloud just as much as kids.” --- Sandra Cisneros, award-winning author of
The House on Mango Street
Now there's a picture!
¡Me encantó! What a wonderful experience for your kids. Your love for teaching is such an inspiration, Rudy!
Muchas gracias Rudy,
I enjoyed presenting to your students.
Hey Primo- You really wrote this beautifully. It drew mw in and I wanted to know Rene along with you.