Melinda Palacio
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| Michele Serros and Melinda Palacio |
In 1995, I heard Michele Serros read at Martinez Bookstore in Santa Ana. At the time, I didn't see myself as a writer. My mom's best friends, Mary Rose and Eddie Ortega are avid readers and collectors of Chicano Literature. I had no idea what I was in for when I went along for the ride with the Ortegas. I met my first published author, a young jubilant Chicana whose stories were so real and close to home, I laughed without realizing the magical impact of that experience.
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| Michele Serros reading at a fundraiser for the 2010 Latino Book and Family Festival |
In the past twenty years, Michele's stories and books have become iconic and required reading in high schools and colleges. I never thought decades later we would both be featured authors on panels and writer pals who send each other late night texts. Earlier this year, I had my own debut at Martinez Books. Thanks to Reyna Grande, who gathered 140 Latino authors for the 2010 Latino Book and Family Festival (see photos and post on
La Bloga), I met Michele Serros again as a fellow published author.
Less than a year after that moment of meeting Michele Serros again at the Latino Book and Family Festival, I knew that she had some complicated news she wanted to share. But she was hesitant to come out with it. I remember seeing her again in Berkeley when she came to hear me read with Francisco X. Alarcón at Moe's Books. She hinted at her illness, but didn't say outright, I have cancer. I think she was hoping the disease that claimed her mother would go away and that she wouldn't have to burden her family, friends, and fans with the knowledge that she was fighting for her life.
In April 2013, she could no longer ignore the diagnosis. The cancer advanced to Stage 4 adenoid cystic carcinoma, affecting her bones, liver, lymph nodes and paralyzing her left vocal chord.
Some of her friends convinced her to join a
crowd funding campaign to help pay for the astronomical price of what her insurance does not cover. Michele Serros chose to stand down cancer in a public way, sharing photos from her hospital stay on
Facebook and writing about her lucha on the
Huffington Post. Join
her campaign and help her say, Hasta La Bye Bye Cancer! You will even be able to join in her chorus of gritos September 16. As of yesterday, she has raised $26, 517 out of a goal of $30, 000.
I hope that Michele exceeds her goal. I look forward to belting out a grito for her on September 16, Mexican Independence Day and the last day to contribute to her
GiveForward Campaign, 'A Latina en Lucha Needs You Mucha.'
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| Michele Serros and Mary Rose Ortega |
Mary Rose Ortega writes:
| "Over the years, I have been to several of her readings, have read and collected her books. All her books are personally autographed. She has brought back many memories and has added laughter to my life. I feel she has included us on her day to day struggle because she knows we care. She puts laughter on the persistent cancer that she is fighting. As a Chicana, I feel that she has always made me proud and when a friend is in need, we need to be there for them. So please give, what you can, to help her in this fight against Cancer." |
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Mona AvaradoFrazier and Michele Serros
at the Ventura County Museum where Michele was the keynote speaker for the Latina Film Festival.
Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley made a short film based on one of Michele's short stories. |
Mona AlvaradoFrazier writes:
"We are homegirls, Michele and I. Not only did we attend the same high school, are from the same hometown, and in the same critique group but we are homegirls in the fight against cancer. My own fight was nine years ago.
When Michele told me she had cancer, there were no words that I could say, I could only hug her tight, and feel the struggle ahead that is a battle for life as it is known before the word 'cancer,' is uttered.
Michele is genuinely sweet, a quality hard to come by when you suffer the loss of a parent and grow up in an economically depressed urban area. She is kind, witty, talented, and so much more. But the quality I know her best for is her ganas, that unique ability to survive and thrive whatever the odds.
Florencia writes:
"As far as I'm concerned Michele Serros put Oxnard and El Rio on the map! My favorite all time poem of Michele's is "Dead Pig's Revenge." I've read and re-read it through the years. Recently, I read it aloud to my children; they couldn't stop laughing. But the best part is they could relate: to the chicharrones, to growing up in Oxnard. Michele's poetry and stories are theirs too.
Through her stories she shows us how life is hysterical, joyful, cruel, and baffling...but somehow we get through it and it is all damn beautiful. But damn this cancer that tugs at Michele's life...it is too soon, too many unwritten stories only she can write.
With the help of Facebook, she has taken us with her on her lucha against cancer. She shows us all how to face life's toughest challenges with grace and authenticity. And like the young Michele in "Dead Pig's Revenge," this to will have a happy ending."
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| Reyna Grande |
La Bloga friend, Reyna Grande writes:"| "Michele is a wonderful human being and a talent writer who has inspired me by her hard work and dedication but also by the strength and resiliency she ha s shown during this difficult period of her life. I wish her all the best and I encourage everyone to give to her campaign as a way of thanking her for everything she has given us, her readers and fans." |
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Michele Serros, Stylish Survivor and Author
Join her Campaign. Help her fight cancer. |
Wednesday this week, I joined other Latino writers for the workshop sponsored by Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Program at Univ. of California, Riverside, organized and hosted by Sherryl Vint, Professor of Science Fiction Media Studies. Appended are the 2. La Bloga Spec Lit Directory, and 3. links I promised to post. [photos by Michael Sedano]
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| Prof. Sherryl Vint |
1. The workshops were great, a great hostess and audience for the event. Being there with Mario Acevedo, Ernesto Hogan, Rosaura Sanchez, Beatríce Pita, Jesús Treviño and La Bloga's Michael Sedano was uplifting. What immediately follows are my notes, only some of which I shared there:
Latinos have had to follow Anglo-Americans; they kept invading our lands, our Aztlán and our islands. That's their history and why we had to adopt and follow the ladder of the American Dream, even when forced to assume the role of Boogie Man. As U.S. society "allowed" Latinos to enter, we worked our way up, saving money, buying homes, sending kids to college, becoming professionals, established or famous. Our relatives the immigrants do the same, getting a credit card, a home, buying a big black truck, etc.
As our gente's educational level rose and Latino spec writers emerged. We weren't uneducated before; the problem was the literary establishment's English-only prejudice about accepting Spanish. Getting past the East Coast/White Boy publishing curtain, latinos' SF works were/are being published, winning awards as best sellers, even making their way into movies; no Nobel Prize winners, yet. In the SF Hugo Awards for Best Professional Artist, Daniel Dos Santos and John Picacio were nominated this year and last year, with Picacio taking it in 2013.
However, latinos haven't always followed the exact path of Anglo writers, and this speaks to why we may not need to and maybe shouldn't follow in their footsteps.
Anglo sci-fi lit arose in the 1930s with John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Frederik Pohl, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury. They called it the Golden Age of science fiction--golden as in blond-haired--with stories centered on scientific achievement and progress, like at the first World Science Fiction Convention held in NY in 1939.
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| 5 of the 6 Latin@ authors |
My father grew up in those times and with that technological awareness; he read SF pulps every day. He never became a Rudy Rucker mathematician or David Brin scientist and never wrote SF. He rose as he could, up to supervisor of military jet maintenance, a prestigious position for a tejano in the 1950s. But, as a Mexican, he was tracked into Tech High School, otherwise he might have graduated from college and written SF, and I could've pimped off his fame.
Decades later, the "forward-thinking" SF establishment opened its white-man's club to women and then, people of color. The rear, kitchen door was always open, but now the front door is ajar. Now that Latinos have a foot in the door so they can't close it on us, what directions will we take or even create?
In a recent interview, YA novelist Matt de la Peña asked, "Where's the African-American Harry Potter or the Mexican Katniss?" Elsewhere, author Armando Rendón asked where are the "guidelines appropriate to writing aimed at Latino children, created by Latino literati who understand their needs?" And a member of our better, mestizo half, Sherman Alexie, said, "I want to see more brown kids as characters!" Such statements made me begin to wonder if there are different paths Latino SF could take.
We know Latino youth need Latino-authored stories about Latino heroes and heroines. If you need backup to convince your principal, school board or politicians, just check the recent and ongoing #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign.
Focusing on mainstream, YA sci-fi (and fantasy), there are five, frequent themes: Good vs Evil, Love Triangles, Paranormal Beings, Dystopian futures and the Superhero. What perspectives do Latinos bring to these themes? I'll skip the struggle of good vs. evil that could be the topic of a whole conference. I'll also skip Twilight's love triangles of two hunky boys competing for one hot girl because I was never the former nor did I get the latter.
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| Ernesto Hogan & Mario Acevedo |
#3. Paranormal beings, like aliens, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, zombies, shape-shifters, fairies. Latinos bring indigenous Taíno zemí spirits and the huracán god, and La Llorona and El Cucui from Mexican heritage. But we didn't stop there, even as Anglo SF writers appropriated our monstruos. Mario Acevedo gave us a Chicano vet bitten by an Iraqi vampire. Ernesto Hogan gave us sentient, gaseous life-forms on Jupiter. Magical realism regularly emerges from the latino heritages.
Theme #4 in YA SF- Dystopia, which includes futuristic, dismal settings where teens battle tremendous odds, and sometimes, adults, in order to save humanity. What I'd like to see from Latinos is more about ourdystopias. A future where there's no electricity, no lights or power, no gas for cars or food on store shelves? Hey, Latinos (and all the poor) have been living that dystopia before Anglo SF writers even knew how to misspell the word.
What about portraying the barrios, when mamá can't pay the utilities because she only has a lowly typist job. Zombies stomping all around in the future? Try making it to the baño in the middle of the night when the rats are playing all over the sink, without crunching the cucarachas that're running all over the floors! You want hunger games? How 'bout your familia doesn't qualify for food stamps, and the only things in the cupboard is cans of lima beans and garbanzos. I don't think Latinos have even begun to exhaust the contemporarydystopias we could write for mainstream U.S. readers.
I believe theme #5 is the biggest challenge--and opportunity--for Latino SF writers. The lone hero on a quest to save the world or to defeat the forces of evil.
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| Only a part of the Riverside audience |
To take just one old white-guy SF, R.Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, the character Michael Smith was raised by Martians to have psychic powers and superior intelligence and battles evil, church forces and starts a new religion that will remake and save human, gringo society. In another of my favorite readings, The Foundation Trilogy, Hari Seldon develops the statistical math to save the intergalactic empire but he's outflanked a human mutant named The Mule, who's even more gifted and powerful.
Catniss in Hunger Games (2008) or Frodo in Lord of the Rings (mid 50s) are slightly different. These heroes need allies because they are not superhuman enough to accomplish their deeds, alone. They need help, they need to gain or win friends for that. They're like today's kids. Actually, they're also like my 30-year-old kids when they were growing up with friends of other colors--white, Asian and multi-ethnic.
So what can Latinos bring to this theme? In Afro-6, maybe the first Chicano SF novel, blacks form a military alliance with Latinos of NYC, the Boricuas. Think on that for a second. The first latino SF book. Wasn't just about Latinos. It was not about a Latino Robin sidekick for an ethnic Batman vato--it was about two ethnic groups, communities uniting, about black and brown solidarity.
In another examples, Jesus Treviño's screenwork includes Ed Olmos in Battlestar Galactica--as the admiral, not a drug lord. Treviño also wrote for the multinational cast of Star Trek.
Afro-6didn't come out of the civil rights struggles; it pre-dated them. However, ethnic mixing is not surprising for NYC. Remember, the book Afro-6 came out 50 years ago. Realize how many decades it took the old white-guy SF writers to have characters, peoples cross that line. Some still never leave their fictionally colorless Gringolandia where many characters are still college-educated scientists. So, what different routes have Latinos taken?
As in all Latino lit, our SF includes the successful, middle-class Hispanics. But a lot of it doesn't. Looking at today's panelists, The Techosand Migros in Lunar Braceros were the homeless and unemployed; Mario Acevedo's Felix Gomez character and my protagonist didn't graduate from college; Ernesto Hogan's character Pablo Cortez, a self-educated dropout, probably spent most of high school in detention or suspended. And Jesus Treviño's characters in The Fabulous Sinkhole live in a poor, border town colonia. Qué. Curioso. Somos. How different the Latino SF protagonists--no?
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| Jesús Treviño on media panel |
The indio Sherman Alexie also said, "With YA, you can make real, significant, social change." In general, the same is possible with sci-fi and spec lit. Latino SF is politically and socially more progressive because of our shared histories dominated by U.S. Manifest Destiny, oppression and exclusion. Again, looking to the panelists' novels, this is developed in Lunar Braceros to a great degree. Cortez on Jupiter is about a Chicano artist dealing with an unbelieving, white establishment. The Chicano protagonist of Nymphos of Rocky Flats doesn't just get screwed over like so many latino Iraqi War vets, he returns home vampire-bitten! And my hero in The Closet of Discarded Dreams has one goal--to get out of a mad, consumer-goods-worshipping world where americanos' dreams are his nightmares.
But speaking about the lone hero in SF, in Afro-6, Lunar Braceros and in my novel, there's something else--united action, popular uprisings, mass movements like those of the 60s and 70s. The last Hunger Games novel has rebellion and urban guerilla warfare and the defeating of the establishment, much like Afro-6. But that's still an old, white-guy SF story. It's not new.
I'll pimp my novel to get to a new theme different from the lone hero. Not to do a spoiler, in the book, the hero is only part of a mass movement. That movement is spontaneously organized, works by democratic consensus and volunteer brigades. They don't have Twitter or Facebook, but they use a crowd-sourced Grapevine to organize themselves. The multinational population divides up based on their skills and abilities. Their efforts succeed in helping stall the forces of evil long enough for others to realize how my hero plugs into their struggle. If the book had been published when I finished it, I could have taken credit for predicting the Occupy Movement.
I don't think Latino SF writers have tapped into our roots of communal action enough yet and there's reasons we should. From our indio roots, come many traditions of councils of elders, some matrilineal, where it wasn't just one, big warrior who saved his people. Also, all latinidad have familial, even clan, traditions where mass action helps everyone survive (not to romanticize us as perfect). From the annual communal clearings of acequías in the Southwest to almost magical way families contribute to a tamalada, we have historically proven methods of accomplishing almost anything. If you've never seen one, try describing the dynamics of an Easter celebration at abuela's house.
One great, black author who went beyond the lone hero theme was Octavia Butler in her Parable of the Sower series where the Oya heroine begins a religion, a movement to "shape God and the universe." Now there's something mass(ive)--a peaceful, though not passive, movement.
Some Latino SF writers will explore developing our own themes to shape the future, something going beyond the lone hero, however much the Hero's Quest must be used as a narrative approach. I don't know all of what might come out of that. I do know the Afro-6 revolution isn't necessarily it, but not because I'm a pacifist. My first published novel began my thinking that I further developed in a just completed YA manuscript, Hearts bruised, dreams mended.
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| UC-Riverside grad students on panel |
But we don't need a new jefe, caudillo, chingón Supermacho imposing his will, followed around by his bodyguards, having his pick of the women, and leading and saving his people. A female one, either. We need Latino heroes and heroines for the 21st Century.
Dystopia, economic collapse, unaffordable college, homelessness, Global Warming catastrophes, even the heightened racism against immigrant and "legal" Latinos--this isn't some futuristic SF, it's what many young people face now and for their foreseeable futures. In our small way, Latino SF writers can give allchildren something--new themes, methods, paths. Hope. Esperanza. Poder. Fuerza. We can't follow in the footsteps of the East Coast, Anglo-male dominated publishing industry, anymore. We need our own Latinonautica, we need to show others a multinational effort for change, what Ernesto Hogan terms, "an international, Latino New Wave in speculative fiction."
2. La Bloga Spec Lit Directory
[Speculative literature = science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, a lo menos]
Below is the latest list of Latino spec novelists, only their first books, publishers, and websites in chronological order. I welcome contributions to making this more complete and current and will periodically update.
[Self-described: Chicano, Cubano, Hispanic, Mexicano, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Sudamericano, American y más, expanded as needed. ?? = undetermined by us. Publisher in parens.]
1922Campos de Fuego - breve narración de una expedición a la región volcánia de "El Pinacate", Sonora Gumersindo Esquer [M]. "A Mexican Jules Verne." This came out after the Border got put up, but we could claim Esquer as a precursor.
1969Afro-6, Hank Lopez. [MA?] (Dell Publishing) According to NYTimesobit, Lopez was "born in Denver of parents who had emigrated from Mexico." A futuristic thriller about a Black, armed take-over of Manhattan. [Copyright includes Harry Baron, not listed as co-author.]
1972 Bless Me, Última, Rudolfo A. Anaya (Ch] (Quinto Sol) http://www.neabigread.org/books/blessmeultima/readers-guide/about-the-author/
1976 Victuum,Isabella Rios. (Diana-Etna Inc.) Where psychic development epitomizes with the encounter of an outer-planetary being. O.O.P. 1978 The Road To Tamazunchale, Ron Arias (Ch) (Bilingual Press) http://www.amazon.com/Tamazunchale-Clasicos-Chicanos-Chicano-Classics/dp/0916950700
1984 The Rain God: A Desert Tale, Arturo Islas [Ch] (Alexandrian Press) http://business.highbeam.com/4352/article-1G1-18616692/historical-imagination-arturo-islas-rain-god-and-migrant"
1984 The War of Powers, Victor Milán [??] (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.) http://www.victormilan.com
1990Cortez on Jupiter, Ernest Hogan[Ch] (Tor Books) A Ben Bova Presentspublication. "Protagonist Pablo Cortez uses freefall grafitti art--splatterpainting--to communicate with Jupiter's gaseous forms of life." http://www.mondoernesto.com
1992 Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist, Kathleen Alcalá [Ch] (Calyx Books)
1993 Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel [Ch] (Random House Black Swan)
1993 Afterage, Yvonne Navarro [A] (Overlook Connection Press) http://www.yvonnenavarro.com/ Dark fantasy & horror.
1995The Fabulous Sinkhole, Jesus Treviño [Ch] (Arte Público Press) "Stories into magic realism: spunky teen Yoli Mendez performs quadratic equations in her head." Film/TV Director/Writer of Prison Break, Resurrection Blvd. Star Trek Voyager, Babylon Five, Deep Space Nine. http://chuytrevino.com/
2000 Clickers, J.F. Gonzalez [??] (DarkTales Publications) Horror. http://jfgonzalez.com/
2000Places left unfinished at the time of creation, John Phillip Santos [Ch] (Penguin Books) "A girl sees a dying soul leave its body; dream fragments, family remembrances and Chicano mythology reach back into time and place; a rich, magical view of Mexican-American culture." http://provost.utsa.edu/home/Faculty_Profile/Santos.asp
2000 Soulsaver, James Stevens-Arce [PR] (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) www.stevens-arce.com
2001 The New World Border, Guillermo Gomez-Peña [??] (City Lights Publishers) News reports from a borderless future where whites are a minority and the language is Spanglish.
2003 Matters of the Blood, Maria Lima (Cu-Am?] (Juno Books) http://www.marialima.com/
2004 Unspeakable Vitrine, Victoria Elisabeth Garcia [??] (Claw Foot Bath Dog Press) Chapbook collection of short magic realist fiction
2004 Devil Talk:Stories, Daniel A. Olivas [Ch] (Bilingual Press) These twenty-six stories bring us to a place once inhabited by Rod Serling . . . only the accents have changed; Latino fiction at its edgy, fantastical best. http://www.danielolivas.com
2004 Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys, Xavier Garza (Piñata Books)
2005The Skyscraper that Flew, Jesus Treviño (Arte Público Press). An enormous crystal skyscraper mysteriously appears in the Arroyo Grande's baseball field. Then the stories begin. http://chuytrevino.com/
2006 The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, Mario Acevedo [Ch] (Rayo Harper Collins) http://marioacevedo.com
2006Gil's All Fright Diner, A. Lee Martinez [A] (Tor) Born in El Paso, he has other books, but may not consider his books or himself anything latino. http://www.aleemartinez.com/
2007 Firebird, R. Garcia y Robertson [A] (Tor)
2007 Abecedarium, Carlos Hernandez [??] [w/D. Schneiderman] (Chiasmus Press) 2007 Moon Fever, Caridad Piñeiro [Cuban American] (Pocket Books) http://www.caridad.com/bio/" Paranormal romance.
2008 Happy Hour at Casa Dracula, Marta Acosta [L] (Pocket Star) http://www.martaacosta.com
2008 The King's Gold: An Old World Novel of Adventure, Yxta Maya Murray (Harper Paperbacks)
2009Lunar Braceros, Rosaura Sanchez, Beatrice Pita & Mario A. Chacon. (Calaca Press)
2012 The Witch Narratives, Belinda Vasquez Garcia, [??} (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) http://www.belindavasquezgarcia.com/ The little-known world of Southwestern witchcraft.
2012 The Closet of Discarded Dreams, Rudy Ch. Garcia [Ch]. (Damnation Books) A Chicano alternate-world fantasy. Honorable Mention, SF/F category, 2012-13 International Latino Book Awards. Discarded-dreams.com 2012 Spirits of the Jungle, Shirley Jones [H] & Jacquelyn Yznaga [H] (Casa de Snapdragon)
2012 Virgins & Tricksters, Rosalie Morales Kearns [PR +Dutch] (Aqueous Books) Magic and folklore pop out of everyday encounters. http://rosaliemoraleskearns.wordpress.com
2012 Joe Vampire, Steven Luna (Booktrope Editions) [??] thestevenluna.wordpress.com
2012 Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall [Ch] (Tu Books) Pura Belpré Award winner; Andre Norton Award nominated. http://www.guadalupegarciamccall.com .
2012 Roachkiller and Other Stories, R. Narvaez [PR] (Beyond the Page Publishing) Winner of 2013 Spinetingler Award for Best Anthology/Short Story Collection and 2013 International Latino Book Award for Best eBook/Fiction.
2012 Salsa Nocturna, Daniel José Older [??] (Crossed Genres Publications) http://ghoststar.net
2012 Dancing With the Devil and Other Tales From Beyond, René Saldaña Jr. [MA] (Pinata Books) http://renesaldanajr.blogspot.com
2012 Ink, Sabrina Vourvoulias [L] (Crossed Genres Publications) http://followingthelede.blogspot.com
2013 The Miniature Wife & Other Stories, Manuel Gonzales [??] (Riverhead Books) www.facebook.com/pages/Manuel-Gonzales/110962335695879
2013 Spirits of the Jungle, Shirley Jones & Jacquelyn Yznaga [??] (Casa de Snapdragon)Kindle version, 2012.
2013 The Odd Fellows, Guillermo Luna [?] (Bold Strokes Books) http://friendshiploveandtruth.blogspot.com
2013 This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire & the Fantastic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia [M] (Exile Editions) silviamoreno-garcia.com. Collection of fantasy, science fiction, horror—and time periods.
2013Infinity Ring: Curse of the Ancients, Matt de la Peña [??]. (middle-grade, Scholastic Inc.) "Sera sees the terrifying future, but can’t prevent the Cataclysm while stranded thousands of years in the past. The only hope lies with the ancient Maya, a mysterious people who claim to know a great deal about the future." http://mattdelapena.com
3. Websites relevant to the Latino SF workshop:
"Speculative fiction is at its core syncretic; this stuff doesn’t come out of nowhere. And it certainly didn’t "spring solely from the imaginations of a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys in the 1950s." from N.K. Jemisin's Continuum GoH speech last year in Australia, calling for "a Truth in Reconciliation commission, such as encouraging blind submissions, demanding diverse characters on book covers. Women and people of color have our own suggestions for change. . . . Who has the greater stake in teaching mainstream U.S. sci-fi "how to be multicultural, and in tune with the world?" Women and POC have learned from the mistakes and successes in sci-fi "to truly become the literature of the world’s imagination."
"55% of young adult books purchased in 2012 were bought by adults between 18 and 44 years old, according to Bowker Market Research.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG aka Rudy Ch. Garcia
Reyna Grande, The Distance Between Us
For her post yesterday about the great campaign she initiated for her Mexican hometown of Iguala, I doubly suggest Reyna.
Lydia Gil, Letters from Heaven/Cartas al Cielo
Synopsis: Celeste is heartbroken when her grandmother dies, and nothing can make her feel better. But everything changes when a letter mysteriously comes in the mail-from Grandma! "I know you miss me as much as I miss you. Don't be sad. Where there is love, there is no sadness." As letters continue to arrive from the beyond, each with the recipe for a favorite food she used to prepare, Celeste follows her grandmother's advice and consoles herself by learning how to cook the dishes.
A lot of food for thought here. I may have to re-read it, and make notes for future Chicanonauticas. We need to make contact with the Spanish-speaking, sci-fi world -- there are several blogs en español that I'm following . . . As for this side of the Border, it's an interesting story -- my dad read science fiction magazines in East L.A. back in the Forties -- in the Seventies, some Chicano activists though that sci-fi and technology were tools of the Anglo oppressors. Of course, today Chicano hackers are part of Aztlán landscape. I guess I have some work to do . . .
And I almost forgot! Spic Spec Fic! I can see it on a book cover!
I'm Boricua, I read sci-fi and am writing a sci-fi screenplay.
You have better things to do than to fret about a review. A review, good or bad, doesn't make the story any better or worse. It is what it is.
By co-inky-dink, the current issue of The New Yorker has a "sci-fi" (somebody doesn't like that term, really?)theme and, sabes que, there's a story by the one and only Junot Diaz (and also stories/articles by Jonathem Lethem, Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury (QEPD), Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood, etc. Le Quin's article talks about the gender ghetto of science fiction - I think her point is to write good stuff and it will be read.
STUPID WET BACKS ALL OFF YOU ESTAN CAGANDO PALO SIEMPRE Y SE SIENTEN MUY CHINGONES SWALLOW COCKS AND STAY AWAY FROM US STUPID DICKHEADS
I used to not like science fiction literature, thinking that writers didn't have to go to outer space to find characters, settings and conflicts worth writing about, when we have all of the above aplenty here on earth. "Childhood's End" changed all of that. Then I realized that I liked science fiction films and that I had a limited view of science fiction lit (bug-eyed monsters). I'm now aware of the breadth of the lit genre, from hardwired to gutterpunk and have a lot of respect for its writers. How's this for a character arc: I'm the author of "Destiny's Quest: Transformation" a YA novel manuscript about a teenager who discovers that she has powers and has to rescue her brother from some hybrid monsters.
I recently watched the movie 'Prometheus' with my girlfriend and she mentioned that there was no Brown jente in the film. I noticed right away as well but I didn't expect there to be any. This lead me think about the very topic you bring up about the lack of Sci-Fi literature coming from the Latino community. I remember hearing about the term afro-futurism from a companera and I thought about what that might encompass and thought it would be great idea to incorporate that genre into the Brown community and fully develop the concept. I thought about a world in which various Barrios began to create a community based on healthy lifestyles that would promote quantum leaps into autonomous education. This education would give the access to leaps and bounds into a world that would be a truly advanced civilization. My imagination went wild when I thought of the ancient indigenous cultures that had existed and the Barrios coming into full contact with these lost knowledge systems. What would happen if they re-examined these ancient knowledge systems and incorporated them into their daily live and synthesized something completely unique and free from conventional advanced technology. This is a topic I feel that is worth touching on because its not a popular idea I feel and gets easily overlooked because of the social stigmas conceived of the Brown communities. That is why the potential of a truly rich sci-fi story coming from the Barrios could and will blow away wigs.
So interesting. I was just talking about this with Rene Saldana and David Bowles at TLA last month. I am Latina, Mexicana actually. My second novel, Summer of the Mariposas from TU Books is fantasy/ magical realism, and I have another SF novel in the works, but I agree with you; we definitely, absolutely, positively need more Hispanics writing SF.