How to use this Page

From Our Friends at The Border Book Festival

Dear BBF Friends,

Raul Salinas, known as raulsalinas, that great human being, transformed by
life and fire, has died.  Raul was a featured poet at the Border Book
Festival in 2000.  It was a memorable performance as Raul danced, sang and
gyrated through the power of his words his English, Spanish and Xicanindio.

His life was hard, yes, as he was incarcerated for many years in U.S.
prisons, but those who knew and loved him saw his transformation into a
light indescribable--beatific, really.  We celebrate his great beauty and
his gifts of spirit and words.

We will display his portrait taken by Daniel Zolinsky starting this
Saturday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m. at a reception at the Cultural Center de
Mesilla for The Love of Arts Month.  The evening will feature the portraits
of 14 BBF Artists taken by Zolinsky.

In addition, we will offer a program of poetry by Multilingual poets of the
Ages with readings in English, French, Spanish, Urdu and Bengali by featured
readers: Dr. Richard Rundell, Dr. Jan Hampton, Jorge Robles, Denise Chavez,
Sudeshna Sengupta and Ayesha Farfaraz.  Musicians Bugs Salcido on guitar and
Debarshi Roy on sitar will also join us.

Please join us as Raul has made his way to the Ancestors.

This message comes to us from our friends in San Antonio:

"Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thought, fears and emotions, - time -
all related...all made from one..all made in one" - John Coltrane

Elder statesmen, Xicanindio leader, poet of the people, giver of hope to the
oppressed and incarcerated, Raul Salinas passed away last night in Austin,
Tejaztlan.

Raul will be greatly missed. His work, poetry, and philosophy will live on
in the good works of poets, artists, musicians and cultural centros
throughout America. His spirit we lead us all and help us to survive and
thrive in difficult times.

His words/poems should serve as maps for us all in our quest to keep
culture, heritage and tradition alive in our barrios, cul de sacs, suburbs,
ranchos...wherever you/we live.

Thank you, Raul. You have blessed us all.

Manuel Diosdado Castillo, Jr.
San Anto Cultural Arts

A BIO OF RAUL SALINAS

Raúl Roy “Tapon” Salinas was born in San Antonio, Texas on March 17,
1934. He was raised in Austin, Texas from 1936 to 1956, when he moved to Los
Angeles. In 1957 he was sentenced to prison in Soleded State Prison in
California. Over the span of the next 15 years, Salinas spent 11 years
behind the walls of state and federal penitentiaries. It was during his
incarceration in some of the nation’s most brutal prison systems, that
Salinas’ social and political consciousness were intensified, and so it is
with keen insight into the subhuman conditions of prisons and an inhuman
world that the pinto aesthetics that inform his poetry were formulated.

His prison years were prolific ones, including creative, political, and
legal writings, as well as an abundance of correspondence. In 1963, while in
Huntsville, he began writing a jazz column entitled “The Quarter Note”
which ran consistently for 1-1/2 years. In Leavenworth he played a key role
in founding and producing two important prison journals, Aztlán de
Leavenworth and New Era Prison Magazine, through which his poetry first
circulated and gained recognition within and outside of the walls. As a
spokesperson, ideologue, educator, and jailhouse lawyer of the Prisoner
Rights Movement, Salinas also became an internationalist who saw the
necessity of making alliances with others. This vision continues to inform
his political and poetic practice. Initially published in the inaugural
issue of Aztlán de Leavernworth, “Trip through a Mind Jail” (1970)
became the title piece for a book of poetry published by Editorial Pocho-Che
in 1980.

With the assistance of several professors and students at the University of
Washington - Seattle, Salinas gained early release from Marion Federal
Penitentiary in 1972. As a student at the University of Washington, Salinas
was involved with community empowerment projects and began making alliances
with Native American groups in the Northwest, a relationship that was to
intensify over the next 15 years. Although Salinas writes of his experiences
as a participant in the Native American Movement, it is a dimension of his
life that has received scant attention. In the 22 years since his release
from Marion, Salinas’ involvement with various political movements has
earned him an international reputation as an eloquent spokesperson for
justice. Along the way he has continued to refine and produce his unique
blend of poetry and politics.

Salinas’ literary reputation in Austin earned him recognition as the poet
laureate of the East Side and the title of “maestro” from emerging poets
who seek his advice and a mentor. While his literary work is probably most
widely known for his street aesthetics and sensibility, which document the
interactions, hardships, and intra- and intercultural strife of barrio life
and prison in vernacular, bilingual language, few people have examined the
influence of Jazz in his obra that make him part of the Beat Generation of
poets, musicians, and songwriters. His poetry collections included
dedications, references, and responses to Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac,
Charles Bukowski, Charlie Parker, Herschel Evans, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles
Davis, for example. Academics have primarily classified Salinas as an
important formative poet of the Chicano Movement; yet, while he may have
received initial wide-scale recognition during the era, it would be unfair
to limit a reading of his style, content, and literary influence to the
Movement.

There were many dimensions to Salinas’ literary and political life.
Though, at times, some are perplexed at the multiple foci of Salinas’
life, the different strands of his life perhaps best exemplify what it means
to be mestizo, in a society whose official national culture suppresses
difference: his life’s work is testimony to the uneasy, sometimes violent,
sometimes blessed synthesis of Indigenous, Mexican, African, and
Euro-American cultures. Salinas currently resides in Austin, Texas, were he
is the proprietor of Resistencia Bookstore and Red Salmon Press, located in
South Austin. Arte Público Press reissued Salinas’ classic poetry
collection, Un Trip through the Mind Jail y otras Excursiones (1999), as
part of its Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic Literature Series. He is also
the author of another collection of poetry, East of the Freeway: Reflections
de Mi Pueblo (1994).

Salinas resided in Austin, Texas, were he was the proprietor of Resistencia
Bookstore and Red Salmon Press, located in South Austin. Arte Público Press
reissued Salinas’ classic poetry collection, Un Trip through the Mind Jail
y otras Excursiones (1999), as part of its Pioneers of Modern U.S. Hispanic
Literature Series. He is also the author of another collection of poetry,
East of the Freeway: Reflections de Mi Pueblo (1994).


En paz descanse.  May he rest in peace.

Lisa Alvarado

Add a Comment

Tia Chucha's Events for October 2007


Author Reading with Anna Marie Gonzalez
Saturday Oct. 6th at 2 p.m.




Ann Marie Gonzalez will present her new book and discuss its purpose. Divine for Life is a book written for people in search of divinity and understanding of who we are and what we are capable of. It is the Divine being's guide to life. This book will open doors to the truth of our existence.

"My deepest prayer is that sharing this information contributes to the empowerment of all who read this and ultimately to the spiritual evolution of humanity." Ann Marie Gonzalez


Book Reading with Mario Garcia
Saturday October 13, 2007 at 2 p.m.


Author and professor of History and Chicano Studies at UCSB Mario Garcia will present and read from his newly released book The Gospel of Cesar Chavez: My Faith in Action.
This is a book of spiritual reflections, prayers, or mantras from Cesar Chavez, one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. Perhaps the best-known Latino historical figure in the United States, a key aspect of why he did what he did was his faith. He was a devout Catholic and a man of deep moral and spiritual values, which is what drove him to seek basic rights for farm workers as well as recognition for their human dignity as children of God. Now, for the first time, The Gospel of Cesar Chavez calls attention to the spiritual side of this great leader through his own words.



Special Day of the Dead Workshop # 1
Satuday Oct. 20th from
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The first workshop of our 3 piece Dia De Los Muertos celebration!

-Danza Temachtia Quetzalcoatl
-Intro to group
-Historical Prospective of Day of the Dead
-Sugar Skull Workshop

Come join Danza Temachtia Quetzalcoatl as we introduce ourselves to the community and provide a historical and cultural perspective of the importance of Dia de los Muertos. This visual presentation will close with a sugar skull making workshop. It's fun for Everyone!

All the workshops are free!



Poetry Reading with Jim Moreno: The Artivist Movement
Saturday October 20th at 2 p.m.

Poet Jim Moreno will present and read from his newly released poetry collection, Dancing in Dissent: Poetry for Activism.

Dancing in Dissent is an artivist's (artist and activist) collection of poetry resonating with the legacy of speaking out against injustice and oppression. Moreno is a member of San Diego's Langston Hughes Poetry Circle and a past board member of the African American Writers and Artists.

He teaches poetry workshops for gang youth in lockups, children in after-school programs and adults who are beginning or practiced poets.



Michael Heralda Performs Aztec Stories
Saturday Oct. 20, 2007 at 6 p.m.

Come and experience the origins of this very special ceremony from the indigenous perspective in a presentation of music, songs, and stories.

The ceremony has evolved due to European influences, the artistic influence of Jose Guadalupe Posada's fanciful stylizations, and the commercial forces of our "modern" world. This program is for those interested in learning about the origins of this ceremony. It is also an opportunity to help establish a "balance" between today's modern practice and the ancient ceremony's true relevance and importance. You will hear things that touch your heart and at times seem very familiar. This is the ancient voice that you hear intuitively speaking to you from the past through your heart. Some of the information revealed in this presentation may surprise you, and some may validate an intuitive understanding you possess and have contemplated.


Special Day Of The Dead Workshop # 2
Sunday Oct. 21st from
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The second day of our 3 piece Dia De Los Muertos celebration
-Danza Temechtia Quetzalcoatl
-Historical Perspective of Danza
-3 groups
-dance, song, drumming
Day II of our Dia de Los Muertos workshop introduces the importance of danza in Day of the Dead celebrations. After the discussion, each participant is invited to learn an element of danza-drumming, dancing and/or Mexica songs-themselves!

All workshops are Free!
Special Day of the Dead Workshop # 3
Monday Oct. 22nd from
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
This is the last workshop of our 3 piece Dia De Los Muertos celebration!

-Danza Temachtia Quetzalcoatl
-Mexica story telling
This will be a review and expansion of first 2 workshops. Day III of our workshop will continue to teach the elements of "la danza" and will close with Mexica storytelling for all!

On this final day of the workshop, Danza Temachtia Quetzalcoatl will host a community ceremony for all its participants. Traditional face painting will begin the celebration and everyone who participated will have a chance to share what they have learned!

All workshops are free!


Friday Oct. 26th at 8 p.m.

Join us for our famous Open Mic Night, this week featuring poet Thomas Gayton, along with some of the local poets and musican performers!

Works and Performances.
Thomas has read his poetry on Pacifica Radio, KPFK-Los Angeles and has performed with Jazz greats Charles McPherson, cousin Clark Gayton and Daniel Jackson. He has taught verse writing at the Writing Center in San Diego, founded the Poetry Workshop in La Jolla, California, at D.G. Wills bookstore and also cofounded the San Diego Poets' Press.
Book Reading with Beto Gutierrez


Saturday Oct. 27th at 1 p.m.
Author Beto Gutierrez will read and discuss his newly published book A Sentence with the District.

A collection of essays based on actual experiences of a former at-risk youth who became an inspired high school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Gutierrez sheds insight from a first person point of view that others dare not mention. A must-read book that advocates educational equity and quality.

Sugar Skull Workshop Hosted by Norma
Sunday Oct. 28, 2007 at 12 p.m.

Come experience a hands-on workshop for the whole family in preparation for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) with the making of Sugar Skulls, a centuries-old tradition in Mexico that plays an important symbolic role in this holiday. You are welcomed to join us in tribute of this fun and mysterious holiday.


Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural
10258 Foothill Blvd.
Lake View Terrace, CA 91342

(818) 896-1479

www.tiachucha.com
e-mail us at: [email protected]


Donate to Tia Chuchas! Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore | 10258 Foothill Blvd. | Lake View Terrace | CA | 91342

Reyna Grande update



Under the Bridge Bookstore and Gallery
e-mail: [email protected]
When:
Saturday Oct 06, 2007
at 5:00 PM
Where::
Under the Bridge Bookstore and Gallery
358 West 6th Street
San Pedro, CA 90731

UNDER THE BRIDGE BOOKSTORE AND GALLERY CELEBRATES DEBUT AUTHORS!

RSVP not required


SPREAD THE WORD...

Join us as Eduardo Santiago, author of Tomorrow They Will Kiss; Rosa Lowinger, author of Tropicana Nights and Reyna Grande, author of Across A Hundred Mountains, read and sign their new books.

Our readings/booksignings are a great opportunity to meet an author, hear them read from their work, or purchase an autographed copy of their latest book. As always, our events are free and open to the public.

If you are unable to attend an event and are interested in purchasing a signed book please please give us a call at 310-519-8871 or contact us via email at [email protected]. We're happy to hold a book for you.



Some random autumnal thoughts...

Here in the Midwest, there is always a clear sense of seasons changing, of the time and life broken into segments. Now on my walks, I see the start of red gold rustling in the trees, the yellow and orange suns of zempasuchitl, and in my dreams, the faces of loved ones on the other side reminding me to make an ofrenda. On my good days, I see my things linked as a whole, a cycle beginning and ending and beginning.

Somehow too, at middle age, I feel more and more an affinity with autumn, I seem more in touch with the fullness of things as they begin to pass away. Somehow in the still of winter, the expectation of spring, and the busyness of summer I forget to quiet myself and take in what's everyday beautiful ---the walk in the park near my house, the full moon veiled partially with papel picado clouds.

Maybe it because I know once again things will fall away soon into a wintersleep , it seems more important to take time to walk, feel the crunch of leaves and grass under my feet, the smell of wood smoke from neighbor's fireplaces. Maybe it's because I have enough experience remembering and forgetting this, that this year I'm writing it down.

Lisa Alvarado

Display Comments Add a Comment

Greetings from the northern outpost of Aztlán, or as it's otherwise known, Chicago. For the month of May, I'll be profiling Chicano arts and letters here, starting with a look at a rock of progressive politics, a people's artist in the truest sense, Carlos Cortez.

Other columns will give you a bird's eye view of a major force in Latino literature in the Midwest, MARCH/Abrazo Press--a review of it's newest chapbook, A Book of Mornings, and a profile of its author, Raúl Niño. Next week, however, I'm posting a special Mother's Day column.








Carlos Cortez was an extraordinary artist, poet, printmaker, photographer, songwriter and lifelong political activist. His mother was a German socialist pacifist, and his father was a Mexican Indian organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies. Carlos was a Wobblie until he died. He spent two years in prison for refusing to “shoot at fellow draftees” during World War II.

After his release, Carlos took a series of jobs: in construction, in a small imported foods shop, in a chemical factory. He also started drawing cartoons in 1948 for the Industrial Worker, the IWW newspaper, but soon learned to do linoleum block prints. “Many radical papers—not having advertising, grants or angels who are rich radicals—operate on the brink of bankruptcy. So Industrial Worker couldn’t afford to make electric plates out of line drawings. I saw that one of the old-timers was doing linoleum blocks and sending them in because the paper was being printed on a flatbed press. I started doing the same thing, and each issue would have one of my linocuts.”

When the price of linoleum became too steep, Carlos started using wood. Used furniture was easy enough to find in any alley. “There’s a work of art waiting to be liberated inside every chunk of wood. I’m paying homage to the tree that was chopped down by making this piece of wood communicate something.” Carlos later became an accomplished oil and acrylic painter, though he always preferred the woodcuts because they were reproducible and affordable.

When the Industrial Worker switched to offset in the 1960s, Carlos began drawing pen-and-ink cartoons. He has also served as editor of the newspaper and on the union’s General Executive Board, and was one of the IWW’s most popular public speakers. In 1985, to commemorate the union’s 80th anniversary, he organized an important exhibition, “Wobbly: 80 Years of Rebel Art,” featuring original works by many IWW cartoonists. Carlos was probably the only IWW artist whose work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His art is exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Mexico.

In the 1960s, Carlos married Marianna Drogitis, and in 1965 they moved to Chicago where he became involved with the local Mexican and Chicano mural movement. “I’ve always identified myself as a Mexican,” he says. “ I guess this was a result of my early years in grammar school. Even though I resembled my German mother more than my Mexican father, being the only Mexican in a school full of whites made me mighty soon realize who I was. But it was my German mother who started my Mexican consciousness. She said, “Son, don’t let the children at school call you a foreigner. Through your father you are Indian, and that makes you more American than any of them.”

Inspired above all by the work of José Guadalupe Posada, printmaker of the Mexican Revolution, and the German expressionist Käthe Kollwitz, Carlos blends the techniques and styles of the German expressionists with themes from the ancient Aztecs and modern Chicanos. He made countless images support striking workers, from miners in Bolivia to farm workers in California, though he is best known for large linocut poster-portraits of activists and labor organizers such as Joe Hill, Ricardo Flóres Magón, Lucy Parsons and Ben Fletcher.

“After some 40 years of construction labor, record salesman, bookseller, factory stiff and janitor, I no longer punch a clock for some employer and have entered the most productive phase of my life where I do what I want to do and not what some employer wants me to do for him…As I keep working out ideas, I keep getting more ideas. So I’m going to go out kicking and screaming.”

In 1998, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics honored Carlos Cortez with the “Art as a Hammer” Award for his inspired and inspiring use of art to create a more just world. He died in January 2005, in Chicago. He will be missed. Carlos Cortez was also an integral part of MARCH/Abrazo Press, who published his book, de KANSAS a CALIFAS & back to Chicago.

His work is also part of the permanent collection at The National Museum of Mexican Art here in Chicago.

Carlos Cortez, Presente!




Many thanks for help with this piece to:

The Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) is an educational and research archive that collects, preserves, documents, and circulates domestic and international political posters relating to historical and contemporary movements for peace and social justice. CSPG demonstrates the power and significance of these artistic expressions of social change through traveling exhibitions, lectures, publications, and workshops. Through our diverse programs, CSPG is reclaiming the power of art to inspire people to action.

The archive currently contains approximately 60,000 posters from 1900 to the present, including the largest collection of post World War II social justice posters in the U.S. CSPG depends upon the donation of posters to make this resource as representative as possible of the many historical and ongoing struggles. The Center only collects posters with an overt political content, done in multiples. They do not accept one-of-a-kind items. All donations are tax-deductible.

Their website, http://politicalgraphics.org for additional information about CSPG.

Lisa Alvarado

Display Comments Add a Comment