Latino arts, history and culture
It seems to be a truism of history that significant events begin inauspiciously. Or at least if one is attuned to the significance of the moment, its augury for the future … [Read more...]
IN AMERICA’S DEFENSE: MEXICANS AND MEXICAN AMERICANS By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca At almost 92, World War II seems like a world and a half ago. I had just turned 17 in 1943 … [Read more...]
JAMES BALDWIN, RICHARD WRIGHT, THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE AND CHICANO CONSCIOUSNESS Our paths did not cross … [Read more...]
More than half a century ago in the midst of cold war flurry I was part of an American deterrence strategy that shaped my life in ways I am only now becoming aware of. If memory serves me, this is how … [Read more...]
When I first met George I. Sanchez in 1963 I was a member of the Southwest Council of Foreign Language Teachers organized by María Esman (Barker) and María Urquides. I was then teaching French at … [Read more...]
It’s not that the American Media is crooked, as Donald Trump rages against it, they’re blind-sided by their perception of America as white despite the fact that the United States has never been a … [Read more...]
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING In 1888 Rudyard Kipling wrote “The Man Who Would Be King” an “extraordinary social parable” about two British adventurers who, in Keystone Kops fashion, became kings … [Read more...]
When my wife Gilda suggested a drive to the Esperanza Vineyard in Sherman, New Mexico, just East of Silver City, New Mexico, I readily agreed. It was a perfect sunny day for such a drive and … [Read more...]
MASKS OF IDENTITY: THE SPACE OF LIMINAL POSSIBILITIES Abstract: A case study in teaching from 2007-2014 a dual-enrollment university course in Composition & Rhetoric 101 and 102 Exposition and … [Read more...]
THE LATINO DIASPORA AND HERMANDAD I At the moment the U.S. Census Bureau calculates there are about 60 million American Hispanics—not Hispanic Americans—in the United States, all of whom are … [Read more...]
Chicano/a Studies in an era of Transcendence: Globalization, Constant War, Terror, and Mass Expulsions The official history of NACCS states that “In 1972, at the annual meeting of the … [Read more...]
A trope is a figurative use of language—a metaphor which provides a compact way of representing a subset of cognitive and perceptual features salient to it. In other words, a metaphor mediates the … [Read more...]
The 2016 Oscar Awards fue un desmadre—a disaster, not the Chris Rock show: the Awards. I had thought about going to the Oscar Awards event this year to protest the paucity (near absence) of minority … [Read more...]
MORNING IN AMERICA: MANOS A LA OBRA DONALD TRUMP’S BID FOR THE WHITE HOUSE It’s morning in America, Donald Trump is President Elect, the sun is shining, the water in my shower came … [Read more...]
Hard to believe I’ve made it to this milestone age of 90—more than half of those years teaching in higher education—still teaching. There were a number of years when I was a high school … [Read more...]
The decade of the 70’s would be a momentous decade for me, starting with completion of my dissertation Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature. In February of 1970, Ray Small, Dean of Arts and … [Read more...]
The best way to start this piece is with a caveat that we’re all writers. Just as we’re all speakers (of whatever language), we’re all writers (of whatever language)—with the exception of those who … [Read more...]
THE FRYING PAN AND THE FIRE: IRAN AND THE ISIS THREAT “Decisions about national security are ours to make . . . that’s not simply our inheritance, it’s our responsibility” -Rachael Maddow, … [Read more...]
In 2014 there were 14,000 Mexican students studying in American colleges and universities. In an effort to improve that number, the Mexican government approved Proyecta 100,000—a goodwill … [Read more...]
I could not have known my search for America would begin at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1946 fresh from wartime service in the Marine Corps I went back to Pittsburgh where I had enlisted in 1943 … [Read more...]
GROWING OLD IN AMERICA: MEMORY AND THE GERIATRIC UNIVERSE Growing old in America is no easy matter. Worse still when age ravages one’s memory with Alzheimer’s disease or other memory … [Read more...]
