Last Comments of 2010

I am not a Christian but I'll take the holidays. So much has happened, well really nothing.

Last week some events happened that are worth mentioning, Don't Ask Dont Tell was repealed which is good, all who want to fight should be allowed to join. But it also got me thinking, they must have too many gays in the military to be pushing this or they must not have enough soldiers. Either way it passed and many consider this a progressive issue. Lets clarify this, this is not a progressive issue. It doesn't bring minorities out of poverty, it really helps White people who seem to be successful middle class which eliminates the progressive rule and it really helps both conservative or liberal Whites who seem to be beholden to this issue. It just seems Whites have too many gays and they do not seem to be hindered by that, especially the Republicans which counters their core values when there is a segment requesting extra rights for bodily acts.

A second place which has too many of a certain people, was UCLA and other colleges. As the vote was counted for the Dream Act I couldn't help but notice that there were too many undocumented students anxciously waiting for the vote. Life must not be that hard if a student is undocumented and their parents can afford to send them to UCLA. I am an American by birth and I could barely afford to attend UCLA in the early 1990's when many of these students were being born in their countries of origen.  So how does a population that technically does not have legality have the money to pay cash when my mother, also an American citizen could not afford to pay for my schooling nor me when tuition was much less. Granted in the early 1990's there was a major recession and I remember because I couldn't find employment as a young many in my early 20's and even with a USC degree in hand it did not help. Yet at the highest cost of tuition these undocumented students can.

I opposed the Dream Act because non citizens should not be given access over US citizens of any color, especially when it comes to Mexican Americans. These undocumented students are doing what took me 4 generations to do which was to complete college but they do it as an immigrant population. They are not even first generation Americans and yet they get through. Because the undocumented students who come from Mexico south to Latin America, can easily morph as a Mexican American, they easily by permission of colleges trumph Mexican Americans and really push us out. How is this fair to those of us born here with the mental scar of being raised American and segregated?

I have to realize that the longer we are in the US, the more psychologically we are harmed were we learned to self doubt even as toddlers.  Immigrants don't have that history because they believe this is the land of promise and it's not. Especially, when their undocumented parents are employed and our American parents struggle for employment. The immigrant thinks the opportunity is the same when it's not.

I saw the tears on many students but I didn't feel pity for them because who has pitied or given me that hand of help. I would even argue that I have lost out to those that were amnestied in 1986 because they write their woe is me story and the system seems to always have a place for them while I as a person born in this country find myself looking in. The people who voted against them were not bigots they just felt that citizens have to be considered first by not bringing in more foreigners as permanent people.  Foreigners cannot throw the racist card when they are not even citizens of that nation and are employed. If the Whites in Congress were bigots they would enact laws that made it impossible to be hired like in France.

I hear the clamor that they were brought here as children but birth is the sacredity of citizenship and that is what makes one a legal entity defined by space. We all have to abide by the law, when we drive we are to have a driver's license, when we apply for a job the id and social security card, when we travel a passport. There is nothing absurd about this and why should one be compensated for irresponsibility of the parents, who overstayed their visit.  Maybe ICE isn't as bad as made out to be.

People might be against my opinions but truth of the matter, those of us born in the US should have a right to our opinion and truth of the matter, I don't have any relationship to these people. We are both of entirely different nationalities, I don't have any legal or even racial connection so why would I be guilt into supporting a group of people I believe are a direct competition to me and my friends.

The Senate did right by rejecting the dream act because ultimately, the country belongs only to those born here and not foreigners who show up because they are greedy and that includes the Naturalized.  Lets have a Dream Act for the unemployed Mexican American who truly needs it as the LA Times reported that immigrants have gained 1.2 million jobs while US born Mexican Americans have lost 600,000 jobs. Who really has it bad? I have lost friends over this issue but if you were to listen to this unselfishly all would comprehend the dire crisis.

Congress needs to act more to ensure that US citizens are educated and employed first and the home countries need to become responsible for their citzens because I as a non citizen cannot petition anything from Mexico or Ecuador.  Even though my name is Julian Camacho, I am still a gringo and a foreigner in Mexico.

Chalino Review & Trixie

To Trixie, Thank you for your comments, in my world there is always room for a 40 something year old White woman, I need your audience. I do try to be critical but across the board. Just as I will criticize a White woman or male, I will do so to Mexican Americans who are fake, self serving and pretend to be righteous when they are not. I do have biases against southern Mexicans who think they are better than us Northern Mexican Americans and their offspring who want to claim our generational Mexican American space. But that is the Apache in Me speaking, we have history with that.

On another note, my book Chalino was reviewed by the Cal State Long Beach online magazine. I was surprised and honored simply because I was chosen and in this world that means something. The irony was that I was showcased but haven't worked there in two years because I was fired for my ideas through the excuse of budget cuts. I do oppose non Mexican Americans in Chicano Studies and they didn't like that. There shouldn't be people born in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain and Costa Rica in what is Mexican Ameican Studies. Those are immigrants and Mexican Americans are not immigrants apart from being desert Apache and Navajo, Chumash decended people. How can those Mexican Americans born in California be equated with someone born in Sinaloa, Jalisco or Michoacan? The spatial residence proves we are not even if some perceive them to be the same people.

Those born in Mexico have just pushed those of us born in the US aside and we have no say everthough we are Americans by birth. Why are foreigners being given the keys? I didn't fil out an application to become a citizen, it was a fate determined in US law and regional history. I didn't take a test nor get interviewed by a Phillipine worker or attend a swearing in ceremony with people from around the world.

Hence the administration and Che Guevara idealist people like former chair Luis Arroyo have pushed and advocated for Latin America to move into an American realm and with no qualms have killed a department that was intended for US born Mexicans. That is what Chicano means, a Mexican American, not someone born in Mexico and raised in  the US much less a Puerto Rican.  White people didn't kill Mexican American Studies, illogical Che Guevara followers who believe that from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego are all the same, did. Well Mexican Americans are born north of the Rio Grande or north of the New River in the Imperial Valley so how would they fit in to Che Guevara's stupidity. If that was the case, only one country from Mexico to Brazil-Argentina would exist, but they are not. Their borders prove that and occasional wars over boundaries.

The ultimate damage was that discriminated Mexican Americans have the doors closed like me and I can't use the " I was born in Mexico syndrome and I was undocumented" line while people who are not Americans have moved in an American field and have subverted it and changed it to immigrant studies along with the east Latino identity which has nothing to do with us Mexican Americans.  We are not Puerto Ricans.

Thus with a smile in my face I relished the fact that I was show cased as the author of the month even though I don't work there anymore.  I am not judged by merit but then again, this is America where a political agenda is always at work.

http://www.csulb.edu/misc/inside/?p=15885

Writing

I should write more but I'm lazy just as readers are even more lazy. I should then try to be like other Mexican American writers who believe they are spiritual writers or zen zies after a life of danger and desmadre. I'm not quite sure I can believe somebody whose been engaged in a former life of crime for the mentality never stops.

My father in law use to state he couldn't become a born again Christian because everybody attempting to convert him were all losers, he would state they were former drug addicts, criminals, and engaged in every sin possible to now preach to him the virtues of being saved. I feel the same way.

I'm not going to listen to no former criminal turned preacher, come to think about it, I wouldn't even listen to God or his chosen son Jesus much less to someone who's been in jail for harm committed to somebody else. I grew up in Lennox and I was taught by my mother to know the difference. I didn't engage in danger to anybody else except for some emotional pain for ex girlfriends--but that is normal. We didn't like each other's personalities and wouldn't admit to it. Like they were all innocent.

I'll keep listening to my mother and my dogs versus some reformed criminal preaching spirituality. Right.

Narrow Minded People

So I have done some commentaries on facebook, part comical, part comical, part serious and what ever anyone reads into it. However on one of the commentaries I was sent a nasty reply by the cartoonish Lalo Alcaraz. I'm not one that sits back, I go on the offense and defense simultaneously.
So we went back and forth on points that merit a discussion but when the heat got too hot he de friended me. Technically we were never friends. But for the simple reason that he did not like what I told him. I at least heard him out but he was quick to cut me off.

Then the same happened with Ask a Mexican, Gustavo Arellano but with him it was a commentary over Muslims and I went back and forth with a woman whose in love with that culture and claims that Mexican culture comes Middle eastern roots. As I told her, the numbers of Spaniards never made it to Mexico and much less north. I took a cultural point, Muslims will push their culture and you can forget about anything pork. And when Spaniards claim they are part North African then I might be open but I doubt that.

So the Ask a Mexican response was to de friend me, but as I said, we were never friends. I could never be friends with people from Zacatecas--something about those people rubs me the wrong way.

The point I make is that these voices for Mexicans are quite close minded and don't like to be challenged and when they are, they turn and run. It's easy to critique people who don't know internally but when someone knows internally they can't handle being challenged. They act like their words are gospel when they are not. And when I mentioned to Alcaraz to stop spreading ignorance he acted like as if he was superior and being talked down to was not something he was used to.

It is easy to preach to the choir but to go outside of the comforts of the four walls is quite different.

And just because Whiteness has given them a voice does not mean they are correct. They push that undocumented are the same as Mexican Americans because they were raised here. Lets ignore laws because they don't matter. But the fact many are not US born proves that they are not Mexican Americans which is their own exclusive cultural legal animal created by law, US law.

The list could go on but why elaborate.
These guys represent the worse of American Higher Education, which is the creation of a close minded individual much like their professors. Why? Because they are never wrong for they are gospel. I'm glad I don't read their stuff and contribute to more ignorance.

Floricanto Press August Newsletter

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Floricanto Press

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Home



Twelve New Titles

Floricanto is pleased to announce the release of the following new titles:



Aurora. By Rafael Castillo. ISBN:978-1888205-30-5



Rafael Castillo's characters are a Chicano variation of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks," sleepless souls lost in their own thoughts," Jacinto Jesus Cardona, author of Pan Dulce: Poems These eleven tightly-packed short stories, often allegorical yet visceral, range from the phantasmagorical "Aurora", whose misdeed has condemned her to a cyclical river of Eternal Return, to the agnostic Tomas and faithful Pedro in the theological "Penitent of Guadalupe Street", where truth is an enigma wrapped in a metaphor. In another story, a bellicose dwarf is murdered and the story is told from shifting points of view. In "Dwarfs and Penitents," an angry jilted husband searches the cobblestone streets of Prague in search of vengeance, while in "The Sands of Dhahran," a middle-age soldier battles his demons during Operation Desert Storm. In these luminous stories, Castillo give us penitents, dwarfs, lost youth, WWII vets, pachucos, doppelgangers, and memorable others populating the American literary landscape. ___ Rafael Castillo teaches writing and literature at Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of Distant Journeys, and his writing has appeared in The Arizona Quarterly, College English, Imagine, English Journal, Frank, New Mexico Humanities Review, Puentes, Southwestern American Literature, Saguaro, and ViAztlán. His fiction has also been widely syndicated and anthologized in Under the Pomegranate Tree (Washington Square Press), Lone Star Literature (W.W.Norton), Hispanic Link, (Washington, DC) and New Growth (Corona Press). "Castillo has a poet's feel for language and a gritty sense of urban reality. Aurora and other stories is a welcome addition to the growing body of Mexican American literature," Don Graham is the J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of American Literature and English at UT-Austin, and a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly.



"Complicated, interesting, and enthralling, Castillo has one of the most authentic voices coming out of Aztlan. Our inheritance is in his words." Sheila Sanchez-Hatch, author of Strong Box Heart



"A personal memory of profound intimacy and delicately layered...Castillo's book is enticing and energizing." Carmen Tafolla, Sonnets To Human Beings.









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Mourning for Papá: A Story of a Syrian-Jewish Family in Mexico. By Jacobo Sefamí. ISBN: 978-1-888205-31-2 $26.98



Using the death of the father as a point of departure, the novel is divided into ten chapters, a structure that is particularly effective because the chapters correspond to the ten days that begin on the Jewish New Year and end on the Day of Pardon... Thus the mythic time of a millenarian religion such as Judaism is strategically juxtaposed to the recapturing of a family's memory that is both contemporary and unmistakably Mexican... The dialogues are tinged with Jewish humor. Jorge Schwartz



Each character lives simultaneously within three cultures -Jewish, Syrian, and Mexican-in a hybrid narration that produces fascinating mixtures. Lucía Guerra











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Competing Truths in Contemporary Latin American Literature: Narrating Otherness, Marginality, and the Politics of Representation. By Sandro R. Barros. ISBN: 978-1-888205-32-9. $26.95



The overwhelming success of the filmic adaptations of Before Night Falls by Cuban exile Reinaldo Arenas, The Virgin of the Assassins by Colombian writer Fernando Vallejo, and City of God by Brazilian author Paulo Lins attracted audiences worldwide to rediscover and rethink the content of these works as enigmatic messages of disillusionment and abjection regarding the Latin American realities they promote. The original texts' representation of sicarios, favelados, and homosexual dissidents undermines the conceptualization of the Latin American continental identity as "Other" in relation to dominant Eurocentric and North American perspectives. Competing Truths delves into the question of to what extent the fictional and autobiographical truths purported by the aforementioned bestsellers engage in the process of fixating conventional paradigms of "Third World" identity, such as poverty, violence and exclusion, as images of consumption for world audiences. Furthermore, Competing Truths examines what constitutes truth and reality from a perspective that assesses Latin American history and culture in a contest for the very meaning of the postmodern truth. Competing Truths presents a critical reflection of three of the most compelling and successful novels emerging from the Latin American literary scene at the end of the 20th century, questioning the politics behind their historical, racial, and gendered representations. Competing Truths explores the Latin American identity within a literary fictional framework and realistic social paradigms, a dichotomy that challenges the reality of identity of the social types. Lector, The Hispanic Book Review Journal.









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Heaven is Hard to Swallow - Paraísos duros de roer. By Rafael Pérez Gay. Translated in to English by Dr. Eduardo Jiménez Mayo. ISBN: 978-1-888205-29-9 $26.95



A forlorn psychoanalyst; a cultural historian exploring the possibility of life after death; a middle-aged couple that schedules a rendezvous with a younger version of itself; a man who compensates for his phobia of death and dying with intense sadomasochistic practices; a writer who futilely explores the sexual habits and customs of Mexico City: These five short stories comprise the body of Heaven is Hard to Swallow (Paraísos duros de roer), the latest masterpiece of the phenomenal Mexican publisher, journalist and fiction writer, Rafael Pérez Gay.













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Dreams Sueños. By María del Pilar Muñoz. ISBN: 978-1-888205-24-4 $22.98



Interpretation of dreams has been practiced by mankind for thousands of years. The hermeneutics of dreams varies from culture to culture. Latino culture has always been fascinated with the mystery of dreams and has its own approach to their significance. We can learn a lot from our dreams about ourselves, our past, present and future, our fears and hopes, our community, our health, mental state, feelings and much more... Dreams is a book that will help you understand your dreams, look at the interpretations and meanings of dream symbols, learn special methods of self dream psychoanalysis, reveal the subtle inferences and meaning of common dreams, such as falling teeth, flying, falling, chase, and more. You will also find here interpretation of special dream themes like scenes, sounds, feelings and colors, numbers, animals, food, houses, ocean, forest and etc...look for items and symbols that are prevalent in your dreams. Piece together the bits of information, search for their meanings, then shape the significance, which may clarify the next steps you should take in life and enlighten understanding for a more fulfilling life. Dreams can be instrumental in guiding your decisions, providing you courage to accept fate, dealing with sorrow, self awareness, and understanding prophetic dreams and your future, and achieving psychological health. Norma Godina-Silva, Ph.D., Founder, Director, ESL-BilingualResources.com



"Dreams will open your minds avenues into a different cultural spectrum of understanding. A plus read for one who wishes to know more about the significance of dreams and how to use them to broaden one's scope of life." Elbert García, Santa Rosa, New Mexico.











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On a Train Called Absence/Paletitas de Guayaba. ISBN: 978-1-888205-20-6 $23.95 Bilingual edition.



This is a bilingual edition. On a Train Called Absence/Paletitas de Guayaba the story is narrated in the first person by the protagonist, Marina, who is traveling by train from New Mexico to Mexico City in search of her identity, her history, and answers to many questions that are tormenting her. As the train carries her through the Mexican landscape, she has flashbacks of her life in New Mexico, a failed romance, and a previous journey. The narration also flashes forward to her arrival, and to her discoveries and adventures in Mexico, where she confronts both her historical and mythical past as well as her complex, multicultural present.









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Cuba Libre. Mentirita! By Carlos T. Mock, M.D. ISBN: 978-1-888205-16-9 $25.95



The Cuba Libre ("Free Cuba") is a cocktail made of Cola, lime, and rum. This cocktail is often referred to as a Rum and Coke in the United States and Canada, where the lime juice is optional. Bacardi claims ownership of the original, while some have also claimed it for Havana Club. It seems unlikely, however, that anyone could safely identify the first individual to combine rum and Coca-Cola-when seven or eight individuals lay claim to the creation of the Margarita, a far more complex drink-let alone identify the brand. Both the cocktail and its name remain politically loaded due to the history and current status of Cuba-United States relations. The situation is further complicated by Bacardi's political involvement in Cuba. Cuba Libre is sometimes called "Mentirita" ("little lie") by Cuban exiles opposed to the current Communist government run by Fidel Castro, as a comment that Cuba is currently not free. Cuba Libre "Mentirita" is a history book.









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Suzanna. By Irene I. Blea. ISBN: 978-1-888205-21-3 $23.95



When young girls quickly grew up to be old women, young Suzanna was raised by her grandparents who received a letter from Don Felipe Montoya asking for the child's hand in marriage. Don Felipe is old enough to be her father. He agrees to the abuelito's condition that he delay obtaining Suzanna as a wife until she becomes a woman, or until her thirteenth birthday, which ever comes first. The wedding takes place in the northern New Mexico village church on a weekday with only the necessary parties in attendance. Thus, Suzanna becomes isolated on Don Felipe's failing prairie ranch with her home-made rag doll, Cleotilda as her only friend. In two years Suzanna gives birth to two sons. The remoteness of the ranch is made worse by drought, failing live stock, Don Felipe's silence, his sternness, and sexual appetite. Economic hardship forces Felipe to seek work elsewhere. He migrates north securing employment on a Wyoming sheep ranch. He arrives to announce they are moving to Colorado where he will work in a steel mill. Suzanna and does not want to move. Felipe beats her badly into relocating. Her grandfather sooths her bruises and agrees she must go with her husband. The truck is loaded with household furnishings and before the family crosses the state line Felipe stops for gasoline. During the trip Suzanna agonizes about leaving her children behind, but at a gas station she grabs a flour sack containing Cleotilda, a santo and a few articles of clothing and runs. Suzanne is a truly outstanding first novel. Don Bullis, Author-Historian



"A well written coming of age story of a young Spanish girl tossed into marital domesticity by her grandparents. It is filled with vividly captivating details that just entices you to read on." Sandra C. Lopez, Author of Esperanza: A Latina Story









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Chalino: A Chronicle Play of Fulgor and Death. By Julián Camacho Segura. ISBN: 978-1-888205-12-1 $22.95 Bilingual edition.



With "Chalino", Julian Camacho writes about a raw, unflinching Mexican icon with an unapologetic honesty only he can provide. He excels at bringing this story to larger than life tale because he possesses one of the most experienced voices among his contemporaries. Oscar Barajas, Author, "True Tales from the Wireless Clothesline"



Rosalino "Chalino" Sanchez was a Mexican immigrant from the Mexican state of Sinaloa who came to the US in search of opportunity. In his pursuit of perseverance his gift and talent for writing corridos for the common working class man initiated a world wind phenomena that appealed to Mexican-American youth in Los Angeles, California. Chalino's corridos provided a cultural medium in which Chicanos identified with their own roots. Chalino's contribution to the musical genre of corridos bridged Mexican immigrant music of the Mexican corrido with Mexican-American youth. Chalino's corridos and music have forever changed the social fabric of Chicanos in the music scene in Los Angeles. His music helped many Chicanos have a cultural reaffirmation of who they are allowing Mexican youth in Los Angeles to immerse more deeply into their own Mexican Norteño culture. Chalino's unique singing style turned him into a legend that many have tried to imitate, but there will never be another man like him. Chalino defied the odds and became successful starting his own legacy as the king of corridos. Through his art form Chalino left behind his fame and a corrido legacy that was materialized and created in el rancho de Los Angeles, California. Marcos A. Ramos, University of California, Berkeley









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Day of the Dead/ Día de los Muertos. By Manuel Luis Martínez. ISBN: 978-1-888205-19-0 $25.95



This is the most riveting and complex narrative of the Mexican Revolution. "I am Berto Morales. I am the false son of a nameless and blind man. I am War. I took his land through a pretense. I am Pestilence. When his heir returned to claim his birthright, I killed him. I am Murder. His comrades returned to find me, and failing to do so, took the life of my wife and child. I was Love. I determined to meet injustice with injustice. I am Hatred. I brought war to those who ended my life. I am Executioner. I am guilty of sins that have no name. I have come to the slaughter uninvited and have determined to give my life freely." And so begins the saga of Berto Morales set during the Mexican Revolution, the landscape of Day of the Dead is littered with the victims of a brutal war, one populated by a cast of villains, saints, heroes, and ordinary people whose roles are often impossible to reconcile.



"Martínez continues his fine writing on Day of the Dead, and offers further proof of the wide range of Chicano literature. The reader will acknowledge that our ties to tradition serve as a most appropriate title on this tightly-written work ." Rolando Hinojosa



"In his novels Manuel Martinez writes the naked truth, and he does so twice: once when he relates the almost unknown American history of underprivileged Mexican immigrants, who never had the power or status to tell their unbelievably courageous and human stories themselves; and a second time when he makes us confront questions of identity, morality, justice and vengeance that are as relevant to anyone living in present day America and the world as they are to his protagonists. In Day of the Dead, Martinez executes this feat in clean, compassionate prose, poignantly direct and lacking in clichés." Assaf Gavron, has published four novels, a collection of short stories. His fiction has been translated into German, Russian, Italian, French, English and more, won prizes, was adapted for the stage, and optioned several times for movies.









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Hasta la Vista, Baby! By Donna Del Oro. ISBN: ISBN: 978-1-888205-17-6 $22.95



"I thought it was great. I mean, I was hooked from the very first page because of all the wit and humor. I found myself laughing a few times ...and that was only the first three chapters!" Sandra Lopez, author of ESPERANZA and BEYOND THE GARDENS



"A fun romp to read! Hasta La Vista, Baby! is a deft mix of humor and raw emotion with unforgettable characters. Donna Del Oro is an author to watch!" Loucinda McGary, award-winning author of The Wild Sight and The Treasures of Venice.



Hasta la Vista, Baby! is a romantic comedy set in Silicon Valley.



Sonya, the artist, is blind to everything but beauty. She learns the hard way that it's never too late to wake up, wise up and grow up!



Muralist Sonya Reyes Barton experiences an emotional meltdown when her handsome, cheating husband, Earl, announces at a family BBQ that he needs a divorce so he can marry his pregnant girlfriend. In front of all the Bartons, Sonya has a nervous breakdown, chases Earl with a barbecue fork, eventually winds down and collapses.



How does the worst day of Sonya's life eventually become the best thing that ever happens to her? How does she gain insight into herself and her choice of men? More importantly, how does Sonya learn to forgive herself and move on? There's still life after forty-two and she's determined to find it.











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Mujeres de Conciencia/ Women of Conscience. Spanish English parallel text and photography by Victoria Alvarado. ISBN: 978-0-9796457-7-8. 2008 $79.95 Oversized, Hardbound.



This is an art book with magnificent black and white photos of prominent Latinas who have made definite and long standing contribution to the Hispanic community and the country at large. This photographic essay constitutes an important collective biography as well, with great journalistic insight and integrity into the lives of leading Latina women in the fields of education, science, literature, business, law, the arts, journalism, politics, and other fields of endeavor. This coffee table monograph, which has been published with art-book quality as a collector's edition, provides stunning artistic, B&W photographs of each subject with a parallel biographic journalistic essay in Spanish and English. The biographies explore the life-changing events of each subject, the personal mix of elements, circumstances, and values which allowed these women to set goals and objectives toward most successful careers and contributions to society. There are 72 leading women included in this collective biography and an extraordinary photographic essay offering the most incredible array of role models to inspire, guide and motivate young Latinas. This title is an important addition to reference collections and individual libraries for they are testament to the vision and values of la Mujer Latina.

New Book on My Christian Experience

It is strange to write a book about Christianity when I don't believe in the concept of Christ for cultural purposes. As a Cucapah Mayo Apache from Inglewood, CA I cannot believe in traditions from northeastern Africa. I just can't, those are myths that are not believable but more than that, they refer to customs and cultures from other people that I do not have a DNA relationship to. I'm not Middle Eastern, African or Mediterrenean. And I see Christianity as cultural genocide because most know the Bible stories but few know their indigenous stories. Even worse, they defend Christianity and laugh at our beliefs in brujeria-witchcraft and dreams. At least the dream was real but 2000 year old stories that were translated from translations has no place in North America. Could Apache traditions be imposed in the middle east and be told that the bible is fake? How would they react?

My new book deals with my experience in the 1980's attending an Anglo Mid Western Protestant Church. It is being edited but has been submitted for publishing consideration. The book is not fiction rather a lived experience.

I love blogging

Nobody reads them.  And I don't want to beg them to read and sell myself like I was an unwanted oversize polo shirt that is either pink or purple.  No wonder nobody wants them.

I'll keep writing and pretend somebody reads like I need attention.

Consequences To Writing

If anyone wants to dive into the world of writing I only recommend one thing.  Beware of the Mexican immigrant, Mexican American politically correct and the so called "educated"  Mexican populace;  males and females, feminist and gay or not.

They will destroy your reputation if you are independent and do not parrot their believes.  They will smear your reputation and you will be shout out of any writing circles or teaching spots if you teach.  But that is the problem, who made them "the keepers of the culture".  They can't be open minded to creativity and you are instantly wrong even if they have never published a sentence.  They believe that being Mexican American is in their experience only and the rest have no say.

They can't sit and debate without insulting and acting with their esteem arrogance that they forget what they are to debate about.  They remind me of the stupid three males who were drinking beer in a park in Laguna Niguel and singing.  They began to each claim to sing better than the other that they ended up fighting.  Finally one was dead and the other two prosecuted  and are going to jail.  All because two couldn't hear the other one out so they killed him.  And yes they were Mexicans. 

That is how this crowd is but they couldn't sit and hear one out because they believe their studies makes them superior when their education is not who they are.  They believed the verses too much.

Just beware, that if you write you will be persecuted.  But do it to show who has more testosterone of the spirit.

suave

Unemployment and Not Liked

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-49809-LA-Unemployment-Examiner~y2010m6d28-Certain-Unemployment-Should-Not-Be-Legally-Permitted

I wrote this article and I thought you might like it or not.

Based on the arbitraryness of the work place.

The workplace is worse than hell.

Don't Read

I have to admit, I'm not a reader anymore.  Reading was not improving my hand skills.  As my mother once told me, you can read many books but don't know how to use a hammer.  And she was right,  how many times had I not banged my thumbs with compressed steel.

But that wasn't the reason I stopped reading.  I stopped reading because I felt detached from real life and it was not helping with my social life.  I was becoming a hermit and was resembling one of those Jesuit priests without the bribing.  But it was in layers.  I first stopped reading theory.  I got tired of the stupid Political Science Theory, then the Urban Planning Theory--Ed Soja and Allen Scott were overrated--ok I didn't read it but I glanced at it.

Then I stopped reading the history books because they all sounded the same.  I was not turned on.  Why teach if you can just read the book.  Too anal, too much Marxism or Proudism, too English American and too righteous.

Then I stopped reading in Spanish.  I had read most of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez stuff but after the third novel, I felt I was reading too much history of Colombia.  But he's lived in Mexico City since the mid 1960's.  What does he really know of Colombia?  Then he focused on those French writers that he interloped was a type of poetry.  I couldn't take it.  Though I have to admit, I liked the whorehouses he wrote about but after a while I thought to myself, I must go but they cost money and are banned in California.  All great books take place in whorehouses but there are none in California.

The other stuff--feminism and lifestyles I could careless.  Another type of personal history like Marquez.

I even read the Chicano Generation but it was too East LA or too Texas which I dispised both and even tried Mexico and Mexico immigrant but that is another type of self history which I also could not relate to.  I don't care for stories on crossing mountains in Mexico to get here.

I got tired and just gave up reading.  I even learned that many whom I taught with also did not read.  And thought, if the leaders aren't reading why would the followers unless it is a phone text.

So I gave up reading.

Who are we?

I once read by a female writer on why should she be labeled an identity, versus a human then when on to identify herself as a Latina. 

I found this to be the most contradictory of points because the word Latina which I use to believe was either the metal tub or the name of a Black woman has now become the entry point to heaven.  If you don't say the word with a Spanish last name then you won't be allowed into the new panteon of an informal racial category that came forth some time in the 1990's.

The imposition came from the Puerto Ricans and Cubans in the US East Coast and the Spanish media outlets and then the few academia centers of the East who attempted to make sense of not only Puerto Ricans but Dominicans and Colombians but excluded Haitians.  Why?  Because they speak French which is also a Latin based language.  Where is the logic?  The Haitians are on the same island as the Dominicans.  The same island.

This lumping of people has really really hurt generational Mexican Americans--Califorences much like mixing with other groups have hurt Mexican Americans.  The answer is simple, whether the label is Latino or mxing with Whites, Blacks or other people from Centro America--the Mexican American stops being Mexican American.  I should know, I see it in my family.  I even see it when southern Mexicans from Michoacan or Jalisco mix with Califorence Mexican Americans.  The food is different--I can't handle those corundas and that horrible white menudo without maize.  I'm glad I never stayed with those exes from Michoacan.  They don't even eat flour tortillas or pinto frijoles, they eat black beans.  The Apache needs his flour tortillas and pinto beans.  I don't even know what Cuban or Puerto Rican food is and neither do the Puerto Ricans because they are always eating Cuban food in Los Angeles.  Show me a Puerto Rican restaurant in Los Angeles.

Thus just because media outlets have told the younger generations those 25 and under that they are Latinos they accept it blindly. Much like young soldiers who are given orders to walk on the minefield and they do so without realizing they are fodder for the officers. So they march blindly and accept the orders.  What makes a Mexican American a latino?  What does latino mean?  Language?  More than half of Mexican Spanish is Uto Aztecan whether Nahuatl, Cahita, Purepecha or Apachean.  The same would apply for every country south of Mexico.  I should know, I traveled to all of Central America, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina and I was linguistically lost.  I was even lost when I would meet people from Centro Mexico who moved to Inglewood, I would not understand their lingo and only others from those regions would explain the linguistic variations.  If Spanish is the sole determinant, then English would also be considered a Latino language because half of it is Latin based at least British English.  California English is based on Mexican American Spanish--rancho, valle, delfin, chota, burritos.  Where is the logic?

 But if these individuals are accepting the label they can't be faulted either because the so called "leaders" Chicano Studies of the academes accept the same logic.  Didn't this group of identiy less souls work so hard to create the "East Los Angeles' term of Chicano only to trade it in for Latino 30 years later.  What do you expect from individuals that were mixing Che Guevara, Benito Juarez, the Virgen de Guadalupe and Cesar Chavez as one.  Talk about being brain dead or brainless. Most of these quasi academics just follow what their White College professors cloned them to be.  Identityless until that position in Chicano Studies opens up for them.  Hence their hire is not based on academics but on perception.  Look at Luis Arroyo at CSULB and David Rodriguez at CSUN and why forget Michael Soldatenko at CSULA.  At best Whitewash clones who themselves don't have an identity and only have their position at these so called "Academes"  if they really are?  What have they produced of their own thinking?  They haven't even updated their courses, they relie on newer clones which they have given access to by hiring them even if they are not Mexican American which historically meant Chicano.

Chicanos only meant US born and should only mean US born Mexican Americans.  It is not Mexico born people, much less Centro Americans or Puerto Ricans.  If you can't notice the difference you really are high and stupid.  At least high you were attempting to find clarity but the academe teaches straight ignorance and confuses the soldier and sends him or her to die without question.

Maybe I should claim my Whiteness as my birth certificate states.  At least that is official versus some stupid Spanish media telling me we are the same when we all know we are not.

Thank God I am not a Latino.

Sensitive

If anybody ever criticizes me for being insensitive to women, I want to confess the opposite.

Why?

Simple, I attended The Lilith Fair.  I paid money to attend and for my bad company at the time, I paid for her too.  I did two good deeds for the female cause.

So I cannot be accused of being insensitive to women if I supported the most female event out there by watching female performers.  I don't think they can write like the males for one simple reason:  they don't get their hearts broken like the males.

Hence to not suffer like a male means that you don't have the pain like those Mexican singers with phrases de tragos de amargo liquor-bitter liquor drinks.  Sounds like Nighttrain and Thunderbird that my buddy use to drink in high school.  Or the other quote-Even the honey is bitter.

Can women write those pains?  I don't think so because those are only writable when you are heavily heart broken and women don't suffer the way males do because they don't get rejected the way males get slapped for being males.

I'm going to now play the guitar.

Not A Mexican American Issue

With all the uproar over the Arizona immigration rule which intends to enforce US immigration rules, I can't help but think that we need a Mexican American voice.

Contrary to what many believe, immigration is not a Mexican American issue.  It never has been because Mexican American refers to US born.  Hence if one is not US born then the legal protection granted to its citizenry does not pertain to foreign born even if born along the border, though there might be a cultural bond of a region versus someone who moves from the south of Mexico north.  Because to be born in Baja California along the border is different than to be born in Sinaloa, Zacatecas or Jalisco; they are not the same by geography, space, history.  When my mother was born in Baja California, Baja California Norte was only a territory and people born in Baja or those who lived there had to prove they were Mexicans to travel on to the mainland.

Can you believe that?  Baja California people had to show papers to step on to mainland Mexico.  I saw this once in 1978 when I traveled with my father to Cajeme, Cd. Obregon, Sonora.  Though my father was born in Mexicali and had his residency established by his mother in the late 1950's, my father got harassed because he was considered American and not Mexican because he had a US residency card and a California license.  My father never lived in Baja after 10 so he never had a Baja California identification.

My maternal grandmother also from Baja California told me how she was harassed by Mexican officials when she traveled to Guanajuato in the early 1980's.  The official did not believe she was a Mexican citizen though culturally she met the criteria.  She was a rancho woman from the valley of the Sierra Cucapah so she did not back down from a fight.  The Mexican Country immigration officer told her she would not travel any further without an identification and she resorted to her rancho ways by proving to him that she was born in Mexico.  The man tired but these two incidents taught me that Baja California people were not considered Mexicans in the continental definition, they were first Baja Califorences before they were Mexicans because my people came from a land that was separated from Mexico and it was.  That is what made Baja California people special.

Even our lingo was half English in the Spanish.  No wonder I could not pass the FBI Linguistic Exam because my Baja California language is made up of two mixed in with Apache words that only us Baja California people comprehended.  I hated this ex Bolivian girlfriend I had years ago because she was always correcting how I spoke.  What did the idiot understand about my upbringing?  Stupid South Americans show up to California and attempt to impose their mediocre cultural attributes.  I really hated this woman.

Thus returning to the immigration issue, look if you were not born here and if the family was not around for the amnesty that the Republicans passed and granted US residency to 3 plus millions who then think wonders of Ronald Reagan, ICE has the right to deport you at any given moment.  They do it all the time, why should some be deported and others not?

Mexican Americans are not going to get deported, hell if you have a criminal record which many of you do, even with non-criminal issues such as back pay child support, they won't give you a passport and let you out of the country.  The US is your prison.

The media in Spanish plays this up, the politicians who believe this is a civil rights issue which it is not because it is an issue of the US government allowing you in.  A civil rights issue is why are there so many Mexican Americans without employment versus foreign born have jobs.  And I do not only mean Mexico born, I mean Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Canada, China, England, Israel, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Germany, the Netherlands and France born.  I do not even believe a Puerto Rican born should have a job over a US born Mexican American in California.

Why should all these foreign born have employment over US born and in particular over Mexican Americans?  What does American citizenship mean by birth?  As of now, nothing. 

Before all these people from India or Mexico arrived, there were still doctors and manual labor was being completed by Mexican Americans, so we don't need doctors from India or Iran.  Mexico produces an abundance of doctors and they earn less in Gross Domestic Products than the US.

These immigration protests are distracting the real issues facing Mexican Americans which is their right to the basics of food, shelter and a future.  Why should somebody born in southern Mexico be hired to teach Chicano Studies over a US born Mexican American?  What does a Mexican know about Mexican Americans?

And private institutions that allow undocumented students in when they could have educated a Mexican American such as Harvard, then shame on you for turning your backs on American citizens.  The focus on worldly issues is only doing harm to this country by ignoring US citizens who just happen to be brown, have a Spanish surname but are born in the US.  Yes, there are many brown people born in the US, all of US do not come from Mexico, we come from the US.

So as you think about these protests just remember that the immigrant population is crying louder and are paid more attention than Mexican Americans who are still pushed aside and called lazy by these very same immigrant Mexicans simply because being US born is considered to be a privilege when it is not.  But an immigrant Mexican would not know this because they do not have the history of from the cradle to the present.

I honestly could careless what happens to undocumented Mexicans, I have to worry about myself getting a job because those jobs went to foreigners at CSULB in Chicano Studies and had no qualms about my well being or me being without benefits for my children while they bask in luxury.

The Fed. Govt. will do what they want to and nobody can stop them.

Many of these people will adjust well in southern Mexico were most of them are from and we won't have to listen to them victimize themselves.  They could teach English down there, why should Mexico import White teachers when those Mexicans can teach them.  For those Indian doctors, you are needed in India.

If you get stopped by the police, show them your identification and if you aren't texting while driving, wearing your seatbelt, you should be fine.

JSC

The Cerebro

What does the cerebro mean?  I'm not sure.  I have limited usage and almost none when it comes to math but at times my instinct kicks in and my cerebro seems to function but first without making some of the most stupid mistakes in my life.  I won't say what they are because I want to forget but I at times have not used my cerebro whether it was in the woman I chose or they chose me.  I think they chose me and I was the no cerebro man that said yest.  What was I suppose to say no?  Let me think about it.  I just didn't believe it would destroy part of my career but is there really one when you work at a community college that seems to have the worse reputation or is that just being part of Los Angeles.

What is my cerebro?  Entertaining people, I'm not quite good at that or attempting to think things out.  Yet then again it seems that I am only copying something from the past because it does not seem to come from thin air.  Are we just fascist products of Americanism and Catholocism-Christiantiy that I am only suppose to follow orders that can't be followed.  Not that I believe in the opposite of fascism because they seem to be the same tenor of follow someone else's orders or to just say hello no matter how much the suppository hurts.

Or maybe it's my metformin speaking for me telling me that I need to balance my sugar and insulin because otherwise I can die from a heart attack which might not be a bad thing after all except that I would leave my children and dogs behind and I just could not betray them that way.  I can be faithful to them but not to no woman much less a strange woman.  I am after all an Apache Mayo Cucapah where many wives were the norm until women accepted Christianity.

Off I go to the delves of the spirit where I venture off and wonder if I will return.

New Challenges

I have not written in a while because I finished a new book on California--my California and started a new one on Christianity.  It is ironic that I am writing a book on this African Mediterrenean religion which has nothing to do with desert Apache culture but nonetheless it is ever present.  I will see what comes out because writing is like a relationship you never know what the end product will be.  They mostly end.

I don't write too much because I do not believe someone is reading except my faithful five friends whom I am ever thankful for.

I sat on a panel last week at Cypress College with Hugo Moreno, Sandra Lopez and Gustavo Arellano.  It was insane simply because the students had read my book "Higher Education as Ignorance" versus only hearing what the others read.  All were good in their uniqueness and we shared our views which depended on who we were as people.

The common questions to me were about "Machismo" simply because I put it out on the pages and obviously there is interest even if they disagree.  I like machismo as I told the class, it was my mother's fault in a good way.  It is a survival strategy because we do not live in a nice society.  If you do not know how to defend yourself, you won't survive.  I live it: all my work places have been places of conflict that have ruined my small career I have if you consider teaching as a part time faculty a career.  Some would argue community colleges are grade 13 from ages 18-30.  Women have been conflicting and how much money didn't I blow there.  Now I am smart, I spend it on my soccer games.

Most did not like what I said but they have their reasons but I have mine and obviously the two publishers of my books:  Floricanto Press and Rowman and Littlefield believe there is a necessity there.  Lastly, I just cannot accept being pushed around by anybody, much less a woman, I have my personal pride.

If you buy my books and read them I would love to discuss my thoughts because I do not believe in borrowing ideals nor quoting others.  I stand and fall on my own words and even though I do not have institutional support or a godfather, my books can be checked out at college libraries.  I do see life like hell because it is. 

Now I have to find a job which is the worse right now for Mexican American males who have the highest unemployment rate in California.  Degrees mean nothing for me.

LA Times Editorial on Women and College Admissions 1/27/10

Read this commentary by the editorial board. They argue that male, White men are being given unfair treatment in admissions to college as a form of unqualified admissions. White women are being hampered in college admissions. At the end, the article mentioned that the differences, academic, were even greater when compared to Black and latino males.

The assumption is that women do not get any societial favorable treatment. Everywhere I go and have been at, women are treated more favorably. From the younger years, females are better treated, better taken care of and not viewed as a threat even when they are cunning and deceiving.

Even in high school, women were better treated. They at least got attention. They received male attention which is what makes a woman feel like a woman. They would feel something wrong if males did not stare and yes gawk at them. They got the whistles or the psss, psss, psss. They got free coffees and burritos.

What have I received as a Mexican male? No burrito, much less no coffee and no psss, psss, psss except for the gay guys at UCLA. I took it as a compliment with a "no hands on" policy. I had to work for my grades even in high school. I had no easy grade, my 3.2 high school gpa was actually earned from 9th to 12 grade. That should have been my B.A. I had extra curricular activities, the helmet hits should have given me the spring semester off. The football grade of A was the most painful grade I have earned. It still hurts, 23 years later. Our helmets did not even have cushion the way they do today.

My high school teachers, never gave me a grade because I didn't have cleavage and had hairy legs. How are White women being left out? They get compliments, are not considered threatening and that alone is a great stress reliever. White women, are fortunate, they get preferences from their male teachers--most of which are White and their teachers--most of which are White too. Their grades are at best social promotions. My wife mentioned arrogant White females complaining about their grades in English at Orange Coast College, because their teachers at Newport Harbor High never gave them true grades. Once held accountable, they complaint and those same White men and White women were sure to hear their complaint out. If you are a Mexican American and you hear the word "illegal alien" by your White professors, don't waste your time complaining because they won't pay attention, academic freedom.

And if White women feel they are persecuted in their college endeavor, I would ask them the following, "Do you have to register for the draft"? I go to the Post Office and see the Selective Service registration cards. "Attention Men: You must register, it is the law". And yes, I was scared when I filled it out in 1987. Adulthood had set in and I do not remember any White female having to register at the post office in Hawthorne.

What more do White women want? The law protects women more even when they instigate. Divorce laws benefit them. Easier grades are given to them. They can at least get free coffee by smiling and never have to spend a dime. Free rides and never have to pay for sex as males do. By the way, sex is just as beneficial to women as to men. Males are not doing females a favor. While Mexican American males generally get left overs even by Mexican American females.

And the end result is the economy of today. White women are surviving the depression much better than males. This is the maleession. When racialized, Mexican American males are living the depression, ask me, I have 2 Masters' from UCLA and am on unemployment. But I see White females go about their merry ways in the places I like. If White males think they have it hard, walk in my shoes or my buddy Ruben who has been unemployed for 9 months.

For you Mexican American females who think White, keep thinking that way, sooner or later you'll wake up and see that you are still taking orders from White or now Black females.

If all you can do is discredit my sayings as rumblings, I know my reality and do not depend on your reaffirmations, like you mattered.

So according to the LA Times article, we Mexican American males are academically quite inferior to White females. Or better said, more stupid.

I would be ahead if I could sell my body for a grade, coffee, marriage or a job which still amounts to working the world's oldest profession.

Chalino: A Chronicle Play of Fulgor and Death

Is officially out! I received my copy from www.floricantopress.com or you can purchase it on amazon.com too.

I came across a book titled, "Dude, Where's My Black Studies Department" and the author Clemens Brown stated that outsiders teaching Black Studies has been detrimental to Black Students. I use the word Black because I am originally from Inglewood and Blacks called themselves Black. That is the only identity they have created themselves which should be valued.

But Mr. Brown stated that "Carribbean, Asian and White females teaching Black Studies has hurt Black students and Black professors". Meaning US Blacks.

This made me think about the points that I say about Mexican American Studies and the negative affects of outsiders teaching including those born in Mexico. First and foremost, any Centro American, Carribbean or South American who teaches Mexican American Studies is detrimental to Mexican American students. The simple reason is they do not know the culture and facts do not substitute for culture. These people are stealing from those Mexican Americans who have limited opportunities in higher education.

And White administrators who permit this should be held accountable for their racism including non-white administrators. How dare them disrespect the culture and our specific US Americaness.

Second, I would throw in Whites who have a Mexican parent and those born in Mexico. Those Whites who want to claim the Mexican American card, because this word is used now more for Whites who have a Mexican/White parent than for us US born Mexican Americans, the answer is simple. I do not have a White card in my pocket. I should know, I married one. They can morph into Whiteness, I cannot. So just because you dress up in folkloric dresses like the chair of Chicano Studies at CSU Dominguez Hills, that does not make you Mexican American. And for the record, no mother of mine ever dressed with those ballet folclorico dresses, she would think you were dancing in some festival. In addition, Mexican American mothers do not dress that way, they are in the US not in some Oaxaca market. Talk about stereotyping. The only time I see women wear those dresses are White women who want to be Oaxacan, travelled to or they moved to Oaxaca and feel they are now Zapotecs.

For those born in Mexico, the rule should also apply because they were not born in the US must the same as a Mexican American is not born in Mexico. They are two foreign entities. And if you think I am wrong, for Mexican Americans go to the Mexican Consulate or el Registro Civil in Baja California and ask them for your birth certificate. The Consulate in Los Angeles will make you feel quite American even if your parents are born in Mexico and in Baja California they will do a data search for your birth certificate and tell you that you do not exist. I learned that the hard way from both places.

So my Mexican Americaness is strictly American.

But the hard hear is to assume that somebody born in Mexico who is moved north will have the same upbringing as those from the US. The answer is simple, no. You can't arbitrarily say that they have the same upbringing. They do not.

US Mexican born have their own culture and if you throw in geography I would argue that Tejanos and Califorences have nothing in common. We don't even eat the same food. If you have travelled to Nuevo Mexico and Tejas one should know the difference. I have driven throughout the Southwest and the Sierra Madre Occidental east of Meza, Arizona serves as a true cultural continental divide.

But returning to the Mexico born who teaches Chicano Studies. The danger falls in one case I have seen from teaching in Glendale College. A full time job was given to a man named Carlos Ugalde who taught he was Che Guevara. He was hired to be a Mexican American Studies professor and in his warped communist vision of we are the world he killed Mexican American Studies. There was never any growth from 1980 for Mexican Americans. He felt he had to be Mr. Latin America. Like they care about us.

He created courses on Centro America, the Carribbean, South America and neglected Mexican American Studies. The same Mexican American course from 1980. This was a rotten hire for the future by these White administrators who wanted to have a brown face there. In addition, he made us look like clowns with his Fidel Castro look and usage of the word companhero, like we were "comrades". That is not even Mexican American cultural lingo from Los Angeles.

Thus he killed Mexican American Studies and created a curriculum that amounted to foreigners teaching classes versus Mexican Americans. No courses were created for MexAm literature, culture, sociology, male or family studies much less on the diversity of Mex Am communities. It's like we died. No wonder I use to think that Chicano Studies were low class grade studies; just take a look at the professors who did teach these subjects. The barrio mentality was present. Or how to differentiate between MexAm and recent arrivals from Mexico. Because immigration is not a Mexican American topic. We don't care about immigration, we were born here. If people don't have their residency what this demonstrates is new history which means not Mexican American. Ugalde killed any curriculum and pedagogical growth for the pleasure of his make believe mentality that all people from the Western Hemisphere is one when they are not.

So he retired and with budget cuts made it essay to just continue with one miserable course that amounts to peanuts. In 28 years of teaching he proved that Mexican Americans are not thinkers or philosophers but idiots of the modern era. And with a non Mexican American chair who believes in the Latinoness of the era and his feminist mindset, it is not shocking to see the Ethnization of Mexican Americans into a Feminization that amounts to "we hate Mexican American males" and that is the curriculum of today. If women want a feminization curriculum, why don't they attend female colleges. Go join the Wellesleys and Mills Colleges.

Thus foreigners not only monetarily take away from Mexican Americans they kill the curriculum.

And as a female from Saltillo, Coahuila once told me when I asked her what she thought about Mexican Americans, "We don't think about you guys, you are lost to us".

And we should not lose ourselves!