Skeletons Crossing Borders

Here are the slides from my presentation at the National Latino Children's Literature Conference. Obviously, they don't tell the complete story so if you're curious about anything feel free to contact me.

National Latino Children's Literature Conference

It's coming up! And I have the honor and pleasure of being a presenter! Exciting! Come on down to Tuscaloosa!

Maximilian & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel

Maximilian & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller. Written and illustrated by Xavier Garza; Spanish Translation by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite and Carla Gonzalez Campos; El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 2011. Ages 8 - 12.


When I was in junior high I was a professional wrestling FANATIC. I do not use all caps lightly so believe the intensity with which I loved my wrestling. I read the magazines. I watched about nine hours of wrestling every weekend, from the big organizations like the N.W.A. and the WWF to the smaller wrestling organizations based out of Texas and Florida. I even attended a live professional wrestling event where I managed to get the autograph of my very favorite wrestler at the time Kevin Von Erich. Yes, I still have that autographed picture in my possession. But even before that, as a child, I watched movies that featured the masked wrestler known as Mil Mascaras--One Thousand Masks! His movies took place in a world of Mexican villains and heroes, something I didn't see too much of in the American wrestling of my junior high years. 

Imagine my surprise when I first came across the work of Xavier Garza several years ago. His picture book Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask was not only like a blast from the past, but such a breath of fresh air in the world of children's books. From the red end pages covered in images of masked wrestlers and stars and into the story of a little boy who attends a lucha libre event for the very first time and ends up having an ever bigger adventure than anticipated, Garza managed to create a book for younger readers that is action packed, pitting the good forces of wrestling versus the evil, as well as a colorful feast for the eyes. Who can resist getting caught up in the excitement and cheering on the technicos (good guys)?


Now Garza has done it again. In Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel Xavier Garza has created a unique middle grade novel that pays homage to the Mexican tradition of masked wrestlers. Maximilian is a fan of lucha libre and especially of the Mexican luchador known as the Guardian Angel, one of the technicos who fights rudos (bad guys) like Vampire Velasquez and Diablo Rojo. One day he has the good fortune to attend a wrestling event featuring the Guardian Angel in his hometown of San Antonio. Like Carlitos in Lucha Libre, Maximilian unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of real life wrestling drama! 


One of the enduring mysteries of masked wrestlers is, of course, that of identity. Who is it beneath that mask? There is speculation, but not until a face is revealed does one truly know.  There is the neighbor who is convinced that under the Guardian Angel's mask is Pedro Infante, the Mexican singer and actor who died in a plane crash in 1957. But it is Maximilian (or Max, as he prefers to be called) who is about to set his eyes on who lives under those flamboyant masks, to learn family secrets, and in the process, to discover a little more about himself. 


When I think of words that describe this book I see them inside the kind of "bubbles" used to highlight action in comic books:  Exciting! Fun! Suspenseful! Pow! With his illustration style that has a sort of old school comic book aesthetic to it, I could see this as a comic book series and as the type of book that would appeal to readers of action or superhero comics. Garza draws from Mexican culture as well as that of his native San Antonio, like the legend of Donkey Lady Bridge, and weaves these elements into his story and his illustrations. 


The book, as mentioned in the subtitle, is bilingual. Spanish text is laid out parallel to the English. We don't often see middle grade novels that are bilingual and that include male Latino protagonists. Garza and Cinco Puntos Press have really outdone themselves in hitting on all of these areas that are lacking in the world of children's books. Fortunately, the Pura Belpre Award committee thought so too as the book was selected a 2012 author honor book. Here's to more books like this in the near future!

Ethnic Studies and Why We Need Them

In case you haven't heard, there is some serious business going down in Arizona. In 2010, the state passed a bill calling for the dismantling of ethnic studies programs. Last month, in compliance with the state ban on ethnic studies classes, the Tucson Unified School District began removing books found on the reading lists of Mexican American Studies courses from classrooms. The list of books includes textbooks, award winning books and classics. Debbie Reese, a former school teacher and a scholar who studies American Indians in children's literature, has been closely following what is happening in Arizona. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll point you to her blog in which she includes a chronological list of stories and posts related to the events.


Needless to say, it is disheartening to read about what is happening in Arizona. A 2009 Pew Hispanic report (based on the 2009 American Community Survey) found that 31% of the state's population is "Hispanic" with 91% of that group being of Mexican descent. But we didn't need to look up that information to know what Arizona is like, right? Those in opposition of ethnic studies courses argue that they distort history, stir up anti-Caucasian sentiment (though I'm not sure if they ever actually name which race is being targeted by these angry mobs of Mexican American kids) and basically get  "minorities" riled up. Books can be powerful and scary, yes?


Back in May of 2010 when the Arizona ban on ethnic studies classes passed I wrote something for another blog I was keeping at the time. So, I thought this a good opportunity to repost this piece about the role ethnic literature and ethnic studies played in my own life as the child of immigrants and the first and only person in my family to graduate from college:


I was, in many ways, lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood that was all brown all around. With the exception of some of my teachers, I can recall having one White (Anglo, non-Hispanic) classmate during my elementary and junior high years--hi, Marsha Hoover, wherever you are! Aside from any interaction I had with White adults in, say, a store or at the library--and this rarely happened because my neighborhood branch was predominantly staffed by African-Americans and we did our shopping in neighborhood stores owned and staffed by Latinos--I didn't interact with Whites. When I went on to high school we had less than twenty White kids in our school. So when I left home for a small college town a six hour drive north of Miami, I suffered major culture shock. College culture in itself was something foreign to me, and something that kids with college graduate parents knew as second nature. There was a language and way about it I wasn't familiar with. Nevermind the fact that after growing up a majority I was suddenly a minority. Despite having graduated in the top ten of my class, I struggled for most of my undergraduate years. I had no support system. My fellow high school classmates who were with me at the same university were all kind of flailing for a lifeline too, and it wasn't like we could call home and get words of comfort and encouragement since most of our parents didn't really even get why we felt the need to leave home for college. I felt like an outsider. I didn't feel engaged. Perhaps, if I were a different kind of person, my experience would have been different too.

During my third year of college three things happened that were huge for me. First, I read Sandra Cisneros' Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. I grew up a reader, and I was an English major, but the first time I saw myself in a book it was in this book that I read during my summer break (thanks to a Sassy magazine review of all things!) The second thing that happened was that my work study brought me to the Office of Minority Affairs and Special Programs (which has since been renamed, no longer reflecting its role in the college life of underrepresented students) where I worked as an office assistant and, later, as a peer counselor. The department housed the offices of the Associate Dean of Minority Affairs for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the head of the Afro-American Studies Department (who was one of the first two African-Americans to be hired as faculty in the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences), and the Upward Bound program. The office also provide peer counselors for students who came in on probationary status to help them transition into college life. Many, if not most, were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. The third thing that happened was that I took an Ethnic Literature class, taught by the aforementioned head of the Afro-American Studies Department (which is now called the African American Studies Program) where we not only read about the African-American and Mexican-American experiences, but also about the Jewish and Japanese-American experiences, among others. My Ethnic Literature professor went on to become a good friend and mentor. These three things were instrumental in my finding a sense of place as a college student and as a person caught between worlds.

Being away from home and a stranger in a strange land prompted me to learn more about my own history and culture. It suddenly became very important for me to hold onto something I took for granted growing up and, oddly, something I felt like I didn't know enough about. My parents, being from two different countries, never really immersed us in their own cultures. We got a little bit here and there, probably more of my father's Cuban culture because he was the bread winner and made most of the household decisions, and because I grew up in a city heavily populated by Cubans. The fact that my mother came to this country from Mexico in her early teens and never expressed much desire to be near her family or her native country or rehash old times and traditions ensured that we were raised in a household that was more Cuban than Mexican. Decades later, I still feel like I walk the tight rope not only between what my world was like growing up (and what it is like when I return home to visit) and the mostly White world I now live in, but also between my parents' cultures. I never feel enough of anything. My Spanish isn't Mexican enough. My ways aren't Cuban enough. I'm quite obviously not White. Quite honestly, I still often still feel a bit confused and lost. With a little one who is half White, I struggle to figure out what cultural practices to pass on to him. What is my culture? It's a lot of things that often feel like they don't quite mesh. And yet, they do, in me.

Did I get off on a tangent again? I think I did. My initial reason for this post was as a reaction to the madness that is going on in Arizona. The anti-immigrant law hurt, but the anti-Ethnic Studies law feels like it hits a lot closer to home for me because as a college student it was my ethnic literature class and my involvement with the OMASP that made all the difference in my ability to stick it out. I've seen a number of articles where it's pointed out that the law prohibits Ethnic Studies classes that promote hatred of other races and segregation as a form of see-not-ALL-ethnic-studies-classes! But who determines what falls into these categories? It's so much easier to make a full on clean sweep, right? Tom Horne compares ethnic studies classes to the "old South." That seems to be such an extreme and inaccurate comparison. To compare a group that has always run the show to one that can barely find enough books that represent their place in this country? I wonder how many elementary and secondary schools even offer ethnic studies classes, especially in light of the fact that public education today is mostly about teaching to a test. Is there even time or money for these types of classes? Perhaps this law doesn't even mean much of much, but what nags at my thoughts is: what goes next?


The locked books image comes from this story on the Colorlines Website.

New Day Rising! Pura Belpre 2012

Bright and early this morning the American Library Association announced its 2012 youth media award winners. So many great books for kids. And yes, the anticipation of hearing those last two awards--the Newbery and the Caldecott--put my morning run on hold until it was all over. But most exciting of all was, of course, the Pura Belpre announcements!

The Illustrator Award went to Duncan Tonatiuh for Diego Rivera: His World and Ours

Illustrator honors went to The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred illustrated by Rafael Lopez and written by Samantha R. Vamos, and Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match / Marisol McDonald No Combina illustrated by Sara Palacios and written by Monica Brown.

I don't want to say that I knew it, but I knew it. When I read Guadalupe Garcia McCall's Under the Mesquite I immediately thought Pura Belpre winner. And so it is!

The Author Award went to Guadalupe Garcia McCall for Under the Mesquite

The Pura Belpre committee awarded author honors to Margarita Engle for Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck, and to Xavier Garza for Maximillian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel: A Bilingual Lucha Libre Thriller. I loved Garza's Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask and having grown up watching Mil Mascaras movies and a HUGE professional wrestling fan I am definitely looking forward to reading his latest book.

 

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio

An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio by Judith Ortiz Cofer. New York: Puffin Books, 1995.

It seems fitting that the first Pura Belpre Award winner in the narrative category is by Judith Ortiz Cofer who, like Belpre, is a native of Puerto Rico. Cofer came to the United States at a young age and, like the characters in the stories that make up An Island Like You, grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. This collection of stories features Puerto Rican-American teens growing up teetering that all-too-familiar line between cultures. In addition to the cultural divide between the children and their parents, socio-economic and racial divisions, provide conflict throughout the stories. 

While twelve separate short stories, characters reappear throughout giving each distinct person an opportunity to share his or her voice. Each character is a study in adolescence with all its complexities and its ups and downs. The reviled bully of one story becomes the heartbreaking hero of another. The bad girl who draws little sympathy in one story mourns her father in another. Cofer created multidimensional characters that are more than just one thing or another. Weaving them throughout each other’s stories allows the reader to see them in different lights, to understand how they relate to one another, and to discover the sources of their pain and inner conflict, proving that there is often more than meets the eye. Cofer’s characters are diverse in personalities, interests, and appearances, breaking the stereotypes that often come with Latino, and in this case specifically Puerto Rican, characters in the media. You get the punk, the beauty, the ugly duckling, the brain, and more. Their cultural background makes them different in some ways, and yet, as teenagers they belong to a distinct culture of sorts that has nothing to do with differences in language or appearance. One of the most interesting features is the fact that many of the characters are not fluent in Spanish, perhaps one of the reasons why many of them struggle with conforming to the world in which their parents are trying to raise them, one in which they attempt to insert the culture, religion and ways of their own childhoods into a completely different time and place. One of my favorite passages that illustrates these clashing worlds is from “Home to El Building:”

Anita walks slowly past the familiar sights: shops, bodegas, and bars of the street where she’s lived all her life, feeling like she’s saying adios, and good riddance to it all. Her destination is the future. She is walking toward love. But first she has to get past her life that’s contained by this block. The barrio is like an alternate universe. That’s what they call it on Star Trek when the crew of the starship Enterprise find themselves in another world that may look like Earth, but where the natives have history turned around, and none of the usual rules apply. In these streets, on this block, people speak in Spanish, even though they’re in the middle of New Jersey; they eat fruits and vegetables that grow only in a tropical country; and they (Anita is thinking of her parents now) try to make their children behave like they were living in another century....

Having grown up in the alternate universe that was my Miami neighborhood, I know exactly what Anita is talking about, as will many other young reader growing up with similar experiences.

While there are no specific pop cultural references, some of the stories do have a somewhat dated tone. The story “White Balloons,” in which the neighborhood teens rally to help out a gay man who grew up on the barrio and returns, sick with AIDS, to fulfill a dream before he dies, feels like it comes from a very specific period in the past. I am not so deluded to think that uninformed and backward attitudes towards homosexuality and AIDS have changed drastically, but these have changed to some extent in the past couple of decades, which makes the story feel very early-to-mid-1990s. 

Not sure how often this book is assigned as high school or college reading. It was assigned in a recent class I took on books and other material for young adults. I have to wonder if this is a testament to its ability to stand the test of time or if there has been no other work of Latino-focused YA published since 1995 worthy of inclusion on the reading list of a YA literature course. Nevertheless, it is a classic of Latino youth literature. The struggle to find one's place will resonate with teens regardless of racial or cultural background.

Pura Belpre Reading Challenge

This summer I had the pleasure of attending the Pura Belpré Award ceremony during the ALA (American Library Association) conference in New Orleans. I had no idea how inspiring it would be to listen to the speeches given by the amazing writers and illustrators being honored for their positive portrayal of Latinos in youth literature.  

The medals. So pretty! I really should not be allowed so close to award medals.

Being the fifteenth year of the award, the posters given out featured Carmen Lomas Garza's Quinceañera. Each table also featured one of the award winning books as its centerpiece. This one shows Amy Novesky's Me, Frida whose illustrator, David Diaz, won an illustrator honor.

The programs featured the art work of Eric Velasquez, who won the illustrator medal for his book Grandma's Gift

Oralia Garza de Cortés and Sandra Rios Balderrama, the ladies who started it all, escorting the symbolic quinceañera.

Recently I was thinking that I should read all the Pura Belpré books. There are a lot of Newbery reading challenges online, where readers challenge themselves to read all the Newbery winners. Why not a Pura Belpré challenge? So the goal for the next year is to read as many of the Belpré medal and honor books in both categories awarded. Won’t you join me? 

I’ve thought about doing this in some kind of order--oldest to current or the reverse. It just so happens that I’ve read three of the books honored in 1996, the first year the award was given, so I’m starting with 1996. However, I don’t necessarily plan to stick to reading the books chronologically as I’m currently reading Pam Muñoz Ryan’s The Dreamer, the 2011 winner for narrative. 

Some interesting facts about the Belpré award that you may not already know: 

• The Pura Belpré medal is awarded to a Latino or Latina writer and illustrator “whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.”

• The award is named for Pura Belpré (1899-1982), a Puerto Rican born author and storyteller who was the first Latina librarian at the New York Public Library. While at the NYPL she advocated for library services, including bilingual story time, to the growing Latino population in the city.

• Pura Belpré wrote a number of children’s books that drew from her own cultural background, retelling the folk tales of Perez and Martina and of Juan Bobo.

• The Pura Belpré Award is a joint award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association, and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking.

• The Award, which is given in the categories of narrative and illustration, was first given in 1996. It was awarded every two years until 2008 after which it became an annual award.   

There is a complete list of the Pura Belpré Award winners and honor books on the award's Webpage. If you're interested in reading more about Pura Belpré or the history of the award and its winners, check out these resources:

The Pura Belpré Awards: Celebrating Latino Authors and Illustrators. Edited by Rose Zertuche Treviño. Chicago: American Library Association, 2006.

The Storyteller's Candle / La Velita de los Cuentos. Written by Lucía González; Illustrated by Lulu Delacre. San Francisco: Children's Book Press, 2008.