Arroyo-Pizarro in Label Me Latina/o Fall 2012 Volume II

Label Me Latina/o Fall 2012 Volume II

September 5, 2012 edited by Michele Shaul and Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez
Filed under: Fall

Essays

Imagining Cuba in Hijuelos’s A Simple Habana Melody
By Jeremy Cass
Jeremy L. Cass is Associate Professor of Spanish at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., where he teaches Spanish language and Spanish-American culture and literature at all levels. His work on the Hispanic Caribbean has appeared in such journals as Romance Quarterly, Latin American Literary Review, South Atlantic Review, Latin American Theatre Review, Romance Notes, La Torre, and The Latin Americanist.

Homoeroticism, Aids and the Quest for Identity in Latino Literature: Mapping New Frontiers in Personal, National and Ethical Borderlands
By Mark DeStephano, S.J.
Mark DeStephano, a native of Palisades Park, New Jersey, U.S.A. and a Jesuit priest, was awarded his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Spanish from Fordham University. He earned four degrees in Theology at the University of Toronto: Bachelor of Sacred Theology, Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology. Following these studies, he continued his education at Harvard University, where he was awarded his master’s and doctoral degrees in Romance Languages and Literatures, with specialization in Medieval and Golden-Age Spanish Literature. For the past seventeen years, Dr. DeStephano has been Chairman and Professor of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, and Director and Professor of the Asian Studies Program at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.A. His research has focused on medieval European literatures and on issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and identity in Asian and Latino film and literature.

Women’s Earth-Binding Consciousness in So Far from God
By Rebeca Rosell Olmedo
Rebeca Rosell Olmedo is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Elon University where she also serves as Coordinator of Foreign Language Education. She earned her Ph.D in Hispanic Literature with a minor in Visual Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Additionally she holds graduate degrees from Hollins University (M.A.L.S., with a concentration in Religion) and from the University of Northern Iowa (M.A., French).Her research interests include gender studies and interrelations between visual art and literature. She has recently published “La estética del male gaze: Vislumbrando la iconografía ecfrástica en De sobremesa” in the Journal of Hispanic Modernism.

Español@lengua.personal.global
By Graciela Susana Boruszko
Graciela Susana Boruszko is a Professor in the International Studies and Languages Division at Pepperdine University. Prior to joining the Pepperdine faculty, she served as Chair of the Modern Languages Department and Director for the Studies Abroad Program at Biola University. For much of her career, professor Boruszko focused on teaching and researching in the areas of Hispanic Philology, Comparative Literature and Linguistics, French Studies, French Philology, and Hispanic Studies, Literatures and Cultures. Dr. Boruskzo’s multicultural background forged in her a passion for Cultural, Linguistic and Literary Studies in its multiple representations. Her research topics include: the transnational, identity, ethnicity, multiculturalism, migration, languages and its linguistic and literary spaces, Spanish Cultures, Latin American Cultures, linguistics, languages. As a result, Dr. Boruszko counts with many publications, nationally and internationally. Dr. Boruszko currently directs an international research group on Comparative Literature and Identity Issues. She also directs student research projects related to the same topics. Dr. Boruszko participated in numerous international and national Conferences, Symposiums and Colloquiums as well as serving as a visiting professor in countless international forums in Europe, Latin America and North America. Dr. Boruszko has earned a Licence de Lettres Modernes, Lettres et Langues, a Maîtrise de Lettres Modernes, Lettres et Langues, a DEA in Lettres and Langues from the Université de Bourgogne in Dijon, France, a DEA in French Philology and a PhD degree in French Philology from the UNED Madrid, Spain.

Memoir

White Girls That Speak Spanish Better Than Me
By Scott Duncan
Scott Russell Duncan likes lingering and lurking. He is Californio, Hispano, and Texian, which means his mom was Mexican and his dad was White. He received a BA from University of North Texas, and a MFA from Mills College where Oakland weather still makes him too weak for summers in Texas. He is working on a novel called Ramonaland Dreaming, a guidebook and fictional travel diary that follows his journey reclaiming the history, mythology, and nativity of Chicano California, all of which has much to do with a 19th century novel named, of course, Ramona.

Grindia
By Gizella Meneses
Gizella Meneses Ph.D., Arizona State University) is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois. She teaches courses in Spanish language, Latin American literature, Spanish for Heritage speakers, and Latin@ literature and culture in the United States. Her primary fields of research are first- and second-generation testimonials of Latin@ immigrants in the United States and race and ethnicity in contemporary and colonial oral traditions. Her documentary entitled Second Generation Stories: Growing Up Latino/a in Chicago premiered at the International Chicago Latino Film Festival in 2010.

En español: A Mother’s Obsession and Self Discovery
By Gisela Norat
Gisela Norat is a Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts college for women in Atlanta, Georgia, where she teaches Latina and Latin American women’s literature in the Spanish department and the Women’s Studies Program. She is author of Marginalities: Diamela Eltit and the Subversion of Mainstream Literature in Chile published by the University of Delaware Press. Numerous articles on female Latin American and U.S Latina fiction writers have appeared in scholarly journals. Her latest research and publications focus on issues of motherhood.

The Myth of Cafe Con Leche and Other Heartbreak
By V. Lazaro Zamora
A native son of Chicago’s west side, V. Lazaro Zamora earned his MFA at University of California, Riverside on a fellowship. His non-fiction and fiction work have been published in various magazines and online journals, such as LQQK, Café and Verdad and his plays have been featured at UC Riverside and he performs his spoken word poetry in the Los Angeles area. A family man, U.S. Army veteran, former corporate executive and Latino activist, V’s diverse background makes him a great story teller, disciplined writer and all around Renaissance man, whose focus is on the business of creating great entertainment and raising his art form. He is an adjunct professor of English in his new home: Los Angeles, California.

Interview

La piel negra que transgrede: Entrevista a Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro por David Caleb Acevedo
Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (Puerto Rico, 1970). Es novelista, cuentista y ensayista puertorriqueña. Fue elegida una de las escritoras latinoamericanas más importantes menores de 39 años del Bogotá39 convocado por la UNESCO, el Hay Festival y la Secretaría de Cultura de Bogotá en 2007. Es editora en Jefe y Fundadora de Revista Boreales, además de haber sido Jurado del Puerto Rico Queer Film Festival 2010, del Premio de Novela Las Américas 2011 y del Premio Sor Juana Inés FIL Guadalajara 2011. Ha ofrecido talleres de creación literaria para Purdue University en Indiana, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Mayagüez (Coloquio del Otro La’o) y la Universidad Interamericana (Coloquio de la Mujer). Dirigió la selección de la Antología Cachaperismos, primera en su clase que incluye poesía y narrativa lesboerótica de puertorriqueñas en 2010 y 2012. En la actualidad dicta talleres en Poets Passage en Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico y es corresponsal de varios periódicos y revistas culturales.
David Caleb Acevedo (1980) was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but he grew up in Hartford, Connecticut; he currently lives in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. He is a writer of novels, short stories and poetry. He has published two poetry collections: Bestiario en nomenclatura binomial (Editorial Aventis) and Empírea: la Saga de la Nueva Ciudad (Erizo Editorial). He is currently working on his first novel El Oneronauta. His work has been published in several literary magazines, such as: Poui, The Caribbean Writer, Pastiche, Tonguas, Contornos, L’Antesala, El sótano 00931, Ceiba, Esencia y palabra and Boreales; as well as on the websites: Letras Salvajes, En la orilla and most recently on Cinosargo. His work is featured in the following anthologies: Cuentos de oficio (edited by Mayra Santos-Febres), Nueva poesía hispanoamericana (edited by Leo Zelada), EM: Edición mínima (edited by El sótano 00931 editores), Los rostros de la hidra (edited by Julio César Pol), Open mic/Micrófono abierto (Hostos Review vol. 2), Los otros cuerpos: antología de temática gay, lésbica y queer desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora (coedited Luis Negrón, Moisés Agosto-Rosario and David Caleb Acevedo), and From Macho to Mariposa (coedited by Charlie Vázquez and Charles Rice-González). He has translated several works into English, such as Yolanda Arroyo-Pizarro’s Caparazones (Caparaces), Karen Sevilla’s El mal de los azares (The Mallady of Chances), and Ana María Fuster Lavin’s El eróscopo (The Eroscope). He has won various prizes in literary contests like those of UPR of Humacao and Río Piedras as well as the ICPR in Mayagüez.

Creative Non-Fiction

The Commonwealth Exception-Puerto Rican Displacement and Marginalization Within and Outside the United States
By Sarah Zarate
Sarah Zarate is a graduate student at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor where she is pursuing a Masters with a concentration on conflict resolution. She received her B.A. in Political Science with a minor in African Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the future, she hopes to work in a policy field that allows her to explore ways of integrating (or enhancing) the ways in which marginalized groups are represented and given a voice in the public sphere.

Short Story

To Mother You
By Roberto Carlos Ortiz
Roberto Carlos Ortiz is a New Orleans-based Puerto Rican writer, independent scholar and video maker. His writings have appeared in the journals Centro, Polari, and Transverse, among others. He is completing two academic book projects: Queer in Translation: Hispanic/Latino Icons and Gay Culture (for Intellect Books) and Hispanic Glamour: The Women of Classic Mexican Cinema.

Cirilo y el doctor
By María Eugenia Mayobre
María Eugenia Mayobre was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She has a BA in Visual Arts from the UCAB (Venezuela) and a Masters Degree in Communications and Education from the UAB (Spain). She moved to Boston in 2007 and obtained a screenwriter certificate from Emerson College. She worked as a Spanish Lecturer at Boston College and currently works as a managing editor for Skyword Inc. Her first feature length screenplay, Not Like Mom, won the 2009 Emerson Annual Screenwriting Prize and her short story Terrorista por Error was selected by PEN Venezuela to be published in the fifth compilation of New Urban Narrative.

My Afternoon with Jesus
By Juan Alvarado Valdivia
The son of Peruvian parents, Juan Alvarado Valdivia was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and raised in Fremont, CA. He is a 2010 graduate of Saint Mary’s College of California’s MFA in Creative Writing with a Nonfiction emphasis. In 2011, he attended the Voices of Our Nations (VONA) Fiction workshop taught by ZZ Packer. In 2009, he attended the VONA Memoir workshop led by Asha Bandele. Last winter, he served an artist residency at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico. He is working on completing a memoir titled The View From 4C.

Poetry

Dos nenas caminan de la mano
By Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro
Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (Puerto Rico, 1970). Es novelista, cuentista y ensayista puertorriqueña. Fue elegida una de las escritoras latinoamericanas más importantes menores de 39 años del Bogotá39 convocado por la UNESCO, el Hay Festival y la Secretaría de Cultura de Bogotá en 2007. Es editora en Jefe y Fundadora de Revista Boreales, además de haber sido Jurado del Puerto Rico Queer Film Festival 2010, del Premio de Novela Las Américas 2011 y del Premio Sor Juana Inés FIL Guadalajara 2011. Ha ofrecido talleres de creación literaria para Purdue University en Indiana, Universidad de Puerto Rico en Mayagüez (Coloquio del Otro La’o) y la Universidad Interamericana (Coloquio de la Mujer). Dirigió la selección de la Antología Cachaperismos, primera en su clase que incluye poesía y narrativa lesboerótica de puertorriqueñas en 2010 y 2012. En la actualidad dicta talleres en Poets Passage en Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico y es corresponsal de varios periódicos y revistas culturales.

Dot Com Boom
By Cathy Arellano
Cathy Arellano is a Queer Xicana writer who’s haunted by and obsessed with growing up in her large, working class, Mexican family in San Francisco’s Mission District. In 2012, some of her poems have been or will be published in Malpaís Review, The Más Tequila Review, and Huizache. In 2011, her poem “Coyolxauqui” was published in Turtle Island to Abya Yala: A Love Anthology of Art and Poetry by Native American and Latina Women. Her work has also been published in the anthologies Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About as well as Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds: The Teachers of WritersCorps in Poetry and Prose; journals and newspapers El Tecolote, Cipactli, and Esperanza Peace & Justice Center’s La Voz; the blogs La Bloga and Duke City Fix. She earned a MFA in Nonfiction from the University of Iowa. She teaches Developmental English at Central New Mexico Community College, and Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico’s Chicana and Chicano Studies Program. She’s very happy when she facilitates groups “in the community,” such as last spring’s “Fact, Fiction, and Funk: A Writing Workshop for Women of Color” at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

The Other Color
By Jean Rockford Aguilar-Valdez
Jean Rockford Aguilar-Valdez was born and raised in Miami, Florida and is a light skinned Latina, a daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Panama, a former middle school science teacher in East Los Angeles, and a doctoral candidate in education in the Department of Teacher Education and Higher Education at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research interests include decolonizing science education, indigenous science, postcolonial feminism, Latin@ critical race theory, and social justice in regards to racial, immigration, political, and economic oppressions that Latin@s face in the realm of education. Her dissertation focuses on the testimonios of undocumented Latin@ high school students as they traverse the borderlands between the cultures of their roots and the expected assimilations they are forced to absorb, despite very real political limitations.

Symbol: A River Poem by a Mexican American
By Ariana Monique Salazar-Newton
Ariana Salazar-Newton is a third-generation Mexican American from southern California. She is currently working on her Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her academic interests lie with race, gender, sexuality, and class. She is most interested in the borderland experience of Latin@s in the United States. This poem was originally written for a class at Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS), “Crossing the Deep River,” and presented at a PTS poetry café (performance accessed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPnBjlNawag).

Sugar Cane
By Lucia Galleno
Lucia Galleno (Ph.D.) studied Romance Languages and Literatures with a Designated Emphasis in Film at the University of California, Berkeley. She has a Master Specialist in Counseling in Education, Mental Health. Dr. Galleno’s research is on learning, love, and humor. She has presented her work nationally and internationally. She works at Queens University of Charlotte in the Foreign Language Department.