This past weekend was the Latino Books and Family Festival at California State University, Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to be invited to speak on a panel at the event entitled “From Inspiration to Publication: The Business of Poetry,” with poets Alicia Partnoy, William Archila, Rafael Alvarado, Erika Ayon and Melinda Palacio. I was honored to be sitting next to such accomplished writers.

In March, I attended a panel at UCLA featuring Alicia Partnoy, author of The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival, about Argentine political prisoners’ writing and art, and I was excited to be able to finally introduce myself. It was also an honor to sit alongside William Archila whose book, The Art of Exile–a poetic account of his exit from civil war El Salvador in 1980 and his later return–won the festival’s International Latino Book Award in Poetry. I bought Archila’s book today at the festival, and am already in love with it. Beautiful images of here and there, and consequently feeling alienated from both feel dreamy and magical. But as William explained at our panel, what we here in the U.S. call “magical realism” is an everyday way of thinking in Latin American countries.

Walking through booths of Latino publishers, bookstores, writers and organizations made me feel lucky to be a Latino writer welcomed by a supportive community. Sometimes being a writer can be lonely. The act of writing is solitary, but what I love about being a poet is the opportunities it brings to share stories and experience a moment of togetherness. On the truest level, this community is hopefully felt when we read a poem about a man’s memory of being a boy in El Salvador or a political prisoner’s story of survival, but it can also happen in public spaces.

It is about community. We share our stories to understand each other and gain a sense of sameness; or as Father Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, author of Tattoos of the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, and the festival’s keynote speaker said, “it is a mutual experience.” A moment in time when we discover a kinship with one another.

In my household there is an ongoing debate about the state of the Latino community in the U.S. Of course, we all know there is still a long way to go, but in my house some think we have focused too much on art, literature, and education and not enough on business and politics. That may be true, but we need Latino writers and poets, books, publishers, bookstores, and community centers if only to have a place to be recognized and seen, because no one else is going to do it unless we make them.

As David Orr said in his essay, “The Politics of Poetry,” (I’m summarizing here and taking liberties) politics and poetry both demand a mastery of rhetoric and politicians are –just as poets– “people who imagine new ways of being and perceiving.” Orr refers to this as a “totalizing vision.” The politician and poet’s ability to imagine a wider worldview allows both to clarify for a public a new or different reality through language. So yes, it would be good for our community to have more Gloria Molinas and Sonia Sotomayers in places of power, but we also need Luis J. Rodriguez, Sandra Cisneros, Gary Soto, Martin Espada, and Julia Alvarez (to name a few).

Support your Latino writers, buy a book, and let’s keep the community moving together.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.    She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

“Up, up with education! Down, down with deportation!” chanted a crowd of 30 or so Latin American youths holding hand-painted signs advocating the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would grant “restricted” residency to children of immigrants who pursued a higher education or military service.

I watched as students took turns telling their grueling Cinderella stories, each one starting with, “My name is Juan or Maria and I’m undocumented and unafraid,” then stumbling over words, pausing to apologize for being nervous, and continuing to spill forth their love for America. At the end of the rally they ended with the same chant, but the girl with the mic mixed up the words and instead said, “Up, up with deportation! Down, down with edu—I mean, no, up, up with education.” In effect, it just showed how much they really do need a way into college.

But what struck me the most, being Hispanic myself, was the emphasis in each story of the great love they had for this country. If to be in love means you wouldn’t let anything keep you from standing by your lover, and when you’re with them you feel so lucky and special no matter what and you know you’ll be OK as long as you have them…then I see no reason why these devotional, undocumented 65,000 yearly graduates should be torn from their one true love, the USA.

I may not know what it means to have to wade through a river and trek through a hot desert into a foreign land, as Mexican immigrants do; I do know, however, how it feels to fall in love with a new city. When my friend Dave and I first pulled up to the curb in the car, face to face with Columbia College Chicago, I squealed, pounded my feet, and gasped because it was as if at that moment, I heard Chicago ask, “Marry me?”

And I said, “Yes! Yes!” So with Columbia College as the engagement ring, I married Chicago the first day we met. No, we didn’t know much about each other except for an essay and the mutual feeling that we belonged together. Love and excitement left little room for fear, and I was ready to learn and live for me. Exiting the car, we walked the streets of Chicago. Arching my head back looking at those skyscrapers, I began to wonder what really goes on the uppermost floors.

With plenty of rooms for storage and offices, I’d say the top floors–high above the public eye– are reserved for more un-business-like endeavors. How about laser light parties? Spa treatments? After all, they’re living the high life. Or maybe the floors contain more sinister designs; such as meetings for controlling the poor down below, preparing for the apocalypse, and whatever else rich men with ambitions might do in their spare time. I keep these naive thoughts to myself.

Walking along, these buildings embrace me like strong, burly arms and in a godly voice proclaim,” This is speed, this is growth, this is open up wide, swallow the world, choke; make it go down.” I could hear all the noise in Illinois and I felt at home; a sensation I had only one other time a thousand miles away, oddly enough, in a classroom.

I sat down on a smooth boulder in a garden; a patch of green sewn in by streets and glass edifices. “What’s wrong?” I heard Chicago ask. I looked down at my toenails and replied that the future is shakily uncertain and, I must confess, when it comes to relationships, I always fail. Chicago’s humidity is like a big, wet kiss on my skin, reassuring me and saying, “I have enough in me to welcome and care for you.”

I look across the way at a tall, black man at a bus stop pacing with his arms out stretched. “I loooovvveee the way you liiieee,” he moans. Then I notice his headphones. The man grows quiet for a few seconds before bursting into the chorus, as if he were drowning and calling for help. Now when I listen to “Love the Way You Lie,” by Eminem and Rihanna, this guy’s voice will involuntarily yodel into my mind.

I turn away from the man still holding his voice in his arms out to the sun. Would he continue singing on the bus? No one would dare quiet a passionate black man, especially one singing Rihanna.

I continue telling Chicago, but you see I’m not good at math, and relationships are like math equations. For instance: commitment – selfishness + sacrifice + expectations + obligations divided by the fact that I never do what I’m supposed to do equal destruction and frustration, because somehow appealing feelings are erased and replaced with tired disdain. I finish explaining with a sigh.

Car horns beep through the tenseness, feet paddle the sidewalks, the sun finds its way through the trees. Chicago, “What about love and marriage?”

Well, I say, and lift my bottom from the rock and walk away from the small park and get back into the car. If you factor in love that complicates everything, and marriage is a never ending math equation that you constantly have to work on.

Dave and I drive to Chinatown and get out of the car to have a quick walk up and down the street. “We can make this relationship work”, said Chicago. “Know why? Because we’re going to set aside the rules, the tricks, and the noose that comes with being in a relationship.” With this in my mind, Dave and I pass shop windows cluttered with random objects that make you think you could walk out of the store holding a fish, an umbrella, and a porcelain doll.

When I drive back to the campus with Dave, I see a 200-pound woman melting like vanilla ice cream down a fence she’s sitting on. “Are you with me”? The question comes from the space between the buildings and the wind that nibbles on my ear, caresses my cheek. I stand on a street corner feeling as though I am in a wonderland amongst shadow-casting giants, bearded beggars, youthful arrangements, melodramatic and shy stores; faces both strange and familiar. I love it all. “Absolutely,” I say out loud. “What?” Dave asks. “Nothing,” I say. “You sure?” says Dave, “You’ve been talking to yourself all day and smiling all dreamily,” he said. “I’m OK, really,” I say contentedly.

And that is my story of immigrating to Chicago and falling in love. Politicians seem to forget how all Americans are immigrants. They stick to their facts and scare tactics, but have they considered that the number of Hispanics in America is 16 percent and rising? If I were a senator, I could say how there could be negative consequences for unrequited love. In other words, if America is not allowed to love its people in return, nothing would prevent these undocumented Latinos and Latinas from turning to crack-dealing and prostitution. How’s that for a frightening statistic?

Latin Americans are the ones saying they are “unafraid,” despite an uncertain future and low income, so what are the reasons legislatures are afraid to approve the DREAM Act?

We “beaners,” or “wetbacks” as we’re also referred to, work in service industries ranging from road constructionists, janitors and house cleaners—jobs that others refuse to do out of reluctance of getting their fingernails dirty. Nevertheless, these jobs require diligence in their undertaking, giving us a strong work ethic.

We are also said to have invented car pooling; being crunched in a small van with 20 people isn’t a problem, thus proving our capacity to remain composed in tight situations. As for our contribution to the American food platter, if you haven’t eaten a chimichanga, your taste buds are virgins to deliciousness. And who’s to say we aren’t productive citizens? Oh, we know production, and even reproduction for that matter. See, after jumping the border, “beaners” continue to jump at any, and all opportunities.

Point being, there’s no excuse for legislatures to keep hard working, flexible, spicy Mexicans from becoming citizens with equal learning options.

All racial slurs aside, what joins Americans as a nation, lies in our belief of being a have-person or a will-have-person. That means we all live by wishing. I’ve watched the smoke from birthday candles writhe and billow out into the air like the wishes from my breath that propel them. After 19 birthdays, I still haven’t stopped wishing, and I never will. ‘Wishing’ is attached to ‘wanting’ by a string; the wanting pulling the wishing forward, unstoppable to the point of selfishness. I came to Chicago because of a wish that transformed from a flirted whisper in my ear to a fortunate reality.

Red, yellow, black and white people lie in bed and maybe look out a window that opens up to the night sky. When I look out, I pronounce ‘I wish’ and see my lips reach out with the ‘w’ for a star’s blessed kiss. Still, leaders of this country continue their filibusters and recklessly become dream- busters.

Lynndel Noriega grew up in New Mexico where she discovered her love for writing and then moved to Denver, Colorado in eighth grade where she furthered her writing abilities.  She discovered her home in Chicago attending Columbia College.

Zumba Class, YMCA, Lakeland, Florida

I think my Zumba instructor knows me. I think she is a witch, some sort of sorceress that scans my heart as soon as I enter the gym. You see, she seems to know exactly what I need and it worries me that I’m so transparent, or that her sorcery is that potent.

On days when my heart puts on weight and I can hardly contain its heaviness in my chest, she plays calypsos, sometimes from Trinidad, sometimes from Tobago, Brazilian sambas and merengues from the Dominican Republic.

Not nice, gentle merengues that you can sway your hips to or follow with a flutter of your feet. No. That would be too common. She plays the angry type called perico ripia’o, which she must smuggle straight from the slums of Santo Domingo.

Last winter after a freeze, she played in a row, two guajiras, three salsas, an angry mambo, a potpourri of reggaetons, and an assortment of cha-cha-chas of the mutinous type.

A musical concoction so intoxicating in its temperature-rising effect, so balmy on my forehead, so risky to maneuver, so incandescent, that by the time I came out of the class, the sun was peeking out from behind gray clouds and the ice was beginning to thaw out in the strawberry fields.

On one occasion, burdened by the loss of a loved one, I dragged my feet to class, bloodshot-eyed and wary. Instead of seeing me, I think she saw grief, which she seems to be allergic to.

Quickly, she pushed some buttons in her iPod, her antidote to everything gloomy, and filled the room with the ferocious drumbeats and the clarion of a high-pitch cane flute of a Colombian cumbia. I let me hips go, undulating and fluid.

I glided over the wooden floor, my pelvis swayed back and forth, to and fro shamelessly. My African ancestors possessed me and my feet spoke their tongue.

I sashayed at the waist like the Yoruba brought to this land in chains did when their masters were asleep. I made mine this cadence that is purely black, not Indian or Spanish, but ebony from the belly of our mother continent.

I invoked the grace of Yemayá and the powers of Changó and before the end of the song, the orishas had welcomed me in their family like a prodigal daughter. And from the safety of their home, with each step-step-glide, step-step-glide, I unburdened my heart little by little until I felt the last remnant of sorrow leave my body.

Adriana Paramo is a creative non-fiction writer residing in Florida.

Today, I discovered that I am a “product of the ABC School District.”

If you are not familiar with the schools that are a part of the ABC School District, then let me help you out: Ferguson, Melbourne, Tetzlaff, and Cerritos–all schools that I went to as a kid!

About a week ago, I got an email from a lady that works for the district. She was ecstatic to learn from the internet that I was from Hawaiian Gardens and now an AUTHOR. She called me a great role model for young kids and absolutely insisted that I meet up with her to discuss a possibility of talking to the classrooms of the district. So that’s what I did today.

I met up with Ann (that’s her name, BTW), who hit the floor at the first sight of me (maybe I should’ve brushed my hair or something, or it might have something to do with the fact that I’m some sort of celebrity now.) Anyway, after she breathed a few times, I proceeded to talk about how I got started in writing and what, if anything, led me to take on this goal when I was in school.

For a second, I thought Ann was going to have a stroke. Apparently, she couldn’t contain herself because before I could even say anything else, she rushed to the phone to ask if the superintendent could spare a few moments to meet me at that point. Then ten minutes later, we met up with the superintendent, who I relayed my life story and writing career to. Both of them were so amazed by my accomplishment that they purchased like 8 copies of my books. Even the secretary was in awe. And when I told him that I was the designer of my website, they were that much more amazed.

By the end of the meeting, they referred me as “a product of their schools.” It actually made me wonder: Did I have anything to do this, or was it all them?

In any sense, it was good to go back and recall all those memories in school. I even met up with my old vice principal in junior high. Of course, he didn’t remember me, but I remembered him (vaguely). See, I’m not that old.

It’s going to be great to speak to the students next year. I will tell all of them that it IS possible to make something of yourself.   It REALLY IS. I am living proof of that.

Sandra Lopez is an author from Hawaiian Gardens, California who has penned two novels.  Her first novel “Esperanza: A Latina Story” was published in 2008 by Floricanto Press while Lopez was still in college.   Her blog “Sandra’s Book Club” is an extension of her love of literature where she reviews books and shares about her life as a novelist.

Mami y yo

Awhile ago, my mother’s face started slowly disappearing. At first it was not as obvious to others as it was to me. It started around the eyes.

The skin around her eyes was permanently tattooed so that she would always appear to have eyeliner on. Most people didn’t know because they’d never seen her without make-up.

But I had, I had the distinct and rarely granted pleasure of seeing that beautiful face without make-up, until one day I didn’t.

The eyes kept changing. I never knew if I’d be looking into pools of blue, or hazel, or green, but I knew I would rarely see eyes so dark brown that they are almost black.

I knew that those soulful gorgeous eyes of my childhood would no longer be what I gazed into when I looked at the beautiful face of my mother. Instead I would be forced to look at an artificial color created by a contact.

It didn’t stop there. One day she came to visit and when I saw her face I started crying!

Ridiculous tears of a child in her 30s throwing a tantrum because the lips that had kissed boo-boos away, that had sung off-key, were now inflated to absurd proportions.

Now, I have no idea what my mother’s face will look like the next time I see her because she has had elective surgery to remove what she considers the ravages of time.

I’m losing that beautiful face! I actually ache over this loss, I cry, I complain, I mourn. I know it is her face to do with as she pleases, but why can’t anyone understand that THAT face is mine too.

No one asked me if I was willing to say goodbye to that face. I will always miss that face.

Unknown Mami is  a bilingual Latina mother, wife,and actor in my late 30s who lives with her husband and daughter, “Put Pie,” in San Francisco.  She has her own blog entitled “Unknown Mami.“

In my search and thirst for the past, for the faces of our history, I have forgotten the faces that brought me to the subject of immigration in the first place. I forget that the story isn’t always something out there in the world, but something right here inside my own home, and my own family.

My family decided to have a Catholic mass in my grandmother’s (my father’s mother) honor this past January. In December my grandmother was in the hospital after she suffered an episode, which many of us feared was a stroke, and that our worst fear––the inevitable truth of her passing––was upon us.

Watching her, my tiny grandmother, skin as delicate as tissue paper, laid crumpled in her bed, I tried to hold back tears, as I suspect we all did, in what seemed like an attempt to keep this fragile creature from dissolving.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a stroke, and she was back in her Boyle Heights home by Christmas Eve. To celebrate, we had a mass said in her honor this past weekend in a small Catholic church, Mission San Conrado, up above Solano Avenue, in the shadow of Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium.

From left to right: my father, grandmother, mother, and me

Yesterday, once again looking through Don Normack’s photos from the book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, I came across a black and white landscape shot of Solano Avenue and the north slope of La Loma. The homes of La Loma are gone now, but the church, the site of my grandmother’s mass, stands at the foot of that hill, and it is still green, still looking untouched. My brother Andres took his son Armando and our nephew Gabrielito up the steps behind the church, past the ceramic alter to the Virgin Mary, to explore the greenery. I wasn’t up there with them, but I’m sure the boys played pirate, adventurer, conqueror, as I’m sure the boys of La Loma did 60-70 years earlier.

Inside the church, during the homily, the priest (speaking only in Spanish) addressed my grandmother, who with the help of her youngest daughter slowly rose to her feet. He asked her, are all your children here? She nodded. And are these young people your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? She smiled and nodded.

Some of the great-grandchildren attempting to sing for their great-grandmother

And señora, he asked, where are you from in Mexico? Teocaltiche (a small pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico), someone in the aisles assisted. Is anyone else here from Teocaltiche? My father raised his hand high up and let a proud grin spread wide over his face. And señora, how long have you been here? My grandmother laughed, shyly keeping her glance low in what seemed like an old school sign of respect for clergy, Cincuenta años. Fifty years, she told him.

And here I was trying to find an L.A. story, lamenting the loss of a culture and a people, not realizing that culture still lived in Chavez Ravine. Normack’s photos illustrate a lost town, but the hills are still there, the Spanish is still there, and family is still there.

In 1949 Normack stumbled into Chavez Ravine. In 1949 my grandmother had 3 young children, in a poor pueblo in Jalisco, Mexico (my father once told me how they didn’t have electricity in Teocaltiche, and that the children waited for full moons to play out in the streets at night). In 1949, the inhabitants of those three Los Angeles communities grew their own vegetables and milked goats that grazed along the green hills all around them. In 1949, my father scaled the hills surrounding his town with his grandmother to collect nopales (cactus) to accompany the simple meal of frijoles, chile, and tortillas his mother was preparing for dinner.

My father, first on the left, with his siblings, cousins, and grandfather in Teocaltiche, Mexico

And now in 2010, sixty-one years later, the houses on the hill of La Loma are gone, but my family thrives. And my small, unassuming grandmother stands in a church beaming with pride to be surrounded by her still growing family of seven children, nineteen grandchildren, and twenty great-grandchildren. And in an hour two of those great-grandchildren, Armando and Gabrielito, will be conquering the hill just outside. And somehow, there is comfort in knowing nothing is ever completely gone.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.  She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

Cada mañana cuando me monto en el bus que me lleva a la universidad las probabilidades de encontrarme a una mujer detrás del volante son altas. No es raro ver a una de ellas, entrada en sus 30, conduciendo un automotor de servicio público para abrirse paso en mega avenidas de 10 carriles como la I-95. Tampoco es extraño verlas como integrantes de las cuadrillas de mantenimiento que cambian constantemente el asfalto.

No hay que extrañarse si en pleno verano usan bikinis para tomar el sol dejando de lado la forma del cuerpo y la edad. En julio pasado, vi a un grupo con uno que otro kilo de más. A diferencia de lo que les hubiera pasado en Colombia, no fueron miradas con desdén ni despertaron un runrún de críticas al pasar. Por lo menos eso percibí tras ver a los bañistas muy metidos en lo suyo.

No es extraño ver a más y más mujeres en la calle, tanto caucásicas como afroamericanas, enfrentándose de tú a tú con los hombres si la situación lo amerita. Las he visto pelear y no parecieran intimidarse con la fuerza que el contrincante les demuestra.

Aquí ellas levantan la voz, gritan si es necesario. Son ‘frenteras‘. No están llenas de tantos prejuicios ni de telarañas en la cabeza. Van tan despreocupadas por la calle que pareciera importarles poco el qué dirán. Eso sí, no faltan quienes las tildan de poco femeninas, de muy liberadas, de desatender a los hijos y de ser las culpables del auge de los divorcios.

Las estudiantes, por ejemplo, hacen un alto en su jornada académica para trabajar en un bar o en un restaurante. No les importa buscar trabajo en áreas de servicio para completar el dinero para el arriendo, los libros y la diversión. Son meseras, sirven tragos y no por eso tienen dudosa reputación. Luego, cuando la jornada laboral termina, regresan a la universidad para seguir cumpliendo con sus tareas.

Rachel, mi tutora de inglés, es una de ellas. Se ve muy madura para estar apenas en sus 20. Vive sola desde los 18 años. Dejó su casa cuando comenzó a estudiar Licenciatura en Inglés. Ha sido mesera y ha lavado platos en diferentes restaurantes. Acaba de graduarse y en agosto pasado inició su maestría en Enseñanza de Inglés como Segunda Lengua. Obtuvo una beca que le cubre la matrícula y le da un estipendio mensual. A cambio, debe trabajar para la universidad. Por eso, ya no necesitará seguir como mesera.

Cuando veo a Rachel me doy cuenta que ella escenifica el prototipo de la mujer estadounidense, especialmente a las más jóvenes. Trabajan desde la adolescencia. Van a la universidad —claro, si tienen recursos, hacen un préstamo o consiguen una de las tantas becas que el gobierno o las instituciones les ofrecen—. Son educadas y llenas de criterio propio. Desde los 20 años son exitosas. A los 23 tienen pregrado y postgrado, y están listas para seguir enfrentándose a la vida llenas de sueños.

No me atrevo a decir que en Estados Unidos las mujeres están libres de intimidación o que han ganado por completo su lucha por alcanzar la igualdad de derechos. Siguen obteniendo menos dinero y siendo minoría en altos cargos ejecutivos, tal como lo muestra una nota publicada por El Tiempo. Pero, algo que sí me queda claro, tras estarlas viendo en el último año, es que logran mayor protagonismo a diferencia de nosotras, las latinoamericanas.

Entonces era de esperarse, tal como lo publicaron los medios recientemente, que la mitad de la fuerza laboral en Estados Unidos sea femenina porque la mentalidad con la que están creciendo las nuevas generaciones ha contribuido a que sean vistas en la sociedad más allá del tradicional rol de tener hijos y ser amas de casa.

Tatiana Velásquez es una escritora de Colombia y tiene dos blogs Con Ojos Latinos y Noches de Media.

Before the Lasorda and Valenzuela, before we bled blue, before Dodger Stadium Chavez Ravine was a collection of three sleepy communities–La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde–existing in the hills sandwiched between downtown and Elysian Park.

There, poor, mostly Mexican-American families made their homes out of shacks and makeshift dwellings, but when a young photographer, Don Normark, stumbled upon the inhabitants of Chavez Ravine, he felt he “had found a poor man’s Shangri-la.” He had found three communities full of life, pride, and strength. Of course, most know that the homes that once scattered across the hillsides where vacated and bulldozed, at first for a public housing project, but later the public land was sold to private investor, Walter O’Malley for Dodger Stadium.

So what was once a vibrant Mexican-American enclave hidden in the hills of Los Angeles became the site of the major Los Angeles professional sport institution known as The Dodgers.

What is especially astounding to me is that Normack accidentally stumbled on to La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde, when he was searching for a wide shot of downtown, but was so inspired by the place that he came back more than a dozen times with his camera in hand. Little did he know, nor the subjects of his photographs know, that the place he was capturing would soon no longer exist.

And now because of the work of a young, novice, but inspired photographer, we have a look back at a time and a way of life that has become obsolete in wide-spread industrialized Los Angeles.

This is one of my favorite photos. He is demanding his own poem.

The book, Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story, is full of Normack’s black and white photos and is accompanied by interviews with the people who once lived there. It is an amazing source, and a reminder of a simpler time when neighbors knew one another, and L.A. was green and untouched.

Below is a poem I wrote inspired by a Normack photograph and one woman’s memory of life in the Ravine. The poem was published in Trellis Magazine’s Valentine’s issue:

Quinceañera Serenata

“And what was really, really special was that on Saturday, five o’ clock in the morning when the sun was coming out, the boys used to play the guitar and serenade everybody, and it was so beautiful to hear the music in Spanish.” ––Carmen Torres Roldan

Mi quinceañera, en tela blanca,
como linda flor de la mañana,
blushes before an open window’s light.
A virgin veil sweeps black coquettish eyes,
and hands hold prayers like fiery drama.

Dawn calls me to sing my serenata
for this child-bride, this niña querida,
versus for young apricot cheeks. Ayay,
mi quinceañera.

Cantante, your song inside my soul gnaws.
Skin burns to feel a man’s eyes on my flaws.
Virgin hands clasp prayers while wild eyes
desire things unaware, while dawn invites
mi quinceañera.

Poem Notes:

The form of this poem is a rondeau. It is missing the final stanza for publication purposes.

A quinceañera is the celebration of a girl turning 15 years-old. It can also refer to a girl who is turning 15. This Mexican tradition is still very prevalent among Mexican-Americans.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a Los Angeles native and Chicana writer, by whom she and others refer to as part of the Splinter Generation.  She is currently the author of two blogs, The Immigration Project and If I Had a Blog.

I have a soft heart for little runts. Poor things are so tiny and frail. Most of them don’t survive. Luna was the smallest kitten in her litter, but full of spunk and attitude.

She belonged to a friend of a friend who had too many cats and was looking for a home for the kitten. I first met her when she was 4 weeks old. Happy and full of energy, she was running all over the place with her little tail pointing straight up in the air.

I took the kitten home on the 4th of July weekend in 1995. By then she was about 8 weeks old. When I got home she seemed lethargic but I chalked it up to the change of her environment. When hours went buy and she wouldn’t get up, I took her to the vet.

I still remember the look on his face. It was a nasty case of pneumonia. He told me to take her home and not to bother to give her a name because she most likely wouldn’t make it through the weekend. He gave me a prescription and ushered me out the door.

Di picked her up, put her on a pillow and placed her in the warm sunlight in her bedroom window. She nursed the kitty for the entire weekend. Completely ignoring the festivities, she fed her, gave her water and carried her to the litter box.

Di stayed with her day and night. Amazingly after a couple of days, Luna woke up full of energy exploding like fireworks in the sky. We took her outside and she lifted her little tail and dashed through the yard. Thru the years, Luna became our constant reminder of what can be accomplished with faith, strength and hope.

Luna also taught us how to be grateful. Every time Di was sick, she returned the favor over and over again, staying in bed with her until she would get better. She would also come to my bed to comfort me in times of distress and sorrow. 

As she gets older, her ability to sense sickness has increased. She insisted on sitting on my brother in law’s lap when he came to visit us in between trips to the Mayo Clinic, totally disregarding his dislike of felines.

She has bonded with my neighbor unbeknownst to me until this morning. He asked me how she was doing, full of concern, after her big cat fight last night. We talked for a few minutes. I knew Luna had been visiting him when he described her dislikes and quirky personality.

He told me about his struggles with cancer and that now he was terminal.  I apologized to him for not telling him Luna might visit him after sensing his illness.

He was unaware of her comforting nature, thinking her daily visits were just out of curiosity. But then his face lit up when he realized she had started keeping him company right after his cancer diagnosis.

My husband and I joke about getting her a “nurse kitty” uniform. It’s our own way of coping with the fact our 15 year old miracle could be leaving us anytime, taking her the gift of giving hope and comfort with her. I love how the best perfumes come in the tiniest bottles.

Sandy Suarez is a blogger from Florida.  Her blog “Cheerful Simplicity” has been going strong since 2007.

Self-Educated Dental Linguist

When you sit horizontally in that cool moving chair in the dentist office, with official people buzzing around you in white coats, you hear a lot of alien words.  After a few appointments, you’d be amazed at how many of these neat, strange words you can pick up and use in your everyday life.

One such appointment absolutely filled to overflowing with this fascinating dental jargon was my third.  After somewhat skillfully removing all those now icky bands and mutilated wires, Selma proceeded to call in Dr. Thatcher for a quick consultation and observation of the work done so far.

As usual, there was light in my eyes because apparently they can charge thousands of dollars for braces, yet they can’t spend $30 to buy a new light that actually moves around and stays in place.  Dr. Thatcher made some noises, as she always did, as she stuck her long dainty fingers every which way in my mouth.

“Alright, Selma, the upper right cuspid needs to come down but hasn’t yet broken the gum, so go ahead and laser that away and attach a button,” she instructed.  “Tie it up with some zing-o-string to help it come on down and join the rest of us.”

She then pats my cheek and prances off to some other victim of circumstance.

Whoa.

Um, can I please have a definition for cuspid?  Or what about zing-o-string?  That sounds like something my five-year-old nephew would play with.

The only buttons I know of belong on shirts and sock puppets.  What makes a cuspid bi?  And did I hear you were sticking a LASER in my mouth?

¿Qué?

These questions and many others were answered throughout the appointment.

Cuspids are also referred to as canine teeth and are quite useful if you’re biting somebody.  It just so happens that the Aguirres as a whole are cursed with horrible cuspids.

If they were only normal, many of us wouldn’t need braces at all (I still would.  I’m just that screwed up). Bicuspids simply refer to the first two teeth that branch out and back from the original cuspid.  There are four total cuspids and eight bicuspids in most every normal mouth.

And yes, you read correctly, they lasered away a bit of my gum.  Though it wasn’t nearly as painful as it sounds, I wouldn’t recommend it.

On a pain level from paper cut to cracking open your skull, it would land somewhere between getting a shot and touching the hot end of a straightener.  Not altogether unbearable, but far from enjoyable.

While my gum was lasered, this strange calm washed over me, and while I winced and flinched, I discovered a new Zen, where I was totally zoned.  Completely out-of touch.

Buttons look as cute as they sound, but require the same amount of maintenance as a regular bracket would.  The one thing about buttons is that they’re great for helping bring stubborn teeth down (or up, I suppose), but once the tooth is down they’ve done all they can do for you.

Then you must sit still at your next appointment as they break off the button and the glue that holds it in place, reapply the glue, and place a bracket.  One of my biggest fears when they apply the glue is what would happen if my lip falls on top of it and gets stuck to my tooth?

Then not only would they have to rip my lip off the tooth, but they’d probably have to do it in the next appointment, so I’d walk around for one month with a lip attached to my tooth.

Wow.  I bet the guys are really into that.

Zing-o-string, as opposed to popular belief, is not a child’s play thing.  It is string that stretches out very taught that attaches the button to the wire and brings the right amount of pulling that tooth needs to make its way south.

Zing-o string, like all things dental, has its drawbacks.  Selma, as an inexperienced orthodontist person who means well, wanted very much to get this mastered on the first try.

So she pulled and pulled and pulled at that string until it could stretch no more, and then she pulled it even harder and then…

…SNAP!

Ow.

“Oh, oh, I’m so sorry Celie!” she cried.  “Oh, let me go get the doctor…”

She ran off as a welt began on my upper lip where the zing-o-string hit as it rebelled against Selma’s persistent pulling.

Sigh.  Why is it that I can’t seem to leave a dentist office unless I’m red, swollen, and in pain?

As it got time to go, we set about taking all of our pictures (which I never look good in and there are no retakes), and I asked for my fluoride rinse (cherry flavor, please).  I took one last look in the mirror before getting in the car.

My turquoise bands are super cute, they even match my top.  Now that is coordination.  But the fact that there’s a decently sized red bump over my lip is a bit of a setback.

I got back to school just in time for science.  This particular part of the year is devoted to teaching children about sex and why we should wait to have it (because you should).

Also, we talk about all those lovely diseases you can get if you sleep around.  The wanna-be punk next to me asked if I had syphilis (a warty disease) on my mouth.

Oh, shut up.

Kelly Elizabeth Day is a sophomore at Smithson Valley High School in Comal Independent School District.