“I am wise in this small respect: I do not think I know what I do not.”
Socrates

It has been a while since I addressed what is, after all, one of the major themes of my fiction and this blog — my relationship with religion. This probably reflects my reluctance, even fear, to address a topic known to raise the hackles of many.

I am also aware of a curious phenomenon, which is that my readers span a startling range of religious belief, from avowed atheists to passionate evangelizers. I sometimes wonder why that is and speculate that perhaps they share or at least respect my impulse to create a big tent under which a veritable bazaar of religious beliefs and disbeliefs can exist.

As stated in my earlier My Religious Primer post: “Except when they resort to violence and excessive proselytizing, I deeply respect the attempt of most religions to seek coherence and order in a world that intrinsically may be incoherent and chaotic.”

To this I add that I find the same impulse in nonreligious people as well. You won’t find religions bashed in this blog. Nor will you find proselytizing for any religion or for atheism. I am as prone to cite a Buddhist text as I am to mention a Bible verse or a scientist’s aloof statement regarding matters of the spirit.

But, other than respecting people’s individual choices, what do I believe? In one sense, the totality of this blog describes it. I believe we all follow a deep yearning to be free, to be whole, to live in joy and in safety.

I like to hope that we could all love each other even as we don’t know each other. In the end, I believe life is both blessing and mystery.

If that seems childlike, perhaps it is. In one of my novels, there is a tropical scene which inspired this blog’s waterfall images. In it, the infant protagonist escapes her mother’s attention and wanders off to a nearby waterfall. The child’s impressions come close to describing my own awe when faced with the numinous dimension.

“She stumbled her way toward the boulder which had a flat ledge about 14 inches off the ground. She scrambled up on the ledge and inched forward on her chest until she discovered below her a stream leading away from a gentle waterfall on her left to another one about 20 feet to her right.

“The air was now so misty it seemed almost iridescent. Even with the nearby rush of falling water, she could still hear birds twittering and the call of a coquí. She slid forward to dip her hand in the stream’s water and slipped.

Grabbing the edges of the narrow ledge, she managed to keep from falling into the stream .… Fully covered in mud, she looked around her at the dense green vegetation blurred by mist. She no longer felt afraid. The sounds around her were so soft …. The palm trees, the ferns, the moss-covered pebbles all seemed to glisten, and she felt as if a delicate presence expanded and contracted and wrapped itself around her. ”

I embrace the essential Mystery at the core of existence which perhaps only a child can experience without fear. I try mightily not to reduce that Mystery to doctrine.

When Socrates says, “I do not think I know what I do not,” that is the extent of the religious wisdom I claim.

Judith Mercado is an acclaimed Puerto Rican novelist and short story writer.  She also writes her own blog “Pilgrim Soul.”

Jacob Riis

The other night I caught one of my favorite movies, “Gangs of New York,” on TV. Though I own the film, there is always something satisfying about finding a favorite while flipping through channels.

Watching the final riot scene I started to wonder how much of the story was fact and how much was fiction. A long journey down the Google hole dropped me in the lap of one Jacob Riis and the Muckrakers of the Gilded Age.

What does this have to do with the Immigration Project? For one, Jacob Riis was a Danish immigrant, and two, he used photography and journalism to bring about social reform to the immigrant tenements and slums–such as Gangs of New York’s Five Points–of Victorian New York City.

Here are some examples of his work:

Riis’ photography, magical lantern shows, and books including, “How the Other Half Lives,” brought the struggle of the poor to the attentions of the upper class and people in power, namely New York City Police Commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt (newly discovered as my favorite U.S. President).  Roosevelt and Riis’ time together lead to a life long friendship and partnership in working towards social reform.

If Jacob Riis was alive now, he may have a blog. If he could see our modern world he may wonder what had changed, if anything. Today, is not much different from his day.

There is still a hugely unequal distribution of wealth, the upper class continues to give a blind eye to the struggles of the poor, and the middle and lower classes blame immigrants for the poor state of the job market, housing, and wealth.

And so we as artists must ask, WWJD? What would Jacob do?

We must rake the muck!

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.

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.

Don’t you just love it when someone tells you (usually a language instructor) how much you already know of the particular language you are trying so desperately  to learn?…….So here is me:

“Really? I was not aware that I already  knew  Korean?…….or “I guess I always knew that I knew some sign language?”…….”Like this one?”………Ooooooooooh come now have a little fun…………

Okay so back to this “very serious topic”………..Perhaps “recognizing the fact that you may already know some Spanish;  is probably the most “crucial” component of this exercise. So without further ado here are some ejemplos/examples:

A) pronto (prohn-toh)= right away/soon
B) conclusión (kohn-clue-see-ohne)=yup, you guessed it– “conclusion”
C) invención (in-vehn-see-ohne)= yup, “invention”

And so on…………

However…….You knew there would be a “however” here somewhere……..The trouble  begins in the “World of Words” (no not the “War of the Worlds” from Steven Spielberg with  Tom Cruise, they  had nothing to do with this one)………..Here goes that story:

Courtesy of Wikipedia……….
False friends (or faux amis, French for “false friends”) are pairs of words in two languages or dialects (or letters in two alphabets) that look or sound similar, but (big but here) differ in meaning. .

Here are my Ejemplos/Examples:

A) Actual= same spelling in English NOT same meaning in Spanish

In Spanish=  “actual” means current, this day, this moment……You get the idea…….So when you say in English: “The actual name given to that State was……… in Spanish you are saying: “The name given today or up this date is”………

B) My personal “favorita”/favorite is: “embarazada” (to be with child)……..Oh yeah this is a fun one! So here goes this story………..

As you may or may not know “embarrassed” in English means NOT pregnant but ashamed or encumbered…….

Now in Spanish the problem begins with the fact that “embarazada” is the adjective that comes from the same root as the English word but (a big but here) nowadays or “actualmente”  (this vocabulary word evolved a bit over time) it is exclusively used to mean “with child”, pregnant, “preggos”, “bun in the oven” and so on………..

My mama refers to this stage in life of pregnancy  as: “the walking incubator”….. isn’t that romantic?…….Ahhhhhhhh………

More later……..

An anecdote:

I knew this lady from Perú who was here in the US for sometime while she learned English. One say she came home from church telling how nice EVERYONE at the church was. How all of them shook her hand and welcomed her to the church…….I thought: “Wow I know no one at that church, and I have been living around here since grade school.” The next Sunday came and went and again my Latina pal  came telling me how delightful everyone had been and not just to her but with one another……”Hmmmh?” I thought to myself.

The following Sunday I decided to go with my Peruvian friend to this “wonderful new” church…….

Well we got to the church and everything seemed as normal as one would expect at a church……..We sat down listened, stood up, sat down , you get the idea…….. Then my friend looks at me and says: “Okay here it comes” she says, “This is the time when we all greet one another”………..

Then  it began: “Pleased to meet you”, as my friend shook everyone hands who she could reach and then some………

As we left the church I burst out laughing. My friend asked why I was laughing so crazily after church; my whole body went into convulsions. “Well”, I said trying to be serious, “These folks are not telling you “nice to meet you”. To which my friend replied in her Latina accent: “No?’………I replied: “No”, and tried to continue  with a straight face.

“What these folks  are actually telling you is: “Peace be with you!”, “Not”, I continue, “Pleased to meet you”…….  Then we both burst out laughing…

Ahhhhhhhh that was a fun day!

Carolina Sanchez is a bilingual instructor, translator and interpreter.  Sanchez is also the author of the blog “Confessions of a Wise Latina.”

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.“

The language purists among you may not want to read further as you might be scandalized. I am proposing that for those of us who are bilingual, speaking in both languages within the same conversation is not only acceptable but also may be the most optimal way to communicate.

On the phone with my cousin the other day, we found ourselves speaking at different times in Spanish; at other times, in English. We would complete two or three sentences in one language and then follow with two or three in the other.

Only after shifting to the other language would I suddenly become aware of the shift. The transition had been that seamless and unconscious.

It was a fun conversation. It was as if my cousin and I shared a private code which freed us to be natural with each other. We didn’t have to confine ourselves to a given language box. Indeed, one of the reasons speaking that way is so rewarding is that it is the only time I can reflect fully in my speech my specific life story.

I came to the United States from Puerto Rico at a very young age, after which I spoke only Spanish at home and in church, while at school I only spoke English. The two tracks remained essentially parallel, and to a large extent, except in conversations like the one with my cousin, they remain so today.

I am not proposing that we stop honoring the syntax of each language when in a monolingual setting. I believe in mastering the grammar and vocabulary of each language, and it is only polite to be place appropriate.

Though I am sometimes guilty of this, I also try to avoid a language shift within the same sentence. However, when two people fluent in the same languages are conversing, why not take advantage of the greater supply of vocabulary and grammatical structures available?

Literature will inevitably reflect this. One of the things I found appealing about the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Díaz was his seamless incorporation of different languages and styles of speech: colloquial versus learned diction, English versus Spanish, science fiction/comic book language versus regular English. Díaz seemed to recognize that language can no longer be defined by the classroom.

It is a lived language. In our increasingly culturally fungible world, this will likely result in more variety and freedom in our modes of expression. At least I hope so.

Judith Mercado is an acclaimed Puerto Rican novelist and short story writer.  She also has her own blog “Pilgrim Soul.“

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.

I remember I cried the first time I heard the term “anchor baby.” Maybe about three years ago, I was flipping channels and landed on an alarmist report being featured on CNN.

It was all about how “illegals” were sneaking into the U.S. and having children in order to have a foothold in our welfare system. Flashing on the bottom of the screen was a headline that read something along the lines of “How Anchor Babies Are Ruining America.”

There was just so much wrong with that entire report. Let’s face it. I would expect something like that from Fox News. But up until then I had trusted CNN so I knew that people out there watching this report would most likely believe it. On top of that, it was the first time I was hearing this slur for American citizens born to undocumented immigrants. I was devastated.

The report made it sound as if greedy immigrants somewhere out there were plotting to have children they didn’t even want in order to scam the government and to become citizens themselves.  It made it sound like “illegals,” another slur, didn’t have a conscience and were a direct threat to the tax dollars of those viewing the report. All in a thirty second package, CNN had managed to legitimize hurtful slurs and stereotypes and pass them off as a credible threat. I will never forget that “report.”

I cried because I am an American, and it felt like fellow Americans were trying to deny my legitimacy to that title. Sure, sometimes I don’t like being an American. There are many things this country does that are shameful. But like it or not, this is the country where I was born. It felt like I had been personally attacked.

It was three years ago that I applied for my parents to get their residency. It had been a long struggle for my parents. They had tried all other possible avenues to legitimize their status. It wasn’t until I turned 21 that I was legally old enough to put in an application for them-not exactly the get rich quick scheme that the term “anchor baby” implies.

So I could continue to see the term “anchor baby” as a personal attack. I could get caught up in my anger at the right wing racism and try to defend my parents, pointing out how they never used my privilege as a citizen to get welfare and how they have paid their taxes while working. I could bring up how it is just as erroneous to assume a majority of immigrants have babies in the U.S. to get welfare benefits as it is for Gov. Jan Brewer to claim that the majority of immigrants crossing the border are drug mules.

I could even make the claim that if there ARE any immigrants out there systematically benefiting from the welfare system, that means that there are plenty of American citizens who are doing the same. I could point out all these things in detail and at length and they would be true. But all that this would accomplish is to further legitimize the “anchor baby” argument.

Instead, let us deconstruct the term and look at it in context.

It was about three years ago that Elvira Arellano and the sanctuary movement first made headlines. She fought deportation by refusing to choose between leaving her son Saul Arellano, an American citizen in the U.S. or taking him to Mexico with her. She took sanctuary in Chicago’s Adalberto United Methodist Church and spoke out against the raids that were separating families.

The “anchor baby” argument is a direct attempt to vilify these same families Elvira Arellano and other organizers are advocating for.

It is difficult for any American to look on TV and see the weeping faces of children whose families are being torn apart. Making children suffer is wrong. It is a basic human instinct to want to protect them. On top of that, realizing that these children are American citizens means that American children are suffering. The term “anchor baby” is meant to short circuit this realization. It seeks to invalidate their claims to American identity, as well as to humanity.

Over the past decade, America has developed a long trend of dehumanizing certain groups with labels such as “terrorist,” “insurgent,” “enemy combatant,” and “illegals” in order to simplify complex human and legal interactions for the media. “Anchor baby” is no different. It turns an image of a weeping child, deserving of our help into that of a veiled threat, a literal anchor keeping dangerous invaders within our borders and supposedly draining our funds.

It’s pathetic, but this hateful use of stereotypes, regardless of reality, is the argument that the right wing wants to use to side step the legal rights of American citizens and their families.

And leave it to Arizona to lead the way in trampling the Constitution. Basing its arguments on the anchor baby myth, Arizona officials are claiming that allowing the children of illegal aliens to claim citizenship is a misapplication of the 14^th Amendment that grants citizenship on the basis of being born on American soil.

It is once again ignoring the division of federal and state power in its proposal to pass a law denying citizenship to the children who don’t have at least one parent who is a citizenship.  This is despite the fact that the 14^th Amendment clearly reads that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Way to go Arizona.

Essentially Arizonans are angry because upon reaching the age of 21, “anchor babies” can make their parents citizens. Well, Arizona, remember how you’re all angry about people crossing into the country illegally? Well, this is a LEGAL pathway to citizenship. Clearly, Arizonans don’t care about the legality of our status—or even of their own actions.

They don’t want us here, period and will twist and turn their rhetoric any which way to justify their actions. The media is often right their to take extremists at their word.

This is why I advocate that we stop accepting the labels we have been given by the media. When I first heard the term “anchor baby” I cried—and crying certainly isn’t enough. For those of us who are American citizens, we need to very vocally reject this term as the racial slur that it is. (Same goes for “illegals”)  I suggest that if you hear or see the term “anchor baby” being taken seriously in broadcast or in print, you contact the station or write a letter to the editor repudiating their bias and racism.

Donate to the ACLU if you are able, since they are one of the plaintiffs suing Arizona over the draconian SB 1070. We cannot allow this national debate to be framed without us. We cannot allow ourselves and those we love to be dehumanized in this way. We are not “anchor babies,” we are American citizens—whether the racists like it or not.

Jenny Patiño is a student at Columbia College Chicago.

Alexa Mendez

When it comes to comics, this Latina is a marvel. Working as the host for Marvel.com, Alexa Mendez provides fans with a weekly show, the “Weekly Watcher,” where she talks about everything going on in the company–most importantly comics.

In our latest issue, Latina Voices was able to find out a little more about Ms. Mendez, especially how she landed such an interesting job. Raised in Puerto Rico, this New York native spent most of her life on the island. After realizing she needed some change and a break from the beach, she decided return to the Big Apple and pursue a career in marketing.

But with great power comes great responsibility. After finding out that her parents could not afford tuition for her to attend Sacred Heart University, Alexa devised a plan and executed it.  Her new plan involved business school, two part-time jobs, an internship and six classes.  Although her new plan was tough, this Latina became her own superhero.

“There were some days I had to decide do I buy food or do I buy a metro card to take the train to school and work,” she said during our interview; she opted for food.

Although her mind was on marketing, her financial status led her to get first job for Brinks security and later a diamond wholesaler. But this gem was destined to shine. After finding out about an opening in the toy marketing department at Marvel, she found her calling.

“I thought wow this is the perfect job for me!” said Mendez.  “Marvel is an amazing company, and their Spider-Man movies have been hugely successful.”

After interviewing with every top person in the toy division of Marvel, she landed the job.  While working in the toy division of Marvel her passion for comics began to grow.

“I found that there was such a passion here for both things that it would have been impossible for anyone to not fall in love with both products,” she explained.

Her cubicle literally opened up the opportunity to get an inside scoop and to interact with top people like Joe Quesada, comic book writer and editor-in-chief of Marvel Publishing.

Due to the fact that she was the only project manager and one of the few girls working in publishing, Alexa was asked to be a part of online group as a project manager. Putting her reservations and shyness aside, she started doing the “Weekly Watcher” and has loved every minute of it.

“It is so much fun to do; and though we don’t always include all the funny quirky stuff that ends up happening, I really hope that fans enjoy the program,” she said.

Although she started reading comics while working for toys, she immediately fell in love with the medium.  Her favorite characters are Iron Fist, Captain America and Ms. Marvel.

“People sometimes tease me about Ms. Marvel, but I identify with her,” explained Mendez.  “She was asked to take on a leadership role, and she encountered a lot of the same issues I was encountering myself as a project manager.”

How does she feel about being a Latina Woman in a male-dominated industry?

“I’m obviously not an artist, but my experiences with the industry have been very positive,” Mendez said.

For more information on this Marvel-ous woman or to find out about anything Marvel, check her out at Marvel.com.

Natalia Avilez is a writer based in Chicago.

There are a lot of theories about how Latinas view feminism.

We’re pro-life, unless we’re too American.

Our men are full of machismo and make our decisions.

We reject feminism based on the movement being too white and too middle class.

This summer Veronica Arreola explores what it means to be a Latina and a feminist and she invites others to join her in this discussion.

To read the rest of  her post, go to Ms. Magazine’s blog. Please join her in the “Summer of Feminista.”

Image courtesy of morning theft under Creative Commons 3.0.