JazzHouse ~ compelling love songs to the intensity of everyday life; from the magic in the routine to the marvels and miraculousness of living. Edward Vidaurre takes us with him on his life trip, from East LA to the Rio Grande Valley and the all the far reaching roots that accompany him in the form of ancestors, spirits, family, and other familiars. JAZzHOUSE is a base camp, and a life. We are invited in to share some food, some cafecito, or a glass of wine - to sit awhile and be grateful for every minute we are alive.

JazzHouse

Literature & Fiction

VIDAURRE, EDWARD

Literary

Prickly Pear Publishing

Marco E. López Quezada's compelling memoir takes us on a journey between many points in his life. We get a broader sense of the connections and movement between the United States' southwest and northern and central Mexico when people of conscience were fully waking up and formulating strategies to stand up to racial inequality and repression. The country had gone through a significant world war followed close behind by another conflict in the Pacific. At the same time, here at home, our country was gearing up for a substantial struggle around racial inequities and social injustice. This book looks into the life and formation of a Mexican-American boy who grows into a man during these unsettling but exciting times in our country's history. What makes this book an excellent read is a sharp juxtaposition between the old and the new. A world on a collision course between large numbers of people wanting change and those - who benefit from the way things are - wanting to keep it the same. López Quezada is born into a family steeped in the traditional values of hard work, commitment, and strong religious beliefs - who has held those values near and dear - and at the same time lives in a non-traditional configuration. While being raised in a traditional Catholic home, which included a strict catholic education, López Quezada, was raised by a single parent, which was considered unconventional. His mother, a brilliant and savvy businesswoman, also starts her own wildly successful business. A Mexican-American woman running her own business was also virtually unheard of at the time. This strong independent mother demanded from her children what she demanded from herself, hard work, dignity, being well-educated, and being involved members of the community. When the world was changing at breakneck speed, when a person could choose to go down so many distinct paths, López Quezada chose one that was both traditional and incorporated his family's values but was not easy. This decision put him front and center in a world that was demanding more than the status quo. One that said, Ya Basta! Or, enough is enough, with the injustices and inequalities. This choice would bring him into peril and conflicts and link him to one of the most charismatic civil rights leaders of our modern historical times. In the writing of these intimate vignettes of López Quezada's life, we learn what leads and ultimately motivates him to take up La Causa - the cause - for the fair and just treatment self-determination of farmworkers, which changes his life forever. Even though the choices he made in life were ultimately the best ones for the man he became, they came at a cost.This book gives us a very personal look into the relationships between people locked in and dedicated to the struggle for what is right. At the same time, we see contradictions that arise out of an unfair system, what is considered "normal" in the world of work, and how work is valued and rewarded.López Quezada's memoir is a coming-of-age story that is more global in its scope and ultimate message. It is a book that gives us hope despite the pitfalls of us being complex human beings, having to grapple with our upbringings and internal conflicts, and the outside world in which we find ourselves interacting.This is a book worth reading.

My March With César

Quezada, Marco López

Parenting & Relationships

This is a book of poetry for the people. People who aren't necessarily poetry lovers will especially enjoy this journey the writer takes us on. It reads more like short stories and leaves the reader wanting more. Ms. Galvan Rodriguez takes us into her life as a farmworker, Chicana-India artist-activist, Orisha priest and gives us a view from the heart.

Migratory Birds: New and Noted Poems

Odilia Galvan Rodriguez

Rodriguez, Odilia Galvan

Loose Lips

Muñoz, Briana

Dr. Irene Blea pens a heart-rending autobiography of a young girl's journey moving from the spiritual center of her small ranch in northern New Mexico to the gritty steel town of Pueblo Colorado. Leaving behind an extended family immersed in the rich Indigenous and Spanish customs of Hispano peoples, Irene boldly reckons with the economic, racial, and gender dislocations of modern society. Her compelling story of "renacimiento" or rebirth reveals a profoundly nurturing remedy for marginalization, oppression, and self-alienation. Irene's narrative will inspire generations of women to harness their life forces and spiritual destinies to generate self-love and empowerment. For Irene, it is in the strength of the wolf that she sees her reflection and accepts the solemnity of life.~ Irene Vasquez, Chair, Chicana and Chicano Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Erené With Wolf Medicine

Biographies & Memoirs

Blea, Irene I.

Community & Culture

Review\n"Keep the family together" were the parting words of Janet Rodriguez's grandmother. And Rodriguez has done just that with her luminous account of five generations of her family-she has kept the family together. Through their beginnings in Mexico, to building a new life in California's Central Valley, and reckoning with a rapidly changing national landscape, Rodriguez's account of her family truly tells the story of every American family, one steeped in sacrifice, hope, and love. Part memoir, part oral history, and part personal exploration on the part of a bi-ethnic woman who never felt Mexican enough, Making an American Family is a love letter to those who have gone, and a prayer for those still to come. Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of Mona at Sea\nMaking an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations, the progressive story of one family is told through five generations, beginning with their journey into the United States during the Mexican Revolution, and culminating with their posterity, attending school online during the COVID19 pandemic. A family memoir, told through a chorus of voices, invites the reader into the multi-sensorial experience of memory and story.\nAt first glance, Rodriguez’s family memoir is a unique culinary journey, but upon closer examination, it's a picture of erasure and homogenization through generations, as illustrated by the faded pictures in the cover. Rodriguez is faithful to show how her immigrant family, like most families who came from Mexico in the early 20th century, were systematically stripped of their language, heritage, culture, and their given names, all for the price of “becoming American” in the USA. With passion and precision, Rodriguez serves the reader a family feast of memories, a microcosm of the American family.

Making an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations

History

Rodriguez, Janet

Americas

Full-length poetry collection by Paul Aponte

DEL CACTUS

Aponte, Paul

Poetry

First full-length poetry collection by Jolaoso Prettythunder

Talisman: A Novel of Amnesia

Prettythunder, Jolaoso

Thomas Ray Garcia's debut short story collection presents revitalized insights into Texas-Mexico border culture, highlighting tales of resilience while refusing to shy away from the omnipresent reality the river imposes. Written from 2015 to 2020, these stories resist a singular vision of the border, centering the Rio Grande as a site of transformation. 
Here, river crossings lead to cross-country runs and astral projections. A pregnant teenager learns about motherhood from a curandera. A scholarship boy grapples with his fronterizo identity. The sister of a border patrol agent lives in fear of deportation. A child looks into the eye of a drone and sees his family anew. 
The River Runs: Stories won the Américo Paredes Literary Arts Prize for Fiction sponsored by FlowerSong Press from McAllen, Texas, and Prickly Pear Publishing from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The River Runs: Stories

Garcia, Thomas Ray

United States

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