Category: Chingonas

Authors, Chingonas, Denise Chavez, Kathy Cano-Murillo, Pedro Infante, Strong Women

Loving Pedro Infante…

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Do you remember Pedro Infante, the Mexican movie star from the Gran Epoca of Mexican movies? Maybe you don’t, but I mention this because he came into my little ‘blog’ life last week. But I’ll start at the beginning. 

I follow a blog penned by Kathy Cano-Murillo author of two books. She is at http://www.chicawriter.com and http://www.craftychica.com. (She has terrific sites). Kathy asked her readers if we read any of the books she listed on her “to read book list” and if we had she invited us to write a review. One of the books was from one of my favorite authors, Denise Chavez. I’ve read all of her books, including “Loving Pedro Infante.” So I took the plunge and wrote the following review, which you can find, among the others on Kathy’s website. The cover of the book es muy sauve, but I don’t know if it’s copyrighted so here’s another photo of Pedro Infante.
Denise Chavez creates real, flesh and blood characters whose lives touch ours even though they live in fictional border towns, between two cultures. Chavez describes Cabritoville as “…a one-horse-two-dog-mangy-one-cat town…” Her main character, Tere, is a teacher’s aid who  lives “…in the little house, next to my mother’s bigger house.” She is a very engaging, funny, late thirty-something divorcee who spends most of her free time watching old romance movies while waiting for a married lover to give her some attention. Most of us have been there, done that (substitute unavailable for the married). 
Tere says she “…has a degree in living…” and that may be true, but she gets a D in men and romance. She is the secretary of the Pedro Infante Fan Club and spends many an evening romanticizing the Mexican movie star in the humid El Colon movie theater with her best friend Irma. If they’re not in El Colon, they are in a bar, or a friends kitchen discussing relationships.  And herein lies the dilemma for Tere. She knows she’s not happy with a married lover and she yearns for a good man, a romantic man’s man, like Pedro Infante, but does she have the ‘huevos’ or ovaries to break up with the guy.  While she’s waiting for this cabron, she’s getting older, she’s not growing in her life, her quasi-socio-cultural savvy friend Irma mentions– more than once. And Tere knows this is true. 
There is a sub-plot, about a male friend of Tere’s, which isn’t effectively resolved, however it adds some interesting texture to the story. And there is a little confusion in the time sequence of the narrative. But these don’t detract from the ‘pleasure’ value of the story. 
The real romance here is the bond of friendship and family. It’s about the kinds of friends that stay with you long after the bad relationships end and are willing to pick you back up.  The story is enriched with Splanglish and cultural identifications which may put off some readers, but the themes in this book transcend cultures and language. 
If you haven’t read the book, try to find it in the library or order it from Amazon.com. It’s a story most women can identify with, whether you live in Goatville or not.   
Americas Award Books, Authors, Chingonas, fiction, Sandra Cisneros, Strong Women, Wisdom

Listening to Sandra Cisneros

Mona Alvarado Frazier

“We all need to have art in our lives and writing is art.” I’m paraphrasing what I heard Sandra Cisneros say while I listened to her speak, in her melodious voice, to a standing room only crowd of over 200 people. She spoke at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore in Sylmar, California, located at the edge of a strip mall across from the new Fresh and Easy. Every seat was taken, every wall held up by shoulders, every piece of floor space and some laps taken up by listeners.

I’ve been to Tia Chucha’s twice, when visiting my friend Pati, who lives up the hill from there, but we either get there too early or too late and peer in the windows between the posters and flyers. Yesterday was the first time I’ve been inside. I’m early (no more Chicano time for me) and there are still seats. I give a quick glance at the book table and remember I don’t have “House on Mango Street” anymore because I lent it out to someone. The 25th Anniversary Edition of HOMS is there and I snag a copy.

There is an open seat towards the middle of the room filled with wall to wall fold out chairs and I settle in while the place overflows with more than 200 people.  Most of the audience drove from more than thirty minutes away, most are under 35 years old, and half attend college. I am in the ten percent of people over forty five years of age. I know this because she polled the crowd.

I mentioned Sandra’s dulcet voice ( yes I’m calling her by her first name as if we were comadres or amigas), because its softness and her inflections make you feel like she knows you. She can do this even in a huge university room, like Campbell Hall at UCSB where I heard her speak, in her cute pajamas, three months ago.  There is an intimacy in her written voice that touched my heart many years ago when I first read “House on Mango Street.”  Her stories and poems speak about where I have been, and that she’s been there too.

The selected reading was from her upcoming book, and I don’t remember it’s title but it’s coming out in the fall. She read a story about “Marie.” It was about two little girls looking for their lost cat in their neighborhood. Sandra read in several different character voices: male, female, young, old, and cat. I was there with her, looking under hedges, behind fences, peeking into dry yellowed backyards, pausing on stoops, knocking on doors. It takes an outstanding writer to do this to you, while you’re sitting in a hot crowded audience on steel fold out chairs. But she does.

Sandra invites people to ask questions. Yes she has two more books coming in the fall, she’s collaborating on several projects as co-author, her friend Lourdes Portillo is completely a screenplay for “House on Mango Street,” and the crowd is thrilled with that disclosure. She is entering into another part of her life now, seeking change, moving from San Antonio, Texas. Mexico is calling. I think it’s Oaxaca, only because her website has a recent photo of her in Oaxaca and she has a message to her readers about change.

I ask her whether she has thought about publishing e-books. “Yes, the publishing world is also undergoing change, shifting…” She will publish her books as e-books and she owns all of the publishing rights. Very smart woman. “I’m not married to a university or a rich man…so I don’t have a pension…further publishing (with e-books) is my pension.” I’m happy that she will do this and I want to tell her that, but I don’t. I know there are so many other questions to be asked.

The reading and question/answer period seemed short, a fleeting seventy-five minutes. The audience is instructed to line up in a certain area for book signings. The queue quickly forms to over fifty people before the second half of the building empties out. I hope Sandra has a wrist brace so she doesn’t tire out her writing hand. She has so much more art to create and I have so much more to read.

The photo of her is at the end, only because my BB takes crappy photos.