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Events
for the month of October, 2004
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Burro
Genius - Victor Villaseñor
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Award-Winning
Author Victor Villaseñor
Saturday, October 30th at 2pm
Award-winning,
beloved Chicano author, Victor Villaseñor, stops
by Tía Chucha's Café Cultural for an Author Reading and
Autographing on Saturday, October 30th at
2:00 PM. He will be presenting his new book, Burro
Genius. He will autograph copies of his many titles
available at Tía Chucha's for this event. This event is
free to the public and book lovers alike.
Victor
Villaseñor is a renowned Chicano author whose many works
include The Wild Steps Of Heaven, the prequel of
Rain of Gold, and the sequel, Thirteen Senses,
Jury: The People vs. Juan Corona, Macho!,
and Walking Stars, a collection of short stories
written especially to inspire young people. He also wrote
the screenplay for The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez,
starring Edward James Olmos.
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Villaseñor's
acclaimed written works, as well as his inspiring lectures, have
earned him numerous awards and endorsements, including the Founding
John Steinbeck Chair appointment. His books are required reading
for numerous high schools and Chicano/a Studies departments across
the country.
Victor
Villaseñor's latest book, BURRO GENIUS: A Memoir, traces
the author's coming of age in the 1940s on his family's Southern
California ranch and his baptism into the harsh American school
system where he not only faces the challenge of being a Spanish-speaker,
but also an undiagnosed dyslexic. Yet, he is able to overcome
both, as well as abusive teachers and embittered classmates that
lead him to the brink of adopting a “violence-for-respect” attitude.
His family, especially his brother, come to his aid and even when
his hermano dies, the youthful Villaseñor draws on his brother's
life as inspiration to continue. Villaseñor combats the humiliation,
frustration and hardship of his personal story with a retelling
that is sometimes humorous, sometimes chilling, but highly imaginative
and poetic. He pens a story of growing up that captures “the simplicity
of a child and the introspection of a sage.” He will read and
sign copies of his latest book, as well as others available for
this event.
Born
in the barrio of Carlsbad, California, Victor Villaseñor was raised
on a ranch four miles north in Oceanside. He dropped out of high
school during his junior year and decided to move to Mexico, after
years of facing language and cultural barriers, heavy discrimination,
as well as his dyslexia. There he discovered a wealth of Mexican
art, literature, music, that helped him recapture and understand
the dignity and richness of his heritage. Today, Victor Villaseñor
continues to live on the ranch where he was raised. For more info
on Victor Villaseñor check his web page at www.victorvillasenor.com
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Award-
Winning Chicana Author Denise Chávez
Saturday, October 9th at 4pm
Denise
Chávez is a novelist, short story writer, playwright,
actress, director, and teacher. She is a recipient of the
1995 Governor's Award in Literature. Her novel, Face
of An Angel, won the 1995 American Book Award, The Premio
Aztlán (awarded to an outstanding novel written by a Chicano/Chicana
writer), and the 1995 Mesilla Valley Author of the Year
Award. Her collection of interrelated short stories, The
Last of the Menu Girls, had the title story published
in The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Her novel,
Loving Pedro Infante, unravels the fictions we weave
to justify loving the wrong mate, and confirms Señora Chávez's
reputation as one of our most vibrant Chicana storytellers.
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Chicana
Author Denise Chávez
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Manuel Munoz - Author Reading
Tuesday, October 19th at 4pm
Manuel
Muñoz is the author of a short-story collection, Zigzagger.
Born and raised in Dinuba, California, he is a graduate of Harvard
and Cornell and is currently living in New York City, where he
is working on a second collection.
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Portraits by Those Who Knew Her by Rosalie Riegle - Author Reading
Saturday, October 23rd at 4pm
Rosalie Riegle cherishes the shared story as a literary
form and has done excellent work to track down and compile a fine
resource of first-hand remembrances of the Catholic Worker movement's
founder, Dorothy Day. Includes an insert of rarely seen photos.
Day co-founded the Catholic Worker movement, was considered a
radical pacifist whose last arrest was in Fresno with Cesar Chavez.
She was a committed pacifist who believed that violence abroad
must be stopped by living
non-violently at home.
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The Trail We Leave - Author Reading
Thursday, October 28th at 7:30pm
Ruben Palma was forced to leave his native Chile after
the Pinochet coup d'etat in 1973 and went into exile in Denmark.
In 2001 he wrote this collection of stories in Danish to rave
reviews in major Danish papers. No one has captured the impact
of culture shock in quite so vivid a fashion with such compelling
characters or with such a range of tone. Palma is equally at home
in hard-hitting, unsentimental drama and in the comic and satirical.
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"Fences
& Textbooks" & "El Colonel
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"Fences
& Textbooks" & "El Colonel"
Theatre Performances
October 15th - 16th, & October 20th - 23rd
Two
new one-act plays from the writer-director of 69 Portraits
of Che and 3 Bulls. Fri. & Sat., Oct. 15-16 and
Wed.-Sat., Oct. 20-23 at 8:00 PM Tickets $12 (Discount Avail.)*
Due to limited seating, please RSVP by calling 818-362-7060.
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Fences & Textbooks World Premieres as part of the LA History Project
on 10/9 & 10/10 at the
Gene Autry Museum, info at: www.edgeoftheworld.org
* Suggested Donation.
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Xispas
Magazine Spotlights
Columbus Day
Xispas
magazine, a new online Chicano magazine with interviews,
history, reviews, cartoons, artwork, poetry, fiction, editorials,
and more... in October will look at the meaning and role
of Columbus' voyage to the Americas in 1492.
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The
Journal of Xicano Art and Culture
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Xispas was launched in March of 2004 out of Tia Chucha’s Cafe
Cultural, and is edited by acclaimed Chicano writer, Luis
J. Rodriguez, author of the international best seller, Always
Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA, and a founder of Tia
Chucha’s Cafe Cultural, along with its not-for-profit arm, Tia
Chucha’s Centro Cultural. Xispas features interviews with people
such as long-time Chicano education activist Sal Castro
and Mexican singer Lila Downs, a history of the Xicano
people and of Xicano rock, artworks by artists Mark Vallen,
Joe Bravo, Sergio Hernandez, and many others. You'll
also find reviews of restaurants, CDs and movies, poetry and short
stories. Visit Xispas, at: www.xispas.com
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