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My home office looks like a Jenga game for a nonfiction book I read last year about the lives of Latinos in Southern California. And almost all of them were duds.
Content ranges from East Los Angeles gang history to a gorgeous coffee table book about the cult classic Blood In Blood Out to a fun fairy tale about the late Los Angeles Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela. Ta. As I devoured them all, one theme kept emerging. It’s a Latin woman. As an author. as a subject. As both.
Latinos are underrepresented in the Southern California literary canon, and that exclusion is even more pronounced for them. That’s why I’m excited to see so many voices, new and familiar, represented in nonfiction releases in 2024, and why I’m excited to see so many voices, new and familiar, represented in the nonfiction that will be released in 2024. It has shown that it plays an important role in the story and deserves far more recognition.
One of those lesser-known voices is Oxnard Bard Michele Serros, a poet, essayist, playwright, and spoken word artist. She passed away in 2015 at the young age of 48. Her working-class beach town made her popular on college campuses, landed her a spot on the original Lollapalooza tour, and earned her a following as diverse as comedy legend Jonathan Winters. and Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
But I have rarely seen Sellos mentioned as an important Southland observer on the same level as Yves Babitz or Joan Didion. Cerros knew that this was her destiny as a Latina writer in the region’s literary world.
“It’s always been about barrios, borders and bodegas,” she told NPR’s “All Things Thoughts” in 2006, explaining what publishers and readers expected from her. “I wanted to present a different type of life, a life that really goes on that you don’t necessarily see in mainstream media.”
The cover of “Welcome to Oxnard: Race, Place, and Chicana Adolescence in the Writings of Michele Cerros” by Cristina Herrera.
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
Thankfully, Portland State University professor Christina Herrera pays literary homage to Cerros in “Welcome to Oxnard: Race, Place, and Chicana Adolescence in the Writings of Michele Cerros.” Herrera analyzes Serros’ major works, the collections Chicana Falza and How to Become a Chicano Role Model, and the young adult novel Honey Blonde Chica.
The professor interjects her own Oxnard coming-of-age story, including her “deep sense of shame” at not knowing Cerros, about Cerros not only as a Latinx intellectual but also as a chronicler of Southern California. effectively asserts the importance of I worked all the way through graduate school, even though my extended family were friends. Herrera transforms the seemingly mundane into something poignantly profound by including photos of Oxnard landmarks in Cerros’ life and even flyers for the author’s book parties. This is a short and refreshing read that will make you want to order all of Seros’s books to see if the hype matches reality (and it does).
“Chicana writers have a long tradition of exploring their home regions in relation to coming of age,” Herrera writes, “particularly when adulthood coincides with a style that breaks with literary conventions.” Perfect analysis, but it falls under “Welcome to Oxnard.”
Cover of “Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento: Spiritual Artivism, Healing Justice, Feminist Praxis” by members of the East LA Women’s Collective.
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
Another format disruptor is “Mujeres de maiz un movimiento: Spiritual artistry, healing justice, and feminist practice,” an anthology by members of an East Los Angeles-based women’s collective that was released this year. This is our 27th year. The term “artivism” is a portmanteau of “art” and “activism,” and the term “artivism” is a portmanteau of “art” and “activism,” and it is a term that Mujeres de Maze (“The Corn Women”) brought to the East Side and other areas with the maxim “Culture heals.” This is the key to explaining how we are empowered.
Artworks, photographs of past gatherings, poems and essays provide a moving testimony to the history of Mujeres de Maze. Because of their radical roots, they tend to use a lot of academic and left-wing jargon, which can be off-putting to less tolerant eyes. But the joy that members express in their memories—Martha González, a MacArthur genius winner and member of Mujeres de Maize, brings the group far from home to “share the pollen and honey.” This is what makes this anthology an important record. LA’s arts and activity scene doesn’t get enough attention.
“We hope our 21st Century Xicana Codex inspires you to begin or continue your path of transformation and healing,” concludes the intro to “Mujeres en Maiz.” This is a challenge that all Angelenos must grapple with.
The cover of Chicana Liberation: Women and Mexican American Politics in Los Angeles, 1945-1981, by Marisela R. Chavez.
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
Members of Mujeres de Maze make it a point to honor the Latinos of the past who paved the way for the next generation. Some of these local pioneers are discussed in Chicana Liberation: Women and Mexican American Politics in Los Angeles, 1945-1981. Despite the title, Maricela R. Chávez, a professor at California State University Dominguez Hills, has largely avoided Latina congressmen, moving from the Communist Party to the Mexican American Political Association and the Mexican National Committee, co-founded by the Mexican People’s Committee. He supports Mujeres, who is active in local organizations including the Association. The late Chicana political powerhouse Gloria Molina.
Although the book features several names in bold – Molina, legendary labor activist Luisa Moreno, and former L.A. Vice Mayor Grace Montañez Davis – Chavez is barely mentioned in Chicano history. The focus is on the pioneers who are not. Hope Mendoza Schechter, a former apparel worker, co-founded a community service organization that helped Ed Roybal become the first Latino congressman of the 20th century in 1949. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the Peace Corps Advisory Board, and she became a stalwart of the California Democratic Party.
“We literally run the campaigns, and they need us,” Mendoza Schechter said about how male candidates treated women at the time. Quoted in this book. She summed up the status of women in Democratic politics as “drones.”
Thankfully, things have changed for the most part, and “Chicana Liberation” is most effective when it shows how transformative figures served as bridges between Mexican American women across generations and ideologies. It’s a target. I hope Mr. Chavez writes a sequel tracing Latin American political leaders from Mr. Molina’s first election victory in 1983 to today – we need those stories too. .
The cover of the anthology “Writing the Golden State: the New Literary Terrain of California.”
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California is a wonderful collection of essays that span California, from Berkeley to Rancho Santa Fe, from Panamanian blacks in Los Angeles to farmworkers in Duroville. This isn’t just for Latinos, and the authors aren’t just Latinos either. It also includes some of the most important contemporary California Latina voices, including Miriam Gruba, Caribbean Fragoza, and my former editor Ruxandra Guidi.
My favorite work is by my comrade Melissa Mora Hidalgo, who is best known for her writings about Beer and Morrissey’s Latino fans. She described how her aunt surprised her family by revealing her Chumash heritage in an email that included an old map and a newspaper clipping of an ancestor’s obituary.
“It was like a DIY version of ‘Finding Your Roots,'” Maura Hidalgo joked.
Her essay takes us to Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, 1880s La Placita, and the San Gabriel Mission, where the first Catholic baptisms were administered to Native Americans. Towards the end, she revealed that she had been vacationing in Santa Barbara County with her sisters for a long time, although she could not reveal why. The discovery of her family’s Native American roots provides an explanation.
“We grew up in a concrete suburb east of East L.A., but it’s probably the Chumash region where the rolling hills, valley oaks, and wine country roads feel like home to us. Because that’s what it used to be for the descendants of the tribe,” writes Mora Hidalgo.
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