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NURTURING THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN: NOT JUST A MONTHLY THING BY THELMA T. REYNA, PH.D.

      The month is not over yet and neither is the Celebration. The Latina Book Club is proud to welcome Poet Laureate of the Altadena Library District, Dr. Thelma T. Reyna , who urges us to celebrate Women year round not just one month a year.  As Women’s History Month comes to a close, it is easy for many of us to return to other issues that consume our attention daily. Women have been extolled throughout this special month of honoring, women’s “firsts” have been recognized and commemorated, and our collective desire to see women gain greater equity in all spheres of society has been duly expressed in various media throughout March. But our awareness of women’s status in all nations, not just in ours, for the purpose of averting discrimination and expanding egalitarianism in all facets of existence must never be delimited to a certain slice of time. We need no boundaries--of time, place, emphasis--to further any worthy cause, and th...

CULTURAL IDENTITY: How I Celebrate My Latinidad by Graciela Limón

    The Latina Book Club is proud to welcome author Graciela Limón ,  who will tell us how she celebrates her Latinidad. Plus, we’ll learn about her new suspense novel,  THE INTRIGUING LIFE OF XIMENA GODOY. When I was a little girl growing up in East Los Angeles, I loved school.  You see, I went to Hammel Street School, a public grammar school that had been there since forever, and even better, it was a school where all the kids were Mexican.  Most of us were born in the barrio, but others had recently come up with their familias from Mexico.  But it was all the same; we all spoke Spanish – on the sly, of course, because the teachers scolded or punished us when they caught us talking, as they said, “funny.”  Another thing I loved was that kids took a lunch in a little brown bag, many times exchanging that delicious gordita for a burrito.  I loved school because it was hardly a change from home where I lived with my mom, da...

GUEST BLOGGER: TAKE A CHANCE by Maria Mitchell

   The Latina Book Club welcomes Maria Mitchell, author of PAINTED SECRETS and MAGNOLIA CRISTIANA ST. CLAIRE. Are you craving adventure? Just a simple deviation from routine? Are you are a person who takes your responsibilities seriously, but every once in a while your mind wanders off into a fantasy that you believe in real life could never happen? You can make adventure happen by creating events in your life. Yes, you are master of you. I am speaking of your passions that lie dormant inside your heart. You can learn to oil paint, dance, perhaps study a new language. You can do anything you put your mind to and don't let anyone tell you differently. Adventure may conjure up thoughts of travel, seeing new places, meeting new people and eating new foods. Travel is a strong sensory adventure of new things never to be forgotten. It can beg you for more. But don't over maximize the concept of adventure. A new adventure can be as simple as going to the other Farmer'...

MYSTICISM: WHY I BELIEVE by Terri Molina

   The Latina Book Club welcomes author Terri Molina, who is guest blogging with us today about myths and superstitions, and why she adds them to her writing whenever she can. Welcome, Terri! Several years ago I was visiting my sister, Becky, in Illinois. At the time my niece was taking classes to get confirmed in the Catholic Church. As a sponsor I went with my sister to one of the classes (it was so long ago, I don’t remember the class). As an exercise in introduction, the teacher asked everyone in the class--about ten-fifteen people, to write their name--first or last-- on the whiteboard then choose a letter in our name and in five seconds come up with a word to describe us. So, I wrote my name T-E-R-R-I and under the I, I wrote intuitive. It was the first thing to pop into my head and at the time, I wasn’t even sure what it meant much less if it was true. I mean, I’ve never been the type to rush into anything. I’m not an emotional thinker, I don’t wear my heart on m...

BLOG: TALES FROM THE EAST SIDE by Diana Diaz

The Latina Book Club is pleased to welcome our Guest Blogger Diana Diaz.               Years ago, my screenwriting professor once told us that writers were unheard children. The statement struck me like a chancleta. The first in my family to attend college, like so many Latina Gen-Xerers, I was very much seen. But even sitting in the intimate, hand-picked class, I rarely felt heard. I was 18 years old for all of three weeks, fresh out of childhood, high school and the Projects that I could see from the window of the NYU library penthouse. At 18, I took professor Dickerman’s statement age-appropriately and literally. But, decades later, I began to recognize my Nuyorican heritage as largely unheard in my own birth city and almost completely unknown of outside of it. So, over the past several years, I wrote creative non-fiction memoirs of growing up on the Lower East side in the 70’s and 80’s. These stories became the basis of my new ...

TO MY FATHER, AND ALL THE MEN WHO'VE COME ALONG

The Latina Book Club welcomes Sujeiry, the First Lady of Love, to our Celebrating Men campaign. To My Father, And All The Men Who’ve Come Along By Sujeiry Gonzalez Men. I haven’t had the best track record with them. The first man in my life abandoned my family when I was only 12. He had instructed me to wait for him in my home on Trinity Street, where I lived in Lawrence, MA. Snow fell from the sky, covering the streets in white, like the blanket that cloaks newborns. An hour later, I sat by the living room window, peeking as cars plowed by slowly. His car never showed. He didn't call either. And with that, Papi vanished, not to be heard from again for another eight years. What followed were a string of failed relationships with men who were just like Papi. I know that now, but at the time I couldn't pinpoint their similarities. Inconsistency was the common thread. They also left me. Still, I celebrate men, particularly the men who have come into my life and convin...

CELEBRATING MEN: POPPA WAS A ROLLING STONE by Torrey Maldonado

The Latina Book Club is Celebrating Men this month, and we are honored to welcome author Torrey Maldonado as a Guest Blogger.  Torrey will be talking about Fathers and how their absence affects everyone.  Happy Reading, and as always, Read Latino. "Your father’s dead. He's gone." That's what my mother told me over the phone. I didn’t know how to feel. My father was absent for so much of our lives. Wasn't he already “gone” to us? Yet, here I was experiencing his real death. The kid in me suddenly wanted him back to give us what he never had: his full and fully positive presence. True to the song, my “poppa was a rolling stone.” He regularly disappeared for years and, during his absence, I didn’t know him. When he returned, my mom let him stay with us and I didn’t know him. He often disappeared into the streets, came home, and disappeared into his bedroom. From my first day of daycare to my first gray hair, he spent more time outside with guy-friends and ...

CELEBRATING MEN: LOVE WITHOUT BORDERS

   By Delaney Diamond How lucky am I that I get to participate in a month-long celebration of men! A big “Thank You” to the Latina Book Club for having me as a guest. Every day I work on stories about romance, where characters overcome obstacles to live happily ever after with the person they love. My characters are multicultural, reflective of our society. Today, more people embrace their multi-ethnic heritages and cross racial boundaries to find happiness. So far all the heroes in my interracial novels have been Latino, and they’ve been warmly embraced by readers. Latin culture is particularly appealing to me because I grew up in the Caribbean with Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Cubans. Meringue, salsa, and reggaeton bear a striking resemblance to soca, reggae-calypso, and reggae. There are similarities in food as well, and the main differences are often limited to the inclusion or exclusion of certain herbs and spices. Plátanos fritos equal fried plantains, empan...

DAY ONE: BEGINNINGS

  The Latina Book Club is pleased to introduce our Guest Blogger, author Mayra Calvani, on writing and beginnings.  Welcome, Mayra. DAY ONE:   BEGINNINGS By Mayra Calvani From the time I was about eleven, I loved writing stories. Writing fiction was my special talent, what made me stand out among my peers. Later, in my mid-teens, I seriously began picturing myself as a published author. The possibility of holding my own book in my hands and seeing it on bookshelves was a thrilling fantasy to have. I remember being asked in class what we planned to do with our lives. We were supposed to stand up and answer and, of course, I answered ‘I’m going to be an author.’ Agatha Christie was a big influence back then. I think I had read all of her novels by the time I turned fifteen. In those days, I also read a lot of Barbara Cartland and Janet Daily. I gobbled up their books and dreamed of becoming a known author just like them some day. I wrote my first n...