mexican american

Rubén Martínez discusses being at an impasse in writing, what he describes as surgimiento in Spanish, or emergence. His talk touches on his personal experience and writing, as well as work by other writers and artists.

Cherríe Moraga reads excerpts from her memoir Native Country of the Heart (2019).

Luis Alberto Urrea reads poems from The Tijuana Book of the Dead (2015) focused on life in the US-Mexico borderlands. He opens with one poem forthcoming in Piedra (2023) and concludes with a chapter from The House of Broken Angels (2019), retold from memory. This reading was presented as part of the 2021 Tucson Humanities Festival.

Manuel Muñoz reads an excerpt from his short story collection The Consequences (2022), which centers on Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers around Fresno, California. This reading was given alongside Ander Monson and Bojan Louis as part of the Distinguished Visitors in Creative Writing Series. 

Anthony Cody reads from his collection Borderland Apocrypha (2020), which comprises of visual, research-based poems centered on citizenship, the history of racial violence against Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the American West, and ecopoetics. Cody also shares an original video piece paired with an uncollected poem, as well as a translation of a Juan Felipe Herrera poem that invites audience participation. This reading was originally given alongside Mai Der Vang.