Poet Lorna Dee Cervantes needs a home to live and work!

In her own words...

In the Fall of 2007 I resigned from my 19 year tenured position at CU Boulder as Associate Professor of English in order to return to San Francisco following the death of my father, the artist Luis Cervantes, in on order to help out with the family community arts business, Precita Eyes Muralists Center in The Mission District and found the Mission Poetry Center near where I was born and my father lived. I had divorced and we planned to sell our house. Go this website to help

Then the economy tanked, hitting California higher education hard. Jobs for me at UC Berkeley and Santa Cruz were affected by the hiring freeze and I was soon laid off from my adjunct teaching job at SFSU in Ethnic Studies.

I resigned from my position in order to cash in what I could of my retirement to buy a prefab house on a mobile home lot in Pacifica. It seemed like the ideal retirement/housing solution and the only affordable option for myself and my adolescent son in the Bay Area. In a case yet to be litigated, I lost the house to the lot owners and their lawyer who were pressuring me to sell to them and forcibly evicted during the school year.

I am now essentially homeless, but staying with a good friend in a tiny 1 bedroom in Berkeley while storing my stuff in 3 locations not including Boulder where my son, now 18 lives and attends high school without me. I need just enough cash to tide me over until next Fall when I'm sure I'll be teaching again at my level. (I don't use or have credit cards.) I need first and last month's rent plus deposit and moving expenses as I don't drive which makes it much harder and more expense for me without a place and spread out across the Bay. Any donation you can spare at this time will be noted and repaid in some way or another when I am able.

I really need a place to work and most importantly to organize my files: a home. It has been difficult to work and apply for teaching jobs or even keep up my reading schedule and I have lost jobs reading my poetry as I've been without internet access or phone service in order to return contracts and forms; even my calendar and agenda book is locked up in a storage unit I haven't had access to yet.

So any help you can give will be much appreciated in this dire time. I feel place-poor but poetry-rich, and as soon as I can set up my printers and scanners and computers I can share some of my many writing and other projects with you. For over a dozen years I was a publisher/editor/printer of an independent press, MANGO Publications and published the first work of many of the Chicana/o, Latina/o and other writers of color and "experience" such as Sandra Cisneros, Alberto Rios, Jimmy Santiago Baca, James Brown, Ray Gonzalez, Ana Castillo, Luis Urrea, Sherman Alexie and others: all with the clause "All rights revert back to author upon publication."

Please help pass this page around and email this url to friends of yours and mine who may be able to help. I know many people teach and have taught my work. The sooner I have a place to work again, the sooner I'll have work to sell. I have a new book of poetry due from Wings Press next Spring, SUEÑO: 30-Something Of The Cruelest and I've been finishing a young adult book set in The Mission as well as my novel and two screenplays. I also have several other poetry manuscripts and non-fiction projects.

If you know me, you know I'm private and proud, and I don't ask for favors or money. Now I am asking. Maybe you or someone you know has a sublet or housesit situation in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose, preferably for a year or more; that would help a lot! I'm counting every nickle to pay my phone and storage.

Sincerely,

Lorna Dee Cervantes
Poet, Professor, Philosopher, Publisher, Editor, Printer

http://www.pleasefund.com/pages/5743

Chica Chic: The New Wave of Chicana Art

ChicaChic: The New Wave of Chicana Art // Interview with Curator Raquel De Anda from New America Media on Vimeo.

ChicaChic, an art exhibit showcasing the work of five prominent Chicana visual artists is open through March 18, 2011 at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

"ChicaChic includes images that honor the concepts, themes, and iconography of the Chicano civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s but reflect a world that is drastically changed,” says Deirdre Visser, arts curator at CIIS. “These women were raised in a different era, and ask different questions” added Visser.

The works in the show include a large canvas by Ana Teresa Fernandez depicting a woman “washing” the beach at the U.S.-Mexican border with her hair; a striking image that demands both that we engage with the current debates over immigration, and the politics of women and labor.

In addition to Fernandez, ChicaChic features the work of Angelica Muro, Mitsy Ávila Ovalles, Favianna Rodriguez, and Shizu Saldamando. The work of these five artists varies greatly, but they all are responding visually to the shifting needs of their communities in novel ways. The exhibit is guest-curated by Raquel de Anda, formerly of Galería de la Raza in San Francisco.

“ChicaChic is about stepping beyond the boundaries of identity, challenging stereotypes about what it means to be Chicana,” says de Anda. “It’s about the fluidity of identity and the need for new kinds of images in a fast-paced, media-saturated society.”

The exhibit is the culmination of years of planning. As Dorotea Reyna, CIIS Director of Development describes it, “ChicaChic is also a way to represent who we are at CIIS. With a ethnically diverse student body, CIIS feels that ChicaChic is an ideal exhibition to highlight our diversity, expand our arts programming, and further project our voice into Bay Area Latino communities.”

An intergenerational panel will discuss the art exhibit on Saturday, March 12, at 6:00PM at the CIIS Minna Street Center. For more information about the event or CIIS programs, visitwww.ciis.edu.

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Seis Poetas / Six Latino Poets 2 of 3 - 1976

Some old friends do the poetry thing at KQED TV back in 1976. Daniel del Solar is the director... the man. Yes, there are three parts. Go to YouTube to see the rest.

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Humberto Montes de Oca To Speak In San Jose On Mexican Labor Lockout

Bay Area Tour of Humberto Montes de Oca
Interior Secretary, Mexican Electrical workers Union (SME)
January 18-28, 2010

Forty-four thousand electrical workers in central Mexico have been locked out of their jobs since October 10, 2009, when the government of President Felipe Calderon, who was imposed by fraud in the July 2006 election, closed the public utility company Luz y Fuerza del Centro with the aim of privatizing this nationalized corporation and destroying the powerful and militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union (Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas, or SME).

Learn first hand from one of the central leaders of this union, Humberto Montes de Oca, about this struggle which is being waged by these energy industry workers and their union - with the support of hundreds of thousands of others who have taken to the streets for more than three months to protest the firings at Luz Y Fuerza and the attack on the SME union.

Learn about the history of SME and how it has spearheaded the movement across Mexico against NAFTA, privatization, and the entire predatory corporate agenda. And learn what we can do to help these workers in their struggle -- which, in many ways, is our fight too.

The ten-day tour is sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, supported by the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, Santa Clara County Building Trades Council, Plumbers & Fitters Local 393, UFCW 5, many other unions and councils, MAIZ Movimiento de Accion Inspirando Servicio and many other community organizations.

In San Jose, Humberto Montes de Oca will appear at the Labor Temple, 2102 Almaden Road (corner of Canoas Garden Road), Tuesday, January 26, 7:00-8:30 P.M.
Performances by vocalist, Tema Quinonez and poet, Agustin Palacios
Refreshments provided For information about the San Jose event call 408/250-9245 or 408/831-1394.

To learn more about the tour and where Humberto Montes de Oca will be appearing at public forums, organizational meetings and fundraisers, please call 415/513-5393.

To offer immediate solidarity with both the tour and the struggle of the energy workers in SME, write your check to the San Francisco Labor Council (SME Organizing Tour) 1188 Franklin St., San Francisco, 94109-6852. For more information call 415/513-5393

Article courtesy of Fred Hirsch fredhirsch@cruzio.com

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