June 21, 1987-San Antonio Express-News
MAGIC AT CORE OF BIG APPLE
There is magic in cities, especially in those cities which project an image larger than life.
New York is such a magical city, and during a national conference from the 5th to the 7th of June, it was my good fortune to bump into a friend I hadn't seen in quite a few years. It was in the office of the Refuse and Resist National Conference that I met Gloria Anzaldúa, a poet, writer, educator and friend. We attended the conference at City College on the fringes of harlem. She was staying at Hastings Hall of the Union Theological Seminary while I roomed at McGiffert Hall. We walked those New Amsterdam streets to City College in the mornings, taking in the hustle and bustle of this nation's greatest and most monumental city.
CHICANO LITERATURE
Her focus was on literature, Chicano literatuRe to be specific, while I marveled at the onrush of words and excited ideas she bombarded me with. Anzaldúa has tenacity and strength, and her sense of the world is on target. Her words speak to a migrant farmworker background, as well as to years of struggle in academia.
Hers is a poética of cultural intellecting, for her stated goals are more than the creation of literary configurations.
There is a purpose to what she writes, and it is a poignant and penetrating look at the world of the Chicana, especially the lesbian Chicana struggling with all the institutional racism of a xenophobic mainstream.
It was natural to empathize with her words, for there is an affirmation of life within her notions. Against the backdrop of the conference and the mean streets of the Big Apple, it was fairly easy to understand the isolation facedby those who are different, of those whose way of life is both passion and pain.
NEW BOOK COMING
She showed me the galleys of her new book - "Borderlands/La Frontera" - due out in a few weeks from Spinsters/Aunt Lute Publishers, Box 410687, San Francisco, Calif., 94141, $9.95. It is a collection of essays, creative prose, and poetry. It is a complex book which raises questions while daring to look deeply at the human condition as it confronts Chicanas.
I read a few pages here and there, but did not get into the book much, because there were too many things to do at the conference. Fortunately, Anzaldúa promised to send me a review copy in a few weeks, and I will definetly relish the book.
There is a definte need for in-depth literature by Chicanas, for works which are challenging and probing - and "Borderlands" appeared to be such a work. Other questions posed by Gloria stayed with me as the conference ended and I took off to enjoy the city on my own.
NEW YORK MAGIC
Harlem jazz clubs provided ambiance on a late Saturday night, while Sunday evening and very late night gave me a sense of the magic which New York has historically woven into the basic fabric of U.S. culture. I had called Miguel Algarín and he invited me to Queens, to a penthouse apartment where his sister lives overlooking Yankee Stadium.
We sat outside sharing a drink and a lot of conversation about the arts. Miguel peppered his talk with visions of the reopening of a bigger Nuyorican Poets'Cafe in the fall. Irma Algarín, his sister, is a studv of musicality, for she loves to play salsa, boleros and other latino sounds continuously while moving sensually to sound ... a fluidity of movement and expression.
Below and directly across from us loomed the stadium, home of legendary baseball greats, fount of childhood dreams and aspirations for countless legions of boys the world over.
The cityscapes loomed in the misty drizzle, lending a mystic quality to the night.
LITERARY INTERVENTION
Salsa music resonated, congas reverberated, and Miguel was poetic as he talked about the many years of literary intervention with Chicanos and other ethnic writers. It was heady talk, incisive talk. The promise was there, and so was the premise: art in struggle about people who dare to dream and create in celebration of one's existence and culture' I left the penthouse, hailed a cab and arrived at McGiffert, only to feel too restive to sleep. The only solution was to take a long stroll down Broadway to Columbia University and look for a coffee shop and while away some time.
The time spent in dialogue with Miguel, Gloria and others spoke to human dramas of isolation, pain and struggle. Positive notes of willful courage undergirded their words. The nocturnal silence of Columbia reminded me of passages from Lorca's "Poeta en Nueva York." It was a moment of reposing, of enjoying the solitude of the night in an exciting and overpowering cultural machine.
The whirring of nearby trains hurting humanity on its way upon the El seemed to be pleasing as I sipped coffee and felt at one with the wonder of a monumental expression of human will and creativity.
MAJESTY IN DREAMS
There is a majesty to the dreams we sculpt from the earth, whether we are seekng solutions to social or historic problems like racism and exploitation of the struggle to conjute up spatial and structural environments. The passion of poets like Anzaldúa and Algarín is the passion which has fueled countless artisans and builders to dare to create skyscrapers which boggle one's mind in cities like New York, México, Paris, London, San Francisco, Amsterdam and many other habitable monuments to our quests for greatness.
My stay was over for the moment, for within a week and a half will I be back to New York on my way to another great North American city: Montreal. I feel grateful to life that I am able to travel ... gracias, vida!