From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer

by Luis J. Rodriguez

Overview

Luis J. Rodriguez writes about race, culture, identity, and belonging and what these all mean and should mean (but often fail to) in the volatile climate of our nation. His passion and wisdom inspire us with the message that we must come together if we are to move forward. As he writes in the preface, “Like millions of Americans, I’m demanding a new vision, a qualitatively different direction, for this country. One for the shared well-being of everyone. One with beauty, healing, poetry, imagination, and truth.” The pieces in From Our Land to Our Land capture that same fantastic energy and wisdom and will spark conversation and inspiration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609809737
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	01/28/2020
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	936 KB

About the Author

Former poet laureate of Los Angeles (2014–2016) LUIS J. RODRIGUEZ is the author of fifteen works of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, and children’s literature, including Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times and the acclaimed best seller Always Running. His most recent memoir, It Calls You Back, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2011. He is the recipient of the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers Award, a Lannan Foundation Poetry Fellowship, a Carl Sandburg Book Award, the PEN Josephine Miles Literary Award, and more. A script consultant for the FX drama Snowfall, he founded Barking Rooster Entertainment, a production company for original content for film, TV, and web. Thirty years ago he founded the well-respected Tia Chucha Press, which publishes mostly poetry collections, and he is co-founder of Tia Chucha’s Cultural Center & Bookstore in LA’s San Fernando Valley. In addition to traveling extensively, he teaches every week at two maximum-security yards at Lancaster State Prison. He was the Green Party’s candidate for governor of California in 2014. He lives in the San Fernando Valley with his wife, Trini, and his children, Ramiro, Andrea, Ruben, and Chito.
www.luisjrodriguez.com.

Table of Contents

A Note on Terminology xi

Preface: Another World Is Possible xiii

The End of Belonging 1

The Four Key Connections 15

Nemachtilli: The Spirit of Learning, the Spirit of Teaching 35

Constant State of Pregnancy 45

Poet Laureate? Poet Illiterate? What? 55

I Still Love H.E.R. 65

"Low and Slow" in Tokyo 81

Prickly Pear Cactus: Experiencing Los Angeles with Other Eyes 101

Monsters of Our Own Making 117

Men's Tears 147

Dancing the Race and Identity Mambo 159

The Story of Our Day 171

Acknowledgments 195

Credits 197

Editorial Reviews

"Luis Rodríguez is a poet prophet for our times."
—Sandra Cisneros, author of A House of My Own: Stories From My Life

"Powerful from start to finish, Rodriguez's book celebrates Xicanx culture and wisdom while calling for much-needed global healing. A thoughtful and radically provocative collection."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Former Los Angeles Poet Laureate, Luis J. Rodriguez reflects on a lifetime of experiences, wisdom and healing, illuminating the intersections of the personal, spiritual, and historical. His is the 'story of the ‘other’ Los Angeles,' a love song to the city, Xicanx culture, its influence around the world, and the spirit of revolution full of risk, but also one full of triumph. He says 'this is not about avoiding trouble, it’s about getting into the right kind of trouble.' A poet at heart, Rodriguez rightly claims that 'as long as the world needs changing, we’ll need poetry.' There is still much left to change and the captivating work contained here is a testament to the possibilities of our will to make a difference." 
—Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of Children of the Land

"In a climate fraught with division and increased in-fighting amidst the tension, From Our Land to Our Land is a welcome and generous call to recognize the myriad gifts peoples across the world have contributed to our present and celebrate that which we share in order to imagine where we as a society go from here. Tracing connections between language, cultures, and how one chooses to identify, whether Native or non-Native, to current social, environmental, and political concerns, Luis J. Rodriguez reminds us there are healers still at work in this world, and yes, poets walk among them." 
—Abigail Chabitnoy, author of How to Dress a Fish

From the Publisher

2019-11-25
A distinguished Mexican American writer meditates on the place of Xicanx culture in what he sees as a sick and increasingly fragmented global society.

Reacting in part to the political upheaval and chaos that have characterized the last decade, Rodriguez (Borrowed Bones: New Poems From the Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, 2016, etc.) offers 12 essays that reflect on the meaning of identity while offering a vision of a more humane world. In "The End of Belonging," the author responds to Donald Trump's anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican rhetoric by celebrating his Native American ancestry, which predated the European conquest of the Americas. As the descendent of Indigenous people, he sees himself as a child of the Earth who transcends the fabricated boundaries of nation. "I belong anywhere," he writes. To counterbalance what he sees as the disease of capitalism brought to the Americas, Rodriguez advocates for a new "mythic imagination" in the essay titled "The Four Key Connections." Through myths, people can find "sustenance for mind and soul." Poetry is another avenue of healing the author believes society should explore. In "Poet Laureate? Poet Illiterate? What?" he discusses poetry as "medicine" that can not only "impact [but] change this world." Throughout the book, Rodriguez speaks about Xicanx cultural achievements with pride. In "I Still Love H.E.R," he discusses the Xicanx-hip-hop connection and the influence of that connection on recording artists around the world. In "Low & Slow in Tokyo" he describes the impact of Xicanx popular culture on anti-establishment Japanese youth. In speaking about himself, Rodriguez is, as always, honest and forthright. In "Men's Tears," he speaks openly about his violent gang past and the lesson he eventually learned that "men should cry more, connect more, feel more." "The Story of Our Day" details the author's unsuccessful but impactful 2014 Green Party bid for California governor, a campaign that emphasized nothing short of revolutionary change. Powerful from start to finish, Rodriguez's book celebrates Xicanx culture and wisdom while calling for much-needed global healing.

A thoughtful and radically provocative collection.

Kirkus Reviews