Tales From Colonia Popular
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.52 (638 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1891386190 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 100 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-09-06 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"Astounding Realism and Compelling Reading" according to Gregory Alan Norton. Reading Tales From Colonia Popular is an astonishing experience. Billed as fiction, I doubt that anyone will read anything nearly as realistic in the non-fiction genre. These are brief stories of Mexican working class people who struggle to survive along the border with the United States. Without fanfare or sentimentality their everyday battles with the frontier and poverty are etched in our minds and hearts. This book would make a great text book for high school or
from "Only Chiapas? (1995)", a poem by the author I have seen the best minds of five generations destroyed by poverty struggling naked moaning sobbing howling in despair Who dragged themselves through dusty streets at dawn searched for a way to survive laborers for others . They also tell stories of men who live in the colonia, including a former garbage picker, a drywaller who longs to give his family more than their income can provide, and a young man who was a coyote's helper when he was a child. They are meant to depict the struggles of the poor in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. They tell the stories of women who live in the colonia, including a woman who received Special Agricultural Workers' amnesty for working in the fields in the Imperial Valley and Salinas, a woman who was the colonia's president, and a woman who works in the maquiladora plants. Some to invade unused lands to form squatter settlements shanty towns colonias paracaidistas colonias perdidas colonias populares to build shacks of tarpaulin scrapwood cardboard crushed aluminum cans trashed by Budweiser and Cola Cola drinkers to tap the holes against the rain. Who then joined their urban cousins some to live on lonely brickyards no electricity no fans no refrigerators no running water . Creative non-fiction or fiction, Tales from Colonia Popular seeks to describe the lives of people the author met in a squatter settlement in Mexicali, where she