Harvest of Women: Safari in Mexico: The Truth about the Murder of Girls and Women in Juarez, Mexico by journalist Diana Washington Valdez. For more information: www.harvestofwomen.com and www.borderechoes.com

Eduardo interviews Rigoberto González about "Mr. Plath" and Rigoberto's new poetry collection Other Fugitives and Other Strangers -- a beautiful book! I'll post more on this work soon.

"Ruin" by Cythnia Cruz sounds like a wonderful debut poetry collection. It's in my shopping cart at amazon. Looking forward to reading it.

Women of Juárez and beyond

photo of Justicia para nuestras hijas at a march in el paso to juárez last dec.


Check out Amalia Ortiz's excellent short video/poem "Women of Juárez" (click on video link in right hand corner). If you teach, at any level, please consider sharing this video link with your classes this semester to help raise awareness about this important issue. For more information about the murders and for more about organizations that are working to help end the crimes and working with the families of victims, please visit Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez website.

Some Chicana and Latina authors who have contributed their voices to raising awareness about the murders include Alicia Gaspar de Alba in Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders, Carolina Monsivais's poem "Somewhere Between Houston and El Paso" from her poetry collection by the same name and Marjorie Agosin's Secrets in the Sand: The Young Women of Juárez. Check out these books and I know there are more to come. Some poems in Sheryl Luna's Pity the Drowned Horses and María Meléndez's How Long She'll Last in the World also help raise awareness in addition to beautiful writing throughout. Stella Pope Duarte also has a book in the works and Diana Washington Valdez wrote Harvest of Women: Safari in Mexico which I need to read soon. Cecilia Balli's article Ciudad de la muerte: ten years of murder is available here. Michelle Otero has also written about the murders, and her excellent chapbook Malinche's Daughter, while not specifically about the murders, should be on the reading list to help get the larger converstation going about sexual assault and silence in the mexican and chicana/o cultura and throughout the world.

If your school library does not have a copy of Lourdes Portillo's Señorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman, please try to suggest they order this important documentary.

Also contact Lee Rhyanes for Youth Addressing Justicia, a documentary made by the youth and Lee with ¡Aqui Se Puede! at NMSU. Lee also recorded spoken word poetry by youth on the issue and has written poems on the subject. The students' poems are available on cd and in a poetry/photo chapbook called A Realization of the Truth | A Struggle to Tell.

I'm sure there's more literature out there (and artwork!)... If you know of other poets, fiction writers, artists, journalists' work, please let me know, as I'm always on the lookout for work to share with my classes. There are many academic articles on the subject as well, which are easily found in electronic library databases for those with access. It is important to read the academic articles but I find that poems, stories, and essays are more immediate and effective in community workshops and literature classes.

It rained all day yesterday with old testament-like thunder very early this morning. This afternoon, in contrast, was sunny and gorgeous. Such a beautiful day in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Everything still feels so clean—-the air, the streets. Sunflowers growing in fields, by the roadsides, like in summer in Navajo country after monsoon rains. A truly special day. When I first arrived here a few months ago, I needed to see the river, to find it even if it was only a few miles away because the land is so flat and unlike El Paso. Today I realized that now my body naturally wants to head east--the gulf coast a continental pull. I usually want to head west or further south, but the rio flowing east towards the larger body of water compels me like a magnet these very recent days. The environment is forgiving on days like today and I want to give myself patience to learn it, that forgiveness, that openness.

Richard Hugo's "The day is a woman who loves you" was the most beautiful day for me before the actual day arrived today.

Growing up in Cali, I always gravitated furthermost west to the Pacific. Then living in Manhattan was like its own globe—-I was conscious of the Hudson and East River always, but geography beyond that was not really part of my consciousness beyond faces, young and old, on the subway. Living in Navajo country, I gravitated south to El Paso. In El Paso, I gravitated to the lower valley in Ysleta, to the roosters crowing in the west side of my brain and beyond, and to the south to Mexico. In the Rio Grande Valley, I want to ride the rio to the gulf. It’s cool to learn that a lot of the Rio Grande’s water comes from Rio Conchos via Mexico at Presidio. Just mentioning Presidio makes me think of Aristeo Brito’s El diablo en Texas / The Devil in Texas. It was a treat to hear him read a poetic chapter at the border book festival last year. Wow, that was something else. Another kind of amazing day near the river.