Dedicatoria Chicana/Chicano Dedication, by Francisco X. Alarcón

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Francisco Xavier Alarcón was born in 1954 in Wilmington, Los Angeles, but spent most of his childhood in Guadalajara, Mexico. Returning to L.A. as a young adult, he attended Adult School and East Los Angeles City College before transferring to California State University, Long Beach, where he graduated with a B.A. in Spanish and History in 1977. Alarcón went on to earn a Master’s Degree from Stanford University in the 1980s, during which his life also became ensnarled in racial profiling at the hands of the San Francisco Police Department based on false charges that he was eventually cleared of. In 1992, Alarcón joined the team at UC Davis (which is also yours truly’s alma mater!) to direct the Spanish for Native Speakers program. A prolific poet and advocate for the arts, Alarcón published more than 20 books before passing away in 2016 at the age of 61. He is survived by his husband, Javier Pinzón, whom he married in California in 2008. I first encountered Alarcón’s poetry at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central branch.

J.T.

Brothers

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Used to be inseparable. Just two kids from two cities along campus ground together.

Used to philosophize and riddle and debate as if no issue in our midst couldn’t diffuse.

Used to reflect on our classes together. Mutual friends. Romances. Foreign policy. No end.

Broke down habits. Responses to each other. Prism of our minds. That’s what homies were.

What being alive was.

I remember our deliberations on these grounds together:

Maximum profit by maximum strain,

Watching it unfurl across the world around us in lanes.

Student debt. Police. Prison policy.

Fast food. Oldies. Air in our pockets.

Worn out rooms another night. And yet, the unity.

Except I never would have expected walls to build around us as they did,

Somewhere along the way the strain got the best of us.

Perhaps the best of me,

Perhaps the best of you.

Now memory flutters wailing past Los Angeles,

Slave patrol still hovering.

People still coughing up on the sidewalk

While still more profits margin.

Turning the corner,

A brother hobbling along the street asks if I know

Where he can find a pookie,

“Nah’.”

It’s been ten summers since we first spoke the rage.

Before another ten go by, I hope to find you again

If only to break free from this rift with you.

One between two

J.T.

The official flyer for the first ever Los Cuentos Summer Book Club

Did you hear? Our meeting for the first ever Los Cuentos Summer Book Club was LIT

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Our first meeting for the Los Cuentos Book Club this past Wednesday was a success, with 9 attendants, predominantly muxeres, from places like East & South Los Angeles, and even San Bernardino. Our discussion for LA SIGUANABA and The Magical Loroco was over an hour long, serving as an “online venue” for community engagement with literature made just for them.

Our club now just needs a small push or ‘jale’ to cover the cost of our books, which we’ve handed free of charge to each of our participants in an effort to be inclusive, and which we’ve purchased directly from the author in order to continue shopping from & supporting local artists in Los Angeles. As always, any donation or sharing the campaign with a friend will be of great support, and we can assure you to make it go a long, long way!

Our Book Club will hold its second meeting next Wednesday, July 22nd, and did you hear? Every supporter of our club is more than welcome to attend. To donate, you can find our fundraiser HERE.

J.T.

Get Literary, Los Angeles

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On a mission to spread literacy like a Santa Ana wind in East Hollywood, Los Angeles


Following another lightning round of work at the shop for the day, it should have been just another chill bike ride home. But a force came over me as I decided it was time to give something else a try.

Just as I was about to make the swerve onto the ole block, I decided to keep going in a stroll through la vecindad. I’d gotten an idea. When I came across intersections through the neighborhood where I could find an outpost for the free literature, I stopped, took off my backpack, searched through the folder inside which contained a couple of prints, then grabbed the prints, took them out and dropped them into the boxes. I did this at nine (9) intersections throughout the neighborhood, and the results led to printed copies of JIMBO TIMES’s Los Angeles Students at the following cross-streets:

Virgil and Normal (1 Post: 2 copies)
Virgil and Monroe (1 Post: 2 copies)
Virgil and Clinton (1 Post: 2 copies)
Vermont and Clinton (1 Post: 2 copies)

Melrose and Vermont (3 Posts: 6 copies)
Vermont and Normal (2 Posts: 6 copies)
Vermont and Santa Monica (3 Posts: 6 copies)
Virgil and Santa Monica (1 Post: 2 copies)

Virgil and Lockwood – (1 Post & The Mini-Library: 2 & 2 -3 copies)

Halfway into making these ’rounds,’ I realized something. It was a job. A job that used to exist in days before I came onto the scene, when the world was a slightly more literary place. Or at least before all of it became digitized, relinquishing the power of the print into the depths of the past.

Rather than dropping off copies of the New York or L.A. Times, however, I dropped off copies of these JIMBO TIMES. That’s when something else hit me: I want to make more of these rounds for The L.A. Storyteller, one day, with my very own newspaper for the block!

I imagine the path towards such a dream is probably quite long, but then, how could I not give it a shot? During all these years blogging, the power of the written word has only grown on me, convincing me once and for all that reading and writing are mediums by which a people or pueblo can become aware of their environment in ways that are invaluable to them.

And even if Los Angeles never quite had much of a literary Intellegentsia, as Mike Davis has noted, the past doesn’t represent a world we’re confined to forever, but a possibility incumbent on those of us present to uplift for different worlds in the future.

We’ve got to do it, then, don’t we, Los Angeles? As with all things, one step at a time. We’re not afraid of a challenge when we know it’s in our veins to take it on. Indeed, that’s why we’re here.

Let’s make it happen, Los Angeles. Let’s get literary.

J.T.