Monday, November 29, 2010

Chuy Ramirez guest author at Barnes & Noble Dec. 4th, 2010 2pm

Immediate Release


December 4th, 2010


Strawberry Fields, A book of short stories


(McAllen, TEXAS) –This December, Barnes and Noble will be feature a book signing for author, Chuy Ramirez. The event will take place on Saturday December 4th, 2010 at 2:00pm. Come in and get your book singed! Barnes and Noble is located at 4005 N. 10th Street in McAllen (Northcross Shopping Center).

“Strawberry Fields tells the tales of three generations of a Mexican family as they make their way from Northern Mexico to South Texas,” says Ramirez. The book is written like a novel but readers can read chapters as independent vignettes. The book is also a murder mystery. Most of the focus, though, is on that period in the 1960s when the “baby boomers” begin to come of age. Strawberry Fields is symbolic of both the strawberry fields in Michigan at which farm workers labored to improve their lot, as well as an abstract place that represents the dreams and ambitions of a young Joaquin, the protagonist.

Ramirez grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, attended Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. He practices law in McAllen and Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work.

For reviews of the book and more information on the author, or to purchase Strawberry Fields,visit www.firsttexaspublishers.com or www.strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com

or for more information call 210-394-1254. The book is available at Barnes and Noble in Kindle format, hardcover, and paperback at www.amazon.com.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010



Author, Chuy Ramirez and Fan, Octavia Sotelo at the LA Latino Book Festival
 









On October 9th and 10th, Author, Chuy Ramirez experienced The Latino Family Book Festival for the first time. The author participation was versatile and the author panels spanned both days Saturday and Sunday all day.

Authors came from various locations, though most authors were from California, some traveled from Texas, and some came farther still as far as Chile to be part of this literary event.

Chuy Ramirez participated as a panelist on Sunday October 10th, 2010 at 12:00pm. The subject matter-Beginning, Middle, and End: The Art of the Short Story, was covered during this time. The panel featured several authors discussing their craft with a short Q&A from the audience.

The dinner Saturday evening went on without a hitch as actor, Edward James Olmos presented several honors to authors submitting literary works published in 2009. The event was a learning experience and offered a great opportunity to meet other authors and artists with the same passion Chuy possess for culture, art, literature, and the love of reading.

We'd like to thank all authors, fans, and friends for your support and interest.

For more information keep reading! Chuy may be in your area for a book signing soon!
Authors: Mauel Ramos and Chuy Ramirez


Authors: Dr. Thelma T. Reyna, California, and Chuy Ramirez, Texas
http://latinowriterstoday.blogspot.com/


Wednesday, September 22, 2010

New York Latino Book Club Blogger Highlights Latino/a Authors



Hailing form New York, Maria Ferrer is on a quest to promote Latino authors and literacy through The Latina Book Club. She established the Club in 2005, where members met monthly to discuss Latino books. In 2009, The Latina Book Club went online. The website features author interviews, chats with editors, book reviews, giveaways and the first ever National Directory of Latino Book Clubs. Please visit The Latina Book Club at http://www.latinabookclub.com/ and follow on Twitter.

Maria can be reached at latinabookclub@aol.com.

The Latina Book Club
http://www.latinabookclub.com/
Top 100 Latina Blogs
A Latina Blogger
NuncaSola

Chuy Ramirez and First Texas Publishers would like to thank Maria Ferrer for her support and interview!
Thank you so much!

Mayra Calvani, Author and Interviewer


Mayra Calvani is an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction for children and adults. She's had over 300 reviews, interviews, articles and stories published online and in print. Her work, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, was a ForeWord Best Book of the Year Award winner. She reviews for The New York Journal of Books and SimplyCharly.com and is the National Latino Books Examiner for Examiner.com.
Visit her website at http://www.mayracalvani.com/.

For her children's books, go to http://www.mayrassecretbookcase.com/.

Chuy Ramirez and First Texas Publishers would like to thank Mayra for her support! It is imperative for all authors and artists to support one another.

Thank you so much Mayra!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Dr. Thelma Reyna, Author of "The Heavens Weep for Us & Other Stories" reviews Strawberry Fields

Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D.


Dr. Reyna writes, "A native of Texas, I've lived in California most of my adult life. I received my first two college degrees (English major) in Texas, a second Master's in California, and my Ph.D. from U.C.L.A. I currently teach at California State University, Los Angeles, in the College of Graduate Education. My short stories, poems, essays and other nonfiction have been published locally and nationally, and I have edited others' published works. As owner of The Writing Pros (www.TheWritingPros.com), I work one-on-one with writers on various projects as personal coach and editor. My first book, titled "The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories," was published in September 2009 and is available through your favorite bookstore or at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Read a sample from it and reviews of it on my author website at ThelmaReyna.com. In addition, I write the blog, "American Latina/o Writers Today" and am also a guest blogger on Aurelia Flores' blog, "Powerful Latinas."
 
Chuy Ramirez thanks Dr. Reyna for her recent review of Strawberry Fields.
*********************

CHUY RAMIREZ, a Texas attorney and emerging Latino writer, devoted 10 years writing part-time to create his debut novel, Strawberry Fields (First Texas Publishers, 2010). What he has as a reward for his decade of effort is a marvelous, engaging, poignant book that strongly heralds him as a writer to watch.

Ramirez centers his book on Joaquin, who is the anthithesis of another Joaquin of Latino literary fame, the Joaquin in Chicano pioneer author Corky Gonzalez’ epic poem, “I Am Joaquin/Yo Soy Joaquin” (1964). Whereas the latter Joaquin railed against the oppression of Chicanos by Anglos and asserted his Mexican ethnic pride, Ramirez’ Joaquin, an American-born child of the 1960’s, feels strong ambivalence about his Mexican heritage. Strawberry Fields is as much an examination of a bi-cultural person’s inner struggles regarding ancestral and adopted homelands as it is of this particular character’s coming of age in America.

The book covers several decades of Joaquin’s life. We see him as a young boy trying to navigate the temptations and mischiefs of childhood under his mother Manda’s caring, watchful eyes and his father’s stern stare. We see him as an adolescent with years of experience under his belt as a migrant farm worker, traveling with his mother and siblings in caravans of trucks through the Midwest and other states with crops to harvest. We see him in adulthood as a successful attorney in Texas, his home state, haunted by recurring dreams connected to his adolescence and the strawberry fields of Decatur, Illinois. These fields thus become symbolic on many levels: symbolic of Joaquin’s family struggles with poverty and his disaffection with his lot in life; symbolic of the carefree childhood moments he salvaged in the migrant camps when he and his brother could savor moments of freedom and exploration; symbolic of his eventual rejection of his cultural roots and thus, of his father.

Throughout Joaquin’s life, his father, Benancio, looms as a figure that puzzles him, chastises him, and stirs elemental struggles between them involving love and hate, and culture clashes that cut to the bone. Benancio is a proud Mexican, his hubris and stubbornness turning him into a disapproving parent who beats his children for mild transgressions, who calls them derogatory names, and who can never be pleased. As a major antagonist in the book, Benancio represents to his sons the backwardness of a country and a culture they cannot embrace, as their father wants them to do. Their rejection of his culture, of his beloved Mexico, is ultimately their rejection of him, from which the unflinching Benancio can never recover, and for which he can never forgive them. He abandons his family, leaving them to wonder for most of their lives where he went and why he couldn’t love them.

Besides his father, the key figures in Joaquin’s life are his mother Manda and his two siblings: Bennie, his younger brother; and his sister, who is simply called “Sis” in the book. Manda is a strong, patient woman born in America but closely attached to immigrants through her family’s business. She is attracted to the tall, taciturn, handsome Benancio, whom she meets while at work one day and eventually decides to marry. Despite her children’s conflicts with their father, and his seeming lack of tenderness toward her, Manda is devoted to Benancio, even after he abandons his family. As the matriarchal touchstone, Manda is defined by the extreme sacrifices she makes for her children in the name of progress, their progress, their future. Her gentleness and understanding are but an undertone throughout the book; but toward the end, we realize the extent of her sacrifices for her beloved family.

Bennie, who is very close to Joaquin, grows up to become a school principal, a man with a vivid memory that serves as Joaquin’s link to his past. The studious Sis, sheltered from the hardships of the migrant life once she reaches adolescence, is largely in the background but serves as a stabilizing voice of reason and neutrality. She becomes a teacher and, in her adulthood, reminisces with her brothers about their father’s whereabouts and their checkered family history.

The book shifts continually between the present and the past, taking us from Joaquin’s struggles as an adult, to those of his childhood, to those he survived as a teenager, and so on in loops and flashbacks that keep the book non-linear throughout. Dreams and nightmares are strategically interwoven into key interludes, so that the reader’s curiosity is piqued, and the pace of the narrative is kept brisk and exhilarating. As the book marches toward its climax, the chapters are even more non-linear, with scenes alternating between the past and present more rapidly as Joaquin gains clarity and insights about his experiences in the strawberry fields and about his identity as a man and as a son.

A compelling sub-plot involves a beautiful, blonde girl of mixed heritage named Belinda who, early in the book, has disappeared. She then is absent for a good portion of the book until the adolescent Joaquin and his family are preparing to travel to the Midwest for harvesting. Joaquin sees her from a distance in one of the migrant workers’ groups and develops a crush on her, but his memory of her fades with time. We catch glimpses of Belinda throughout the book, but these are surrealistic scenes, chopped up and fuzzy, as incomplete memories can appear to be in reality. When the adult Joaquin is haunted by dreams of Belinda, which depict her with bloody wounds and missing eyes, he fears that he is somehow connected to her disappearance, and this may be why his mind has blocked out recollections of her.

But this is another piece of the puzzle that Joaquin must solve. Belinda’s fate, on a subconscious level, is another reason that the adult Joaquin journeys from his home in Texas to the strawberry fields of Illinois, to revisit them, to seek something that even he is unaware of. In the final chapters of the book, with the strawberry fields drastically changed 30 years after he worked them, and the migrant workers’ camp by the fields totally gone, Joaquin can only rely on his faint memories, his emotions, his dreams, and the present scenes that repel him to derive meaning from his experiences. What happened to Belinda? Why did his father abandon him? Two burning questions—distinct from one another but critical to understanding who he, Joaquin, is—come together upon his revisitation of the strawberry fields. In a climactic epiphany, Joaquin discovers the answers to both questions.

The author’s language in these final scenes and throughout the most critical scenes is poignantly vivid and sometimes heart-rending. Ramirez is deft with his descriptiveness, particularly in the second half of the book. In describing the Michigan of the 1960’s, for example, the first time Joaquin’s family migrated there to harvest crops, Ramirez writes:

...where life seemed almost perfect among the solitude of a spacious rural America, where topsoil was measured in feet and little boys dreamed of playing high school basketball and little girls dreamed of becoming homecoming queens....a land inhabited by fattening cattle and red barns and grain elevators, and uniquely confident, stoic men...whose canvases were the sky and the open spaces on which they never tired of creating green and lush symmetry (p. 218).

It is as if Ramirez warms up exponentially as the book unwraps and reveals its treasures to us. One wonders if the beginning parts were those writtten by Ramirez at the start of his decade of birthing this book. One wonders if the latter chapters indeed came later in the decade; and, if so, the beauty of the language, the depth of the insights in the final chapters, the power of Joaquin’s catharsis are rightfully the end products of much labor...not lost, as Shakespeare wrote, but of labors reaching their fruitful, magnificent conclusion.

Ramirez calls his work “a book of Short Stories.” If these are indeed stories (rather than chapters of a novel), then they can be said to employ intertextuality, or the literary technique of repeating characters and places from one story to another. This technique marked pioneer Chicana author, Estella Portillo de Trambley’s, short stories in her classic book, Rain of Scorpions and Other Stories (Bilingual Press, Revised Edition, 1993), as scholars Vernon E. Lattin and Patricia Hopkins described in their Introduction to that edition.

The technique was successful for Trambley’s purposes and won her admiration for her work. Similarly, Ramirez has woven his separate “stories” into a loosely-unified book, a hybrid novel to some, but clearly a tapestry of humanity that we can all relate to and embrace.______________________________________________To learn more about Chuy Ramirez' book, go to http://www.firsttexaspublishers.com/
or http://www.strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com/

Once Again......Thank you Thelma......for your insight....

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Chuy Ramirez descends on Longhorn Country "A Guest Speaker to CHLSA-Chicano and Hispanic Law Student Association"

First Texas Publishers

Immediate Release

(Austin, Texas) UT Law School – Ex, Chuy Ramirez will address the Chicano and Hispanic Law Students’ Association at UT Law School on Monday, September the 27th, at 11:30am at Townes Hall Room Number 3.125. Author will be signing books following the event.

Ramirez’s topic will be Counsel to the Corporate Entity, A Lot of Law and a Little Bit of Politics. He will also be reading brief excerpts from his book, Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories, published earlier in the year by First Texas Publishers. A Class of 83’ UT law school grad, Chuy Ramirez, served as Articles Editor for the International Law Journal. He published a note entitled, “Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border, Vol. 18 in 1983. In law school, Ramirez was an active participant in the Chicano Law Students Association, served as a director on the Legal Research Board, was invited to join the Criminal Law Journal, and initiated the publication of Rio Rojo newsletter, a student publication. He was also a semi-finalist in the Johnson –Swanson Mock trial competition.

Ramirez’ address will focus on the attorney’s ethical standards in representing both public governmental bodies and corporations. Currently, Ramirez’ practice focuses on commercial transactions and public finance. As a bond attorney, he has represented many governmental units in South Texas in connection with their issuance of tax-exempt bonds. He is currently corporate legal counsel for a local south Texas bank, a Texas national bank with branches throughout South Texas and in San Antonio.

Recent reviews of Ramirez’ book highlight Ramirez’s unique style and sensibility through the eyes of the adolescent main character, a successful attorney who reflects on his past through a reflexive journey. Boston University professor, Dr. John Hart, writes, “Strawberry Fields is a beautifully written, well-told tale of remembrance, reflection, and renewal. Strawberry Fields is a very important book for its insightful portrayal of Chicano culture, values, and hardships, of lingering impacts of racism and economic deprivation, and of continuing efforts by Chicanos to be accorded respect and dignity in the twenty-first century…and beyond.”

University of Texas Pan American professor, Dr. Genaro Gonzalez, an author of four novels himself writes, “Chuy Ramírez’ description of harvesting strawberries while living in a squalid labor camp is at once lyrical and sober. There is an adolescent’s sense of adventure on experiencing the world beyond his barrio, yet the wonder is tempered with a more mature portrayal of the hardships of camp life. He incorporates those experiences into the emotional crisis of Joaquín, now a successful attorney, who senses that his spiritual tumult is somehow linked to that long-ago summer.”

For more information regarding the association or this event contact the president of the Chicano and Hispanic Law Students’ Association, Jennifer A. Gillespie. She can be reached at chlsa.president@gmail.com.

For more information on dates of upcoming events check out firsttexaspublishers.com, strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com, and FACEBOOK. To book this author you can also contact Mrs. Espinola at 210-394-1254.

Chuy Ramirez travels to California to the LA Latino Book Festival

Chuy Ramirez will be taking part in the 2010 LA Latino Book Festival this October 9th-10th. A list of attending authors can be found on the LA Latino Book Festival website. Chuy will be taking part in the author panel, Beginning, Middle, and End, The Art of the Short Story at 12pm on Sunday, October the 10th. He will be joined by other panelists Jenny Hicks, moderator ( Cal State L.A.), Stephen D. Gutiérrez, Thelma Reyna, Stella Pope Duarte, and Alex Espinoza.  
Actor, Edward James Olmos is the Co-Producer of Latino Book & Family Festival. This festival is held in various heavily populated Hispanic cities in the United States. The weekend promotes culture, literacy and education.

Launched in 1997, the Latino Book &Family Festival was first held in Los Angeles to provide an opportunity to celebrate multicultural literature to communities in the United States. The Latino Book Festival is being hosted in Chicago and Los Angeles currently, but in 2011 there are plans to bring the Festival to Texas.

We invite everyone in Los Angeles and the surrounding cities in the area to attend.

We will see you there!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Chuy Ramirez & Dr. Genaro Gonzalez light up the room with masterful stories

Mid Valley South Texas College Author's Event

A successful event went off without a hitch at the Mid-Valley STC Campus Library in Weslaco, Texas.

See link to pictures provided by South Texas College of event held on July 21, 2010 at 6:30pm. Authors spoke to a wide range of listeners and readers this evening. It was an enthused audience! The two authors would like to thank the college and the audience for their interest and presence that night. It was a great event.

"Valley authors and artists can contribute their time to valley people, youth, and visitors," said one attendee, " it is inspring, perhaps we will see more authors, artists, and actors in the future."

Chuy Ramirez will be appearing at the Barnes and Nobles on 10th street in McAllen, Texas the near future....check out our website, FACEBOOK, and Blog for more details.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

"I am Joaquin" Scholarship Opportunity



*Recent Scholarship Opportunity, "I am Joaquin," brings together two great works. Corky Gonzalez's poem, "I am Joaquin" and Chuy Ramirez's book, Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories, will be used for a Compare & Contrast Essay. Details have been released. You can find the questions, rubric, and additional information on
strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com

Updates for Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories


Chuy Ramirez has announced he will translate Strawberry Fields into Spanish in an attempt to grow the market for the publishing house, First Texas Publishers. The working title for the novel will be "Freza".

He said he is taking novelist and friend Genaro Gonzalez' advise and will be deleting several of the short stories that he included in Strawberry Fields. "We will shorten it by 10-15 percent," Chuy announced. "Ideally, the novella will be at around 225 pages."

Ramirez will be selecting a translator from about 15 submissions he has received. He says the translator and he will be working collaboratively on the project which he anticipates taking about 6 months.

Please contact us at firsttexaspublishers@gmail.com for more information.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Interview with Chuy Ramirez~Latino Books Examiner~


Interview with Chuy Ramirez

Chuy Ramirez is an attorney who practices law in McAllen, Texas and is a partner in the firm Ramirez & Guerrero, LLP. He was also a partner for twenty five years in the McAllen firm, Montalvo & Ramirez. Ramirez is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. At law school, he served as Articles Editor for the International Law Journal and published a note entitled, “Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border," Vol. 18 in 1983. He lives in San Juan, Texas. Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work.

Welcome to Latino Books Examiner. Why don’t you start by telling us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write it?

Two things motivated me. With the exception of Gloria Anzaldua (Frontera/The Borderlands) and Richard Rodriguez (to some extent) few works with Chicano characters truly capture those precious moments in a human being’s life that are universal. Quite the contrary, too many works are more like Diego Rivera’s Mexican art, overly political, or mythical. Second, the universe is filled with non-fictional writings about migrants and immigrants. But there is no emotion there.

How could I create something different? How could I capture and convey in a fictional work to any reader (regardless of race or ethnicity) in entertaining fashion that border life, that migrant life of the first generation Chicanos in South Texas.

How would you describe your creative process while writing this book? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did you first write an outline?

I would say both. I write or type whenever I can and I write whatever comes through. Then, I outline, redraft, re-outline and redraft.

How long did it take you to write the book?

It took about 10 years (which left over voluminous materials for other works), but the bulk of the drafting about 2 -3 years.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Yes. Of course.

What seems to work for unleashing your creativity?

Several things work for me: being at home, at leisure, being alone, reading, listening to music, sitting in my yard. Travel of any kind seems to allow me to separate myself from my daily work and move into a creative state.

How was your experience in looking for a publisher? What words of advice would you offer those novice authors who are in search of one?

We created a publishing house to publish this work.

What type of book promotion seems to work the best for you? Share with us some writing tips!

I do not have the experience to provide much. The publicist contacts libraries, bookstores, reading groups, book enthusiast, organizations, universities, and the use of the media via the Internet has thus far been a way to market the book.

I enjoy small groups of all types, interests and interacting. Writing tips? How about read! Read! Read! & Write!.

What authors or type of books do you read for fun?

I read mostly fiction-primarily novels: Bible, short stories, poetry, travelogues and photography. In the past year: Hemingway, King, Faulkner, Carlos Fuentes, James, Marquez, Borges, Dickens, Frost, Graham Green and Poe

Do you think a critique group is essential for a writer?

Yes, essential for a new writer.

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?
www.firsttexaspublishers.com

strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com

Do you have another novel on the works? Would you like to tell readers about your current or future projects?

I have material collected for a novella set in current time involving a dying woman who spent 4 years as child in the Tulelake Concentration Camp in northern California during World War II. Like other Japanese of that era, she disappeared into another community, leaving behind her culture, language and memories. Now, she has developed a mother-son relationship with the attorney who is preparing her will and trusts and she desperately wants to revisit that time of childhood which she recalls as an idyllic setting. The attorney will eventually fulfill her dream by traveling to Tulelake during a Japanese pilgrimage carrying her wishes.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell my readers?

Keep reading.

Thank you Mayra Calani a multi-genre author and book reviewer hails from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She’s a member of NuncaSola, a group of dedicated Latina writers, agents and editors. Visit Mayra at www.MayraCalvani.com. Email her at mayra.calvani@gmail.com.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

"I am Joaquin" Poem By: Rodolfo 'Corky' Gonzalez

I Am Joaquin
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Yo soy Joaquín,
perdido en un mundo de confusión:
I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, [the economic
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society.
My fathers have lost the economic battle
and won the struggle of cultural survival.
And now! I must choose between the paradox of
victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. [there is no choice: a chicano must
Choose between “victory of the spirit” or selling of the soul to American capitalism.]
Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success....
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life --
MY OWN PEOPLE [the safe harbor is the language and culture, but it is not a Mexican culture,
It is a culture that is peculiarly, impiedly rural, poor and Catholic.]

I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble,
leader of men, king of an empire civilized
beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés,
who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas.
I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot
And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization.
I owned the land as far as the eye
could see under the Crown of Spain,
and I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood
for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and
beast and all that he could trample
But...THE GROUND WAS MINE.
I was both tyrant and slave.
As the Christian church took its place in God's name,
to take and use my virgin strength and trusting faith,
the priests, both good and bad, took--
but gave a lasting truth that Spaniard Indian Mestizo
were all God's children.
And from these words grew men who prayed and fought
for their own worth as human beings, for that
GOLDEN MOMENT of FREEDOM.
I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest
Hidalgo who in the year eighteen hundred and ten
rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry--
El Grito de Dolores
"Que mueran los gachupines y que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe...."
I sentenced him who was me I excommunicated him, my blood.
I drove him from the pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me....
I killed him.
His head, which is mine and of all those
who have come this way,
I placed on that fortress wall
to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero!
all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made.
I died with them ... I lived with them .... I lived to see our country free.
Free from Spanish rule in eighteen-hundred-twenty-one.
Mexico was free??
The crown was gone but all its parasites remained,
and ruled, and taught, with gun and flame and mystic power.
I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed,
and waited silently for life to begin again.
I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution.
I was he on dusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives
as Moses did his sacraments.
He held his Mexico in his hand on
the most desolate and remote ground which was his country.
And this giant little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth
of his country's land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers.
I am Joaquin.
I rode with Pancho Villa,
crude and warm, a tornado at full strength,
nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earthy people.
I am Emiliano Zapata.
"This land, this earth is OURS."
The villages, the mountains, the streams
belong to Zapatistas.
Our life or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maize.
All of which is our reward,
a creed that formed a constitution
for all who dare live free!
"This land is ours . . .
Father, I give it back to you.
Mexico must be free. . . ."
I ride with revolutionists
against myself.
I am the Rurales,
coarse and brutal,
I am the mountian Indian,
superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamala
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español.
I have been the bloody revolution,
The victor,
The vanquished.
I have killed
And been killed.
I am the despots Díaz
And Huerta
And the apostle of democracy,
Francisco Madero.
I am
The black-shawled
Faithfulwomen
Who die with me
Or live
Depending on the time and place.
I am faithful, humble Juan Diego,
The Virgin of Guadalupe,
Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.
I rode east and north
As far as the Rocky Mountains,
And
All men feared the guns of
Joaquín Murrieta.
I killed those men who dared
To steal my mine,
Who raped and killed my love
My wife.
Then I killed to stay alive.
I was Elfego Baca,
living my nine lives fully.
I was the Espinoza brothers
of the Valle de San Luis.
All were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization
were placed on the wall of independence, heads of brave men
who died for cause or principle, good or bad.
Hidalgo! Zapata!
Murrieta! Espinozas!
Are but a few.
They dared to face
The force of tyranny
Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy.
I stand here looking back,
And now I see the present,
And still I am a campesino,
I am the fat political coyote–
I,
Of the same name,
Joaquín,
In a country that has wiped out
All my history,
Stifled all my pride,
In a country that has placed a
Different weight of indignity upon my age-old burdened back.
Inferiority is the new load . . . .
The Indian has endured and still
Emerged the winner,
The Mestizo must yet overcome,
And the gachupín will just ignore.
I look at myself
And see part of me
Who rejects my father and my mother
And dissolves into the melting pot
To disappear in shame.
I sometimes
Sell my brother out
And reclaim him
For my own when society gives me
Token leadership
In society's own name.
I am Joaquín,
Who bleeds in many ways.
The altars of Moctezuma
I stained a bloody red.
My back of Indian slavery
Was stripped crimson
From the whips of masters
Who would lose their blood so pure
When revolution made them pay,
Standing against the walls of retribution.
Blood has flowed from me on every battlefield between
campesino, hacendado,
slave and master and revolution.
I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec
into the sea of fame–
my country's flag
my burial shroud–
with Los Niños,
whose pride and courage
could not surrender
with indignity
their country's flag
to strangers . . . in their land.
Now I bleed in some smelly cell from club or gun or tyranny.
I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger
Cut my face and eyes,
As I fight my way from stinking barrios
To the glamour of the ring
And lights of fame
Or mutilated sorrow.
My blood runs pure on the ice-caked
Hills of the Alaskan isles,
On the corpse-strewn beach of Normandy,
The foreign land of Korea
And now Vietnam.
Here I stand
Before the court of justice,
Guilty
For all the glory of my Raza
To be sentenced to despair.
Here I stand,
Poor in money,
Arrogant with pride,
Bold with machismo,
Rich in courage
And
Wealthy in spirit and faith.
My knees are caked with mud.
My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich,
Yet
Equality is but a word–
The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken
And is but another threacherous promise.
My land is lost
And stolen,
My culture has been raped.
I lengthen the line at the welfare door
And fill the jails with crime.
These then are the rewards
This society has
For sons of chiefs
And kings
And bloody revolutionists,
Who gave a foreign people
All their skills and ingenuity
To pave the way with brains and blood
For those hordes of gold-starved strangers,
Who
Changed our language
And plagiarized our deeds
As feats of valor
Of their own.
They frowned upon our way of life
and took what they could use.
Our art, our literature, our music, they ignored–
so they left the real things of value
and grabbed at their own destruction
by their greed and avarice.
They overlooked that cleansing fountain of
nature and brotherhood
which is Joaquín.
The art of our great señores,
Diego Rivera,
Siqueiros,
Orozco, is but another act of revolution for
the salvation of mankind.
Mariachi music, the heart and soul
of the people of the earth,
the life of the child,
and the happiness of love.
The corridos tell the tales
of life and death,
of tradition,
legends old and new, of joy
of passion and sorrow
of the people–who I am.
I am in the eyes of woman,
sheltered beneath
her shawl of black,
deep and sorrowful eyes
that bear the pain of sons long buried or dying,
dead on the battlefield or on the barbed wire of social strife.
Her rosary she prays and fingers endlessly
like the family working down a row of beets
to turn around and work and work.
There is no end.
Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth
and all the love for me,
and I am her
and she is me.
We face life together in sorrow,
anger, joy, faith and wishful
thoughts.
I shed the tears of anguish
as I see my children disappear
behind the shroud of mediocrity,
never to look back to remember me.
I am Joaquín.
I must fight
and win this struggle
for my sons, and they
must know from me
who I am.
Part of the blood that runs deep in me
could not be vanquished by the Moors.
I defeated them after five hundred years,
and I have endured.
Part of the blood that is mine
has labored endlessly four hundred
years under the heel of lustful
Europeans.
I am still here!
I have endured in the rugged mountains
Of our country
I have survived the toils and slavery of the fields.
I have existed
In the barrios of the city
In the suburbs of bigotry
In the mines of social snobbery
In the prisons of dejection
In the muck of exploitation
And
In the fierce heat of racial hatred.
And now the trumpet sounds,
The music of the people stirs the
Revolution.
Like a sleeping giant it slowly
Rears its head
To the sound of
Tramping feet
Clamoring voices
Mariachi strains
Fiery tequila explosions
The smell of chile verde and
Soft brown eyes of expectation for a
Better life.
And in all the fertile farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.
La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
Chicano!
Or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
And
Sing the same.
I am the masses of my people and
I refuse to be absorbed.
I am Joaquín.
The odds are great
But my spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

RUBRIC for "I am Joaquin"




Use this Rubric as a guide

Scholarship "I AM JOAQUIN"


First Texas Publishing Inc.
$400 Scholarship Top Prize
For a 7-10 page Essay

Compare and contrast Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez’s 1964 poem, “I Am Joaquin”, with Chuy Ramirez’s 2010 Strawberry Fields.

Writing the Essay:


1.Strawberry Fields is available for purchase on www.amazon.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com

2.Poem (I Am Joaquin) is attached;

3.Length of essay: recommended, at least 7-10 pages

4. Use APA style to cite all sources;

5.Cover Page including title, entry name, address, e-mail, & phone number.

6. Typed double-space;

7. Mail to: First Texas Publishers-Essay Scholarship Contest, PO BOX 181, San Juan, Texas 78589 or send digitally to ramirezbook@gmail.com;

8.If you have any questions please forward to mirta_espinola20@hotmail.com or ramirezbook@gmail.com. All questions and answers will be posted.

9.Deadline for Submission October 15, 2010;

10.1st prize: $400; 2nd prize: $200, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card for $50; 3rd prize: $100, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card $25

11. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize essays will be posted on the following sites: SF Facebook page, strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com,

12. No restrictions, but recommend that writers have some college course background.

Samples of Essay Topics: Writers are not limited to the following topics. These are just suggestions.

1.The extent to which Gonzalez and Ramirez follow or deviate from the traditional Mexican historical model for Chicanos in America? (for instance, is there such a “traditional model”? Describe it.)

2.Address to what extent the world for Gonzalez’ Joaquin character and Ramirez’ Joaquin character is a world full of “confusion” as opposed as to a world full of “complexity”. What is this “confusion”? What are the “complexities”?

3.Does Ramirez’ Joaquin character reject “modern society” as Gonzalez’ Joaquin character does? Or does he embrace it? How does Ramirez’ Joaquin deal with modern society as opposed to Gonzalez’ Joaquin?

4.In Gonzalez’ America do Chicanos have an effective choice? What about in Ramirez’ America? What are those choices, if any?

5.How important is Mexican pre-Columbian history to Gonzalez’ Joaquin. How about for
Ramirez’Joaquin?

6.What roles do the Catholic Church, religion and the Bible play in the worlds of both Joaquin’s

7.What role does music (the corridos and ballads) play in Gonzalez work and Ramirez work?

8.Address the Machismo in Gonzalez’ and Ramirez’ works;

9.Address the role of women in Gonzalez and Ramirez’ works;

10.Do Gonzalez and Ramirez have a message of hope for Chicanos in America? Address in their works;

11.What credit to Mexican history-culture/Spanish history-culture do the writers attribute for any characteristics of chicanos in America?

12.Gonzalez uses the word “inferiority complex”; Ramirez uses both the “inferiority complex” and “the affliction”. What do these terms? And to what do they attribute the complex and how do they address/deal with it in their works?
First Texas Publishing Inc.
$400 Scholarship Top Prize
For a 7-10 page Essay



Compare and contrast Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez’s 1964 poem, “I Am Joaquin”, with Chuy Ramirez’s
2010 Strawberry Fields.


Writing the Essay:

1.Strawberry Fields is available for purchase on www.amazon.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com
2.Poem (I Am Joaquin) is attached;
3.Length of essay: recommended, at least 7-10 pages
4. Use APA style to cite all sources;
5.Cover Page including title, entry name, address, e-mail, & phone number.
6. Typed double-space;
7. Mail to: First Texas Publishers-Essay Scholarship Contest, PO BOX 181, San Juan, Texas 78589 or send digitally to ramirezbook@gmail.com;
8.If you have any questions please forward to mirta_espinola20@hotmail.com or ramirezbook@gmail.com. All questions and answers will be posted.
9.Deadline for Submission October 15, 2010;
10.1st prize: $400; 2nd prize: $200, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card for $50; 3rd prize: $100, plus a Barnes & Nobles Gift Card $25
11.The 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize essays will be posted on the following sites: SF Facebook page, strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com, and www.firsttexaspublishers.com,
12.No restrictions, but recommend that writers have some college course background.


Samples of Essay Topics: Writers are limited to the following topics. These are just suggestions.

1.The extent to which Gonzalez and Ramirez follow or deviate from the traditional Mexican historical model for Chicanos in America? (for instance, is there such a “traditional model”? Describe it.)
2.Address to what extent the world for Gonzalez’ Joaquin character and Ramirez’ Joaquin character is a world full of “confusion” as opposed as to a world full of “complexity”. What is this “confusion”? What are the “complexities”?
3.Does Ramirez’ Joaquin character reject “modern society” as Gonzalez’ Joaquin character does? Or does he embrace it? How does Ramirez’ Joaquin deal with modern society as opposed to Gonzalez’ Joaquin?
4.In Gonzalez’ America do Chicanos have an effective choice? What about in Ramirez’ America? What are those choices, if any?
5.How important is Mexican pre-Columbian history to Gonzalez’ Joaquin. How about for
Ramirez’Joaquin?
6.What roles do the Catholic Church, religion and the Bible play in the worlds of both Joaquin’s
7.What role does music (the corridos and ballads) play in Gonzalez work and Ramirez work?
8.Address the Machismo in Gonzalez’ and Ramirez’ works;
9.Address the role of women in Gonzalez and Ramirez’ works;
10.Do Gonzalez and Ramirez have a message of hope for Chicanos in America? Address in their works;
11.What credit to Mexican history-culture/Spanish history-culture do the writers attribute for any characteristics of chicanos in America?
12.Gonzalez uses the word “inferiority complex”; Ramirez uses both the “inferiority complex” and “the affliction”. What do these terms? And to what do they attribute the complex and how do they address/deal with it in their works?

I Am Joaquin
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Yo soy Joaquín,
perdido en un mundo de confusión:
I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, [the economic
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society.
My fathers have lost the economic battle
and won the struggle of cultural survival.
And now! I must choose between the paradox of
victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. [there is no choice: a chicano must
Choose between “victory of the spirit” or selling of the soul to American capitalism.]
Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success....
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life --
MY OWN PEOPLE [the safe harbor is the language and culture, but it is not a Mexican culture,
It is a culture that is peculiarly, impiedly rural, poor and Catholic.]

I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble,
leader of men, king of an empire civilized
beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés,
who also is the blood, the image of myself.
I am the Maya prince.
I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas.
I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot
And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization.
I owned the land as far as the eye
could see under the Crown of Spain,
and I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood
for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and
beast and all that he could trample
But...THE GROUND WAS MINE.
I was both tyrant and slave.
As the Christian church took its place in God's name,
to take and use my virgin strength and trusting faith,
the priests, both good and bad, took--
but gave a lasting truth that Spaniard Indian Mestizo
were all God's children.
And from these words grew men who prayed and fought
for their own worth as human beings, for that
GOLDEN MOMENT of FREEDOM.
I was part in blood and spirit of that courageous village priest
Hidalgo who in the year eighteen hundred and ten
rang the bell of independence and gave out that lasting cry--
El Grito de Dolores
"Que mueran los gachupines y que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe...."
I sentenced him who was me I excommunicated him, my blood.
I drove him from the pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me....
I killed him.
His head, which is mine and of all those
who have come this way,
I placed on that fortress wall
to wait for independence. Morelos! Matamoros! Guerrero!
all companeros in the act, STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made.
I died with them ... I lived with them .... I lived to see our country free.
Free from Spanish rule in eighteen-hundred-twenty-one.
Mexico was free??
The crown was gone but all its parasites remained,
and ruled, and taught, with gun and flame and mystic power.
I worked, I sweated, I bled, I prayed,
and waited silently for life to begin again.
I fought and died for Don Benito Juarez, guardian of the Constitution.
I was he on dusty roads on barren land as he protected his archives
as Moses did his sacraments.
He held his Mexico in his hand on
the most desolate and remote ground which was his country.
And this giant little Zapotec gave not one palm's breadth
of his country's land to kings or monarchs or presidents of foriegn powers.
I am Joaquin.
I rode with Pancho Villa,
crude and warm, a tornado at full strength,
nourished and inspired by the passion and the fire of all his earthy people.
I am Emiliano Zapata.
"This land, this earth is OURS."
The villages, the mountains, the streams
belong to Zapatistas.
Our life or yours is the only trade for soft brown earth and maize.
All of which is our reward,
a creed that formed a constitution
for all who dare live free!
"This land is ours . . .
Father, I give it back to you.
Mexico must be free. . . ."
I ride with revolutionists
against myself.
I am the Rurales,
coarse and brutal,
I am the mountian Indian,
superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses. The chattering machine guns
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamala
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español.
I have been the bloody revolution,
The victor,
The vanquished.
I have killed
And been killed.
I am the despots Díaz
And Huerta
And the apostle of democracy,
Francisco Madero.
I am
The black-shawled
Faithfulwomen
Who die with me
Or live
Depending on the time and place.
I am faithful, humble Juan Diego,
The Virgin of Guadalupe,
Tonantzín, Aztec goddess, too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquín.
I rode east and north
As far as the Rocky Mountains,
And
All men feared the guns of
Joaquín Murrieta.
I killed those men who dared
To steal my mine,
Who raped and killed my love
My wife.
Then I killed to stay alive.
I was Elfego Baca,
living my nine lives fully.
I was the Espinoza brothers
of the Valle de San Luis.
All were added to the number of heads that in the name of civilization
were placed on the wall of independence, heads of brave men
who died for cause or principle, good or bad.
Hidalgo! Zapata!
Murrieta! Espinozas!
Are but a few.
They dared to face
The force of tyranny
Of men who rule by deception and hypocrisy.
I stand here looking back,
And now I see the present,
And still I am a campesino,
I am the fat political coyote–
I,
Of the same name,
Joaquín,
In a country that has wiped out
All my history,
Stifled all my pride,
In a country that has placed a
Different weight of indignity upon my age-old burdened back.
Inferiority is the new load . . . .
The Indian has endured and still
Emerged the winner,
The Mestizo must yet overcome,
And the gachupín will just ignore.
I look at myself
And see part of me
Who rejects my father and my mother
And dissolves into the melting pot
To disappear in shame.
I sometimes
Sell my brother out
And reclaim him
For my own when society gives me
Token leadership
In society's own name.
I am Joaquín,
Who bleeds in many ways.
The altars of Moctezuma
I stained a bloody red.
My back of Indian slavery
Was stripped crimson
From the whips of masters
Who would lose their blood so pure
When revolution made them pay,
Standing against the walls of retribution.
Blood has flowed from me on every battlefield between
campesino, hacendado,
slave and master and revolution.
I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec
into the sea of fame–
my country's flag
my burial shroud–
with Los Niños,
whose pride and courage
could not surrender
with indignity
their country's flag
to strangers . . . in their land.
Now I bleed in some smelly cell from club or gun or tyranny.
I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger
Cut my face and eyes,
As I fight my way from stinking barrios
To the glamour of the ring
And lights of fame
Or mutilated sorrow.
My blood runs pure on the ice-caked
Hills of the Alaskan isles,
On the corpse-strewn beach of Normandy,
The foreign land of Korea
And now Vietnam.
Here I stand
Before the court of justice,
Guilty
For all the glory of my Raza
To be sentenced to despair.
Here I stand,
Poor in money,
Arrogant with pride,
Bold with machismo,
Rich in courage
And
Wealthy in spirit and faith.
My knees are caked with mud.
My hands calloused from the hoe. I have made the Anglo rich,
Yet
Equality is but a word–
The Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken
And is but another threacherous promise.
My land is lost
And stolen,
My culture has been raped.
I lengthen the line at the welfare door
And fill the jails with crime.
These then are the rewards
This society has
For sons of chiefs
And kings
And bloody revolutionists,
Who gave a foreign people
All their skills and ingenuity
To pave the way with brains and blood
For those hordes of gold-starved strangers,
Who
Changed our language
And plagiarized our deeds
As feats of valor
Of their own.
They frowned upon our way of life
and took what they could use.
Our art, our literature, our music, they ignored–
so they left the real things of value
and grabbed at their own destruction
by their greed and avarice.
They overlooked that cleansing fountain of
nature and brotherhood
which is Joaquín.
The art of our great señores,
Diego Rivera,
Siqueiros,
Orozco, is but another act of revolution for
the salvation of mankind.
Mariachi music, the heart and soul
of the people of the earth,
the life of the child,
and the happiness of love.
The corridos tell the tales
of life and death,
of tradition,
legends old and new, of joy
of passion and sorrow
of the people–who I am.
I am in the eyes of woman,
sheltered beneath
her shawl of black,
deep and sorrowful eyes
that bear the pain of sons long buried or dying,
dead on the battlefield or on the barbed wire of social strife.
Her rosary she prays and fingers endlessly
like the family working down a row of beets
to turn around and work and work.
There is no end.
Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth
and all the love for me,
and I am her
and she is me.
We face life together in sorrow,
anger, joy, faith and wishful
thoughts.
I shed the tears of anguish
as I see my children disappear
behind the shroud of mediocrity,
never to look back to remember me.
I am Joaquín.
I must fight
and win this struggle
for my sons, and they
must know from me
who I am.
Part of the blood that runs deep in me
could not be vanquished by the Moors.
I defeated them after five hundred years,
and I have endured.
Part of the blood that is mine
has labored endlessly four hundred
years under the heel of lustful
Europeans.
I am still here!
I have endured in the rugged mountains
Of our country
I have survived the toils and slavery of the fields.
I have existed
In the barrios of the city
In the suburbs of bigotry
In the mines of social snobbery
In the prisons of dejection
In the muck of exploitation
And
In the fierce heat of racial hatred.
And now the trumpet sounds,
The music of the people stirs the
Revolution.
Like a sleeping giant it slowly
Rears its head
To the sound of
Tramping feet
Clamoring voices
Mariachi strains
Fiery tequila explosions
The smell of chile verde and
Soft brown eyes of expectation for a
Better life.
And in all the fertile farmlands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke-smeared cities,
we start to MOVE.
La raza!
Méjicano!
Español!
Latino!
Chicano!
Or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
And
Sing the same.
I am the masses of my people and
I refuse to be absorbed.
I am Joaquín.
The odds are great
But my spirit is strong,
My faith unbreakable,
My blood is pure.
I am Aztec prince and Christian Christ.
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!

Monday, July 12, 2010

UTPA highlights on Alumni & Author, Chuy Ramirez

http://portal.utpa.edu/utpa_main/dua_home/alumni_home/news_home

First Texas Publishers and Chuy Ramirez would like to thank UTPA for their support.

Friday, June 25, 2010

The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center

Chuy Ramirez

The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center


Presents


Strawberry Fields

-a book of-

short stories


by


Chuy Ramirez


Wednesday, June 9, 2010


7:00 p.m.


225 E. Stenger

San Benito, Texas


Admission: $5.00

The intriguing novel, “Strawberry Fields,” features the migrant journeys, experiences, and memories of Joaquin, as an adolescent farm worker from South Texas . Similar to the migrant stories of Tomas Rivera, Chuy Ramirez entwines different aspects of Mexican American migrant history with a variety of fictional elements in the telling of his story. For instance, the author attempts to unravel the mystery of the strawberry fields’ murder by meticulously building suspense in the novel with a series of short stories.

The jingle “Grandfather Tree, grandfather tree, why don’t you tell your secrets to me” foreshadows the mystery behind the murder of Joaquin’s first intimate acquaintance (a blond migrant girl) and Joaquin’s upcoming self-reflective journey toward transformation into mainstream society and enlightenment about his own identity. Through a hero’s quests, Joaquin accepts the challenge to depart from his familiar surroundings of the courtroom and revisit the trials and tribulations of his past.

Chuy Ramirez ignites Joaquin’s passion to revisit his past and embrace his own heritage through his childhood memories, while creatively featuring them independently throughout the novel’s chapters. The novel opens with Joaquin nostalgically reflecting on his past and upcoming vacation to Michigan and Indiana . In its entirety, the novel reveals pivotal moments of Joaquin’s life in short stories, such as his first communion, his experiences salvaging and riding a tricycle, and his non chalaunt attitude toward burying his estranged father. In closing, the novel maintains suspense with the unsolved murder mystery. So, stay tune for a possible sequel!

Like Tomas Rivera, Chuy Ramirez uses his experiences and talents to honor the cultural heritage of Mexican American migrants and the American Dream with “Strawberry Fields.” Chuy Ramirez grew up in San Juan , Texas and is presently an attorney in McAllen Texas . He attended Pan American University in Edinburg Texas and the University of Texas Law School.

Reception/book signing to follow presentation. Info: 956-425-9552; nrogelio@hushmail.com.

****Chuy would like to thank all that took part in this event.

Judee Koester Soendker, "It's Still Me!" graces the cover of Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories


Local valley artist Mrs. Judee Koester Soendker had studied angels in the Raymondville cemetery for inspiration. She applied the paint to canvas and completed a compilation of twelve paintings called the Guardians. A versatile artist, Mrs. Soendker also lends her time and expertise to teach at Golden Palms Retirement and Health Center offereing classes and workshops. She has displayed her art in Raymondville, Texas and this February her painting, "It's Still Me!" graced the cover of Chuy Ramirez's book Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories.

Mr. Ramirez noted, "The connection I felt to the painting would lead me to use it for the cover."

Strawberry Fields is available for purchase at Amazon.


Judee Soendker

Local Texas Authors to speak at South Texas College Mid-Valley Library


Two Local Texas Authors, Dr. Genaro Gonzalez & Chuy Ramirez will be featured at STC Mid-Valley Library Building E on Wednesday July 21st, 2010 at 6:30pm.

Genaro Gonzalez was born and raised in McAllen, Texas. He received his B.A. in psychology from Pomona College in Claremont, California and his Ph.D. in social psychology/personality from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He has taught at The Texas Governor's School at U.T. Austin, Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas, and The University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico. He is currently a Professor of Psychology at U.T.-Pan American.

Dr. Gonzalez has published four books of fiction: Rainbow's End, Only Sons, The Quixote Cult and A So-Called Vacation. His most recent collection of short stories, The Unearthing and Other Narratives, is currently under review for possible publication.

Chuy Ramirez is an attorney who practices law in McAllen, Texas and is a partner in the firm Ramirez & Guerrero, LLP. He is currently corporate legal counsel for a local south Texas bank, a Texas national bank with branches throughout South Texas and more recently in San Antonio. He grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and is no stranger to the strawberry fields, to which he traveled over the years with his family and thousands of families from South Texas.

Ramirez attended Pan American University at Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. At the law school, he served as Articles Editor for the International Law Journal and published a note entitled, “Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border, Vol. 18 in 1983. Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work. Toy Soldiers, a young adult short story will be released soon. Ramirez lives in Texas with is wife of 39 years Aida, who is a retired public school teacher.

Strawberry Fields is available for purchase at Amazon.


Sout Texas College
Author Event
July 21st, 2010
Wednesday 6:30pm
Mid-Valley Library
Building E
Weslaco, Texas

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Supporting Culturally Relative Literature

We thank Ray & El Paso Authors Pluma Fronteriza
for the support & highlight of Strawberry Fields.

We follow & support your Blog (El Paso, Texas).

For more information you can contact Ray at rayerojas@gmail.com


-Chuy Ramirez

Strawberry Fields is available for purchase on Amazon.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Chuy Ramirez on Amazon





AMAZON

Chuy Ramirez and other valley authors are featured at the Literacy Event in Pharr, Texas

http://www.valleytowncrier.com/articles/2010/05/18/news/doc4bf2c0df75a7c168155020.txt

Valley Town Crier-Literacy Event Pharr, Texas

http://www.valleytowncrier.com/articles/2010/05/18/news/doc4bf2c0df75a7c168155020.txt



Book available for purchase on Amazon.

Literacy Event, Pharr Texas

http://events.valleymorningstar.com/pharr-tx/venues/show/1120049-pharr-literacy-program


Chuy Ramirez, Author takes part in this event on Saturday May 22nd, 2010. It was a wonderful event. Pharr, Texas

Full Bio of Chuy Ramirez

Biography
Chuy Ramirez

Chuy Ramirez is an attorney who practices law in McAllen, Texas and is a partner in the firm Ramirez & Guerrero, LLP. He was also a partner for twenty five years in the McAllen firm, Montalvo & Ramirez. Leo Montalvo served as mayor of the City of McAllen for twenty five years and was the first Mexican American elected to that post. Ramirez’ practice focuses on commercial transactions and public finance. As a bond attorney, he has represented most governmental units in South Texas in connection with their issuance of tax-exempt bonds. He is currently corporate legal counsel for a local south Texas bank, a Texas national bank with branches throughout South Texas and more recently in San Antonio. He grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and is no stranger to the strawberry fields, to which he traveled over the years with his family and thousands of families from South Texas.
Ramirez attended Pan American University at Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. At the law school, he served as Articles Editor for the International Law Journal and published a note entitled, “Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border, Vol. 18 in 1983. Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work. In law school, Ramirez was an active participant in the Chicano Law Students Association and edited Rio Rojo, a student publication. He also served on the Legal Research Board. Before law school, Ramirez served in various positions including City Manager for the City of San Juan in South Texas and as an administrator for Texas Rural Legal Aid. He also helped recruit area managers for the Dept. of Commerce (the U.S. Census Bureau) for the 1980 census.

As a high school student at Pharr San Juan Alamo High School in South Texas, Ramirez was an activist, edited a movement newspaper and helped organize the Mexican American Youth Organization which pushed for an end to segregated schools and bilingual education. He was also an active supporter of Cesar Chavez and his farmworkers movement during the California lettuce strike, and later Antonio Orendain’s Texas union, and edited the movement newspaper, El Portavoz. As a college student during the early 1970s, Ramirez was a political organizer and assisted with numerous campaigns, most notably the campaigns of Los Tres, the first three elected Mexican Americans to city office in San Juan, Texas, his home town. Ramirez was nineteen years old at the time. In 1972, he also helped organize the Raza Unida Party, a local third party in South Texas, for which former Texas state representative Alex Moreno served as the first standard bearer. Later, Ramirez served as treasurer for the Mexican American Democrats and an officer of the Texas Democratic Party. He has never sought public office and has not been directly involved in politics since 1980 except for his assistance or contributions.

Ramirez lives in San Juan, Texas with his wife of thirty eight years, Aida, who is a retired public school teacher. He has two children: Jesus Ramirez and Mirta Espinola. He is the proud grandfather of four: Chuy Ramirez III, Carla Ramirez, Victoria Ramirez and Isaiah Matthew Ramirez.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Pharr Literacy Program

http://events.themonitor.com/pharr-tx/venues/show/1120049-pharr-literacy-program

Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories, on Amazon

First Texas Publishers
Immediate Release

May 18th, 2010

Chuy Ramirez Debuts Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories
On Amazon

Book of Short Stories


(McAllen, Texas) – Strawberry Fields, a Book of Short Stories, by McAllen, Texas attorney and fiction writer, Chuy Ramirez, is officially on Amazon. Go to www.amazon.com and readers can locate Strawberry Fields via hardcover, paperback, and digitally on KINDLE.

The book signing will follow a presentation of excerpts Ramirez has selected to read.
“Strawberry Fields tells the tales of three generations of a Mexican family as they make their way from Northern Mexico to South Texas,” says Ramirez. The book is written like a novel but readers can read chapters as independent vignettes. The book is also a murder mystery. Most of the focus, though, is on that period in the 1960s when the “baby boomers” begin to come of age. Strawberry Fields is symbolic of both the strawberry fields in Michigan at which farm workers labored to improve their lot, as well as an abstract place that represents the dreams and ambitions of a young Joaquin, the protagonist.

Ramirez himself grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, attended Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. He practices law in McAllen. Strawberry Fields is his first fictional work.

For reviews of the book and more information on the author, or to purchase Strawberry Fields, visit www.firsttexaspublishing.com or contact Mirta Espinola at 210-394-1254. In McAllen, the book is available at Los Cazadores Restaurant at Ivy and North Main. In San Juan, the book is for sale at Ebony Estates at 700 N “I” Rd, Suite B, San Juan, TX 78589. In Edinburg, you can find the book at the Law Office of Alex Moreno 4751 S. Jackson, 956-381-8000. The book is also available in San Antonio, Texas at Tres Rebecas and The Twig Book Shop.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories/ Review by: Karen Tanguma


From San Antonio Examiner,




Review by: Karen Tanguma

The intriguing novel, “Strawberry Fields,” features the migrant journeys, experiences, and memories of Joaquin (attorney), as an adolescent farm worker from South Texas. Similar to the migrant stories of Tomas Rivera, Chuy Ramirez entwines different aspects of Mexican American migrant history with a variety of fictional elements in the telling of his story. For instance, the author attempts to unravel the mystery of the strawberry fields’ murder by meticulously building suspense in the novel with a series of short stories.

The jingle “Grandfather tree, grandfather tree, why don’t you tell your secrets to me” foreshadows the mystery behind the murder of Joaquin’s first intimate acquaintance (a blond migrant girl) and Joaquin’s upcoming self-reflective journey toward transformation into mainstream society and enlightenment about his own identity. Through a hero’s quests, Joaquin (attorney) accepts the challenge to depart from his familiar surroundings of the courtroom and revisit (comes to terms with) the trials and tribulations of his past.

The author, Chuy Ramirez, ignites Joaquin’s passion to revisit his past and embrace his own heritage through his childhood memories, while creatively featuring them independently throughout the novel’s chapters. The novel opens with Joaquin nostalgically reflecting on his past (unsolved murder) and upcoming vacation (road trip) to Michigan and Indiana. In its entirety, the novel reveals pivotal moments of Joaquin’s life in short stories, such as his first communion, his experiences salvaging and riding a tricycle, and his non chalaunt attitude (unresolved issues) toward burying his estranged father. In closing, the novel maintains suspense with the unsolved murder mystery. So, stay tune for a possible sequel!

Like Tomas Rivera, Chuy Ramirez uses his experiences (field laborer) and his talents to honor the cultural heritage of Mexican American migrants and the American Dream with “Strawberry Fields.”
The author of “Strawberry Fields” Chuy Ramirez grew up in the city of San Juan in South Texas and is presently an attorney in McAllen Texas. He attended Pan American University in Edinburg Texas and the University Texas Law School, before settling in as a partner in the law firm of Ramirez & Guerrero.

Book Signing Schedule: Book Tour in September

May 7 at 5 p.m.-Twig Book Shop in San Antonio Texas

May 10th at 7:30 p.m.-"Society of Latino and Hispanic Writers of San Antonio"-Barnes and Noble, San Pedro Crossing in San Antonio Texas

http://slhwnotes.blogspot.com/

Check “First Texas Publishers” for times, locations, and book information.
www.iberoaztlan.com
texaspublishing@iberoaztlan.com


Price: $25.00 Paperback
$40.00 Hardcover

ISBN: 978-0-615-32672-6

Monday, May 3, 2010

TWIG BOOK SHOP, San Antonio Texas



http://thetwig.indiebound.com/event/chuy-ramirez-strawberry-fields


Event: The Twig Book Shop, May 7th, 2010
5pm, in the Peark Brewery Complex
Author: Chuy Ramirez, Strawberry Fields

Ramirez, who is from South Texas, has a home in north San Antonio and is General Counsel to Lone Star National Bank, which is opening several branch banks in San Antonio. His book of short stories, Strawberry Fields, published in February, is a collection of stories and vignettes of three generations of a South Texas family beginning at the turn of the century and ending around the year 2000. The stories include the coming of the railroad and irrigation systems to the Valley and the people who labored to slash and burn thousands of South Texas acres to convert prickly desert to productive farm land.

As a boy in the early 1960s, Ramirez had chopped cotton just south of Lamesa around a community called Sparenberg. Forty years later, in “Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories”, a character much like Ramirez recalls Lamesa:

“In the 1950s, on Saturdays, the family would drive in for groceries from the cotton fields around Sparenberg and Klondike—not quite towns on the Texas mesa, but rather zip codes denoting farm-to-market road intersections. Welcoming them as the road curved north into the town square of Lamesa, Texas, was the Negro shanty town. A segregated clay-red flatland devoid of flora or fauna (save for the sturdy tumbleweeds, which grew in abundance), was reserved for the small huts with the tar and asphalt siding. The only integrated venue in town was the long line at the rear of Murphy’s slaughterhouse, where the Mexicans and the Negros would line up at dawn on Saturdays with their galvanized washtubs to receive the calf bowels that Murphy disposed of.”

Thursday, April 8, 2010

South Texas College Library, McAllen, Texas features Chuy Ramirez




Local author dishes juice on new book at STC Pecan Campus Library

There are many traditions and cultural nuances unique to South Texas and it is this tapestry of stories and tales that come together to create a shared and distinctive history. Chuy Ramirez knows a great deal about this rich history and what it’s like to live on the cusp of two cultures. His first novel, “Strawberry Fields,” chronicles the stories of three generations of a Mexican family’s gradual integration into American culture.

The San Juan native and attorney will read excerpts from his book at South Texas College’s Pecan Campus Library Rainbow Room on April 10 at 2 p.m. Copies of the book will be on sale during the event, and the author will hold a book signing after the program. The event is free and open to the public.

“The stories in ‘Strawberry Fields’ chronicle the early years in the life of Joaquin, a successful attorney who, at the age of 50, embarks on a journey of self-discovery,” said Ramirez. “Most of the focus is on the period in the 1960s when ‘baby boomers’ began to come of age. And the strawberry fields are symbolic of both the strawberry fields in Michigan, where farm workers labored to improve their lot, as well as an abstract place that represents the dreams and ambitions of the young protagonist.”

Ramirez himself grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, attended Pan American University in Edinburg, Texas and is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. He is currently practices in McAllen as a partner in the firm Ramirez and Guerrero, LLP.

“The book speaks volumes about self-identity, self-worth and the transition into a different culture,” said STC Library Specialist Esther Garcia. “We are honored to have Ramirez speak, highlighting the creative, limitless talent of our local authors.”

For reviews of the book and information about the author, or to purchase “Strawberry Fields,” visit www.iberoaztlan.com or contact Mirta Espinola at 210-394-1254.

For more information about the event contact Garcia at 956-872-6485 or at egarcia10@southtexascollege.edu.

South Texas College, 2010, http://news.southtexascollege.edu/?tag=strawberry-fields

Immediate release in San Antonio at TWIG Book Shop


First Texas Publishers
Immediate Release

April 8th, 2010


Texas fiction writer, Chuy Ramirez, will be featured at the Twig Bookshop, 200 E. Grayson Suite 124 in San Antonio on Friday, May 7th from 5pm to 7pm.The public is invited. Ramirez, who is from South Texas, has a home in north San Antonio and is General Counsel to Lone Star National Bank, which is opening several branch banks in San Antonio. His book of short stories, Strawberry Fields, published in February, is a collection of stories and vignettes of three generations of a South Texas family beginning at the turn of the century and ending around the year 2000. The stories include the coming of the railroad and irrigation systems to the Valley and the people who labored to slash and burn thousands of South Texas acres to convert prickly desert to productive farm land.
As a boy in the early 1960s, Ramirez had chopped cotton just south of Lamesa around a community called Sparenberg. Forty years later, in “Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories”, a character much like Ramirez recalls Lamesa:
“In the 1950s, on Saturdays, the family would drive in for groceries from the cotton fields around Sparenberg and Klondike—not quite towns on the Texas mesa, but rather zip codes denoting farm-to-market road intersections. Welcoming them as the road curved north into the town square of Lamesa, Texas,was the Negro shanty town. A segregated clay-red flatland devoid of flora or fauna (save for the sturdy tumbleweeds, which grew in abundance), was reserved for the small huts with the tar and asphalt siding. The only integrated venue in town was the long line at the rear of Murphy’s slaughterhouse, where the Mexicans and the Negros would line up at dawn on Saturdays with their galvanized washtubs to receive the calf bowels that Murphy disposed of.”
For more information about Strawberry Fields, visit the Web site at www.iberoaztlan.com .

NEWS on Strawberry Fields, Author: Chuy Ramirez

South Texas College and The City of McAllen offer locations where Chuy Ramirez will be signing books and participating in a Q & A session with readers.

For more information: www.iberoaztlan.com

Strawberry Fields....The Monitor

Strawberry Fields Review~ by: John Hart, Boston Univervisty

Strawberry Fields
Jesus Ramirez
Review: John Hart

In his song “Strawberry Fields” (1967), John Lennon immortalizes the name of a Salvation Army children’s home located near his childhood home in Liverpool. He remembers happy family gatherings, and the local band playing on holidays. Lennon sings, too, about his insecurity as he wonders about his music’s connectivity to a broad public. His memories of that time are a sweet recollection of happy family events, which he recalls with the fondness of retrospection years later.

In his novel Strawberry Fields (2009), Jesus Ramirez weaves a series of social and cultural vignettes about a Chicano migrant family’s life into a compelling story that provides a psychological and historical study of Joaquín, the protagonist whose personal history mirrors in some ways Ramirez’s own childhood as a migrant farmworker. In the narrative, Joaquín, who has become a successful and respected attorney, initially glosses over his past and idealizes it or blocks out its most painful aspects; his memory of harvest time in the strawberry fields of Michigan is more nostalgic than accurate. Periodically, however, he is brought back to reality by the contrasting memories of his brother, Bennie, who serves as something of a Sancho to Joaquín's Quixote. Throughout the novel, present and past are juxtaposed when current events in Joaquín’s life are interrupted by flashes of memories past, framed as flashbacks.

As the story unfolds, the reader is reminded of the racism, poor working conditions, and economic exploitation that migrant workers endure—not only by the agriculturalists who pay their workers and provide substandard living quarters, but also by members of their own ethnic community who serve as labor contractors. The overall and most severe economic oppression suffered by migrant Chicano workers and their families while they harvested the crops was committed by members of the dominant Euro-American culture, who refused to acknowledge the migrants’ role in providing needed food and a livelihood for these Anglo farm owners and their families, and nutritional sustenance for the broader community. Ramirez paints a picture of migrant life that is shaded and shadowed by an ever-present consciousness of powerlessness, ethnic identity loss, poverty, and…hope, courage, and a sense of cultural integrity and endurance despite all of this.

Lennon was able to romanticize his past when he wrote his “Strawberry Fields”: he had gained notoriety as a writer, singer, and leader in the Beatles band, and had acquired substantial economic security. Joaquín (and Chuy Ramirez) had no such luxury: decades after the events portrayed in the novel, Joaquín is still haunted by an unsolved and unresolved mystery about the fields, and victimized by the ideologies not only of a past era but also of the present moment. Even as a successful attorney, he experiences, and advocates for clients who experience, similar events and attitudes.
In New York City, just past the West 72nd Street entrance to Central Park, along the crosstown road that weaves through the park across from the Dakota apartment where Lennon was gunned down in 1980, a path winds through a stretch of greenery that serves as a meditation area. It is labeled “Strawberry Fields” to honor John Lennon while it recalls one of his most notable songs. I discovered this peaceful place during a visit to New York shortly after finishing Ramirez’s novel. I did not know Lennon, but certainly know his music. By contrast, I do know Jesus Ramirez, now a successful attorney who has overcome to a great extent the kinds of prejudices and problems described in his novel—but who still, like his protagonist, does pro bono work for poor Chicanos who would otherwise have no good legal representation when they suffer from injustice in society or experience racism and classism in the judicial system. The novel provides, perhaps, a certain cathartic moment for its author, but not to the extent of finally setting a bad memory to rest: rather, it continues to stimulate dedication to preventing or overcoming the actuality or potentiality of similar moments in the present and future. While Lennon and his music are part of the fond cultural memory of people in the U.S. and abroad, and appropriately celebrated as such, the injustices suffered by Chicanos decades ago, and enduring even today, continue to be ignored and unresolved. This “strawberry fields” provides insights into cultural fortitude and resilience in the face of such prejudices and practices, and calls for a better life in this life on Earth (not just a better life in a believed in and hoped for heavenly home) that is, for many, yet to come.

Both works of literature, the sung poetry and the image-laden novel, provide insights into lives defined, to some extent, by strawberry fields. The comparison, to a certain extent, ends there; the contrasts remain. The poem expresses nostalgia for a bucolic life in Liverpool, England. The novel evidences the sometimes brutal memories of migrants on the road from the Texas-Mexico border to distant Michigan. The song is briefly tinged with sorrow as Lennon laments the loss of his joyful past and experiences insecurity as he considers the possibility of acceptance of his words and music. The novel’s subsurface sorrow is broken by its serenity: remembrance of trying family relationships and ethnic injustice are interspersed with joyful memories of friendship, and family love and bonds. Lennon wants his strawberry fields to be “forever” as a lingering moment of childhood innocence, joy, and peace. Ramirez wants his strawberry fields to help overcome the lingering uneasiness of harmful events—past but still present—that await social and personal resolution.

Jesus Ramirez’s novel, then, not only reminds us of past injustices. It reminds us, too, that racial discrimination and economic oppression continue today, even when unnoticed by the media; and, that the poor, particularly migrant workers, cry for liberation. Strawberry Fields is a reflective reminiscence of Chicano life, providing a glimpse into Mexican-American—and Mexican—migrants interacting at home, in the fields, and along the roads that link them. This well-written novel, with its realistic portrayal of life in the Rio Grande Valley and beyond, stimulates us to be aware of ongoing human rights issues in the U.S. It strives successfully to address these issues with passion, compassion, and a sense of justice, rather than just relegate them to a cold case file of unresolved and apparently unresolvable historical events.
Strawberry Fields is a beautifully written, well-told tale of remembrance, reflection, and renewal. Strawberry Fields is a very important book for its insightful portrayal of Chicano culture, values, and hardships, of lingering impacts of racism and economic deprivation, and of continuing efforts by Chicanos to be accorded respect and dignity in the twenty-first century…and beyond.

John Hart is Professor of Christian Ethics at Boston University School of Theology. He worked in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the late 1960s-early 1970s, including as an associate Catholic campus minister and Bible professor, and as a volunteer with the United Farm Workers Union. He was a candidate for the Texas legislature in La Raza Unida Party in 1972.

Welcome to the Chuy Ramirez Blog

Works of Fiction:

Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories

Toy Soldiers-to be released

Joaquin's Journey-to be released


Essays:

Altering the Policy of Neglect of Undocumented Immigration from South of the Border, Vol. 18 in 1983

Igualada: Exploring The Gloria Anzaldua Link Between Powerlessness and Chicano/a Self-Expression













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E-MAIL ME
firsttexaspublishers@gmail.com

Chuy Ramirez at STC Pecan Library Campus