Showing posts with label Strawberry Fields. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strawberry Fields. Show all posts
Friday, May 20, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Michigan State University: From the Fields to the Academy
From Chuy Ramirez
4.21.11
MSU
East Lansing, Michigan.
What a pleasure it was to sit on the same panel as writer Elva Trevino-Hart and Poet, Tino Villanueva last week at Michigan State University.
Elva’s autobiography, Barefoot Heart, is about this Pearsall, Texas girl growing up in South Texas and as a migrant farm laborer in Wisconsin. A top student at Pearsall, she went on Stanford in the 70s where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in theoretical mathematics and a master’s degree in computer science/engineering. For her work, Elva was awarded the American Book Award, the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Violet Crown.
Tino Villanueva is the author of six books of poetry. His Scenes from the Movie
Giant (1993) won a 1994 American Book Award. He has taught creative writing at the University of Texas, Austin and The College of William & May. He teaches in the Department of Romance Studies at Boston University.
I was pleasantly surprised that among the participants was former alma mater, PSJA high grad, Jose Simon Villa, a Ph D. in education now working in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Chuy Ramirez’ book, Strawberry Fields, is available on-line at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
http://fromthefieldstotheacademy.wordpress.com/schedule/
http://www.strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com/
4.21.11
MSU
East Lansing, Michigan.
What a pleasure it was to sit on the same panel as writer Elva Trevino-Hart and Poet, Tino Villanueva last week at Michigan State University.
Elva’s autobiography, Barefoot Heart, is about this Pearsall, Texas girl growing up in South Texas and as a migrant farm laborer in Wisconsin. A top student at Pearsall, she went on Stanford in the 70s where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in theoretical mathematics and a master’s degree in computer science/engineering. For her work, Elva was awarded the American Book Award, the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Violet Crown.
Tino Villanueva is the author of six books of poetry. His Scenes from the Movie
Giant (1993) won a 1994 American Book Award. He has taught creative writing at the University of Texas, Austin and The College of William & May. He teaches in the Department of Romance Studies at Boston University.
I was pleasantly surprised that among the participants was former alma mater, PSJA high grad, Jose Simon Villa, a Ph D. in education now working in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Chuy Ramirez’ book, Strawberry Fields, is available on-line at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
http://fromthefieldstotheacademy.wordpress.com/schedule/
http://www.strawberryfieldsramirez.blogspot.com/
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Dr. Thelma Reyna, Author of "The Heavens Weep for Us & Other Stories" reviews Strawberry Fields
Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D.
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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....
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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....
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 and other valley authors are featured at the Literacy Event in Pharr, Texas
http://www.valleytowncrier.com/articles/2010/05/18/news/doc4bf2c0df75a7c168155020.txt
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
For more information: www.iberoaztlan.com
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.
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.
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