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Noted filmmaker Jesús Salvador Treviño participated in and documented the most important events in the Mexican American civil rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s: the farm workers' strikes and boycotts, the Los Angeles school walk-outs, the Chicano Youth Conference in Denver, the New Mexico land grant movement, the Chicano moratorium against the Vietnam War, the founding of La Raza Unida Party, and the first incursion of Latinos into the media. Coming of age during the turmoil of the sixties, Treviño was on the spot to record the struggles to organize students and workers into the largest social and political movement in the history of Latino communities in the United States. As important as his documentation of historical events is his self-reflection and chronicling of how these events helped to shape his own personality and mission as one of the most renowned Latino filmmakers. Treviño's beautifully written memoir is fascinating for its detail, insight, and heretofore undisclosed reports from behind the scenes by a participant and observer who is able to strike the balance between self-interest and reportage.
The Fabulous Sinkhole and Other Stories is a new collection of short stories by noted film director and writer Jesus Salvador Trevino. Through his interconnected stories, Trevino gives us an offbeat, magically real and at times raucous vision of life in the barrios of the fictional town of Arroyo Grande, Texas. Ever the observer of the tragi-comic human scene, Trevino recreates for the reader the world of adults as overheard and filtered through the understanding of the young. Each adult action creates a wave of repercussions on the children, be they love triangles, petty jealousies or revenge. The rich texture of the narrative and the wide diversity of Hispanic characters all come to a romping, feverish end in the book with a fantasy that features an army of movie stereotypes of Hispanics who have returned as zombies bent on avenging themselves on Hollywood directors and screenwriters. Like the "fabulous sinkhole" of the title story, this is a horn of plenty offering unending riches in characterization, situations and emotions.
In the opening piece, "Where Lost Things Reside," rumor has it that Old Man Baldemar has died. Stories about the old geezer's demise abound: he died of pneumonia; he was hit by a car, even killed by the big C. All Yoli Mendoza knows is that she's lost the income from helping the perverse recluse with his grocery shopping. Entering the house she has never been allowed in before, she's shocked to find it's much larger than it appears from the street. And even odder, it's full of items, each tagged with a name, city and date. There's a room full of cell phones, drawers packed with rings, trays and trays of plastic lids ... socks, watches, wallets, glasses! Was Baldemar the caretaker of all of t...
The assumptions we make about nature writing too often lead us to see it only as a literature about wilderness or rural areas. This anthology broadens our awareness of American nature writing by featuring the flora, fauna, geology, and climate that enrich and shape urban life. Set in neither pristine nor exotic environs, these stories and essays take us to rivers, parks, vacant lots, lakes, gardens, and zoos as they convey nature's rich disregard of city limits signs. With writings by women and men from cities in all regions of the country and from different ethnic traditions, the anthology reflects the geographic differences and multicultural makeup of our cities. Works by well-known and em...
Muzic Inc had become a music industry giant by staying one step ahead of the game, but for some reason APs (totally cybernetic rock stars) had failed to ship gold. That was where Glorianna O'Toole came in. The Crazy Old Lady of Rock and Roll was well into her sixties, but with her producer they hoped to synthesize an AP that would really take off. Glorianna hated everything Muzic Inc had done to the rebel music of her youth, but for the sake of a steady supply of designer dust she was prepared to try and rekindle the revolutionary music spirit of the 1960s. Meanwhile, at street level, the wire wizards had come up with a new piece of technology: a portable trip machine that made Owsley acid look like a vitamin supplement...
"There seemed to be no way out of the custom. Her arguments were always the same and always turned into pleas. 'But, Ama', it's embarrassing. I'm too old for that. I'm an adult, '" Naomi says in Helena Maria Viramontes' story Growing. Ever since Naomi hit high school and puberty, she began to notice that there were too many expectations, and no one instructed her on how to fulfill them." In her tradition-bound family and under the thundering gaze of her father, Naomi struggles to stretch the limitations imposed on her by her family, even as her mind expands along with her changing body. Like Growing, the pieces in this anthology for young adults reveal the struggles of discovering a new self...
Los Angeles has nourished a dazzling array of independent cinemas: avant-garde and art cinema, ethnic and industrial films, pornography, documentaries, and many other far-flung corners of film culture. This glorious panoramic history of film production outside the commercial studio system reconfigures Los Angeles, rather than New York, as the true center of avant-garde cinema in the United States. As he brilliantly delineates the cultural perimeter of the film business from the earliest days of cinema to the contemporary scene, David James argues that avant-garde and minority filmmaking in Los Angeles has in fact been the prototypical attempt to create emancipatory and progressive culture. D...
Mapping the historical and cultural contexts of film practices in Latin America, this two-volume collection of programmatic statements, esays and interviews is devoted to the study of a theorized, dynamic and unfinished cinematic movement. Forged by Latin America's post-colonial environment of underdevelopment and dependency, the New Latin American Cinema movement has sought to inscribe itself in Latin America's struggles for cultural and economic autonomy. This volume comprises essays on the development of the New Latin American Cinema as a comparative national project. Essays are grouped by nation into two regions - Middle and Central America and Caribbean and South America - for compariti...
This is a detailed examination of 58 science fiction television series produced between 1990 and 2004, from the popular The X-Files to the many worlds of Star Trek (The Next Generation onward), as well as Andromeda, Babylon 5, Firefly, Quantum Leap, Stargate Atlantis and SG-I, among others. A chapter on each series includes essential production information; a history of the series; critical commentary; and amusing, often provocative interviews with overall more than 150 of the creators, actors, writers and directors. The book also offers updates on each series' regular cast members, along with several photographs and a bibliography. Fully indexed.
Chicano-Chicana Americana is a cultural history of Mexican Americans in film, television, and theater. Through biographical sketches of performers such as Anthony Quinn, Katy Jurado, Robert Beltran, and Lupe Ontiveros, this work asserts Mexican Americans’ proper place in the national narratives of our collective imaginary. Conveying a multicentered, polycultural America, this book shows us intriguing performers in bit parts who steal the scene and redefine what it means to be American. Each biographical chapter analyzes an underappreciated actor, revealing their artistic contributions to U.S. common culture. Their long-shot careers tell a tale of players taking action with agency and fight...