 FROM THE HONOLULU STAR GAZETTE, 1907.
My poetry, short stories, and novel draw upon my experiences of being a Spaniard in California yet not having any family members who were conquistadors or friars.
Throughout my work, I am interested in how time is at once pendular, and unforgiving. Some of the themes I address are: * How Spanish culture has continually been in a state of civil war. * The constructs of race within labor politics and immigration. *How flamenco, like the American blues, offers an exaltation of the human spirit over oppression. In my writing, I honor ghosts- those who have been lost to history, those who are invisible, and those who are outcasts, even from time itself. My novel, Six Cans A Minute, is about an immigrant family from Andalusia who comes to California via Hawaii's sugar plantations and finds the American Dream and the American Nightmare in the silver harvest of Monterey’s Cannery Row. Though the past is never dead, talking about it allows us the opportunity to improve upon the future. |
"The New Marettimo", Cannery Row, 1937.
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