From ‘Dirt’ to dignity: How to join the movement to promote Latinx voices

Posted on by stanleyobando

Just like that, the conversation has moved from frustration to inspiration.

My post yesterday about the misguided bestseller “American Dirt” was not quite as constructive as I usually like the Daily Boost to be, but our fearless leaders were already miles ahead: the key voices of protest against the novel had already hatched a plan for positive action. The brand-new #DignidadLiteraria campaign aims to revolutionize publishing and get publishers to prioritize Latinx voices.

The founders are writers Roberto Lovato, David Bowles, and flat-out badass Myriam Gurba, whose scathing piece “Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature” sparked a lot of the current conversation. (She deserves some sort of award simply for starting a headline with “Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck.” You can listen to her starting at about 8:05 on this episode of the Latino Rebels Podcast, where, unsurprisingly, she continues to not pull any punches: as she introduces herself, she calls the book like “a narconovela written by a gringa who went to Acapulco for the weekend… It’s ghastly.”)

#DignidadLiteraria is showing the full power of a hashtag. People are using it to share books you should read instead of “American Dirt,” offer their services as publishers or editors to Latinx writers who have a manuscript that needs supporting, and more. If you are interested in this topic, or just in seeing how people can pull together in the face of something that could have been simply infuriating and exhausting, then follow #dignidadliteraria on Twitter or whatever social media you use.

If your main interest is checking out Latinx writers and journalists, here are the first four that have actually made it onto my Kindle or reading pile after following the hashtag. (I know, Amazon is bad, but one thing at a time.)

  1. “Children of the Land,” by Marcelo Hernández Castillo, 2020 – This is a brand-new memoir about growing up undocumented in the United States. As #dignidad boosters are saying, let’s make this one a gargantuan bestseller! What’s more, a book about post-immigration life in the United States addresses a huge truth that “American Dirt” gets wrong: life after crossing that border is not a bed of roses. 

2. “Enrique’s Journey,” Sonia Nazario, 2006 – As I wrote yesterday, this book really did change the way I understood migration. It’s based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the LA Times and is absolutely extraordinary. Like “Children of the Land,” it also focuses extensively on the long-term impact of a migration journey after arrival in the U.S.

3. Um, all of these books in this photo from @booksonthepark! Although “The House of Broken Angels” by Luis Alberto Urrea is calling my name in particular, as is his “The Devil’s Highway.”

4. “Tell Me How It Ends,” by Valeria Luiselli, who was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Africa, recounts her experiences as a translator for child migrants in New York. It sounds like it needs to be read with a stiff drink in hand, but so do all of these books.

The Texas Observer published a list of many more books to read, and #dignidadliteraria will keep ’em coming in the days ahead. What are your favorite books on immigration or by Latinx writers in general? Do you subscribe to any media, magazines, ‘zines that help support writers of color in your community? I’d love to learn more, because it’s all hands on deck to turn this around.

(If you’d like to learn more about some amazing young Costa Rican writers, you can check this out.)

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).  

Day 32: The reading season is upon us

Posted on by stanleyobando

Remember when the Scholastic Book Club flyers would arrive at your classroom and you would pore over them at your desk when you were supposed to be doing other things and circle the books you wished you could have? I’m not sure when that started or if it ended, but for a book nerd at elementary school in the 80s, it was like Christmas. I think of that sometimes in this day and age where the internet is a vast, infinite Scholastic Book Club at my fingertips at any time, with no one to tell me not to buy a given book except my own budget.

Despite that abundance, my book-reading muscles have atrophied substantially in recent years, and I’m sure I’m not alone. I attribute it to a variety of factors: part decision fatigue, part decreased attention speed because of the brevity of social media posts, part feeling like we’ve read because we spend so much time skimming emails or think pieces or news. I know that whenever I do crack a book – especially an actual book with actual pages and an actual cover – my mood and state of mind are immeasurably improved. As we enter what I always think of as the reading season, with cozy nights and vacation days approaching, I like to get as much inspiration as possible to line my nightstand or Kindle with recommendations.

Will you give me a recommendation? I obviously have a soft spot for books from and about Costa Rica, Latin America, immigration, women and women’s rights, and the theme of the Daily Boost, which is finding inspiration amidst chaos… but I’m wide open, honestly. I’d love to hear what you’re reading now or books that pop to your mind that you might have read long ago but that NO ONE SHOULD GO ANOTHER SECOND WITHOUT READING, and actually now that you think of it you don’t understand why you aren’t rereading it yourself right at this very moment. (“The Incredible Lightness of Being,” “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” and “A Confederacy of Dunces” come to mind, off the top.)

Happy reading…

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter). 

Day 22: Finally, a happiness hack for your toilet

Posted on by stanleyobando

Should every toilet in the world have a poem posted in front of it, to enrich those stolen moments in a hectic day? The answer, my friends, is yes. Yes they should. Are your toilets so adorned? What are you waiting for? Break out your favorites, draw odd looks from your family and colleagues, and create a little respite for yourself every so often.

That’s really the extent of this hack. However, I hope you’ll read “Purple,” the poem that got me thinking about this: I found it posted in a bathroom at the University for Peace through the Global Poetry Project. It’s a humdinger (so is “Blue,” referenced below) now printed out and stuck on my daughter’s bathroom wall, as our own “reminder to lay yourself open and sparkle.”

Purple, by Katharine Zaun

After Carl Phillips’ “Blue” 

As in the skin of plums,
purple-black falling from the tree
in our backyard. Teardrops
heavy with ripeness,
branches like lashes
letting go. Theirs is the midnight
glow of the cosmos. A swirl of dark
that signals history, or destiny.
Inside, a red purple that matched my blood,
and I ate greedily, consuming myself.
I haven’t found any like them since.

This is the purple-blue
of violets, the same as the suede
cowboy boots my aunt gave me
at seven; crushed fabric
a luscious embodiment of little girl dreams. A duplicate mood
found in the geometric middle
of a geode that sat on my shelf
at twelve and sparkled; a reminder
to lay yourself open and sparkle.

In that room, a painting
by another aunt
with a purple the color of kings
and forgiveness – a likely combination.
The women around me
forever granting forgiveness,
not forgetting.
This is the man-made purple
that leans no closer
to red than to blue; the one I avoid in favor
of deep purple daydreams of plums and the cosmos.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).