…for saying that bombs are falling in El Paso and then trying to cover up your ignorance by claiming you were just referring to what’s going to happen in the future. I hope El Pasoans show you the boot at election time.
My previous post about The Cool Kids reminded me of the panel I organized for REFORMA’s National Conference in September. The panel consisted of the only 3 y.a. writers that I am aware of who have ever had a published young adult novel set in El Paso, Texas–J.L. Powers (me), Benjamin Alire Saenz, and Claudia Guadalupe Martinez; more depressing still, or perhaps more exhilarating still if you want to be unique, we are among only a handful-and-a-half of y.a. writers who have set our novels on the U.S.-Mexico Border. We were discussing why there are so few novels for teenagers that are set on the peripheries of our nation. Now, by peripheries, I don’t mean necessarily the borders, because teenagers in Minnesota are still growing up in mainstream society, whereas teenagers in El Paso are definitely not!
Benjamin Alire Saenz began to get quite excited as he discussed how the gatekeepers in the book world–agents, editors, publishers, and then librarians, teachers, and booksellers–have ghettoized literature about latinos set in a predominantly latino world such as El Paso. He mentioned how one of his books received a review that said something like “even though Saenz’s novel is set in El Paso, its themes resonate with the human condition, with things people everywhere grapple with.” (I’m paraphrasing.) Ben wanted to know why nobody ever writes a book review that says “even though so-and-so’s novel is set in New York, its themes resonate…etc. etc.” Ben sure knows how to stick it to The Man! I love the fact that he has remained faithful to his values, of writing about Latinos, of writing about El Paso, from El Paso. That fame and fortune aren’t why he writes.
I’m still young enough that fame and fortune seem elusively tantalizing. But when I really reflect on it, it’s nice not to be completely in the limelight. I remember remarking to Sara Zarr once that I wished my books sold as well as hers, and got as many reviews as hers, and she just said, “Careful what you wish for.” Touche!
Here is the text of the speech I gave at REFORMA’s national conference last weekend, for those who are interested.
When I was a teenager growing up in El Paso, I was a voracious reader, consuming on average a book every day, most of them young adult novels. In all those young adult novels I consumed, I only encountered the world I was growing up in once, in a suspense novel by Lois Duncan. In the novel, a teenager’s sudden and mysterious death in Albuquerque draws his sister into a world of danger. To fulfill one of her brother’s debts, she ends up smuggling drugs across the El Paso/Juarez border. Okay, so….the world portrayed in that novel was not EXACTLY my world, my border, since I never encountered the harsh world of drug smuggling. But it was the closest I ever came to seeing my world in a book as a teenager. And it made it seem–well, exciting. Different.
My parents rather unusually chose not to live in the neighborhoods where other professionals gravitated. Read More
Great article by Debbie Nathan called “Making a Killing: Land Deals and Girl Deaths on the U.S.-Mexico Border”. She profiles a little community on the outskirts of Juarez called Lomas del Poleo, where many of the bodies have been dumped in the past, and talks about the culture where females are disposable. She argues that land deals, the mundane facts of real estate, are not nearly as interesting as talk of serial killers. That’s why nobody talks about Lomas del Poleo. But, in fact, it is a strange story–how hundreds of people who have lived and built houses on apparently abandoned land for decades are now living under concentration-camp like conditions, with thugs in a tower patrolling the land, preventing people from entering the town unless they live there, and razing houses if people leave to go to work or get groceries. People who live there are so desperate that they now deny that girls’ bodies were ever dumped there. Why? They need to re-gain some sort of reputation for the town so that they have recourse, perhaps, to legal help–or at least so that people won’t be quick to say we should just clean it up, forget about the people who live there, because it’s nothing but a dump.
There’s a documentary video about Lomas del Poleo on Unlikely Stories.
Every time I read something about El Paso & Juarez–hell, every time I write something about El Paso & J-Town–I realize once again that it is one of the most interesting places on earth, certainly one of the most interesting places in North America. And yet nobody goes there, nobody seems to care.
Debbie Nathan blogs that Miss Teen Mexico, Miss Texas Latina, and Miss Teen US Latina are all displeased about plans to build a wall on the border. They plan to protest by joining hands across the river to demonstrate the bonds of friendship and good will between Mexicans and Americans.
 Says the normally iconoclastic Debbie Nathan, “But wow, Beauty Queens against Border Walls! Could anything be more mainstream? More ‘It’s so, like, OK to have progressive politics’?”
Doesn’t this beauty queen to the left, Miss Texas Latina, look exactly like a plastic barbie doll?
An article about the cancellation of the Cathedral High School event has been published in Newspaper Tree…..More later….
EP Times also did an article on it. I think The Newspaper Tree article was more balanced in its reporting. Oh, well.
We were going out last night again, meeting some friends in a bar again, and Chris said, “I’d like to think that all this running around and partying is just because I’m only in town for a few days…but the truth is, that’s the way it is in El Paso all the time. It’s why it’s so hard for anybody to get anything done. Everybody’s out drinking all the time.”
We had dinner last night with a friend who said he was planning to write a paper about El Paso called something like, “All bars, no parks,” and he pointed out that if you drive along any major street in our fair city, you will find a dozen bars…..and no parks. If you want a succesful business in El Paso, start a bar. Maybe that’s true everywhere but it’s certainly true here. I’ve seen some music venues go out of business but no bars.
I love my hometown, but there is a significant culture of alcohol here. A girl I once knew told me, “My friends and I started going to J-Town (Juarez) to drink when we were fourteen. In El Paso, everybody’s partied out by the time they reach 21.” Actually, while I think she’s right about the first part, I’m not sure everybody’s partied out by the age 21.
