Rebel Girl has had one of those weeks: extreme highs and lows, as if a wiggly high pressure system is hovering right off the coast of her life, playing havoc with her usual seasonal weather patterns.Yesterday, however, was a high.
She traveled up the 5 Freeway to Cal State Los Angeles, that great sprawling urban campus, an island surrounded by four, count 'em, four freeways: the Golden State (as the 5 is sometimes called), the Pasadena, the Long Beach and the San Bernardino. Upon arrival she found herself exiting one freeway, only to accidently get on another. Whee.
She was part of a reading and panel discussion sponsored by the Chicano Studies Department, celebrating the publication of the book, "Latinos in Lotusland," wide-ranging anthology brings together 34 Latino writers and spans 60 years. It's the first anthology about Los Angeles with all-Latino contributors and including some established voices: Alex Espinoza, Reyna Grande, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Alejandro Morales, Daniel Olivas, Salvador Plascencia, John Rechy, Luis J. Rodríguez, Mario Suárez, Luis Alberto Urrea, Richard Vásquez and Helena María Viramontes as well as some newer voices. Rebel Girl is among the newbies. Rebel Girl calls it the "It's About Time" anthology.
It was nice to be somewhere else, if you know what she means. Sometimes it isn't, but yesterday it was. The afternoon was warm and bright. She could see the mountains, still topped with snow. The sky was big and clear. It was an L.A. kind of day, late winter, early spring, who could really tell. She arrived early, got some coffee, sat at a table underneath the trees and reviewed her reading. She felt like a student again, sitting there shuffling through papers, a bit nervous.
Five contributors, Helena María Viramontes, Danny Romero, Reyna Grande, Daniel Olivas, Melinda Palacio and Rebel Girl read. It was standing room only, with those snow-capped mountains visible beyond the windows.
Rebel Girl read from the piece that appears in the anthology, "Sweet Time," an excerpt from a novel which she describes as being on life-support these past ten years or so.
At the reception, the writer Montserrat Fontes came up to Rebel Girl just to say: "Finish the book." Fontes is the author of "First Confession" and "Dreams of the Centaur" and, as she told Rebel Girl, she may have been the first Mexican at Cal State LA, way back in the 60s, when she earned her degree in Comparative Literature with an emphasis in Russian Literature. "Finish the book," she said. Sometimes Reb thinks people are just being nice to her, saying what they think they should say. But Fontes gave her the look. At least Reb thought she did.
the writers: clockwise from the top: Danny Romero, Rebel Girl, Melinda Palacio, Helena Viramontes, Reyna Grande, Daniel Olivas
