Label Me Latina/o Spring 2013 Volume 3
Filed under: Spring
Essays
Sabotaging Patriarchy: La Locura as Feminist Countersociety in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God
By Bryan R. Pearce-Gonzales
Bryan R. Pearce-Gonzales is an Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, where he teaches language, cultural and literary studies in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. His research interests include gender studies and the various articulations of cultural identity within Chicana/o literature. His most recent publication is “Chicana/o Blasphemy: John Phillip Santos as Globalized Chicana/o Citizen” in the journal Camino Real.
By Andrea Powell Wolfe
Andrea Powell Wolfe teaches literature and Honors Humanities courses at Ball State University. She specializes in twentieth-century American literature, and her current book project considers the literary positioning of the black mother within the national body politic in narratives of slavery, Reconstruction, and segregation.
By Cristina Herrera
Cristina Herrera earned her Ph.D. in English from Claremont Graduate University, specializing in contemporary Chicana and Latina literature. She teaches in the Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno. She has published in journals such as Confluencia, Women’s Studies, Food, Culture & Society, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, and Chicana/Latina Studies. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript that examines mother-daughter relationships in novels by contemporary Chicana writers.
Detenida en la frontera: “La conciencia de la mestiza” en Detained in the Desert de Josefina López
By Trevor Boffone
Trevor Boffone is currently pursuing his doctorate in U.S. Latino Literature and a graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Houston. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Hispanic Studies from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Loyola University New Orleans. His research centers on Contemporary Hispanic Theatre, Chicana Feminism, Women and Gender Studies, and US Latino Literature. Other areas of interest include twentieth and twenty-first centuries Latin American Literature and post-Franco Spanish culture, film and theatre.
Creative Non-Fiction
By Rafael Ocasio
Rafael Ocasio is a Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College and the author of two books about the Cuban dissident writer Reinaldo Arenas: Reinaldo Arenas: Cuba’s Political and Sexual Outlaw (2003) and A Gay Cuban Activist in Exile (2007). His most recent book, Afro-Cuban Costumbrismo: From Plantations to the Slums (2012), debunks the conventional motion that nineteenth Cuban Costumbrista literature reveals little about the Afro-Cuban experience.
Poetry
By Kurma Murrain
Kurma Murrain is a graduate of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and author of the poetry collection Esta Soy (1998). Her poetry has appeared in international journals and online magazines such as El Tiempo, Que Pasa, La Noticia and Label Me Latino/a. In addition, she has translated to Spanish Life in the Shadow of the Swastika by Frieda Roos-Van Hessen and Honoring God with my Life by Miriam Nadler. She is a founding member of Charlotte’s ArteSanos de la Palabra – a group of poets who enrich the cultural and literary scene of the Queen City. She has volunteered with programs like ArtSí, Gil Project’s Flag of Hope and other arts education initiatives. Kurma currently teaches high school mathematics with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. In her free time, she teaches zumba and tutors children and adults in Spanish. Her love of writing is best exemplified in her poetry readings that take place around Charlotte.
By Mark Smith-Soto
Mark Smith-Soto was born in Washington, DC, and raised in his mother’s country, Costa Rica. He is Professor of Spanish and editor of International Poetry Review at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has published three prize-winning chapbooks and two full-length poetry collections to date: Our Lives Are Rivers (University Press of Florida, 2003), and Any Second Now (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 2006). His poetry, which has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and won him an NEA Fellowship in Creative Writing (2006), has appeared in Antioch Review, Kenyon Review, Literary Review, Nimrod, The Sun and many other publications. In 2010, Unicorn Press brought out his work of translation Fever Season, the selected poetry of Costa Rican writer Ana Istarú. His most recent works are Berkeley Prelude: A Lyrical Memoir (Unicorn Press, 2012) and the chapbook Splices, JUST PUBLISHED (March, 2012) By Finishing Line Press.
Short Story
By Fabio Chee
Leonardo Fabio López Madrigal legally became Fabio Chee as a consequence of his mother’s marriages, legal adoptions, and immigration to the United States. The Italian first name is a result of his mother’s past love for a Chilean singer named Leonardo Fabio. The last name is due to his Chinese-Mexican stepfather. He was born in Mexicali, Baja California but he grew up on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border; in the countryside and in the city. He obtained an M.A. in Spanish from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. from the University of California. Fabio Chee was the director of the graduate student journals Pterodáctilo (Austin) and Alud (Irvine). His Ph.D. dissertation focuses on problems in Chicana/o visual and narrative representations of identity. Visit his blog at: http://www.lineaeneldesierto.blogspot.com.
By Resurrección Espinosa
Resurreccion Espinosa,Director of Teatro Latino de New London, is a middle school Spanish teacher in New Haven, Connecticut and a Master Teacher Artist in Theater with the Connecticut Office of the Arts. She has a degree from the University of Granada, Spain. Resurreción has published El Gaucho Vegetariano and Other Plays for Students of Spanish (University Press of America, 2012), Don Quijote in America, Plays in English and Spanish (Teacher Ideas Press, 2002), and Waking Dream (1998), a collection of poems in English.
