Label Me Latina/o Spring 2025 Volume 15
Essay
by Javier Ramirez Franco
Javier Ramírez Franco is a Ph.D. in Spanish Literature candidate in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Houston. His research interests include trauma studies, queer theory, film & media studies, and performance studies. He earned his B.A. in Spanish, an M.A. in Spanish, and a graduate certificate in Latin American studies from California State University, Long Beach.
The Dramatist as Traumatist: Notes on a Play
by Guillermo Reyes
Guillermo Reyes (Playwright). His plays Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown and Mother Lolita were produced as off-Broadway productions with Urban Stages, Chilean Holiday and Saints at the Rave at the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the historical drama, Madison, at Premiere Stages, winner of the New Play Award 2008. In 2010, he published a memoir with the University of Wisconsin Press, entitled Madre and I: A Memoir of our Immigrant Lives, chronicling his immigration from Chile and growing up in the D.C. area and in Hollywood, CA. A recent play, That Day in Tucson, was published by Dramatic Publishing Company and dramatizes the day when congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot along with some of her constituents, and a young intern, Daniel Hernandez, helped save her life. Another play, Bad Hombres, was recently produced at Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco. Reyes is a professor at Arizona State University in the School of Music, Dance and Theater. His short stories have appeared in a variety of journals, including Chiricu, Label Me Latina/o, the New Mexico Humanities Review, Puerto del Sol, among others.
Poetry
Patíque, patíque pupusa in hand
by Connie Ramírez
Connie Ramírez was born in East Chicago, IN, and spent the majority of her life in Chicago, IL. She is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant father and a Tejano mother. She currently resides in Southern, Texas. She has studied Spanish and English literature in both her undergraduate and graduate studies and is an alum of Purdue University and Saint Xavier University (Chicago). She has been a teacher of English, Spanish, art, and creative writing and a reading interventionist. She has written several essays, poems, and short stories in both languages. Her work has been published by The Acentos Review, Latinoliteratures.org, and her poem “Summer Style: Free” will be featured in Boundless 2024: The Anthology of the Rio Grande Valley Poetry Festival publication.
by Luz Borrero
Luz Borrero is a poet, birding enthusiast, and nature photographer. The natural environment provides her with powerful inspiration and serves as a mirror to her creative spirit. A selection of Luz’s photographs can be viewed here. While studying in France from 1983 to 1985, Luz created and published with her friends Catherine Maury and Daniel Albert twelve volumes of Les Cahiers du Lez, a small literary magazine dedicated to promoting unpublished poets and fiction short story writers. Luz is an active participant in Quarantina, a weekly literary reading group where she regularly reads her poetry. She regularly attends the Outrageous Voices conference in South Georgia, where she reads her poetry. “The Speed of Silence,” one of Luz’s poems was published in the Volume Where Dreams Begin, The National Library of Poetry, 1993. Luz Borrero has a degree in Law and Political Sciences from the University of Santiago de Cali, in Cali, Colombia. She did postgraduate studies in Agricultural and International Economics at the University of Montpellier and the Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéens in Montpellier, France. Luz Borrero has served on many non-profit and economic development related Boards, including the Boards of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce and CORE Dance. She was a Board member of the Visiting Nurse Health Association, Atlanta Educational Telecommunications Collaborative (WABE-Atlanta), and Emory University Board of Visitors. She is an alumna of Leadership Atlanta’s Class of 1996, the 2006 Regional Leadership Institute, and received the 2008 Leadership Character Award by the Turknett Leadership Group in Atlanta, GA.
Short Story
by Lenny Massiel Cauich Maldonado
L. Massiel Cauich Maldonado is of Maya and Zapotec descent and from Mexico. She is a PhD Candidate in Mass Communication at Ohio University. She has worked as a university instructor in Mexico and as a teaching and graduate assistant in the U.S. Massiel has also been a freelance translator of comics and graphic novels for IDW. As a scholar, her research had focused on political cartoons, feminist illustrations, social media activism, artivism, and the effects of fast fashion on human and environmental rights. She has also organized and participated in cultural events and academic conferences in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. In her free time, Massiel writes fiction, and signs online petitions to protect the environment and human rights.
Creative Nonfiction
La herencia de una madre: A pesar de todo ríe, sueña e imagina
by Margarita Pignataro
Margarita E. Pignataro, Ph.D. is affiliated faculty member with the School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice, American Studies, Latina/o Studies, and English at University of Wyoming. Publications include artist interviews, “Juventino Aranda and Chican@futurism” Altermundos: Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film and Popular Culture; “Artist Interview: Rachel Smith” Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies (JOLLAS); blog entries for Following the Manito Trail; critical literary analysis “Chicanidad, Querencia and A Voice of Justice: Margarita Cota-Cárdenas, ¡Presente!” in the anthology, La Plonqui: The Literary Life and work or Margarita Cota-Cárdenas, and various creative writings pieces in poetry, theater and short story genres. Along with her writings, Margarita has submitted Juana Pignataro’s artwork, post mortem, found online at Arte Latino Now 2023: Virtual Exhibition, Performance and Readings .
